SLICE OF THE PIE
It seems he never had a chance to shine as bright as he deserved: Greg Ridley always was in the shade, be it Steve Marriott’s shadow or Luther Grosvenor’s, but if not for Ridley’s bass “Spooky Two” wouldn’t have packed its jaw-breaking impact and HUMBLE PIE wouldn’t have rocked as hard as they did. Now, the mighty rattle has silenced for ever – on November 19th Greg peacefully passed away from pneumonia-related complications. The artist was just 56. The blues world lost another diamond to a great gig in the sky…
KAMEN GONE
Another sad loss is Michael Kamen, one of those precious few who belong to both classical music and rock domains. Kamen had a big heart and he died from heart attack on November 18th, at the age of mere 55, so it’s hard to believe Michael was just 31 years old when he did the orchestral arrangements for PINK FLOYD’s “The Wall”, his most famous work of many. Since then, the master lent his helping hand to a couple more of FLOYD albums, to many artists including Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Bryan Adams: those famous themes for “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and “Don Juan DeMarco” brought Michael, respectively, a Grammy award and Oscar nominations. He wrote music for the “Lethal Weapon” and “Die Hard” movies, and, most recently, was the conductor for the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra when they recorded with METALLICA. He lived for all things music, having established the “Mr. Holland’s Opus” Foundation in 1997 to raise money to make musical instruments available to the children, and will be sorely missed.
ALICE’S NEW ADVENTURE
For an artist widely famous for his stage show, Alice Cooper doesn’t have many full-length concert videos under his belt as well as stage recordings – all the more welcomed is “Brutally Live”, recorded back in 2000 but making it to DVD only now, with a CD version of the Hammersmith Apollo included in the package. In for the nightmare you are!
1. Brutal Planet 2. Gimme 3. Go To Hell 4. Blow Me A Kiss 5. I’m Eighteen 6. Pick Up The Bones 7. Feed My Frankenstein 8. Wicked Young Man 9. Dead Babies 10. Ballad Of Dwight Fry 11. I Love The Dead 12. The Black Widow 13. No More Mr. Nice Guy |
14. It’s Hot Tonight 15. Caught In A Dream 16. It’s the Little Things 17. Poison 18. Take It Like A Woman 19. Only Women Bleed 20. You Drive Me Nervous 21. Under My Wheels 22. School’s Out 23. Billion Dollar Babies 24. My Generation 25. Elected |
PICTURED WITHOUT
Yes, for the first time Jon Lord is to be presented to the DVD watching masses without the band he’s driven to shattering success. “With Pictures” is a documentary filmed in Australia early this year, when the organist took on his first solo tour which saw him playing not only with orchestra but also with his old friend Bob Daisley’s band, THE HOOCHIE COOCHIE MEN. So the treats stored alongside the revelatory interview are many: Lordy jiving around with Jimmy Smith’s Hammond masterpiece, “The Chicken Shack”, rocking with Daisley and going lyrical with DEEP PURPLE’s “When a Blindman Cries” sung by Jimmy Barnes.
BITING ALIVE
In this summer interview with DME, Neil Murray said M3 CLASSIC WHITESNAKE would go to record a live album, which is out now: “Classic ‘Snake Live” can be purchased through www.classicwhitesnake.com. The title needs not more to be said, except for this: there’s over 70 minutes of many titles never played with David Coverdale at the mike. As for the line-up, the core band of Murray, Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody is augmented now with Tony Martin (ex-BLACK SABBATH), Mark Stanway (ex-MAGNUM) and Jimmy Copley (ex-Paul Rodgers band). And here’s a “Volume 1” tag to the album, “Volume 2” featuring out-takes and rare tracks will be out in next year.
1. Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues 2. Don’t Break My Heart Again 3. Lonely Days Lonely Nights 4. Hit An’ Run 5. Ready An’ Willing 6. Ain’t Gonna Cry No More 7. Youngblood 8. Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City 9. Child Of Babylon 10. Here I Go Again 11. Take Me With You |