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The benefit of copious amounts of hindsight
In January 2024, Louder Sound reprinted a Classic Rock feature on Deep Purple Mark 4, which apparently slipped under our proverbial radar. It was penned by Geoff Barton for the issue 58 (October 2003) of the magazine.
“I must say that the last tour for me was horrendously wrong,” Glenn Hughes says today of Deep Purple’s infamously doomed Mk IV line-up world tour. “Regardless of whether Tommy was a good choice as a replacement for Ritchie, there was a total line drawn around Deep Purple.
“It was me and Tommy, it was Coverdale sort of in the middle, and it was Lordy and Paicey on the other side – the two guys who were definitely not happy with our behaviour. I don’t know, man. Something happened when Tommy joined the band.”
Tommy Bolin had been playing guitar with Deep Purple for maybe four months when I noticed the first cracks in his relationship with the rest of band beginning to appear.
It’s early afternoon on a fine Indian summer’s day in September 1975. A 20-year-old cub reporter from British music weekly Sounds – that’s me – is standing in the foyer of London’s Swiss Cottage Holiday Inn, hanging on the house telephone, trying to call Bolin’s room.
Continue reading in Louder Sound.
Thanks to Uwe Hornung for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Hey, Tommy and Glenn, they just innocently liked to hang out with each other a little, cut them some slack!
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcROA_zxKF2cGTmxDJCYLKdy4bAsjDxwUpiJpQ&s
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRfCuI2AbK2idpaBsoipwh8dKVyfsqIyHrBGQ&s
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/649303576/de/foto/tommy-bolin-playing-guitar-and-glenn-hughes-with-deep-purple-at-nippon-budokan-december-15th.jpg?s=612×612&w=gi&k=20&c=J-91f3L9DWNlIjxubguOLRof5xtsLyK08pwY-iQ4SDI=
March 15th, 2025 at 08:05@1 They were just ahead of their time. Way way ahead.
March 15th, 2025 at 19:15“I must say that the last tour for me was horrenously wrong..” GH
March 16th, 2025 at 13:01to me the whole MK 4 was wrong from the start.
It is inherent to experiments that they can go wrong, Viktor. They had to give it a try (Mk IV lasted less than 12 months, they called the experiment off soon). It would have been too much of a blow to the egos of the remaining members (let’s not even talk about the financial impact) to immediately throw the towel. In 1975 it didn’t work, but in 1994 it did, both times with an American.
Things might have turned out different with Dave ‘Clem’ Clempson, there would have certainly been less drama and more live consistency, but I guess that DP were blinded 🤩 by Tommy’s reputation and flamboyance.
March 17th, 2025 at 00:25Without Glenn & Tommy’s pills & powders, Mk. 4 would have been at least the equal of anything DP did with TMIB. Glenn, I hope you’re pleased with yourself.
March 17th, 2025 at 02:59I think we shouldn’t bash DP for giving a try to their Mk IV. We know it didn’t work out but we have the benefit of hindsight (copious amounts of it), which they didn’t have. And back then, the rock scene was very dynamic. Bands and individual artists would rise and fall, some to rise again and to stay in ashes forever. Once one of the musicians was gone like RB was, there was little reason to not try out recording an album with a new one.
Back then, DP were not yet cast in bronze and thought of as a ‘classic’ act with a ‘legacy’. Probably they themselves did not realize they had that huge legacy that was fondly remembered by millions of fans, would sell for decades to come and support them monetarily for the rest of their lives. Back then they were another band that held the #1 spot for a while and then ceded it to someone else, just like they had taken it from someone else. It was a much lesser deal than it would have been later.
So putting together Mk. IV was not a big mistake, and its demise was not a disaster except for the fate of poor Tommy, who was heading the wrong way anyway, DP or not. Just treat it as another episode in the endless DP saga.
March 17th, 2025 at 13:43And we would have never had that lovely Budokan rendition of Wild Dogs …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGaU37nj12k
March 17th, 2025 at 21:14(That is unfortunately not the original live shoot to the song, even though that exists and used to be freely available in the past and I have seen it numerous times, but due to likely licensing issues re the video material it has been taken off YouTube for some years now. Glenn’s gung-ho bass playing absolutely takes the song into stratosphere. 🚀)
To this day I listen to Come Taste The Band and the Japan-show much more often than to – say – DP In Rock. The only thing I could have done without is Smoke On The Water… an awful version in my book. Never liked it when DC and GH did it. But I even get a thrill out of Highway Star .. ah the decadence and looseness Mark IV could deliver so effortless. 😀 And Wild Dogs indeed is one of the best tracks DP put to tape live. You Keep On Moving, Love Child … very nice live recordings to me.
I think the Bolin line up started very promising and it’s a pity drugs and drinks ruined it.
March 18th, 2025 at 11:00I’m the opposite, Max, I never liked how Mk IV (or Mk III) did Highway Star, but I’m a sucker for Tommy’s groove when playing SOTW: The way he pulled the riff slightly ahead of the beat, made it sound jaunty and less stern, sort of a Doobie Brothers version of one of the Blackmorest riffs ever 😁 …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omtg1e4x2Vk
I know its anathema to many here, but I liked Bolin’s ‘less-than-overawed-by-its-legacy’, playful take on the song. Not better than Blackmore of course, just different. Tommy could never do anything other than sound like Tommy Bolin anyway, anything he played, whether it was a Blackmore or a Joe Walsh riff, he put his stamp on it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqeG96GsAlI
You can either hate or love him for it.
Roy Kenner, the lead vocalist of James Gang in their years after Joe Walsh, always gets a lot of stick. I wonder why, he had a very tuneful, American West Coast-sounding (though he’s a Canadian), even ‘Yacht Rock’ voice, I’m perfectly fine with his work with the James Gang, he had an impressive elastic range.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR00q2yrsN8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wztMkhwC6DA
Much like Glenn Hughes, he did prefer RnB to rock though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bzrY0Hd9Ss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Z0gGOAJKQ
March 19th, 2025 at 18:33@7 Uwe, other than the Rises Over Japan footage, I thought nothing else existed from the Tokyo concert. I never remember seeing the original Wild Dogs on film. Would be nice if the entire concert footage was still around somewhere and could be released, despite what some people think of the performance.
March 24th, 2025 at 18:22I think a complete show from the Capitol Theatre in Maryland exists, but whether it every sees the light of day is another matter.
Tim, even when the Tommy Bolin footage from Budokan was first screened circa 1976/77 on German TV (I had a VHS copy of it), the Wild Dogs performance with DC announcing “For the first time in Japan, Tommy Bolin is gonna sing for you!” and then leaving stage for Tommy to take over was contained. It later on became available on YouTube too, but it was edged out there over time. Last time I saw it, it was part of a more comprehensive feature posted by a YouTuber from Russia (where a different IP law reigns), but that has meanwhile disappeared too.
It must be the rights to the visuals of the performance, that is my only explanation. I have a vivid memory of that performance as you can see Glenn throwing great shapes on stage during his high octave playing @03:52 and 04:03 as well as 04:21 (I was spellbound by that at the time 😍):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISSbDDj_epI
And also of him walking up to the mic every time he sang the chorus with Tommy, delivering great harmony vocals to Tommy’s lead vocals (DC didn’t join in as he was absent from stage). Or turning to Jon Lord at one point to groove with him plus his exclamatory yell “It’s Tommy Boliiiiiiin!” at the end of the song.
Am I really the only one who remembers the visuals to that? Am I finally going slightly mad and imagining things? Unrrraveling fast, it’s trrrue?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od6hY_50Dh0
March 25th, 2025 at 07:47Uwe, you may well be correct, it would be nice if someone could confirm this, or even better post a link so that we could see it.
March 25th, 2025 at 17:26Here is a bit of it at least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrDIBTdfVXg&t=202s
March 25th, 2025 at 21:49Wow. Thank you, Svante.
March 26th, 2025 at 06:15#13 Sorry Svante, but the video footage doesn’t match the songs. This is a (good) compilation.
#11 I also saw the recordings on (West) German television at the time and I think that it was broadcast by the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation on the Third Channel. I can certainly remember “Burn”, “Love Child”, “Smoke (without Soldier of Fortune & Woman from Tokyo/Jon’s Solo)”, “You keep on Moving” and “Highway Star”. My memories also don’t deceive me that the show was quite short (30-35 minutes at most). Since it was so long ago, I could of course be wrong and who am I to contradict a lawyer 🙂
Of course, it could also be due to licensing issues, as “Lady Luck” and “Wild Dogs” have two non-Purple members as (co-)writers (Jeff Cook & John Tesar)
#8 Max: Full agreement
About “Highway Star” I was only annoyed that Jon had left out his solo, but DC was able to spur the crowd on again in this passage.
March 26th, 2025 at 09:26Nix ‘wow’, Max!!! 🤣
That is NOT the original reel to Wild Dogs, Svante’s attempts were – as they always are – commendable, but futile – as it rarely happens.
Synched-in-the-aftermath-from-other-sources-footage like this one, you can find a dime a dozen on YT, but nothing matches, not Coverdale’s announcement, not the key in which GH is playing (Wild Dogs is in D Major – like Holy Man to which it is quite similar), not where Glenn’s hands are when he is playing those trademark octaves above the 12th fret, not Tommy’s hand positioning during his soloing, not Jon being shown when he playing another one of his keyboards when you clearly hear the mighty Hammond lending Wild Dogs some heft, not the fact that you see DC on stage (he wasn’t during Wild Dogs). And you never see a shot of Tommy singing at the mic once.
Svante’s search for the lost reel will have to continue unabatedly! Alas!, Rome wasn’t built in a day either …
https://youtu.be/FLGJXbl6g8o
March 26th, 2025 at 13:25I
saw
it !!!
Several times over, it’s a stunning live version of the song, the best one I know. At the time, it was quite a surprise to see Tommy take center stage and sing a song from his own solo album (which very few even Purple fans owned at this point) within the set of a DP concert. And Glenn was having a real ball with it, both vocally and with his gung-ho bass playing.
Crocco is right, es war im Dritten Programm. Max wouldn’t know, he was still listening to Smokie back then. 😈
https://youtu.be/y_pQdMgBxZM
March 26th, 2025 at 13:41So we know it exists so surely someone out there has a copy? Someone? Anyone?
March 26th, 2025 at 19:46If someone has a copy, then probably only on VHS.
My guess is that the Tommy Bolin Archives keep a lid on it and that there only ever was a license for the audio, not for the footage. And the people compiling Phoenix Rising as an Mk IV documentary were likely not obsessing about getting the rights to a DP cover of a Tommy Bolin solo career song.
It’ll come out again one day, I’m certain. Only recently live footage of Tommy with the James Gang came out that had been in the vaults for half a century. Great stuff too.
March 27th, 2025 at 08:03@ 13,15,16,17
Ok now, this is getting too serious to keep on working here… which I should be doing …
I DID watch it on the telly, Uwe! I remember it to this day. Sweaty hands and all I sat in front of the TV set, so keen to see my new heroes in motion for the very first time. I had only just discovered DP. And I didn’t know anything about which line up to expect, HÖRZU wouldn’t give details… I even put my mono tape recorder that sported a small microphone – in front of the TV to record the whole thing. Man, I was close to an early heartattack!
And to the best of my knowledge or memory there were no WILD DOGS to be seen or heard anywhere. I only ever saw the Rises Over Japan stuff and that was what was on the screen back then too I am pretty sure.
I did not watch the clip Svante sent properly when I reacted to his post, just wanted to say thank you for digging it out. Having looked closer I realised that it was just another cleverly-put-together-clip of old footage accompanying a different song.
So I am afraid the sources are right about the fact that there is only that much of that show to be seen as was released on Phoenix Rising. After all: that set would have drawn much more attention with any extra footage of Japan 75, so if there was any … Still I sicerley hope I am wrong and Uwe is right and I get to see WILD DOGS one of these days. One of my all time fave it is.
March 27th, 2025 at 13:41I’m sure that the Wild Dogs footage exists, I’ve seen it as recently as a couple of years ago, Max, it was getting harder and harder to find it on YT among all the fakes. I remember it so well because Tommy standing there with his Strat and singing his own song “if I knew which way was home” was somehow moving and deep. I thought it was a high point of the overall footage together with Jon’s synth solo during Love Child and, of course, You Keep On Moving. I recognized the song because by that time I owned both Teaser and Last Concert In Japan (I had the Jap release sent to me via a UK mail order shop long before it came out in Germany more than a year later).
There might have also been footage of Lady Luck, but I’m not as sure of that as I am positive re Wild Dogs. I was learning bass at the time and I studied Glenn’s trademark slides up the neck for those really high bass notes intently.
It’s ok that you liked Smokie, Max, don’t be so defensive about it!
https://youtu.be/Ou4ke5cpp8c
March 27th, 2025 at 16:11Information about the film:
Deep Purple – the name alone makes many hearts beat faster, as these rockers shaped many a youth in the wild seventies. Until 1976, this lineup consisted of Tommy Bolin, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice, before the band members went their separate ways for the time being and reunited with Ian Gillan on vocals in 1984.
During this time, Bolin, Coverdale, Hughes, Lord, and Paice performed a concert on December 15, 1975, at Budokan Hall, Japan – one of the last with this legendary lineup. Tony Klinger, the director of the performance, filmed the entire concert in Tokyo on 16mm film and edited the footage, which was originally intended for promotion and to introduce new member Tommy Bolin. Klinger shortened the concert to 30 minutes under the title “Deep Purple Rises Over Japan.” The remaining footage remains missing to this day. All that remains is the never-before-released excerpt, which includes the classics “Burn,” “Love Child,” “Smoke On The Water,” “You Keep On Moving,” and “Highway Star” as an encore. Thus, the video material was almost forgotten until it was shown during a concert series on German television and is now being released exclusively on DVD and Blu-ray for the first time. The great hits and the Japanese audience, who were completely enthralled and whose euphoria recalled Beatlemania, created a unique atmosphere in 1975 and proved once again that Deep Purple are living legends
March 27th, 2025 at 20:35But who’s defensive?
BTW: When I listened to them they were still called Smokey.
March 28th, 2025 at 10:17I always dug Chris Norman’s nasal and raspy voice, Smokie had an immediately recognizable sound. Weren’t they still quite hard-rock’ish when they were called Smokey? I only heard of them with this hit here:
https://youtu.be/q-yk32DAVZE
It was tuneful and catchy. And of course they ruled the German charts for the next couple of years.
March 28th, 2025 at 12:13Yes, a very nice voice, a pity he chose the path to kitsch as kitsch can. Some of the songs he wrote as a solo artist showed promise but the kitsch got overhand most of the time, almost like if it was an BN album … Tony Carey wrote and produced (I think) for him. I guess like many artists they loved a different koind of music than they actually played. But they made it especially in Germany, yes.
March 28th, 2025 at 15:08