The Last Bass Outpost
Main Forums => The Outpost Cafe => Topic started by: uwe on March 26, 2014, 10:44:35 AM
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... which will undoubtedly go nowhere as I've given up hope he'll ever again do something with longevity again. Whether this neo-AC/DCish power trio is the way of the future for him ... ??? Yeah, he can still do the screaming, but maybe that doesn't mean he still has to as a man his age and rock legend stature. The composition is right down to the harmonies in the chorus in the standard mold of Glenn fare in the more recent years. Won't shake the world.
Health warning: Vid contains women stirring. Or the other way around, stirring women. Dumb, but at least without charm. Oh, and in case you won't notice, Glenn endorses Orange amps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vUay-lOjFk
I find this overtly "rawk!!!" approach Glenn has taken for, well, mostly commercial reasons in the last decade labored, even stilted. We all know where his heart truly lies and he just sounds more himself (or some people might say: like Stevie Wonder!) doing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Cb6bhMZPw
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Yep...pretty predictable Hughes. I love what he does, but he's lost the art of subtlety. Nice riffs, solid song. Just like the last 100 or so from him. There were some nice moments in Black Country Communion, and I liked this one with Chad Smith and Dave Navarro behind him earlier. I tried one of those Manne basses, and found it REALLY thin and metallic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkOPuCZwzsY
Too bad he doesn't do a little more of this...it's even a little Prince-like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwQX_I-qPCE
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We all know where his heart truly lies and he just sounds more himself (or some people might say: like Stevie Wonder!) doing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3Cb6bhMZPw
I thought I was the only one who likes "Play Me Out"! Was a bit of a shock when I first heard it back in 1991 (I was 16) but got used to it pretty quickly. When I bought the classic Stevie Wonder albums a bit later it all made sense along with "This Time Around".:)
My copy is a double vinyl with the "Four On The Floor" session from 1979 featuring Glenn on vocals doing disco versions of songs like "Gypsy Woman", "There Goes My Baby" and a medley of Stones songs. Al Kooper, Jeff Baxter, Neil Stubenhaus, Paulinho Da Costa and other luminaries. The recordings were just a warm up but the proposed band (The Hollywood Horns) folded and some label put them out. Glenn didn't want to be credited and the album remained a secret to most of his fans until Conoisseur released it with informative sleeve notes by Simon Robinson. Period disco made just for fun but Glenn's vocals are astounding.
One of my favs from "Play Me Out" is the most funky track where Glenn tries maybe a bit too much on the vocal department but the band grooves like hell for a white rock guys from UK.:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABr3v6mKdKc
(OK, Mel and Dave weren't strangers to funk with Trapeze and Pat Travers was from Canada)
Haven't noticed it before but doesn't Glenn look a bit like Tommy Bolin on that album cover?
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You could say so, a bit...
Loved his voice with Trapeze... one of my faves was...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y__aFxGpxcI
... and here's a BBC broadcast circa '73...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLSzEi02cmM
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"Coast to Coast" was named the fan favorite on Hughes' website a few years back. He rerecorded it with Hughes/Thrall.
The song that hooked me on him with Trapeze was this one. I was also a big fan of Hughes/Thrall. Still waiting for Hughes/Thrall II.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih-LmMjY3co
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Thrall is much the better guitarist but Galley's solo motif just fits so well... rip, Mel...
Hughes/Thrall is probably his best all-round work, imho and HTII might just be a disappointment now...
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HTII was dumped as a project a few years ago - Glenn said as much on his website - because Glenn lost patience with Thrall's studio perfectionism (of course, exactly that perfectionism coupled with Hughes' more impulsive nature made the first HT collaboration so great, but consistency in career outlook was never high on Glenn's agenda).
The HT album is of course an AOR classic. From his Trapeze days, I like those two best:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85gcjXQc2ok&list=PL8a8cutYP7fqEbV0ubz7_1_ZDAiSVbp2s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHDcknNuIOs&list=PL8a8cutYP7fqEbV0ubz7_1_ZDAiSVbp2s
If you want to be nasty, you could describe both tracks as limp blue-eyed soul, but I just feel that he does this stuff best and most sincerely. I remember when Play me Out came out in 1977 to a confounded audience: those who knew him from DP were shattered about the radical style change; those who would have liked his new music would have never picked up an album from an ex-DP member and of course didn't. A magazine that had never anything but derision for anything related to DP in any shape or form reviewed it favorably along the lines of "yes, this album is incongruous, a guy who filled stadiums playing white boy metal wants to rediscover himself as Stevie Wonder, but he does it with so much feel, sincerity and heart-felt love for black music, you cannot help but be impressed if that type of music does anything for you".
And this here is sooooo cute and hilarious, Trapeze's first (nicely melodic, but in 1970 quaintly old-fashioned sounding) single, when they were still a Moody Blues overawed 5-piece with a pop lead singer, yet Glenn's "backing" voice enters at 0:58 and totally upstages the lead singer within seconds. :mrgreen: He didn't last long.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxLSVhC9x_Y&list=PL8a8cutYP7fqEbV0ubz7_1_ZDAiSVbp2s
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Hughes/Thrall was a bit disappointment as it didn't turn out to be a funk rock album at all (I recall seeing it advertised as such in a Metal Hammer article) and some of the tracks are too AOR for my liking but it has some great moments. "The First Step Of Love" is probably the favourite from it.
Does Glenn play a fretless bass on it? Does a lot palm muting on it too.
Hughes/Moore/Nauseef version of G-Force could have been a killer but didn't happen unfortunately.
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It was very much of its time, but the songwriting was top notch quality and has stood the test of time. After the commercial disaster of Play Me Out no one let him do what he does best. Same happened to the Feel album many years later - that bombed too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9xWpCeSrJw
Yet at the same time people go crazy about Michael Bolton!
I've never seen Glenn handle a fretless bass - neither live nor in the studio. Nor that he claimed to have ever laid hands on one. Generally, his penchant for percussive and snappy playing wouldn't be well-served with a toothless one and he is very much an intuitive, impatient player, can't really imagine him "exploring" a fretless. That said, he's a multi-instrumentalist, I'm sure he could coax something good out of a fretless. He does palm-mute like hell, I've seen him play live up close.
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Ooh... G Force... forgot all about them... saw them at the Marquee club, iirc... might even have some pics somewhere... they were pretty good...
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I love Feel. I think it has a nice balance to it. One thing Hughes does that is REALLY irritating, as in Uwe's link above, is those over the top vocal intros. It's like he's drawing a line in the sand before the song ever takes shape.
I feel compelled to post my favorite Hughes/Thrall. Just because. 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb1PwVqNKWQ
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I've never seen Glenn handle a fretless bass - neither live nor in the studio. Nor that he claimed to have ever laid hands on one. Generally, his penchant for percussive and snappy playing wouldn't be well-served with a toothless one and he is very much an intuitive, impatient player, can't really imagine him "exploring" a fretless. That said, he's a multi-instrumentalist, I'm sure he could coax something good out of a fretless. He does palm-mute like hell, I've seen him play live up close.
There was this interview somewhere where he talks about the band (G-Force) and getting cold feet and quitting on his birthday etc. There he said he was playing a fretless bass. I'll try to find it.
It seems Glenn was also about to form a group with Narada Michael Walden and Ray Gomez at that time. Another wasted opportunity.
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So Gary Moore and myself put a band together and we got a
drummer named Mark Nauseef and we started.. he started, a lot of the songs were
Gary's of course. A trio and it was very, very, very good. Nothing could...
There's some things stuff on tape but it can be very hard to find. I was
singing 60%, he was singing 40% and I was playing the fretless bass and it was
very, very cool. But because of my inability to cope with the situation... It
was probably the first thing since Purple after three years of being... let's
just call it... at home sitting on the couch drinking beer. I wasn't capable
of dealing with what I would consider to be a successful band. So I fired
myself on my birthday
http://www.glennhughes.com/ctc/issues/ctc_021.pdf (http://www.glennhughes.com/ctc/issues/ctc_021.pdf)
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You live and learn, danke. I have a Glenn Hughes boot somewhere which features one demo from that aborted project - it sounded kick ass with a very funky slap bass (Hughes can slap, but funnily enough given his love for all of black music rarely does it).
Moore always tried to emulate Hughes Thrall, the whole Run for Cover album is basically a tribute to Hughes Thrall as was the G-Force album with ex-Captain Beyond Willy Daffern (Willie Dee was a silly alias) on vocals before. That said, Moore as a person was probably like his guitar playing, constantly clamoring attention and everything/every note is equally important and has to be just right. His record of playing with equals isn't great either. He drove an excellent bassist like Neil Murray nuts by telling him what to play. And he did the same thing with Ginger Baker in BBM. Now, granted, Baker is difficult, erratic and a chore, but one thing you do not have to do is tell him is how to play the drums. Even on the Run for Cover sessions, Moore was so insistent with how he wanted the bass parts (root note in eights and no slides of course), Glenn gave up at a certain point and just handed Moore the bass to do it himself.
I'll never forget how on the later Wild Frontier sessions, Moore preferred a drum machine in the end to a human drummer because he had become such an accuracy obsessive - and that ousted drummer was the guy from Hughes Thrall. :rolleyes:
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You live and learn, danke. I have a Glenn Hughes boot somewhere which features one demo from that aborted project - it sounded kick ass with a very funky slap bass (Hughes can slap, but funnily enough given his love for all of black music rarely does it).
Moore always tried to emulate Hughes Thrall, the whole Run for Cover album is basically a tribute to Hughes Thrall as was the G-Force album with ex-Captain Beyond Willy Daffern (Willie Dee was a silly alias) on vocals before. That said, Moore as a person was probably like his guitar playing, constantly clamoring attention and everything/every note is equally important and has to be just right. His record of playing with equals isn't great either. He drove an excellent bassist like Neil Murray nuts by telling him what to play. And he did the same thing with Ginger Baker in BBM. Now, granted, Baker is difficult, erratic and a chore, but one thing you do not have to do is tell him is how to play the drums. Even on the Run for Cover sessions, Moore was so insistent with how he wanted the bass parts (root note in eights and no slides of course), Glenn gave up at a certain point and just handed Moore the bass to do it himself.
I'll never forget how on the later Wild Frontier sessions, Moore preferred a drum machine in the end to a human drummer because he had become such an accuracy obsessive - and that ousted drummer was the guy from Hughes Thrall. :rolleyes:
Frank Banali?
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The other one: Gary Ferguson.
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The other one: Gary Ferguson.
Gary Mallaber played also on the album. Tommy Aldridge played on tour but also they used the excellent and now sadly deceased Mark Craney who played with Jethro Tull ("A"), Gino Vanelli and Jean Luc-Ponty amongst others.
(http://www.hughesthrall.com/media/pics/75860025.jpg)
Would love to hear the G-Force demos. Glenn also slapped on one of the extra tracks on a "Play Me Out" reissue cd (either RPM or Purple Records edition), sounded like a Fender Jazz.
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Hughes is my guy. I've been waving his freak flag since I was a scruffy lad all of 15 years of age. He always gets blasted (unfairly I think) for the DP Mk3 & 4 years. Obviously his penchant for Peruvian marching powder was a problem, but I still say Stormbringer & CTTB are among the finest Purple records. I think he still sounds great....much better than most of his contemporaries. I'm sure the decade+ break he took form live performing helped preserve his pipes.
I too would love to hear him return to the blue eyed soul of Play Me Out, or even You Are The Music-era Trapeze. Sometime I feel he just goes after the quick buck, or aligns himself with the wrong musicians. Though I thought he was on a strong run beginning with Soul Mover for the next coupla records. I did enjoy BCC, but they really could have made one solid record out of all three of those. Plus Bonamassa is not really a band kinda guy.
I've met Glenn several times (both before and after he was sober) and he has always been extremely gracious and accommodating. And he always puts on a good show, even if there are adverse factors weighing in. (The 2001 Tommy Bolin Fest comes to mind. I will say that all 12 of us in the audience quite enjoyed our evening in Clear Lake Iowa.)
I certainly hope that the rest of California Breed is stronger than this lead off track (and a pretty weak moniker to be honest) but as always, I will buy the overpriced import on release date & anxiously await another one of his empty promises of a US tour!
Glenn is my god.
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but I still say Stormbringer & CTTB are among the finest Purple records.
Those are my favs too. "Hold On" is such an underrated track with a great solo by Blackmore (even if he didn't like the song at all) and "Love Don't Mean A Thing" has a very tasty bassline by Glenn. Tasty is also a word for both Hughes' and Coverdale's vocals on those albums, too bad that went pretty much out the door when performing live.
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Those are my favs too. "Hold On" is such an underrated track with a great solo by Blackmore (even if he didn't like the song at all) and "Love Don't Mean A Thing" has a very tasty bassline by Glenn. Tasty is also a word for both Hughes' and Coverdale's vocals on those albums, too bad that went pretty much out the door when performing live.
Oh, those are two of my all time favorite songs. Yes, any hints of subtlety seemed to go out the window during the great cocaine volume wars of the mid 70s. I've never been a big Coverdale fan though, they played off each other nicely in the studio but mostly I just think he got in the way. (ducks)
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Not seen him play since the last DP London show, but I rarely see anyone these days... CCTB is still a fave and is presently on my ipod, as is HT...
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We can start an Mk 3 and 4 fan club here then! I think Stormbringer is underrated and while it doesn't have the instrumental brawn of Burn, it has in parts the more refined songwriting. And Come Taste the Band is just brilliant - I liked the way Bolin "Americanized" the whole groove of the band.
Glenn's pipes are great (as is his edgy bass playing) and they've held up well, I just - like Blackmore in fact - never felt that his voice had the bluesy hard rock authority, warmth and volume a young David Coverdale had. When their twin lead vocals did not work as well live that was more often than not Glenn's fault whose cocaine consumption led him to be off pitch by singing a little too high. In his bio he says that that was an effect of cocaine, he did not hear in his head that he was off key.
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I heart you Uwe! I'd love to join your Mk3/4 club.
I know this is blasphemy, but while some of Purple's finest moments are contained in the grooves of the Burn LP, there are some real clunkers on the record too!
I feel that DCs range is very limited, and let's not forget how young and inexperienced he was at that time. A relative unknown thrust on the largest of world stages. I think his one trick pony of a voice, up there sparring with the dynamo that is Hughes (admittedly with some chemical enhancement), coupled with the ridiculous, ridiculous volumes that they were playing at....poor DC didn't really stand much of a chance.
But yes, as much of a fan boy I am of GH & DP, there are times that I just cringe at some of those live recordings. Herr Blackmore occasionally goes off the deep end too.
Though I in no way claim to be in the same league as you, they are my all time favorite band. And also because I'm such a Hughes toadie, the 73-75 years hold a special place in my heart.
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Glenn and an unknown singer (former school teacher and current airline pilot or something, obsessed with numerology 666 and a best friend named Eddie with severe skin issues ...) tributing Mk 3 (Burn) and Mk 4 (You Keep On Moving & This Time Around) material at the Jon Lord Memorial Concert at Royal Albert Hall last Friday (I was there). Other luminaries in the band are Rick Wakeman, Don Airey, Micky Moody and Ian Paice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnTSMNEmaj8
Glenn being Glenn, he split the audience right down the middle between those who loved his flamboyance and those who thought he overplayed and oversang. Overplaying and oversinging?! Who, Glenn?! That is what the man has been doing ever since he joined Les Purps in 1973, so no news there. :mrgreen:
More importantly, I believe Jon Lord would have approved of the musicianship and coupled it with a wry smile on Glenn's antics, "he just never changes".
(http://i.imgur.com/1W3vZjq.jpg)
"I know this is blasphemy, but while some of Purple's finest moments are contained in the grooves of the Burn LP, there are some real clunkers on the record too!"
Not blasphemy, but an accurate and perceptive observation! The incredibly strong songs on Burn are the title track, Might Just Take Your Life, Sail Away (best song on album) followed by Mistreated (live versions of it were better, it was still a little underdeveloped on Burn) and the at least interesting, if not quite successful Cream pastiche You Fool No One. A 200, What's Going On Here and Lay Down, Stay Down (except for the marvellous piano solo) are a bit fillerish, I agree. It's just that the real good stuff is so strong, it elevates the whole album in my ears. But overall the songwriting is more consistent and refined on Stormbringer.
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Burn and Fireball have always been my favorite two Deep Purple albums.
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Fireball is the "proggie one" in the Purple canon. And Gillan's favorite. Where In Rock was basically a one trick pony played with great aplomb and conviction - a bold statement in a newly found sound without the undecisiveness that had plagued the Mk 1 line up - and Machine Head already a well-honed, shiny delivery by pros at the top of their game, Fireball saw them stretching out (or ambling around for lack of enough written songs due to constant touring and an ill Ritchie not being fit enough to come up with his trademark killer riffs!).
Not their greatest seller nor the home of a hit (the US version had Strange Kind of Woman on it, that wasn't the case in Europe, SKOW was a separate prior single there, Fireball, the song, otoh never charted), it sure has its diehard fans, you are in good company!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXizI5Q3L8U
The following one is very nice here, relaxed and jammy, for all those - wherever they might be lurking - who believe that Purple was just this stadium conquering hard rock juggernaut:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5WVqZqw1Es
Oh man, back then they still all liked each other! :o
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Another song from the new project, this time more Trapeze'ish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF_pm7mLqXs
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I heard California Breed earlier today on Planet Rock... good tune...
I enjoyed #4 live but the audience at Wembley just were not receptive to Bolin, which was a real shame ... admittedly, noodling around on an echoplex for a stand-alone solo did not endear him to the RB brigade... :rolleyes:
I remember exactly where I was when the news of his death came over the radio ... rip
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqAqWuo66YU
This one, I remember first hearing on the radio on my way home from Scotland, way back when... still love this version...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXyjp-h0OQE
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Glenn at his loudmouth overselling best, but his pipes are still in good order:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCz34DX40l8
Black Country Reunion/Communion are to record a fourth album too amd maybe - just maybe, don't hold your breath! - Hughes Thrall II might get finished, it's only been half-finished in the can for a couple of decades so let's not rush things.
Oh, and Glenn has friends with famous daughters too and lends them a hand (together with Bryan Adams) on new songs (for the non-Cyrusses among you, Glenn is most audible from 3:30 onwards), he supposedly also plays bass on the track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2grLXJqE6U
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Glenn and Joe, having overcome differences (for now), are playing with each other again ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNFmtxlLU4w&list=RDKNFmtxlLU4w#t=216