So this took forever: a weekend full of distractions, then dropped right into a busy work week. Safe to say, this poor blog hasn't held a high priority, but I've made it to the end of August and this is no time to give up on the goal of an album each day, even if some days get bunched together.
In 2006, Ian Gillan celebrated 40 years as a professional musician, from humble origins in Episode Six's debut single, "Put Yourself In My Place" to his more recent solo albums and of course the Steve Morse era of Deep Purple. To commemorate the occasion he brought together a huge heap of guests, most of them former collaborators, to revisit some of his favorite moments.
Probably the closest relative to Gillan's Inn that was reviewed here earlier was Ray Davies's See My Friends. There are some big differences, though. Ray's album was decidedly hits-oriented and all Kinks songs. I think Ian only took on three Deep Purple songs. In fact, Gillan (the band) was more represented even though nobody from that era was around to help except an uncredited Janick Gers. Some of the songs I had never heard before, mainly because they were from solo albums that never got a proper American release. Overall the production is pretty bad, but I don't think the intent here was to produce a slick million-seller; this was a documented party in the studio. As usual, people like to harp on the fact that Ian's voice "isn't what it used to be" but let's compare notes with other vocalists who shred their cords in their 20's and listen to how good they sound at age 61.
This was all brought to life when Ian brought his house band to the House of Blues in Anaheim, a show I attended, and was recorded for posterity. The camera swept over my head quite a bit, so we were pretty sure some kind of live document was being made. The tour was highlighted with guest appearances throughout, from Lars Ulrich in San Francisco to Ronnie James Dio in Los Angeles and Roger Glover in New York. Our guest was a familiar face at most Southern California Deep Purple shows, Michael Bradford, producer of two of their albums. He isn't exactly as well known as the others, but he did a bang up job contributing to "Smoke on the Water", a staple of any show featuring Ian Gillan, Purple or otherwise.
Opening track of the show - I saw myself way down at the bottom of the screen at 0:20!
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