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Bernie Marsden: Working Man
Bernie Marsden’s posthumous album Working Man will be released on November 24, 2023, on independent label Conquest Music. Recording of the album was finished in June. Throughout the summer, Bernie was involved in mixing, artwork, and planning for the release of the album. He approved the final audio masters and artwork before his death in August.
His widow Fran Marsden says:
Bernie was really excited about his new album, Working Man, and proud of the tracks featured on it. After the last three albums of covers he was keen for his fans to hear some new, original songs. He loved working on them in the studio during lockdown and he couldn’t wait to get the album out into the world.
Alan Bambrough speaks on behalf of the label:
Bernie Marsden was far more than an artist to Conquest Music. He has been a great friend and mentor for many years and was a huge part of our decision to form the label. His Kings album was our first release and we are proud to work with his company, Little House Music in releasing some of his finest ever work. We are heartbroken at Bernie’s passing and thought the right and respectful thing to do would be to postpone the release until next year. Fran Marsden convinced us that Bernie would want the Working Man album to come out as planned.
The album contains 12 brand new tracks written by Bernie, produced by him, and mixed by Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers, The Who). There’s no word at this point on what other musicians took part in the recordings. The limited first pressing in 3LP and 2CD formats will come with 10 bonus tracks, including new interpretations of Whitesnake classics.
Track listing:
CD1
- Being Famous
- Midtown
- Longtime
- Invisible
- Son I’ve Never Known
- Steelhouse Mountain
- Working Man
- Valentine’s Day
- Savannah
- Bad Reputation
- You Know
- The Pearl
CD2 (bonus)
- Look At Me Now
- Midnight Believer
- Who’s Fooling Who
- Just Don’t Have The Time
- Foolish Day
- Here I Go Again
- Ain’t No Love In The Heart of The City
- Til The Day I Die
- Time Is Right For Love
- Come On In My Kitchen
Opening track Being Famous is available for streaming now:
The album can be pre-ordered from the Bernie Marsden webstore, where there’s a chance to win one of five special lithographic prints hand signed by Bernie.
Thanks to BraveWords for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
He just was the most musicianly consummate lead guitarist, co-songwriter and backing vocalist Whitesnake ever had, nuff said.
September 28th, 2023 at 16:50Bernie ‘working man’ Marsden is just one of a kind : a brilliant guitar player, a wonderfull singer and last but not least an excellent songwriter. The man was not only a member of a lot of bands like e.g. Babe Ruth, Alaska, M3, PAL, The Moody Marsden Band, The Company of Snakes and of course Whitesnake, but he also released fantastic solo albums e.g. Green and blues, Look at me now, And about time too, Kings, Trios, Chess, etc. He was also often invited by other renowed musicians to play on their albums e.g. Jack Bruce (Silver Rails), Walter Trout (Tellin’ Stories), Stefan Berggren (Stranger in a Stangeland) and Joe Bonamassa (Royal Tea). To my big surprise he also played guitar on an album called ‘Pop Model’, released in 2000 by the Belgian band ‘Mama’s Jasje’. How Bernie got in touch with Peter Vanlaet, the singer of ‘Mama’s Jasje’ is still a mystery to me. Does anybody (perhaps Uwe) know the answer ???
The new song ‘Being famous’ sounds a little bit like ZZ Top to me, but I like it a lot ! I can’t wait to hear the whole album and especially the remakes of the Whitesnake songs, hopefully sung by Bernie !
Rudy
September 28th, 2023 at 21:35Nice to hear that Bernie Marsden was able to finish his latest album & leave this world with what he accomplished with his art.. His music will live on for an eternity. Cheers.
September 28th, 2023 at 22:54“Does anybody (perhaps Uwe) know the answer ???”
Maybe Jim Lea of Slade is the missing link? He co-wrote this track here (also featuring Bernie, you clearly hear him at 02:32 and towards the end):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibUIkWQRV3A
And Jim knew Bernie from the early 80ies when Slade toured opening for Ready an’ Willing era Whitesnake (I saw them then, Slade were great).
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSPvGahERypuwJZcC1xd_VdWZSGFdTN3W3eg7OG0eu9nL0CSjri
I’m pretty sure that Jim thought Fool For Your Loving a memorable song with further potential, it certainly seemed to inspire his songwriting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCUSm-27Mac
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery! (Oscar Wilde)
But I’m speculating. Bernie did lots of gigs and clinics in Europe, he was (rightfully) held in high esteem by people who do not just judge a guitar player by his BMI (as DC was prone to do) and must have had lots of contacts.
September 29th, 2023 at 08:22Oscar Wilde — ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.’
September 30th, 2023 at 05:13@4: “Bernie did lots of gigs and clinics in Europe, he was (rightfully) held in high esteem by people who do not just judge a guitar player by his BMI (as DC was prone to do) and must have had lots of contacts”.
I remember how surprised I was when I learnt that Paul McCartney did offer Bernie to join Wings. At this time, I only knew him via Whitesnake. But having discovered his solo stuff and his melodic side, it doesn’t sound so strange at all after all.
September 30th, 2023 at 09:18It just shows how good an ear Macca has – he must have heard Bernie’s always pleasantly (and not really hard rock) melodic touch. I could have envisaged Bernie in, say, 10cc too.
Hell, Bernie even managed to inject some melody into pre-Schenker UFO, up to then a Stoner band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqhkeay1sUQ
And could do even Soul very credibly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wVOM1z1JYw
The real background is probably more banal though: The horn section of PAL was led by Howie Casey,
http://www.deep-purple.net/gallery/pal-dvd/PAL3.jpg
(He’s the guy on sax that looks like Tony Iommi’s brother!),
who had done the same thing with Macca’s Wings
https://i0.wp.com/thebeatlezone.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/howie-casey.jpg?w=700&ssl=1
I guess he liked what he heard of Bernie during the recording of the PAL album and the handful of gigs that followed, slipping a message to his former boss when Paul was (once again!) looking for a new lead guitarist and the premature end of PAL was nigh with Bernie in limbo.
October 5th, 2023 at 13:53Very sorry to hear about Bernie, I always loved his music and his playing, even if he could be bit of a grump in person. I met him a couple of times at gigs he did in my town (I don’t think he suffered fools gladly, and I must have seemed liked an idiot to him…twice!). He was always supported by Jim Kirkpatrick, a fantastic blues rock guitarist who also plays with FM and Rory Gallagher’s Band of Friends and played on Bernie’s Rory tribute albums, I urge anyone into blues rock or melodic music in general to check him out. I would rate him at least on a par with Bernie.
On to my point now, this new track from Bernie is a retread of the Jim Kirkpatrick co-written track Always on the Road from Jim’s Ballad of a Prodigal Son album, an album I would give 5/5. His latest Album Dead Man Walking is also excellent as his is latest live album Live…On the Run.
October 12th, 2023 at 08:24@8. I never found Bernie grumpy and I met him about 10 times over the years. I see what you are saying about the tracks but I like the BM track better, it has a nice thicker sound. I’m looking forward to the album. Jim is a great guitarist and I’ve seen him with Bernie many times. I think his solo albums are OK and the best show with Jim and Bernie I saw was at the Tramshed in Cardiff with the guys from Hand of Dimes. They played all of Ready an’ Willing and it was a great night with an incredibly enthusiastic crowd. I actually thought that with the right promoter the band could have played a decent tour of mid sized theatres. It was closer to real Whitesnake that recent Whitesnake and Jim seem to drive Bernie’s playing more than Moody did. It had a lot of energy and took me right back to 1980!!!! A joy indeed.
October 30th, 2023 at 13:29Bernie’s album Working Man is out today. It’s a pure gem. May is soul rest in peace.
December 8th, 2023 at 06:54@8. Jim K is great. Bernie thought a great deal of him, as you clearly do.
December 8th, 2023 at 14:40Just to point out that Bernie wrote Being Famous over a decade ago, so to call it a retread of Jim’s song is ill informed and misleading.
Apologies @Al, I overlooked that just because something is commercially released earlier does not mean that it came first, doesn’t alter the fact that it is essentially the same song, which was my real point. So actually Jim K has made an alternative version of Bernie’s song, and I like both.
December 10th, 2023 at 13:10Jim K mentioned Bernie giving him a PRS Les Paul type guitar that Bernie forgot was a version of one of his Whitesnake guitars (I guess the famous Beast) until he’d already given it, so it is clear that Bernie thought a lot of Jim, even mentioning him very favourably in his Where’s My Guitar autobiography (page 233) which I enjoyed tremendously and can thoroughly recommend (the UFO time was a revelation).
Delighted to receive Bernie’s Working Man double CD yesterday, I am listening to it now, it’s great, and worth the wait. Great to have a coda to his amazing career, and I like that it’s been a grower for me and so could remain in regular rotation like Shine has.
I finally received the double album and what can I say, it’s probably Bernie’s best solo album ever. The music is mature, melodic, exquisitely played, his voice not attempting things it can’t (David Coverdale take note!), the lyrics non-cringy (ditto) plus it has none of the adolescent forcedness when Gary Moore attempted the Blues, Bernie was a natural in every imaginable way. What a loss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0F2ssERUxg
His reimaginings of old Whitesnake chestnuts are great too, tasteful and not heavy-handed like DC’s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3e1mvkNqw4
December 28th, 2023 at 16:06“plus it has none of the adolescent forcedness when Gary Moore attempted the Blues”. Here I Go Again, pun intended. Gary Moore was an intense individual, highly emotional I would say. Look where he hailed from & his upbringing. Adolescent, no just intense at times & the guitar playing & music brought that out in him. There would have been other things he did where it ‘came out’ also at certain times. I see Moore no different than I do Glenn Hughes, intense also, hyper as we know. It is the way it is with certain individuals. Some people are born with a few extra beans under their bonnet, it goes each way & in between also. Thanks for the Bernie Marsden clip Till The Day I Die, very good that is & a nice take on that song indeed. RIP Bernie. Cheers.
December 28th, 2023 at 21:27Regarding certain Gary Moore intense lead solo’s. When I heard his records for the first time in the early 1980’s I remember thinking, where have I heard this highly emotive full on ‘biting’ lead guitar playing before. The next time I was listening to Hendrix Band of Gypsys brought that memory to the fore. Machine Gun & Hendrix’s incredibly intense & brilliant lead guitar on that track. Of course Hendrix wasn’t a ‘shredder’ like Gary which probably does create even more intensity at times, in the 1980’s especially. Did Moore over play at times? Well that would depend on ones ability to absorb his playing or avoid listening to too much at a given time. That is the way I ended up doing it. Then again I have done that with many lead guitarists & lead vocalists over the years. The ears can only take so much especially when you are not in the mood for it. Horses for courses again. Cheers.
December 28th, 2023 at 23:042023 DP family we lost Bernie…
He will never be forgotten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1oITQVV_JM
December 29th, 2023 at 08:07Hendrix was to me very much a light & shade, dynamic player and not a perfectionist. What he played was naturally interesting (if he wasn’t too wasted), Gary was always clamoring for attention with anything he played and if it was just one note.
But the comparison to Glenn as regards intensity is not inapt, maybe that also attracted them to each other as players.
December 29th, 2023 at 14:31@Al, I asked Jim K after a recent gig about the Being Famous/Always on The Road track, and he told me that Bernie had the riff and the opening line but the rest of Always on the Road is Jim’s, and it was a surprise to Jim when Being Famous came out. Jim spoke of songs he worked on with Bernie not always crediting him, however Jim still has the original demos that they wrote together e.g. Savannah.
May 14th, 2024 at 17:40