![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse1.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/paice2.jpg)
Round and round we all go
A second single from the upcoming remix of Blackmore’s Night third album Fires at Midnight. Has been released. Listen to the remixed Sake of the Song on your favourite streaming service or right here.
The remixed album with bonus tracks is due out on September 27 via earMUSIC.
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
music for nursing homes. unbearable
August 16th, 2024 at 10:14I was at York with a uni friend of mine for the Fires tour… absolutely awesome gig… the high point of Ritchie with Candice… It felt like he was pushing musically on this one, possibly for the last time ? The strat solo on the title track was sublime on the night, and 16th awesome but he lit the auditorium up with the final, final encore Black Night… For old (olde) times sake, I might purchase this one on good olde vinyle.
Rock on
August 16th, 2024 at 10:31Nothing against the old age. If everything goes fine one day all of us will be old. But RB owes us a instrumental album, for example. With acoustic guitar, OK, but without Candice. Too old to rock’n’roll too young to die.
August 16th, 2024 at 13:11Non-Renaissance AndreA: Quite on the contrary, not music for old people, but for pre-schooler themed birthday parties where the kids get to dress up as knights and little princesses or get a little dragon make-up. For occasions like that, the music is quite apt.
Adults can meanwhile retreat to the living room and have a drink or two waiting for it to stop. 😂
I always have a hard time keeping a straight face with Blackmore’s Night, I can’t help it. Ping pong folklore is infinitely more entertaining to me.
August 16th, 2024 at 14:12@4, I qualify as an old person now & I like this song! I love folk music, rock music, blues, country music, Jazz, classical, opera, & so on. But mostly I have to feel some sort of emotional connection to what I listen to. Sometimes I use A.I. to strip vocals from songs just to get to the music, as I do with Deep Purple & Rainbow songs, amongst others. Purple’s Time to Kill makes an awesome melodic instrumental!
August 16th, 2024 at 15:18However, Blackmore’s Night songs are…. pretty! There, I said it!. Lots of melodies. The problem is, who has the time to listen to absolutely everything? I’m sure that my epitaph will read “Is that the time?”
The original track was much better.
August 16th, 2024 at 18:26John, one man’s purdiness is another man’s saccharine overdose! I like British folk too, but Blackmore’s Night aren’t Pentangle, Annie Haslam/Renaissance or Fairport Convention or even Mike Oldfield, they’re like a Walt Disney version of it, with Blackmore adding some solos to it as the mood strikes him. The music is all too often over-ornamented and banal, a penchant for singalong chorus parts, cheesy keyboards tend to obscure how much better it would all sound with a sparser and more somber approach. It’s too much candy floss for me.
They’re really akin to a Bluegrass band using electronic drums and covering Britney Spears songs, yikes!
That doesn’t mean that there isn’t sometimes a musical gold nugget hidden in their oeuvre, but you very often have to dig hard for it.
August 16th, 2024 at 21:52@ 4- I have wondered & asked this before Uwe. Why oh why do you attend their concerts then & also purchase their albums??????????? Perhaps you should be avoiding them just like the plague & we all know how rife that was back in the medieval era. Stay away for crying out aloud. Of go the full hog, dress in the garb & get it OUT of your system, he he he. And forget about those nasty dragons! Here is a thought, why don’t you get a couple of the real lizards, the bearded & water dragon, although the water dragon might be a little more difficult to keep, the poor thing. Australian fauna, you really cannot beat it. And it is REAL. Cheers.
August 16th, 2024 at 22:59@ 7 – Agree whole heartedly Uwe. A nice pun also, Candy floss, excellent. Cheers.
August 17th, 2024 at 00:17@7, to start with, how to pronounce your first name? Is it You-We? Me You?, or ying tong iddle I po?
August 17th, 2024 at 10:21I’ve been reading some comments on older stories on this website. You’re a very knowledgeable man on Deep Purple & related subjects, so I applaud you. With regards to the subject at hand, I would humbly suggest that your putting on a bit of a show… Yes, the song is a little twee, but it has it’s own charm & is nothing better or worse than you could hear on the radio. Strip the vocals out, & it’s a nice little tune!
You know, from time to time I enjoy a piece of toast with butter, melted cheese, ground pepper & tomato ketchup, or pickles. but on occasion, instead of ketchup or pickles, I’ll sprinkle a little icing sugar on the cheese. Yep!. It’s not how I usually like it, but every now & then it’s delicious. I like cheese.
By the way, have you heard Black Star Riders’ song, Kingdom Of The Lost? That opening reminds me of the song at hand here. Sweet as a nut!.
I cannot even begin to comprehend your question, Tasmanian, WHATDAYYA MEAN BLACKMORE RELEASES AN ALBUM AND I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO OWN IT ???
I’d go see Blackmore and if he was Jimmy Page’s guitar tech at a Led Zep reunion. It’s called deepvotion!
For me, the DP Family is like pinning dead bugs to a wall, you want the ugly ones too for a representative collection! 😂
Besides, even in the putrid smell of Blackmore’s Night’s underwhelming Renaissance cottage cheese, I still sometimes catch a whiff of former Eau de Ritchie. Which makes me wonder: Why haven’t they yet created a fragrance of their own and called it ‘Violet Moon, the scent for unwashed peasants’?
August 17th, 2024 at 12:26Ewe i totally agree with mcgregor…..if you hate blackmores night and their songs so much …why o why pay to see them and buy their albums????makes no sense ..even if your a die hard blackmore fan as am i since i was ten now 63….i still wouldnt buy crappy albums or see people if their music was awful…keep yer hard earned cash and spend it on something worthwhile or give it to charity…cheers ian gillan
August 18th, 2024 at 08:57Mon pauvre Uwe Hornung toujours aussi pénible….moi je trouve que Blackmore’s night est sympa comme groupe …c’est sur que j’aurai préféré une reformation de rainbow mais à 80 ans Ritchie sait toujours sortir de bonnes mélodies même si elles sont rares…
August 18th, 2024 at 10:39@ 11- I know I have said that before in regards to your repeated attendance at concerts of BN. And rightly so your answer should be the same. What I should have said was, are you going to go to the next gig etc. But your answer would probably be, yes because Ritchie is there & I understand that. I always have & also with anybody else going to the concerts. Same with you collecting anything Purple related with albums etc. When you dress it up like you did, which I enjoyed, I went for the proverbial comment & query. I agree with your comments regarding the British folk scene, we have said these things before. I do prefer the more ‘traditional’ take on the folk music. But as we know Ritchie also says, ‘what is traditional? I don’t like how the BN music is delivered, that is probably the best way to put it. Sure it is melodic, anything Blackers does always will be, he is a melody song man. I guess I prefer something much more closer to the bone, for want of a better description. Clannad in concert 2013 was that. Genuine Irish blood flowing through their veins, born into it & brought up on it. Certain songs in Gaelic, yes indeed, all acoustic instruments excepting a small keyboard on a couple of songs. Certain songs & stories from hundreds of years ago & all delivered with haunting beauty. The voice & harp of Moira Brennan & the other musicians too, spine tingling it is. Each to their own as we so often say. Cheers.
August 18th, 2024 at 12:17Thanks Herr MacGregor for spotting and (unjustly) crediting me with the candy/candice floss pun – I really hadn’t thought of that one! 😆
John, pronunciation of my first name is a nightmare for English speakers, I never expect anyone to get it right, it should be something like ooh-wey,
https://youtu.be/pzYQRqAF-fE
but really “you-vee”, “you-vay” or “you-vuh” are just as fine. I’ve never felt attached to my first name and wherever I am, people pretty soon start referring to me as “der Hornung”, which suits me fine.
I generally don’t have any disdain for twee or cheesy music, I’m the guilty pleasures guy who can spend an afternoon listening to Air Supply, Kool & The Gang, Bay City Rollers and Barry Manilow no sweat.
https://youtu.be/hB4w8EVh-2E
I guess with Ritchie my standards are stricter. The music of Blackmore’s Night is lightweight, inauthentic to the point of phony (if Ritchie did Polish Klezmer folk with Candice that would find my wholehearted support, but dressing up in Renaissance garb and singing about Medieval castles from Long Island tests my credulity), extremely repetitive (all those jig-like Celtic melodies sound the same to me – as they did with Thin Lizzy too, I share Midge Ure’s judgment here, who could never tell them apart either 🤗) and there is about as much musical development on the eleven BN studio albums as on the last eleven ones of AC/DC, except that AC/DC have street urchin charm while BN sound and look like a band playing to the visitors at the entrance gate of a Disney Magic Kingdom theme park.
Still I warily buy their albums and visit their concerts, all with more than a pinch of salt. I follow Ritchie’s career trajectory even to the most unlikely places.
Within the Purple Family, Dave, not turning away from albums I did not like initially has often worked wonders for me: When they came out, I did not like Jon Lord’s Windows, the first Coverdale solo album, IGB’s CAT, Hughesy’s Play Me Out or PAL’s Malice In Wonderland at all, but I listened to them again and again, today I all love them! Maybe I need a few more decades with BN? 😂
By the way: BN’s musical nadir has so far been their cover of Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ for me. To play a song like that totally out of its sociological and political context while being dressed as Robin Hood school play extras defies comprehension – I’m not sure that everybody’s favorite traveling minstrels couple saw the irony of that.
August 18th, 2024 at 12:59Uwe, thanks for the lingual lesson, I can say your name now & know I’m saying it correctly. You’re more than just a common cunning linguist!.
August 19th, 2024 at 02:26So to BN’s worst cover? My pick would be “I Got You Babe”, with Candice alone on vocals… It’s a call & response song. They should have had someone, preferably a male singer, to make it sound right. Although Candice sings it well, with her singing it alone, she sounds a little bit eccentric. Oh Nurse….!
As for Barry Manilow… “I Can’t Smile…” & “…Mandy”, those two are vomitose & should be removed from history, I loathe them. Most everything else Barry does musically, is fine by me. We all have our breaking points.
Here’s something that might have been, a messed up Rainbow Night in an alternate timeline of another universe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVNJATF1Peg
Absolutely no thanks 😂 for reminding me of that ‘The Storm’ number, John; the track is unforgivable, but I believed I had at least forgotten about it! The version with Ronnie Romero on vocals attempted to sound like Rainbow, but came out sounding like Blackmore’s Night with Romero singing (it was initially a BN number). Hearing it now with Dio’s AI voice only reminds one of how heavy the original Rainbow once were and how Blackers was simply incapable of recapturing that sound for the reunion(s).
Worst of all, it reminds me of a German DJ duo’s Euro Dance hit that conquered the summer of 1998 …
https://youtu.be/JpWT2vJZvj8
We can count ourselves lucky that Ritchie and Candice haven’t heard that yet or they would have long s(p)oiled us with a BN cover of it! Or, waitaminnit, maybe they did actually hear it and the earlier ‘Right In The Night’ spawned the later ‘The Storm’? The mind boggles 🤯, but we all know how the ole minstrel magpie steals from everywhere, no source, however unlikely, is safe from his thieving claws …
August 19th, 2024 at 06:28pauvre Uwe Hornung c’est affligeant tes propos….
August 20th, 2024 at 06:56I appreciate your sympathy, Francis, but no one ever said that following the DP Family’s output was easy! I was never the greatest Rainbow fan (as most people know by now) and a lot of post-Marsden Whitesnake output has left me cold. Buying Gary Moore albums just for the sake of Little Ian playing on them was a chore too.
By and large I would say that no solo spin-off Purple member project has ever reached the same quality and consistency for me as the mothership’s (in whatever configuration) recorded output. There is not a single DP album that I really deem “work” listening to, I can even dig out TBRO when the mood strikes me though it is by far my least liked DP album. Overall, what Tommy Bolin, Jon Lord and Ian Gillan have recorded solo or with other bands over the years constitutes for me the best non-“Deep Purple as the core entity”-work in the Purple Family. Much of Rainbow’s and Whitesnake’s legacy qualifies for me as “more of Deep Purple, but only less”.
When Ian Paice and various configurations of 13 other musicians (did I count right and get them all? 😂) get together under the DP moniker and record, something magical happens that I find cannot be replicated outside of that group of people working together as peers (and not as hired hands for someone else).
August 20th, 2024 at 13:34“My pick [for worst BN cover] would be “I Got You Babe”, with Candice alone on vocals …”
Oh yeah, that was horrible too. People make fun of Cher’s (contr)alto voice and how she supposedly can’t sing, but in actual fact her voice is unmistakable and fit the laconic mood of the song so perfectly. Big Cher fan here, my favorite DIVA.
Candice can no doubt sing (if not hugely variable) and has matured as a vocalist over the decades from the little girlie voice she initially had, but she has an unfortunate habit of “prettifying” other people’s material to the point of utter trivialization, Candice floss indeed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM04NoaHtRA
vs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CBShoN2bhA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1BJbJWye5E
vs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttuVUynl5SU
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/19/58/35/19583537bb241fb877e5c5504b59d800.jpg
vs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGMHSbcd_qI
It’s that “Disney-fication” effect I often lament with BN. For the grave desecration they did to Elvis especially, his mortal remains should haunt the Spouses Blackmore – seances or no seances – eternally!
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/19/58/35/19583537bb241fb877e5c5504b59d800.jpg
August 20th, 2024 at 16:04Sorry, putting the link right …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1aB4Be–Jc
vs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGMHSbcd_qI
August 20th, 2024 at 22:35Uwe @20, I feel that there’s an almost comedic game of oneupsmanship going on here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlIXn0r0AY8
However, I understand your thinking on this point, but I feel your taking RB & his family fun band’s contributions a little bit to much to heart. I promise you that they are not just doing it to personally offend you! To compare BN covers of other’s original genius is not really the point. No more than this is…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYROUvfxKZQ
Or this to DP…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nn_cN7ocwk
That little lady sure has a decent set of pipes!
But then again A.I. will eventually take over everything from humanity…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYAEzZ-vSQk
Just thought I’d stick that in there for a laff!
I have a pal who thinks that Runaway by Del Shannon is the greatest song ever made. I’ve played him a multitude of covers by various artists of the song, including an exact replica of the music with a singer who sounds to my ears just like Del… But my pal tells me that they all sound nothing like the original, & that they are pretty much all terrible!. I ended up playing him a cover of an Elvis song by Elvis’ (alleged) illegitimate masked half brother, known professionally as Orion. Real name Jimmy Ellis, he thought to be the progeny of Elvis’ father Vernon & another woman. Recordings of Ellis’ voice was scientifically compared to those of Elvis, & were found to be a match. Obviously the juice came from old Vernon!. My pal loved this…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9gOV3_I1c8&list=PLaWrmLFwYEFWSrfK2g8aoloOl7H6xUJt1&index=3
But you cannot expect all covers to be an exact copy of the original, what would be the point?. So it’s just a matter of doing whatever you want to do with it, & if people like it, then great! But if you have different tastes, then don’t bother with it.
Remember what I said about Barry Manilow? Well, now it’s Cher’s turn…
In the 1970’s I thought she was awesome, I loved hearing her songs on the radio. Then in 1989, she had to go & ruin it all with that God awful “If I Could Turn Back Time”. What a totally disingenuous piece of old bollox that was. The same goes for “Do You Believe In Life After Love?”, I hate & detest it with a passion. I think she just went for the lowest common denominator… for the cash!. What a waste of her phenomenal voice.
Candice doesn’t pretend to be anything better or worse than herself. She just sings her heart out, & I like that. BN remind me of the local Mom & Pop family store. They aren’t the huge corporate supermarket, but they do alright. For me, that’s enough to satisfy. Remember, Candice grew up listening to Stevie Nicks & Fleetwood Mac, I think they were her favourites.
Now here’s another old favourite, featuring Roger’s daughter wearing a hat, & singing a duet about another kind of woman…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm1PsajgRLA
August 21st, 2024 at 03:51I don’t expect a good cover to slavishly follow the original, John, I expect the opposite!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIGwh6II__A
What Priest did to Diamonds & Rust or Nazareth to Joni Mitchell’s This Flight Tonight was great. And I’ve always rated Manfred Mann’s Earth Band for their covers which very often surpassed the originals (Springsteen’s included). BN’s covers are often lazy, covers in the true sense of the word, not daring interpretations.
For the record: I do not question the ability of anyone who plays or sings with Blackmore’s Night. Nor their passion or commitment, I question their ambition. And especially Candice … if she had dumped all that renaissance/damsel in distress/gypsy crap, grabbed an acoustic guitar and gotten herself a few contemporary, alternative rock/Americana co-songwriters, who knows where she could have gone with her voice.
That Japanese maga band you posted is entertaining and spirited, I’d go see them in a heartbeat! Hearing their version of Burn I wondered why BN haven given it a try yet (in a radical rearrangement, not playing it as a Purple number), it’s about a witch after all!
Thanks for posting the vid of Strange Kind of WomAn (I only knew Strange Kind of WomEn) with Gillian Glover guesting, I have one of her albums, it’s nicely pastoral, yet slightly edgy English Rose folk-prog-something.
But I have to take you to task for not bowing to Cher!
https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExNnNqb2JhZWFiZDlxbnR2dGQ4ODJrcXM4aHpmYTh4YzR1NTQ0ZXkzMCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/1DrF5RPbaPhAs/200.webp
(Ok, ok, maybe the Diva got a little overemotional here … 🤣, take her comments with a pinch of salt please, your personal hygiene is fine.)
Never has a battleship been presented grander, more tranquil and peaceful, yet fully gun-erect than in her vid to If I Could Turn Back Time! I did like the 80ies AOR Cher, a John Kalodner creation just like the glammed up US version of our beloved DC.
And coming full circle to covers again: Cher had a talented and pretty background singer going by the name of Robin (Beck, no relation to Jeff). Cher heard a song on her demo tape
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkf3yDiaD3w
liked it and asked Robin if she could cover it, voilà …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDJKWf4y6WQ
Robin never really made it (Nirvana’s ascent might have played a role as it did with the suddenly curtailed careers of many other AOR artists), one of the great AOR injustices, but Cher’s hit plus a few very successful jingles made her a living:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wqanvQV1bw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1lnuh0ut7M
August 22nd, 2024 at 18:27Re this Orion guy I forgot to say: He’s a very good Elvis vocal impersonator, but I wouldn’t mistake him for the real thing. Elvis’ voice had that boyish and even – for the time – androgynous touch, Orion sounds way more masculine and also more C&W. Of course, Elvis died at a mere 42 years of age – to put things into perspective: three years younger than DP-baby Simon McBride is now – and his voice would have matured considerably more over time.
In the 70ies, it was unfashionable to still like Elvis if you were a fan of then contemporary rock bands. All that Las Vegas baggage. I never felt that way though, I could understand why his type of singing immediately stood out in the 50ies. And I always heard a bit of Elvis – just a touch – in Ian Gillan’s voice (without Ian ever impersonating him in a parody way, yet he was an early devotee), a tone you didn’t hear in, say, Robert Plant, Ozzy or Paul Rodgers (or in David Coverdale’s or Glenn Hughes’ voices). I actually think it was part of the commercial appeal of Ian’s voice and why people related to it.
Suzi Q is a lifelong Elvis fan, right down to her black leather catsuit which – by her own admission – she copped off Elvis’ 1968 legendary return to stage via the televised boxing ring show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R97hrS3hF9M
I’ve even been to Graceland – more by coincidence during a road trip with my son through the Southern States than anything else -, it wasn’t the lavish-grotesque mansion a là Donald Trump or David Coverdale I expected at all, more the regular house of someone who is well-to-do, but not out to impress – and a pronounced music buff!
Never an Elvis song, but Ian sings it like it was, without doing a parody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASB0AZH8CyE
August 22nd, 2024 at 22:07More social commentary-studded cutting edge music from our favorite Long Island couple!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ItuULFYpUg&t=188s
ZDF Fernsehgarten will no doubt rejoice in anticipation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsD_2dDOtus
They just have the best tunes, don’t they?
[I sometimes think that the most annoying thing about BN are those god-awful drum sounds and drum arrangements. Even in the Renaissance Era, percussion wasn’t that unorganic and lifeless. Trust me, I’m old enough to have been there.]
August 23rd, 2024 at 16:50Blackmore’s Muse was a name I did think of way back when I realised this was Ritchie’s new band etc. Not to worry. Regarding poor ole Elvis, is he the most over rated musician ever & more to the point, performer? Was he manufactured? We know Elvis ‘needed’ a guitar, but did he play it? The jury is still out (well not really) on that one. The King is Dead, Long Live the King! Cheers.
https://americansongwriter.com/7-songs-you-didnt-know-elvis-presley-didnt-write/#:~:text=Well%2C%20the%20simple%20answer%20is,at%20just%2042%20years%20old.
https://www.elvis-atouchofgold.com/songwriting-credit/
http://www.elvis-history-blog.com/elvis-guitar.html
August 23rd, 2024 at 23:51MacGregor, you gruesome koala brain heathen, them are fighting words!
“If you’re looking for trouble
You came to the right place
If you’re looking for trouble
Just look right in my face …”
https://youtu.be/LiE4c83K9BM
August 24th, 2024 at 20:21@ 25 – [I sometimes think that the most annoying thing about BN are those god-awful drum sounds and drum arrangements. Even in the Renaissance Era, percussion wasn’t that unorganic and lifeless. Trust me, I’m old enough to have been there.] Indeed you are Uwe as I was just talking with Alerik & he remembers you well from all those centuries past. Something about a young man on a white horse waiting below a castle tower, hoping in vain to rescue & damsel in distress who is constantly waving her white handkerchief at any unsuspecting travellers passing by. Unfortunately for the young man who is known by the name of Uwe, he is constantly being thwarted by a huge menacing dragon breathing fire & brimstone.
August 25th, 2024 at 00:51Then suddenly a wizard turns up (what a coincidence) & he casts a spell & all appears to be heading towards a happy ending, Alas, it was all a dream of sorts for the young man on the horse. Oh well, back to the drawing board again Uwe. Cheers.
P.S. Regarding the drum machines etc, from Cozy to that, says it all in many aspects. Cozy would be both spinning & rather amused me thinks.
Gillan & his old school vocal influences. That Bernie Torme era was not long before we saw them in Sydney with Janick Gers. Probably about six months or so in between guitarists. From a vague memory they did perform a few covers I think. I might try & find a setlist. Thanks for the clip. Cheers.
August 25th, 2024 at 10:32All this talk of Elvis made me think of this little gem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWupO17Q8D4
August 25th, 2024 at 12:02That is very true, Ritchie, a man who grew up musically with idiosyncratic drummers with loads of character such as Paicey and Cozy settled at one point for the most non-descript machine (0r played like a machine by humans) drum tracks imaginable. BN never had an organic rhythm section to speak of.
I don’t blame Ritchie for not playing hard rock anymore, that is perfectly fine. What is unforgivable, however, is how careless and unorganic anything but Candice’s voice and his guitar are added as an afterthought to BN’s largely ambition-less mix. That is what makes the music sound so phony, banal and ‘schlagerhaft’.
August 25th, 2024 at 14:19Janbl @30, fake history!!! 😁
I feel honor-bound to defend the King …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uke1B0FpIZ8
Yes, he mainly used his largely unmiked acoustic guitar as a rhythmic percussive instrument (which was the guitar’s initial role in the 20ies and 30ies in big band scenarios anyway), but you can tell by his fretting hand and how he changes chords that he knows what he is doing. And in this particular vid you can actually hear that it is live too as the volume of his acoustic guitar decreases every time he moves away from the mic and toward the drums.
August 26th, 2024 at 00:03@23 Uwe, thanks for Cher-ing! However, I maintain my previous stance with regards to her singing. You know, I’ve seen what she does with duct tape, presumably provided by some sailors… to seal in the freshness?. So what happens when the duct tape breaks?!
I do appreciate the introduction to Robin Beck’s music, as I cannot remember hearing about her before this. Her voice reminds me of Sandi Saraya, most famous for this sort of thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn6gjfUKSPU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fier066a41g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-7gepnB5Qs&list=PLy0KRScJv3otNvQSmGscWifC_Ud-tRrOD&index=16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCSAmUEM72I
As for Blackmore’s Night, with regards to your complaints about them… old faithful says nobody’s forcing you to watch or listen to their musical stylings!. Yet you still purchase their products, & go to see their live performances. I’ll bet you’ve never once booed them at a concert. Methinks “der Rechtsanwalt-disney” may be a more appropriate appellation for you!. Just keep up the medication & you’ll be fine, it’s pretend Dr John’s orders.
I’m fond of a little cotton candy & strawberry ice-cream with my candy apple pie & cheesecake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYKdFX9_2I
@26 MacGregor, Elvis Presley couldn’t write a song to save his life. Colonel Parker would get Elvis to cover other writer’s material, but only if they gave up a song writing credit to the Elvis/Parker machine. As for Elvis’ guitar skills, he had a basic grasp of it, & only knew a few simple chords. It was his magnificent voice that was the star performance.
@30 janbl, can you remember Ralph Macchio’s guitar duel with Steve Vai in the 1986 movie ‘Crossroads’? No wonder the Devil & the audience looked less than impressed!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQEc0xOsmWk
This Highway Star website is getting a little bit interesting. It’s a German website, isn’t it?. Perhaps Uwe is their DP encyclopedia & legal rep. From what I’ve been reading, he’s certainly a character!
August 26th, 2024 at 04:05@33 John, I have never seen that one😂 It was that movie that got me interestet in Vai’s music then.
While we are at it (and maybe stop here 😁) there is this, that I also find funny when you know Purple:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSKqw9f-luU
August 26th, 2024 at 11:20“This Highway Star website is getting a little bit interesting. It’s a German website, isn’t it?. Perhaps Uwe is their DP encyclopedia & legal rep.”
Far from it, I’m really a novice here though I have sometimes lurked in the past. Like a lot of people, I came initially from the Simon Robinson part of the family, DPAS and suchlike. But I liked what I read here so I thought: “What can I contribute to make things worse?” 🤣
I like this Saraya stuff, John, thanks for pointing me to it (it somewhat compensates the link to that BN über-cheese of “All Because Of You” – fürchterlich!), have to check her and her band out. From playing in an AOR band in the mid-80s myself, I still have a weak spot for the genre.
August 26th, 2024 at 15:32“This Highway Star website is getting a little bit interesting. It’s a German website, isn’t it?. Perhaps Uwe is their DP encyclopedia & legal rep.” I cannot resist. A few images depicting Uwe hard at it trying to appease the almighty, in the research department that is, he he he. Cheers.
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/king-administering-his-kingdom-royal-scribe-2208587057
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/vector-line-drawing-ancient-chronicler-pen-171916583
August 26th, 2024 at 21:32For some reason, I’ve always had great memory for the most trivial things …
https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/tales-from-the-crypt.jpg?w=658&h=370&crop=1
I blame TV. Seriously, my parents had this policy that I could watch anything I liked, they deemed it inconceivable that anything bad might emanate from that little box with the smelly cathode ray tube. So I watched everything unhindered by adult intervention. And it does school your visual and acoustic memory for soundbites and trivia.
And then in my teens, I started reading a lot of books and in addition we always had an abundance of magazines and daily newspapers at home. I devoured those across the board as well. And again, my parents didn’t care whether I read Marx’ Das Kapital or Hitler’s Mein Kampf (obtainable in an English translation in the library of the American school I went to, it was forbidden to be printed in Germany). Or Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind for that matter and right after it John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me. Eclectic influences!
To this day I make a habit of reading or seeing things I absolutely don’t agree with, I like to be confronted with what the other side is thinking and how they do it. I can turn on Fox News and be utterly fascinated, yet not believe a word they say. And read both the lefty GUARDIAN and Germany largest conservative daily, Frankfurter Allgemeine, it gives you a balanced view of the world.
I guess I’m an anti-echo chamber and sponge kid of sorts and that is how I suck up DP-related info too. Bad reviews of DP & Family have never bothered me, I took it all in. I can remember quotes from the Rolling Stone magazine panning Deep Purple and Rainbow releases which I first read (and never again since then) in the mid-70s.
Something is (very) wrong with me!
August 26th, 2024 at 23:53Yo,
Herr Uwe stated…
qt.”Something is (very) wrong with me”!…
Play “Private Eyes” at suitable volume, & then see how you feel !…Need more ???… Then CTTB should bring you back to 100%.
Peace !
August 28th, 2024 at 11:31Private Eyes is one of my desert island records!
I loved it from the get-go. Teaser has good stuff on it but it sounds like what it is: a bunch of sessions, a bit disjointed. Private Eyes, however, really flows even though the music on it continues to be varied. That is thanks to the phenomenal band Tommy had assembled for that record, his old Zephyr buddy Bobby Berge on tasteful drums, Norma Jean Bell’s tuneful and warm sax, Reggie McBride’s lively and warm bass playing plus Mark Stein’s likewise warm organ. Private Eyes is an unusually vibrant record.
What Tommy learned from his DP experience was how important it is for him to bask in the glow of a band of capable musicians providing a canvas of full sound for him to paint his guitar playing on. That is why Private Eyes sounds a lot more Mk IV to me than Teaser. Bustin’ Out For Rosey, Post Toastee and Shake The Devil could have all been turned into DP songs for a follow-up to CTTB.
August 28th, 2024 at 14:37Yo,
@39…
See, better already 😉 !
Peace !
August 29th, 2024 at 01:03“I did not like Jon Lord’s Windows, the first Coverdale solo album, IGB’s CAT, Hughesy’s Play Me Out or PAL’s Malice In Wonderland at all, but I listened to them again and again, today I all love them! Maybe I need a few more decades with BN? 😂” and “Private Eyes is one of my desert island records!” … Fully agreed with the exception of Windows that is – I like the vocal section a lot but the rest of it is too 70s-let’s-show-them-how-serious-us-rock-musos-can-be for my liking.
When it comes to BN I always found their shows very moving. In fact they rarely failed to bring a tear to my eye (especially the one I attended with my boys the day my father had passed away – no, nothing to do with the BN show…). Ritchie always takes some time to fly and delivers solos that make your jaw drop, well mine at least. And Candice is just so, I know, I know: too sweet – but the pure joy, call it social escapism of those 2 hours always strikes me. The records though …pew… some of them I barely could stand to listen to once in one sitting. A pity indeed. And the drums… I asked their drummer David Keith (who played the Rainbow shows as well) if he would be playing on that “Rainbow” singles they were to release a couple of years ago or if it was just a tin soldier again and he said it’d be the machine. Such a shame – he’s such a good drummer (saw him with other drummers celebrating Cozy here in Germany). Does Ritchie really have to save a few bucks? How can he stand that kind of stuff? My guess is he doesn’t give a rat’s ass and never even really listens to it. It is Pat Regan really and Ritchie may enjoy playing live.
August 29th, 2024 at 07:36Max: I fully agree, BN live, even with the Renaissance garb crap, is infinitely better than the often careless and cheap sounding studio recordings which have even deteriorated in quality over time with more and more cheese being added. I find a lot of the stuff Pat Regan does/allows horrible. Imagine if Rick Rubin produced BN and told them to only use acoustic instruments for the recording, that might really be something. Blackmore preferring to play to a drum machine … that is mind-boggling.
And of course at every BN gig there are flashes of Blackmore‘s old brilliance – he doesn‘t have to play fast for me to prove that, it‘s in his choice of notes.
Windows is – except for the melodic Gemini Suite parts toward the end – an utterly acquired taste, but having heard it so many times I have finally successfully succumbed to it! Took some work and patience, I tell you. 😂
August 29th, 2024 at 13:21@40: 😄 Danke, I will henceforth refer to you as ‘Dr Gregster’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8uCryLHnt4
The Doobies are another love of mine. West Coast music done proper and very uplifting. Also: dragon-free.
August 29th, 2024 at 15:43