Hey, Uwe!

[gweimer]

I came across this.  Doug Pinnick was once offered Deep Purple?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btpu65kLSKw&feature=youtu.be

[uwe]

Danke, I had no idea, but it makes sense if you remember how he wanted to play with Phil Lynott too following DP Mk II. Blackers is sometimes accused of disliking black people, but aside from his love for Hendrix he has always had a penchant for black or black-sounding voices (Rodgers, Lawton, Hughes, Coverdale), he just doesn't like funk.

King's X - the band that never really was despite all (well-founded) high hopes for them and high acclaim by fellow musicians (often a death warrant to any career!). There is no justice in the rock world. Bands with black players that do not subscribe to either the RnB or Blues formula seem to be jinxed, just look at what happened (or did not happen) to Living Color, Mothers Finest



or him.



I'm not sure whether Pinnick would have had the range a DP singer generally needs to have, but it sure would have been interesting. Most DP diehards hate the early nineties phase of the band without Gillan when Joelene stepped in (this must have been the time D(o)ug P had the job offer), but I'm not among them,



I liked the album they did and I saw them at Hammersmith. If you make allowances for Turner's ham-fisted stage raps (ouch!), then it was one of the musically most satisfying DP concerts I've seen (and I've seen something like 30-40).

[Basvarken]

I like Kings X a lot! Amazing band.
Seen them live.
Pinnick had eight Ampeg SVT fridges on a medium size stage in a venue that can hold about 350 people.
They were LOUD. And excellent.

Don't think Doug Pinnick would've fitted in Deep Purple though.

[uwe]

Purple's inherent ability to amalgamate seemingly unlikely choices of band members is underestimated, that is definitely one of their fortes as a band (the other one being the ability to improvise). They replaced a 60ies crooner like Rod Evans with a screamer like Ian Gillan and Ian Gillan with a rhythm & blues singer named David Coverdale who had never owned a DP album in his life. They went from a steady rock bassist like Roger Glover to a funkster like Glenn Hughes who didn't like anything Mk II had done. Anybody having said in 1970 that the whiz kid from Zephyr called Tommy Bolin would be intonating Smoke on the Water with them five years later would have been declared mad, he had heard two songs of DP when he auditoned: Hush and Smoke on the Water. And if you would have given me the prognosis in the early eighties that this jazz-rock kid from the Dixie Dregs called Steve Morse (who only played instrumentals) would one day see his 20th year as lead guitarist of DP (eclipsing all tenures Blackmore had with the band in various incarnations) I wouild have laughed in your face.  

Whether the fans would have accepted Doug Pinnick (I give any DP line up the benefit of doubt) or how comfortable he would have been singing Highway Star is another matter, but every first album DP have made with a (sometimes even radically) changed line-up has been a good one (In Rock, Burn, Come Taste the band, Slaves & Masters, Purpendicular, Bananas). I'm sure Herr Pinnick would have been good for at least one remarkable album and tour.

But then I'm the guy who likes Black Sabbath' Born Again as a valiant effort at something else too!

[LoEndMaestro]

I like Born Again AND Seventh Star!

[uwe]

And both were intended to be non-Sabbath albums until the record company had a say. I thought Seventh Star was basically a Ronnie James Sabbath album without Dio at the vocals, it didn't tread new ground. Born Again was dark, distant and disturbing. Otherworldly and frenzied, like Gillan singing in his own nightmare.



(Notice the cameo appearance of our Führer and of course - he did like them, you know - a dog.)

To this day I believe that its influence on all the modern metal variations that followed it is underestimated. In comparison, Seventh Star is just some good tunes and riffs with Glenn Hughes giving his best and suppressing his inherent funkiness. I did love though the way he started this in a lower register for once (we all know he can sing hiiiiiiigh).



(No Führer, alas!, but still a dog.)

[gweimer]

Seventh Star was solid, but not really the Sabbath stamp, I agree.  It actually showed the blues roots behind the early band.  Funny comment in this one -  It could be called "Elf Testicles" and it would still be a good album,haha!?




And Uwe and I agree about Born Again being brutally oppressive.

[Highlander]

Agreed, and witnessed...