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Deep sense of gratitude
Roger Glover posts on his website a eulogy for the late Mick Underwood:
Mick Underwood was a lovely man. I was deeply saddened to learn that he had died. It’s taken me a while to digest the news and put in perspective what he meant for Ian Gillan and me. When he joined Episode Six, he brought a new sense of professionalism to the band and the live performances took an immediate upturn. That said, it can’t be denied that we’d been chasing that elusive lucky break for so long that we’d just about run out of steam. Maybe he felt that way as well, so when Ritchie called him looking for a singer, he selflessly suggested Ian Gillan knowing that he could be dealing a serious blow to Episode Six. Of course, we will never know what was in his head at the time. Now, over five decades later, I feel a deep sense of gratitude to him.
My sincere condolences to his family.
RG 2024
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Nice comments from Roger Glover for Mick Underwood. You would think that back in the Episode Six days when he recommended Gillan for DP or to Blackmore, that Underwood could very well see that ES were not really going anywhere. So many of those bands at that time did sort of sound similar in many ways. Throwing caution to the wind or what is that other saying, ‘if you don’t take risks, you may as well be dead’. From what we read, it was a real melting pot of talented individuals at that time. Musicians moving hither & thither, for some it worked out well, for others not so. The throw of the dice scenario in many ways. Cheers.
August 20th, 2024 at 08:45A quote from a DMME.net interview of Mick Underwood about Episode 6:
August 20th, 2024 at 23:28“I was never what you call a full band member of the band, I was only with them for the last year or so, maybe a bit longer. I was basically employed by EPISODE SIX as a session player: I was on different money to what the band were, they had all the sales and everything. When Ian [Gillan] and Roger [Glover] as you know had gone over to DEEP PURPLE, I was supposed to still be involved with EPISODE SIX. The band wanted to continue, and they needed a bass player and a keyboard player. So I said, “I know a superb keyboard player and I worked with the man on a tour with a singer called Jimmy Royal, James Royal, and also on some other dates.” I spoke to Peter Robinson and he came in, and the manager, Gloria Bristow, knew Johnny Gustafson, and she brought him down from Liverpool. We rehearsed a bit with the band, and it became obvious that we weren’t really wanting to go in the direction the band decided to go in – any of us: Peter and John and myself. We were always jamming about and we decided that the jamming was good and we’d like to pursue that. And we had a few people around us saying exactly the same thing. That’s kind of how QUATERMASS was put together.
True, Mick (Underwood) wasn’t THE drummer of Episode Six, that was Harvey Shield who can be seen singing (and drumming) here (with Sheila and Big Ian joining in later)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk7AtDmagmI
(Roger’s outfit is a gas, très cool! 😄)
Mick also wasn’t part of the 2015 Episode Six (apparently not exactly over-rehearsed 😑) Episode Six reunion, which – given the acrimony surrounding the demise of Gillan (the band) – likely prevented some uncomfortable encounters between Mick and Big Ian …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmCSwCUtbfY
That kinda explains why Mick recommended Ian to Ritchie, sacrificing/endangering Episode Six in the process, he didn’t really regard Episode Six as his band nor as a viable concern going forward, they were commercially on their last legs.
Ironically, Roger’s replacement, John Gustafson, was actually more famous than the Welshman back then as he came from trendy Liverpool’s The Big Three and The Merseybeats, a band back then so popular and affluent they could afford matching Gibson Firebird guitars and Gibson Thunderbird basses, the most expensive (and rarest) American instruments money could buy in the UK in the early 60ies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzzumaitk4M
https://64.media.tumblr.com/c5298f6d9817bbbe7f5aa66c284884fe/tumblr_p8n5e6GRKB1vcc466o1_1280.jpg
https://64.media.tumblr.com/6fd25f78ef8e9f0d5223f15f1330fdb7/tumblr_p8n5e6GRKB1vcc466o2_1280.jpg
August 21st, 2024 at 15:08