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Number one by the lunch time
A Dutch TV documentary on the history of Love is All, with participation from Roger Glover, Eddie Hardin, Ronnie James Dio, Ray Fenwick, and the book author Alan Aldridge. Everything you wanted to know about the track that to everybody’s surprise charted in that part of the world, and then some. It looks like this was filmed some time before the song accompanied the 1999 performance of the resurrected Concerto.
Thanks to The Deep Purple Podcast for posting the video, and to Uwe Hornung for bringing it to your attention.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
You know how these Krauts are, always good for atrocities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYZyGZ9W-Rc
The live version as the grand finale was sung by John Lawton (whose voice was probably closest to Dio who was not allowed to perform with Roger due to Blackmore feeling the innate need to add insult to the previous injury of Roger by sacking him from Mk II) with Glenn and David taking the second and third verse, respectively. You also get to see Les Binks, Mo Foster, Ray Fenwick, Eddie Hardin, Eddie Jobson, Tony Ashton, Mark Nauseef, Twiggy plus many others and of course Roger basking rightfully in the success of the event (which in a way was as incongruous as the Concerto for anyone associated with DP, but likewise great PR for Purple Records).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD-NBysqAsg
The song has really gained a life of its own in France:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUuuBSs-fQ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Lh3CXjKN8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmh3jY8J-rA
Not to forget out brothers to the west ‘van Duitsen bloed’, I’m sure if you just look hard enough, you’ll find our own Rock Voorne singing along somewhere:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh3c9C6C-fk
And here are Graham Bonnet and Maggie Bell giving it a try as an encore to Eddie Hardin’s later Wind In The Willows live project – unfortunately both with very audible pitching problems, probably under-rehearsed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIn_mrKfguU
May 23rd, 2023 at 11:33I was at the Freiburg Zeltmusik Festival seeing one of the two Shows of Eddie Hardin’s Wind in the Willows when the Love is all version with Graham Bonnet and Maggie Bell was recorded – and it was great fun 😃!
May 23rd, 2023 at 21:43Actually, it was the first time I saw Graham live. I wasn’t too much impressed by the Rainbow bootlegs of the Down to Earth era but there in Freiburg I was really blown away by him! He delivered a great performance in a really enjoyable show which also saw Messieurs Lord and Airey sharing the same stage. Little did I know (and most probably them as well) that they would do this again in a different context years later…
The only problem Graham had was that he always wanted to put bis arm on Maggie’s shoulder – and Maggie somehow didn’t like this and showed several escape moves.
There is also a nice DVD of this event.
In Georgia, during the Soviet regime, there were some freedoms and in the 70s this cartoon was shown to us during the breaks of a football match. Imagine a little girl watching football next to her dad so that she doesn’t miss a break and can listen to this song that brings so much joy. Then I was looking for this song for a long time and when I saw Sir Paul’s We All Stand Together I had hope, but it was in vain. Love Is All is still my favorite song to this day.
May 24th, 2023 at 00:27I got the Butterfly Ball album in the early 80s but didn’t see the film until about a year or two ago. I am glad that Roger had no creative role beyond the music and understand why the film embarrased him. The cartoon segment for Love is All is fine, but the pantomime film comes across as creepy & uninteresting rather than whimsical.
May 24th, 2023 at 01:10Graham is a force of nature and a lovable, self-deprecating, not grandstanding chap. But it is also true to say that he – even as a young man – has/had a tendency to be off key at times. Not because he’s a bad or unmusical singer, but because he tends to get carried away by the exuberance of the moment live and then relies too much on the amazing turbo force of his voice; he then can quickly sound “confident, but wrong”/out of tune – LOL. And I’m writing this as a dedicated fan of the man, I love his stage demeanor and the tone of his vocals. He’s mentioned this himself in a frank interview that there are days where he simply hears himself differently and misses the key believing all the while to be on it.
But it is also true that Graham does things – especially at his age – most other singers would not dare go near. He has always been prepared to take risks live – Blackmore observed as much during the Down To Earth era, in equal parts impressed AND worried – and it’s astounding when it works out … but sometimes it just doesn’t. Dio was a master of vocal control (but avoided any risks for a perfect performance), so is Joe Lynn Turner btw, never mind our jokes about him, Gillan and Halford are pretty good at keeping control (yet can sing a real bum note or line once in a while), Coverdale not so much (even as a younger man he wasn’t anything near flawless, but the warmth and authority of his voice could engulf you) and Glenn Hughes is in a league of his own as he stretches himself live, but has an insanely – if not coked out of his mind – good pitch. You might despise his vocal gyrations, but he is extremely rarely off key doing them.
Back to Graham (or no Graham), I’m actually listening to the new Alcatrazz album Take No Prisoners (sigh, will they ever give up using titles alluding to their band name?) and it’s a better outing than their last one with Doogie (not as forced). Now Doogie is no Graham (and he has said in the past that Graham’s vocal style is impossible to replicate), but he does a fine job. They’ve also reined in Joe Stump a little – would you believe? Lots of prominent organ work too.
May 24th, 2023 at 12:10Everyone is always complaining about the pantomime parts, even Roger I know, but if you see them as what they are – expressive modern dance/theater – they’re fine in my book, a bit artsy, but not terrible.
OTOH, I find the animation to the music incredibly pedestrian and badly done even for the mid-seventies, visibly on a low budget and a hasty job (pre-PIXAR and CGI, animation took incredible time). Walt Disney drawing craftsmanship (think of Disney’s Robin Hood animated film released around the same time) this isn’t and, moreover, it totally misses the Victorian/Edwardian characteristic of the original lavish and intricate drawings.
You guys are still ALL to blame that Roger never got the money together per crowd funding to have the live concert released (the rights to that are somewhat convoluted and stuck, so they involve some money to dislodge).
https://www.thehighwaystar.com/news/2017/05/13/butterfly-ball-deluxe-reissue/
Yours truly (!) pledged, but because of y’all (!!!) lackadaisical stance we’re now never gonna hear those Ian Gillan performances before my earthly demise.
Feel guilty.
Eternally.
It’s missing in my köllekshün.
May 24th, 2023 at 17:24Uwe has condemned us all to the abyss, we are doomed, doomed I say. Not to worry as we will find our way back out again. That re release & all the bells & whistles with it was always going to be up against it. I couldn’t imagine that many people being interested in it. I did purchase the cd though, a nice little nostalgia album indeed. Cheers.
May 24th, 2023 at 22:54Uwe
I paid myself into trouble for decades, hoped you rich folks would drag it into reality.
For ME 100 E is a lot money.
I could spend it but decades ago I started to draw the line. Had to survive,mind you if I hadnt been so indulging when I was younger I might have had a complete different life now, because I d have put more money into more practical things.
Yeah, my choice….
May 24th, 2023 at 23:34RV, seriously, I don’t think it was done out of purpose or real disinterest. I fear people just forgot about it assuming it would naturally go forward and the, uhum, powers that be here could have perhaps corralled the HS crowd a bit more … Just sayin’. Hindsight is 20/20. ; – )
That live performance is historically valuable as it not only features Big Ian coming out of his self-imposed post-Purple retirement (and three musicians present would end up in IGB: Gustafson, Fenwick & Nauseef), but also sees Jon Lord and John Lawton performing (who himself might have become a member of the Purple family, had he taken up that “invitation to jam” with DP after Big Ian had handed in his demission). Not to mention David’s and Glenn’s performances.
BTW, am I the only one who is reminded of Uriah Heep when he hears this? It sounds like something off Demons & Wizards. It’s a Hensley keyboard sound and the vocal melody sounds perfectly like something Hensley would write and Byron would sing. Plus those heepy overbearing backing vocals!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2mxaFk1BZk
Play it a bit faster and you’re close to something like this here (incidentally, that Hensley track features Little Ian on drums):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j61FiI3Tl9Q
May 25th, 2023 at 12:39@ 9 – not so much earlier David Byron Uriah Heep to my ears, that Butterfly Ball song. I think it sounds more like the Lawton era or later 70’s Heep, much more straight ahead type of rock song, not as dramatic as early Heep, for want of a better description. The Ken Hensley song I have never heard, I do have his Proud Words on a Dusty Shelf solo album but I didn’t chase any further solo albums. There has never been any doubt about his huge influence in UH & it makes it even more valid after hearing the band after they kept going without him. Cheers
May 26th, 2023 at 23:01@6 Uwe, I always thought that Roger was the force behind the early end of the campaign to stop a “semi official” release by Tony Klinger.
June 1st, 2023 at 15:41