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Coverdale’s solo albums remixed
Rhino Entertainment will be reissuing the three David Coverdale’s solo albums — WhiteSnake, Northwinds, and Into the Light as a 6CD box set.
Rather confusingly, the box set is titled Into The Light: The Solo Albums, with no explicit mention of the other two on the cover, and a latter-day Whitesnake-the-band logo to boot. Inside, the albums are given a lavish treatment, each remixed and remastered, and with plenty of bonus tracks. They come in a hardcover box featuring a 60-page book with rare photos, detailed liner notes, and a new interview with DC. The remix of Into the Light will also be available separately as a 2LP vinyl. Both formats are due on October 25, 2024.
Remix of Midnight Blue off Into the Light has been released today digitally to accompany the announcement:
Track listing
Note: MCMLXXVII = 1977
CD1: Into the Light (remix)
- She Give Me [4:13]
- River Song [6:43]
- Don’t You Cry [5:33]
- Love Is Blind [5:47]
- Slave [4:55]
- Cry For Love [5:38]
- Living On Love [6:11]
- Midnight Blue [4:49]
- Too Many Tears [6:15]
- Don’t Lie To Me [4:44]
- All The Time In The World [5:27]
- Wherever You May Go [3:58]
- Yours For The Asking [4:30]
- Let’s Talk It Over [8:08]
CD2: Into the Light (additional remixes)
- Love Is Blind (Band Version) [5:32]
- As Long As I Have You [4:09]
- With All Of My Heart [5:40]
- Wherever You May Go (Strings Version) [1:14]
- Love Is Blind (Strings Version) [3:31]
- Lust [3:40]
- Oh No Not The Blues Again [3:30]
- Into the Light Intro [1:05]
- Into The Light [4:03]
- You Make It Hard On Me [5:17]
- Would You Be Happy [4:24]
- Fooling Yourself [3:59]
- Make The Best Of It [4:29]
- Veda of Cassandra Blues [4:11]
- I Can See The Light [4:03]
- Another Fallen Angel [4:23]
- Itchy Finger [4:55]
- Crazy ’Bout Cha (Original Version of Whipping Boy Blues) [4:28]
- If You Want Me [4:23]
- Lay Your Love On Me (Original Version of Lay Down Your Love) [4:22]
Demos & Unfinished Symphonies
DC with Tony Franklin
Original DC demos, 1997
DC with Tony Franklin
CD3: Northwinds (2024 remix)
- Keep On Giving Me Love [5:10]
- Sweet Mistreater [3:26]
- NorthWinds [6:09]
- Give Me Kindness [4:24]
- Queen Of Hearts [5:15]
- Only My Soul [4:06]
- Time & Again (String Version) [4:01]
- Say You Love Me [4:21]
- Shame The Devil, Tell The Truth [3:38]
- Breakdown [5:13]
- Time & Again (Piano Version) [4:01]
- Time & Again (Strings Only) [4:01]
CD4: WhiteSnake MCMLXXVII (2024 remix)
- Lady [3:48]
- Blindman [6:01]
- Goldies Place [4:40]
- Time On My Side [4:23]
- Peace Lovin’ Man [4:43]
- Sunny Days [3:48]
- Hole In The Sky [3:58]
- WhiteSnake [4:20]
- Celebration [3:38]
- Sunny Days (Original)
- Love Me In The Morning
- I Will Love You
- Moment In Time
- It Would Be Nice
- There Was A Time
- Why?
- I Still Love You
Young lad’s blues (DC’s 1968 home demos)
CD5: Into the Light
(Original mix, 2024 remaster)
- She Give Me [4:12]
- River Song [7:19]
- Don’t You Cry [5:47]
- Love Is Blind [5:42]
- Slave [4:51]
- Cry for Love [4:52]
- Living On Love [6:31]
- Midnight Blue [4:58]
- Too Many Tears [5:59]
- Don’t Lie To Me [4:43]
- Wherever You May Go [3:59]
CD6: WhiteSnake / Northwinds
(Original mix, 2024 remaster)
- Lady [3:48]
- Blindman [6:01]
- Goldies Place [5:03]
- Time On My Side [4:26]
- Peace Lovin’ Man [4:53]
- Sunny Days [3:31]
- Hole In The Sky [3:23]
- Celebration [4:11]
- WhiteSnake [4:22]
- Keep On Giving Me Love [5:16]
- NorthWinds [6:13]
- Give Me Kindness [4:34]
- Time & Again [4:02]
- Queen Of Hearts [5:16]
- Only My Soul [4:36]
- Say You Love Me [4:21]
- Breakdown [5:15]
Further details and promo blurbs available on whitesnake.com, and pre-orders through the label.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Into The Light was a pleasantly adult work (and a ditto haircut!) around the Millennium, I’m looking forward to this. Seems like he finally disentangled the rights of his debut and Northwinds from John Coletta too, what about the early Whitesnake recordings then?
August 16th, 2024 at 22:03I have always liked Into the Light. It’s solid through and through. Midnight Blue and To Many Tears are both among the best ever from Coverdale. Imo.
August 17th, 2024 at 06:43DC really deserves a lifetime achievement award for undulating commitment to recycling his own material, the great masticator! 😆 I bet his own house is filled with pictures and paintings of himself.
Still, there is some beautiful music on those pre-Whitesnake albums and his millennial failed attempt to break free from the albatross around his neck.
August 17th, 2024 at 12:36Just wondering if the cover artwork of this snaked up musical offering, was influenced by the cover artwork of something from his former Professor’s (University of Deep Purple), current musical setup?:
August 19th, 2024 at 01:29https://www.thehighwaystar.com/news/2020/12/11/natures-light-release-details/
In that case, DC will have to pay royalties/licensing fees to Miss Autumn Blackmore
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRzmzlYJF0mqUY7_zN6g3dot-QKX0pfnXZiMw&usqp=CAU
because she was responsible for that particular cover art! And poor Jasper Coverdale will see his inheritance dwindle …
August 19th, 2024 at 06:41I bought the Love Songs set in 2020 which had “Yours For The Asking” and “Let’s Talk It Over” – both great tracks and remixed by Chris Collier. So have they been re-mixed again?
No details if any of the tracks on any of the three albums have been added to (keys or guitar) so I’m not going to shell out £70 for some demos (based on previous releases where the demos should have stayed in the cupboard) unless the remix of Northwinds & Whitesnake make a quantum difference
August 19th, 2024 at 12:50That David Coverdale…that David Coverdale.. forever in love….. with himself!
August 19th, 2024 at 14:50Into the Light is a good album, almost a great one. I think Earl Slick in Whitesnake would have been cool, never mind. Really looking forward to the early two albums to see what they’ve done to them. It seems there is lots of stuff here… personally I like the inclusion of rough and ready demos if only to demonstrate Coverdale’s song writing process and as a little piece of history.
August 19th, 2024 at 15:29I betcha, David, DC has “augmented” and remixed the tracks where he can again – as he inevitably does. Say what you will about his revolving repackaging industry, he always adds something new/different, maybe that is the passionate record collector in him. Those WS boxes are not loveless affairs by any means even if I sometimes roll my eyes about them.
Not sure whether he would touch the debut and sophomore efforts though, it would be difficult to today replicate the mid 70ies groove they still had (they sounded a little old-fashioned even back then). Musicians today – especially the American ones DC seems to prefer – play totally different to the then Brit session creme-de-la-creme he had on White Snake and Northwinds.
The remix of the first two solo albums should be eye- and ear-opening though. And back then, Coverdale’s voice was in its untampered, still unstrained glory + he stuck to his natural range. While not all the song material won any prizes, there are sufficient gems strewn over both records.
And I want Lee Brilleaux’s harmonica turned up louder on Keep On Giving Me Love!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp2DvPKh118
And if he re-obtained those rights, it can only be a matter of time until Snakebite, Trouble, Live At Hammersmith, Lovehunter, Ready An’ Willing, Live In The Heart Of The City, Come An’ Get it + Saints & Sinners get a reworking. Neil Murray has said for years that they are in dire need a remix.
August 19th, 2024 at 15:47I have been waiting for D.C’s first two solo albums to get a remix. The press release mentioned a remix with the latest A.I technology. I can only assume that D.C didn’t have access to the original unmixed masters. I hope that the jarring over-loud cymbal crash on the ‘Northwinds’ itself can be brought down in the mix and the slightly wobbly backing vocals on ‘Blindman’ can be addressed too! I presume that the unmixed masters to Rainbow’s 1975 debut could/should get an overdue remix via A.I ??
August 20th, 2024 at 11:07I thought the Blindman version on the debut still infinitely better than Whitesnake’s surprisingly failed attempt to rerecord it a few years later on Ready an’ Willing. It had none of the intensity, might and emotional depth of the original (even though the backing vocals were indeed a bit wobbly, you’re right Simon!), even sounded a little cheesy (especially Jon’s choice of string sounds in the chorus) – as if Whitesnake hadn’t quite known what to do with the song. Strange, it seemed right up their alley, but perhaps it was a rushed last minute recording to get the album full. Given the strength of the composition, the Marsden/Moody line-up sounds lackluster on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_gza3e49w
The original version on the debut, however, is one of Coverdale’s best individual recordings ever, oozing atmosphere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QvdWbzP_IY
Why it was left off Starkers in Tokyo is a mystery to me. They (Adrian + DC) had even rehearsed it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtZCmZd8RnQ
Coverdale sings beautifully on Starkers, but it has to be said that Adrian’s acoustic guitar skills/arrangements were lacking on that recording. Not every excellent electric guitarist is great on acoustic and vice versa. Ry Cooder (or Micky Moody for that matter) he wasn’t.
I remember seeing Michael Schenker once live unplugged and he, strangely enough, didn’t know how to make an acoustic guitar sound good and full either, he mostly played lead in an electric guitar style on it. Without his Flying V and 50 Watt Marshall, he seemed out of his depth.
August 20th, 2024 at 21:59I had INTO THE LIGHT but I don’t know why, like an idiot I sold it.
However these are commercial initiatives that never attract me. Also because I would have to look for CDs on the internet and I hate this, since I won’t find anything in the store.
August 21st, 2024 at 06:42I heard the R&W version first and love it. When the band pile in it has a lot of power that I think is missed in the original version. But the original is more mournful which I appreciate appeals to many.
What I can never understand is why it never made it into the live set. I don’t think there is a soundboard version of a full version – unless Uwe’s extensive knowledge of YouTube knows different!
August 22nd, 2024 at 06:55That’s a very good way of putting it, David, “more mournful”, desperate even, that really touched me when I first heard it. I like it when DC’s voice is raw and just before cracking, like it is in the middle part of Time & Again (at 02:40) which always gave/gives me shivers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RwAQD5EaPs
Really looking forward to hearing that song remixed, are they gonna give it a “Naked”-treatment like on those more recent John Lennon releases?
Except for releasing it under the Whitesnake moniker (obviously a commercially driven decision), I think the idea of combining DC’s debut, Northwinds and Into The Light as a boxed set makes very good sense, DC for grown-ups so to say. The most interesting “DC’s work” repackaging effort yet. (The second most interesting will be the future Coverdale Page boxed set I believe.)
August 22nd, 2024 at 13:22From the ole scaly reptile’s homepage:
– QUOTE –
The upcoming boxed set features two versions of Coverdale’s solo albums: one newly remixed to deliver a more dynamic sonic experience and a second remastered from the original recordings for those who want to revisit the classic sound. The remixed versions feature significant updates (particularly to White Snake and Northwinds) and utilize cutting-edge audio separation software.
The track “Time & Again” from Northwinds benefited from innovative voice extraction technology, allowing for new string and piano arrangements that Coverdale has envisioned for decades.
Coverdale shares,
“The remixes are modern, using new technology to squeeze the best out of them… Truly exciting to revisit and take care of any technical ‘issues’ I had with the tracks all those years ago.”
….
The set also revisits Northwinds and White Snake, Coverdale’s first two solo albums recorded immediately after leaving Deep Purple. Both albums have been reimagined and re-sequenced for the upcoming collection. Northwinds includes some new arrangements and additional tracks like “Sweet Mistreater” and “Shame The Devil, Tell The Truth”, breathing new life into this classic. Whitesnake features impossible remixes thanks to AI sound separation software, courtesy of technology that has only been available in the last couple of years.
The collection also unearths several unreleased demos from Coverdale’s archives, including songs destined for future Whitesnake albums. “Lay Your Love On Me” would later appear as “Lay Down Your Love” on 2008’s Good To Be Bad, while “Crazy ’Bout Cha” evolved into “Whipping Boy Blues” on 2011’s Forevermore. The set even goes back to 1968 with demos Coverdale recorded as a teenager, including an early version of “Sunny Days,” a track that would appear on his solo debut, White Snake.
While Coverdale originally released these albums as a solo artist, he now considers them Whitesnake albums.
“As I’m recognized as ‘Mr. Whitesnake,’ I thought, Why not? They’re all Whitesnake albums to me…we’ve remixed them to stand proudly alongside any Whitesnake album.”
– UNQUOTE –
I always loved Time & Again for exactly its simple and sparse, yet succinct keyboard backing (played by DC himself), but let’s see what the remixes bring.
The 1968 demos should be interesting too.
August 23rd, 2024 at 18:22Now that’s a pleasant Whitesnake cover for once, DC should relocate to Nashville:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U2tIHeAfRU
September 2nd, 2024 at 19:59I attended a christian youth club when I was young and innocent. In fact I didn’t care about christian faith a lot – but I did care an awful lot for Chris, the most beautiful girl to ever walk the schoolyard. So there I was on a tuesday afternoon with Chris, the vicar and some spotty girls and boys, holding a cassette tape of David Coverdale’s Whitesnake in my sweaty hands. The vicar had asked us to bring along some favourite music to play to the group, preferably with some sort of “message”. I played Blindman to them… the vicar’s eyes I seem to remember lit up when Coverdale begged “help me Jesus…to fnd a way…”. But some bewildered looks met my eyes when – towards the end of the track – Coverdale startet moaning for “a woman … I need a woman …” I havn’t attended the club ever since but Chris still speaks to me time and again.
Great stuff indeed – I value those albums to this day and have played them so much more than any post 87 stuff. I am really looking forward to that new release.
September 3rd, 2024 at 07:30“I attended a christian youth club when I was young and innocent. In fact I didn’t care about christian faith a lot – but I did care an awful lot for Chris, the most beautiful girl to ever walk the schoolyard.”
😂 I feel with you Bruder Max, my first girlfriend, also ominously called Chris(tiane), had me, a card-carrying agnostic even then, play in her devotional music (aka “Sakralrock” in musicians’ circles) band INRI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBZzliA58Qg
Die Sache Jesu brauchte indeed Begeisterte and we were together for nearly three years and during that time INRI’s arrangements blossomed to become quite a bit more rock (we even had guitar solos in church towards the end getting standing ovations) until my work was done … 😈
Following that spiritual epiphany, I needed to cleanse myself again, Manuela (who went by the stage name of Tanja) came from Stuttgart and we met in the Frankfurt red light district, where she was a performing artist. Maybe that is why I have such weak spot for Big Ian’s Mitzi Dupree experience, it rings a biographical bell. 😉
September 3rd, 2024 at 10:41And thinking about it, when I hear those devotional songs today with the distance of 45 years, I’m immediately reminded of Blackmore’s Night and that might explain some of the disdain/cringe I feel for Ritchie’s current day job. 😂 It sometimes sounds a bit too close for comfort.
Ironically though, my one guilty pleasure in the BN canon is exactly that: a devotional song. Incredibly corny and a waltz to boot. Don’t tell anybody, this IS SO embarrassing. 😳😳😳
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDmAuYKYFLo
It’s a cover of Alan Bell’s original, sometimes also titled “Bread & Fishes”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvYwnVgPU50
I really (still) blame Christiane for this. 😁
September 3rd, 2024 at 20:20Well that Alan Bell did not exactly ring a bell (sorry)… never heard of him and his bread and his fishes. Thanks for this piece of trainspotting, always very welcome.
I don’t think one needs any excuse for enjoying Mitzi Dupree – a really nice offering on an underated album in my book. And the line “I said …ooh..and had another drink” made it into my repertoire.
Thinking about it it is not too surprising that BN go down so well in Germany, home of Rühr- und Schlagerseligkeit. Aber wer unter Euch ohne Sünde ist … I have a soft spot for some of their songs too, especially when played in a Burghof.
September 4th, 2024 at 10:15@16 Uwe, that bluegrass cover of Here I Go Again was awesome!, & I’ve put it on my phone’s playlist. So thanks for the heads up . The singer’s name is Rebecca Frazier, & the band may have been called “Hit and Run”, coincidentally also the name of another Whitesnake song!.
Here’s a little something in return:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cVM3_zW7tM
September 10th, 2024 at 02:11