![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan3.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/airey.jpg)
Unpretentious and clear-eyed
Steve Morse dispenses wisdom to younger players on the virtual pages of the Guitar Player magazine.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced shifting from Kansas to Deep Purple?
My first encounter with Deep Purple was a really good jam session, and my first encounter with Kansas was a writing session. Those were different things, but they were the things that I connected on with each band. With Kansas, it was more about writing, but with Purple, it was about the feel of everybody improvising, listening and reading each other’s minds. With Purple, that connection grew very organically.
Did you need a whole new setup to cover Ritchie Blackmore’s parts?
I eventually changed the amplifiers four times before I ended up going with Engl. When I first started with Purple, I was using a 5150 setup. I used that through the [1996] Purpendicular album. That setup worked fine, but the gear needed to be turned up in order for the type of distortion I needed to convey the notes. The search began to find a rounder tone with more impact. That led me to the Marshall Jubilee to the Marshall 2000 series to Engl.
What made Engl Amps perfect for Deep Purple?
At the time, I liked some of the characteristics, but I really wanted to make some changes. Luckily, the designer started bringing prototypes to the shows with breakout boards attached to the amps that let me adjust the tone centers of the tone controls. It was awesome. That begat my signature amp.
Read more in Guitar Player.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Great, insightful interview with a very humble man who actually has little reason to be humble – he’s Steve Morse after all!
[Minor point: But is Bill Nelson (ex-Be-Bop Deluxe) really more popular than Steve? 🤣 I was baffled that the quoted Joe Bonamassa even knew about him, not that Bill is undeserving of more recognition. But I have yet to meet someone who knows about Bill Nelson and BBD who was not a teenager or older when the band released their only six (five studio, one live) albums in the mid to late 70s.
https://youtu.be/gT1HAo53224
https://youtu.be/k7tvUaIQPkI
https://youtu.be/egU2n262vgg
Fantastic, totally idiosyncratic band, but at the time hardly anyone “got them” and Bill Nelson lost interest in the rock star tour life after a few years already, preferring to work at an incessant flow of new music from his home studio, becoming a reclusive new wave Mike Oldfield of sorts.
That said, years ago for the 40th anniversary of Machine Head, he gave that album – though hardly ever a Purple fan – a glowing guest review in Classic Rock, lauding how “clever”and “well-played” it was. Coming from someone as cerebral as him (and as excellent a guitarist) that is tantamount to Albert Einstein telling you that your ideas on quantum physics are “interesting and forward-pointing”. 😂]
January 16th, 2025 at 03:50