Rest In Peace Craig Gruber

[Basvarken]

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/original-rainbow-bassist-craig-gruber-dies-after-battle-with-prostate-cancer/


At age 63. Way too young
RIP Craig Gruber


https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=20&v=d6prX1RVjW8

[TBird1958]

 That's way too soon - esp. as this often a treatable cancer.

I am fortunate enough to have seen Messers. Gruber and Dio play with Elf, opening for D.P.

Rest in Peace Craig.

[uwe]

Shucks, in feel, rhythmic intricacy and melody his bass playing on the debut of Rainbow was head and shoulders above anything later bassists did with that band - and that includes real good players such as Bob Daisley (who didn't dare come out much on his own during his short stint) and Roger Glover (who saw himself more as a producer and songwriter than a bass player when with Rainbow, he would "fill what room the others left me at the end of recordings"). I was never much of a fan of Jimmy Bain's (Gruber's immediate replacement) punkish trashing of his Telecaster bass. He grew with Dio (the band) though.

The only Elves alive these days are Feinstein, Edwards (his replacement after the Elf debut album) and Mickey Lee Soule who retired as Roger Glover's bass tech and from life on the road generally (he was initially Jon Lord's keyboard tech after a career outside of music, but the lure of the road brought him back to the Purple camp in the 90ies) only comparatively recently. And Mark Nauseef of course, if you count him in.

[Highlander]

Same thing took my paternal granddad... rip Mr G

[gearHed289]

Shucks, in feel, rhythmic intricacy and melody his bass playing on the debut of Rainbow was head and shoulders above anything later bassists did with that band - and that includes real good players such as Bob Daisley (who didn't dare come out much on his own during his short stint) and Roger Glover (who saw himself more as a producer and songwriter than a bass player when with Rainbow, he would "fill what room the others left me at the end of recordings"). I was never much of a fan of Jimmy Bain's (Gruber's immediate replacement) punkish trashing of his Telecaster bass. He grew with Dio (the band) though.

Agreed. I hadn't listened to that first album in forever until I read the news yesterday. Lots of cool stuff going on in the bass. Which explains his dismissal from the band.  Obviously Daisley and Glover are great, and I grew to like Jimmy Bain too, but they wisely played it safe for the most part.

[Hörnisse]

I remember buying that LP in 1976, a year after it was released.  I was always intrigued by the shot of him playing the 3 pickup Thunderbird bass inside the gatefold.

[uwe]

Agreed. I hadn't listened to that first album in forever until I read the news yesterday. Lots of cool stuff going on in the bass. Which explains his dismissal from the band.  Obviously Daisley and Glover are great, and I grew to like Jimmy Bain too, but they wisely played it safe for the most part.

I remember reading an interview where he said he handed in his papers himself when drummer Gary Driscoll, with a groove that Gruber very much liked, was dismissed (allegedly for "not keeping time") in favour of the machine-like Cozy Powell. Powell (Gruber: "They wanted a name English drummer in the band.") was a one-of-a-kind drummer (though very heavy-handed and always speeding up in my ears), but he beat any bass player into submission, Gruber's nuanced playing wouldn't have stood a chance when Cozy battered his Yamaha fortress. Bain's forte was that he had a crass, nasty sound and attack which got itself heard at least to some extent besides Cozy. I also wouldn't rule out that always image-conscious Blackmore didn't want a blond guy in his dark-and-doomy-by-design new outfit Rainbow.

Plus, in the end, all players of Elf - Driscoll, Soule and Gruber (and I like them all) - had a very sweet American groove to their playing (bit Southern, bit West Coast), not that heads-down, four-on-the-floor, utter commitment, almost Teutonic playing that made Rainbow sound like they did on the follow-up Rising. Blackmore came once bitten, twice shy from the Glenn Hughes experience, a man who sometimes needed to be reminded that he was playing with a white hard rock band, not Earth, Wind & Fire or War (as Ian Paice once noted), so he had no taste for musical experiments.

[Highlander]

I was given the LP as a Xmas prezzie in '75 and still have it... even tracked the single down but passed that on to a more worthy collector... it was either that or turn it into a clock... tricky to locate as it's credited to Ritchie Blackmore and not Rainbow...

I still find it quite hard to believe that that was now about forty years ago

[uwe]

I remember getting the album after I had been disappointed with DP's swansong Come Taste the Band a few weeks before  - I heard the Man on the Silver Mountain riff and there was that familiar DP riffage excitement sending shivers up my spine again.

But things change over time. Today, Come Taste the Band is one of my favourite DP albums (the Kevin Shirley remix is grand!) and the murky and indirect production of Rainbow's debut hasn't aged very well. That album is really in dire need of not only a remaster, but a complete remix. Among the worst Martin Birch production jobs ever; funny, as he was generally a good producer/engineer if no Bob Ezrin.

But there are some excellent songs on it, Man on the Silver Mountain (contains more chords in one song than most other hard rock albums in sum, yet sounds natural and organic), Temple of the King (lovely) and Catch the Rainbow (Hendrix' Little Wing has never been purloined with more respect). Or the 6/8 Self Portrait (rare for Ritchie to use a non-conventional meter like that) plus the Uriah Heep's Gypsy rip-off of 16th Century Greensleeves. Even the DP bone of contention Black Sheep of the Family is good. In the end, the only redundant track is the Yardbirds cover Still I'm Sad (I never liked the Yardbirds version either).

 I continue to prefer the debut over the overrated Rising, which was more a statement in newfound sound than a collection of good songs, Tarrot Woman, Starstruck and Stargazer (though that kind of overstays its welcome, one good idea endlessly trodded out) being the exceptions.

And thanks for that single to the "worthy collector", Ken!!!

[Highlander]

Bitte schön

[Pekka]

Uriah Heep's Gypsy rip-off of 16th Century Greensleeves.

Ha! There's indeed some similarities but I guess I never noticed 'cause "16th Century Greenslavees" is a much better song.

I continue to prefer the debut over the overrated Rising, which was more a statement in newfound sound than a collection of good songs, Tarrot Woman, Starstruck and Stargazer (though that kind of overstays its welcome, one good idea endlessly trodded out) being the exceptions.

Me too and I could leave out "Starstruck" if needed.

Gruber had a great sound on the first album not to mention his basslines. Bain did a good job copying the "Greensleeves" bassline for the liveversion.
The three pickup non-reverse had actually four pickups. Not sure if he used them all on the album:

[uwe]

LOL, I see it now, he stuck in a Jazz as well! And is that a mudbucker up front?

That could very well be a TBird on the first album, it sure doesn't sound like a Fender.

Purple's and Heep's paths crossed so many times as they were busily touring Europe in the first half of the 70ies, I'm sure they rubbed off musically on each other. And they shared a rehearsal rooms rental place in 1969 prior to the recording of Heep's first album (which contained Gypsy) and Purple's In Rock, their respective rehearsal places were side by side. Glover would later complain that "Uriah Heep started to sound more like us every time we went there", so Ritchie might have taken revenge. He has a good ear and things stick in his memory and gestate before he turns them into something of his own. He must have heard Heep thrashing out Gypsy then and the riff for 16th Century Greensleeves was played by him as early as the Rome sessions of Mk II for Who Do We Think We Are in 72/73. When Glover wanted to turn it into a Purple song, Blackmore - ever helpfully - refused and said "No, I'm keeping that for my solo album." He was then coaxed back into Purple by management and it took another two years of Mk III before he recorded the Rainbow debut.

[hieronymous]

I never knew much about Craig Gruber - I loved his playing on that Rainbow album but that was early on in my listening and way before the internet so I never really dug around, never knew the Elf connection until recently. Had no idea about the Black Sabbath/Heaven & Hell album connection either.

[godofthunder]

 His white multi pickup NR Thunderbird sat in the House of Guitars used display case for years. My first NR was siting right next to it when I bought it. I spoke with Craigs brother a while back and he as well as Bruce at the HOG confirmed it. I wish I had bought it then, I keep waiting for it to turn up again. R.I.P. Craig.

[uwe]

There he is - with Gary Moore and Ian Paice in 1984, I saw him on that tour. At 24:23 he plays Mo Foster's bass solo in Empty Rooms tastefully. He played a lot more simplistic with Moore than with Elf or Rainbow because that is what Moore required (same thing happened to Neil Murray and Bob Daisley). It took Moore until the formation of BBM (and his playing there with Jack Bruce) to realize that a bass is more than the E string of his guitar tuned one octave lower.



As always: Gary Moore's vocals are an acquired taste. God gave him a guitar so he wouldn't sing.