Some of my articles are on Rock and Roll Central https://clubbohemianews.blogspot.com/2025/12/deep-purple-reviews-by-joe-viglione.html , Rock Journalist Joe Vig and my Substack and Facebook pages. https://substack.com/@joeviglione
The Book of Taliesyn Review by Joe Viglione
Several months after the innovative remake of "You Keep Me Hanging On," England's answer to Vanilla Fudge was this early version of Deep Purple, which featured vocalist Rod Evans, and bassist Nick Simper, along with mainstays Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice. This, their second album, followed on the heels of "Hush," a dynamic arrangement of a Joe South tune, far removed from the flavor of one of his own hits, "Walk a Mile in My Shoes." Four months later, this album's cover of Neil Diamond's Top 25, 1967 gem "Kentucky Woman," went Top 40 for Deep Purple. Also like Vanilla Fudge, the group's own originals were creative, thought-provoking, but not nearly as interesting as their take on cover tunes. Vanilla Fudge did "Eleanor Rigby," and Deep Purple respond by going inside "We Can Work It Out" -- it falls out of nowhere after the progressive rock jam "Exposition," Ritchie Blackmore's leads zipping in between Rod Evans smooth and precise vocals. As Vanilla Fudge was progressively leaning more towards psychedelia, here Deep Purple are the opposite. The boys claim to be inspired by the Bard of King Arthur's court in Camelot, Taliesyn. John Vernon Lord, under the art direction of Les Weisbrich, paints a superb wonderland on the album jacket, equal to the madness of Hieronymous Bosch's cover painting used for the third album. Originals "The Shield" and "Anthem" make early Syd Barrett Pink Floyd appear punk in comparison. Novel sounds are aided by Lord's dominating keyboards, a signature of this group.
Though "The Anthem" is more intriguing than the heavy metal thunder of Machine Head, it is overwhelmed by the majesty of their "River Deep, Mountain High" cover, definitely not the inspiration for the Supremes and Four Tops 1971 hit version. By the time 1972 came around, Deep Purple immersed themselves in dumb lyrics, unforgettable riffs, and a huge presence, much like Black Sabbath. The evolution from progressive to hard rock was complete, but a combination of what they did here -- words that mattered matched by innovative musical passages -- would have been a more pleasing combination. Vanilla Fudge would cut Donovan's "Season of the Witch," Deep Purple followed this album by covering his "Lalena"; both bands abandoned the rewrites their fans found so fascinating. Rod Evans' voice was subtle enough to take "River Deep, Mountain High" to places Ian Gillam might have demolished.
Hush Review by Joe Viglione
Deep Purple's phenomenal version of "Hush", written by country/pop songwriter Joe South, took the Vanilla Fudge style of slowing a song down and bluesing it up another step, venturing into the domain of psychedelic heavy metal. Covered by Kula Shaker in the 1997 film I Know What You Did Last Summer other versions were recorded by Billy Joe Royal, Gotthard , former Ritchie Blackmore lead vocalist Joe Lynn Turner on his 1997 Under Cover album of song interpretations and even John Mellencamp. But once the tune received this rendition's indellible stamp no one could touch it again, not even the songwriter. South's
lyrics are highly suggestive, beyond Van Morrison's "Gloria", straight into Louie, Louie" territory with: "She's got a loving like quicksand... It blew my mind and I'm in so deep/That I can't eat, y'all, and I can't sleep." Or as Aimee Mann sang, hush hush because voices carried this one right by the censors with Jon Lord's quagmire of thick chaotic keyboard sound meshed with Ritchie Blackmore's guitar. Tetragrammaton Records single #1503 went Top 5 in August of 1968, 4:11 as originally released on the Shades Of Deep Purple album, 4:26 on Rhino's 2000 reissue The Very Best Of Deep Purple. Imagine a fuzz box on the organ in a church cathedral to get the intensity of the opening chords, a sound stolen less than two years later by Detroit's Frijid Pink with their rendition of "House Of The Rising Sun". Frijid Pink, however, couldn't get the intense rhythmic nuances of original bassist Nic Simper and drummer Ian Paice, not to mention Rod Evans haunting vocal. "Smoke On The Water" equaled this song's chart position five years later, and might have made a bigger impact, but there's no denying that Deep Purple in its original progressive pop form was a far more dynamic and literate band. "Hush" remains their most cosmic moment, a truly unique blend of converging 60's styles preferable to connoisseurs of stuff that found itself on the Nuggets compilation lp. This track was conspicuous in its absence.
Alice Cooper Easy Action
https://music.apple.com/us/album/under-the-sky-so-blue/1849641075
Woodland Road Band
Star Trek failed to "Seek Out New Life and New Civilizations..." It Was Too Busy Obliterating Them
Joe Viglione's unique thoughts on Star Trek and True Space Exploration
https://www.allmusic.com/song/friends-mt0011354479
Friends Review by Joe Viglione
Atlantic single #2980, "Friends" by Bette Midler, is a different vocal and mix of a magical song which opens and closes side two of the singer's sensational 1972 debut, The Divine Miss M. The first version on the lp is campy with tons of off-the-cuff vocalizing by the soon-to-be superstar. After the first chorus she says touchingly "Standing at the end of the road, Buzz" instead of "boys", a nod to co-songwriter and friend Buzzy Linhart. The second go round on that version she says "Standing at the end of a real long road, Jack." This version is an entirely different take with different musicians save for pianist/rhythm track arranger/co-producer Barry Manilow. It features David Spinozza on guitars, Ron Carter on bass, Ralph MacDonald on percussion with Ray Lucas on drums.
All the vocals are by Bette, and they get quite energetic and wonderfully chaotic.
The single is actually taken from the second version which concludes the album, featuring a new vocal by Miss M. on at least the first half of the 45 rpm where she goes up an octave. It is one of the interesting and cool aspects of the single version. Another important component is arranger, conductor and co-producer Barry Manilow's gorgeous harmony vocals up in the mix(on the album the instrumentation is in front of Barry's voices). It's a stunning production by Ahmet Ertegun, Geoffrey Haslam and Manilow which has a fade nine seconds longer (2:59) than the two minute and fifty-second version that concludes the album. The song hit the Top 40 in November of 1973, the third hit for the singer that year, but it should have been much, much bigger. Barry Manilow covered it on his Bell Records debut, also in 1973, and though Manilow would prove to be an incredible interpreter - how can this be said with respect - his version on Barry Manilow I is absolutely dreadful. Those delicious harmonies he added to the Midler disc are replaced by neo-disco. Just imagine this wonderful tune transformed into some sort of prototype for his 1978 Top 10 hit "Copacabana (At The Copa)". If that combo sounds bad on paper, rest assured the end result is even worse. Barry has 2/3rds of The Harlettes on his version, Gail Kantor and Merle Miller (then girlfriend of co-writer Moogy Klingman ). Laurel Masse is the third backing vocalist on Manilow's version while Melissa Manchester is the original Harlette with Bette and appears on the hit. Steve Gadd plays drums on Barry's rendition, Utopia drummer Kevin Ellman is on the Midler smash while the guitar on both Bette (model 2 and 3) and Barry's is by Dickie Frank with pianos by Sir Barry.
In an interview with AMG 5/08/03 co-writer Linhart noted that the song still hasn't peaked. He listened to all three versions with this writer and we picked out the nuances three decades after it charted. The song appears for a moment in the smash film Shrek, finds its presence in other movies, was used on the Cher farewell television special in March of 2003 - a version with that diva and Lily Tomlin, but is more than just an extraordinary song about people caring about other people. Linhart notes that it hauntingly became a source of consolation after the AIDS epidemic hit. Bette Midler, after all, found her initial fame in the alternative lifestyle environment of The Continental Baths and the line "I had some friends but they're gone" became a tragic reality. Linhart's original version was released in 1971 with the Ten Wheel Drive rhythm section on his The Time To Live Is Now album, re-recorded for the noted vibraphonist's critically acclaimed 1974 release Pussycats Can Go Far. Various early renditions have been issued on both Klingman and Linhart's respective labels in the 2000's. The songwriters composed the tune relatively quickly, and were invited to a Midler performance when she was interested in it becoming her theme song. Friends indeed is synonymous with The Divine Miss M, opening and closing her beautiful 1977 Live At Last double disc, produced by Lew Hahn, the original engineer and re-mixer from the Divine Miss M sessions. The hit single was tracked at Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City and is as timeless a pop tune as could ever be written. That's because like "Happy Birthday", Bobby Hebb's "Sunny" and Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" the song does something so important to gaining classic status - it can move every single human being on the planet, quite simply because - you've got to have friends.
PAT FLORENCE My Church - Studio Vide o
Live at Last Review by Joe Viglione
The double-LP live album phenomenon was utilized in 1973 on Around the World With Three Dog Night to collect loads of hits and release them in another format. Three years later, Bob Seger's Live Bullet, J. Geils Band's Blow Your Face Out, and Frampton Comes Alive solidified the double disc as a way to bring important rock artists to the forefront. Come 1977, the Rolling Stones' Love You Live failed to live up to their single disc Get Your Ya Ya's Out or any of the brilliant bootleg performances of theirs proliferating. In the middle of all this arrives the very strong in-concert artist, Bette Midler, with her fourth album for Atlantic. This undated (probably 1976) performance from the Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH, does a decent job of capturing the magic of Midler. Having a show stretched across four sides was essential for this performer; the brilliance of her rendition of the Supremes' 1970 hit "Up the Ladder to the Roof" takes it out of the Motown context and brings it to Midler's Andrews Sisters world of girl group devotion. Segueing into a driving "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" answers the question asked in the opening medley of her signature tune, "Friends," with Ringo Starr's "Oh My My," Midler being astonished that anyone would ask the question if she can boogie. Another live LP, Divine Madness, was released only three years after this when she was riding her fame from the film The Rose, and that single disc concentrated on the comedienne's song performances ("Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" gets reprised there), while 1985's single disc Mud Will Be Flung Tonight gave the fans her funny bits; thankfully with four sides of music and fun, Live at Last is allowed to run the gamut. With an adult contemporary (dare it be said, Vegas-style) act like Bette Midler, the sad thing is that bootlegs and live tapes don't proliferate. It's a shame, as she has lots to offer on every show, and when you think about it, only one double-live disc in a career this rich and this lengthy is unfair to both the artist and her fans. There are some brilliant moments here; along with "Up the Ladder to the Roof," her version of Johnny Mercer's "I'm Drinking Again" is better than the studio take on her self-titled second disc. "Delta Dawn" is wonderful, as are the up-tempo "Do You Wanna Dance" and John Prine's "Hello in There." Midler performs Neil Young's "Birds," tells raunchy jokes so cliché that they depend upon her brilliant delivery, and has her personality captured in audio form splendidly. There's a very interesting "intermission" which features a Tom Dowd studio production of "You're Moving out Today," a tune written by Bruce Roberts, Midler, and Carole Bayer Sager, who simultaneously released a studio version the same year. It was a neat trick sliding it onto this release. Live at Last has lots to offer and has yet to be appreciated as the pure document that it is. Atlantic should be given a thumbs up for giving their performer the chance to artistically breathe here. A similarly misunderstood Top 40 artist from this era was the Guess Who, and it took 30 years for that group's pivotal 1972 Live at the Paramount album to get the full treatment. Luckily for fans of Midler, she -- and they -- were spared the indignity that may have cost the Guess Who serious FM radio time. Classic stuff exists in the grooves of Live at Last. [The label did release a single-disc promo-only version to radio which contained highlights.]
- Personnel includes: Bette Midler (vocals).
- Personnel: Lou Volpe (guitar); Elizabeth Kane (harp); Jaroslav Jakubovic (reeds); Miles Krasner (trumpet); Richard Trifan, Don York (keyboards); Joseph Mero (vibraphone, percussion); Ira Buddy Williams (drums); Charlotte Crossley, Sharon Redd, Ula Hedwig (background vocals).
- Audio Remixer: Lew Hahn.
- Liner Note Author: Joe Reagoso.
- Recording information: The Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH.
- Photographer: Houghton .
- The double-LP live album phenomenon was utilized in 1973 on Around the World With Three Dog Night to collect loads of hits and release them in another format. Three years later, Bob Seger's Live Bullet, J. Geils Band's Blow Your Face Out, and Frampton Comes Alive solidified the double disc as a way to bring important rock artists to the forefront. Come 1977, the Rolling Stones' Love You Live failed to live up to their single disc Get Your Ya Ya's Out or any of the brilliant bootleg performances of theirs proliferating. In the middle of all this arrives the very strong in-concert artist, Bette Midler, with her fourth album for Atlantic. This undated (probably 1976) performance from the Cleveland Music Hall, Cleveland, OH, does a decent job of capturing the magic of Midler. Having a show stretched across four sides was essential for this performer; the brilliance of her rendition of the Supremes' 1970 hit "Up the Ladder to the Roof" takes it out of the Motown context and brings it to Midler's Andrews Sisters world of girl group devotion. Segueing into a driving "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" answers the question asked in the opening medley of her signature tune, "Friends," with Ringo Starr's "Oh My My," Midler being astonished that anyone would ask the question if she can boogie. Another live LP, Divine Madness, was released only three years after this when she was riding her fame from the film The Rose, and that single disc concentrated on the comedienne's song performances ("Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" gets reprised there), while 1985's single disc Mud Will Be Flung Tonight gave the fans her funny bits; thankfully with four sides of music and fun, Live at Last is allowed to run the gamut. With an adult contemporary (dare it be said, Vegas-style) act like Bette Midler, the sad thing is that bootlegs and live tapes don't proliferate. It's a shame, as she has lots to offer on every show, and when you think about it, only one double-live disc in a career this rich and this lengthy is unfair to both the artist and her fans. There are some brilliant moments here; along with "Up the Ladder to the Roof," her version of Johnny Mercer's "I'm Drinking Again" is better than the studio take on her self-titled second disc. "Delta Dawn" is wonderful, as are the up-tempo "Do You Wanna Dance" and John Prine's "Hello in There." Midler performs Neil Young's "Birds," tells raunchy jokes so clich that they depend upon her brilliant delivery, and has her personality captured in audio form splendidly. There's a very interesting "intermission" which features a Tom Dowd studio production of "You're Moving out Today," a tune written by Bruce Roberts, Midler, and Carole Bayer Sager, who simultaneously released a studio version the same year. It was a neat trick sliding it onto this release. Live at Last has lots to offer and has yet to be appreciated as the pure document that it is. Atlantic should be given a thumbs up for giving their performer the chance to artistically breathe here. A similarly misunderstood Top 40 artist from this era was the Guess Who, and it took 30 years for that group's pivotal 1972 Live at the Paramount album to get the full treatment. Luckily for fans of Midler, she -- and they -- were spared the indignity that may have cost the Guess Who serious FM radio time. Classic stuff exists in the grooves of Live at Last. [The label did release a single-disc promo-only version to radio which contained highlights.] ~ Joe Viglione
https://joeviglione.com/?page_id=113
Joe Viglione: All Music Guide https://bootlegbetty.com/reviews-bette-midler-bette-midler/
“An earthy mix of blues, R&B;, and ’40s boogie-woogie” is how Bill Carpenter describes Bette Midler’s second album, a strangely elaborate transition containing some of the elements which made The Divine Miss M so divine. The album features superb production from her former piano player, Barry Manilow, and the man who would help craft 1979’s disco effort, Thighs and Whispers, Arif Mardin. The result is a solid album without the Top 40 fascinations of “Do You Wanna Dance?,” Buzzy Linhart / Mark “Moogy” Klingman’s “Friends,” or “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” Rather than focus on a hit the way Clive Davis helped Manilow go to number one with “Mandy” in 1974, this big cast concentrates on being artistic, and on that level, Bette Midler works. No, she isn’t Shirley Bassey or Eartha Kitt, but material from Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer, Kurt Weil, and Bertolt Brecht, along with a dash of Bob Dylan, really covers the gamut. Where Midler could excel is with the girl group stuff, touched upon on The Divine Miss M. The medley of “Uptown” and “Da Doo Run Run” is fun, but lacking the satisfying elements Phil Spector jammed into his 45s. Midler really needed to go for it here, an explosive remake of “He’s a Rebel” or “Da Doo Run Run” would have been appropriate for 1973, not something that sounds like it was recorded during a live performance at the Continental Baths. It’s literally a cast of thousands; Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Steve Gadd, and Luther Rix are just some of the drummers and guitarists Cornell Dupree and Hugh McCracken are onboard, as are Kenny Ascher, Don Grolnick, and Barry Manilow on keys, just to name a few. The talent was all lined up, and the music is immaculate, but there is no concentration on returning to the singles charts. “I Shall Be Released” as recorded here is just perfect for an album with a whisper of gospel, but still holds something back. A choir of voices and a production like Melanie Safka’s “Lay Down” would have broken this wide open on radio. It wasn’t until Mardin produced “Married Men” six years later on the Thighs and Whispers album that Midler would return to contemporary radio, and like “Friends,” her hit from 1973, “Married Men” only lingered at the bottom rung of the Top 40 charts. Great vocals, great musicianship, but no focus for radio action. Rita Coolidge took Jackie Wilson’s “Higher & Higher” Top Three in 1977, and Bette Midler ends the album with a marvelous version of that four years before Coolidge. The trouble is, it’s all so artsy. It’s a beautiful record ignoring the need to match the success of her first two singles, and in a world driven by radio, where timing is everything, the question to this day remains — why? There’s an excellent version of Johnny Mercer’s “Drinking Again” which Rod Stewart had cut with the Jeff Beck Group; it’s a song that should have dominated ’70s radio which says, perhaps, the producers were being too careful for this record’s own good.
https://thesomervillenewsweekly.blog/2019/11/18/the-rolling-stones-bridges-to-buenos-aires-by-joe-viglione/
By Joe Viglione
Perhaps a hundred years or so from now viewers will see two old men singing the song “Like a Rolling Stone” and wonder what it is doing on the film Bridges to Buenos Aires? Or maybe like Spinal Tap’s manager – National Lampoon editor Tony Hendra imitating John Lennon on “Magical Misery Tour” proclaiming “I’m a genius! Like Shakespeare and Beethoven and Van Gogh” – the distant future world will see this wonderfully scrambled duet between Mick Jagger and Robert Zimmerman as rock & roll versions of Beethoven and Shakespeare. For Stones and Dylan fans, twenty-one and a half years after the 1998 concert for the 1997 Bridges to Babylon CD, it is sheer magic, a nugget inside a very nice, very nice concert. The release date for this show was November 8, 2019, following up the September 2nd, 1998 German concert, Bridges to Bremen, which was released June 21, 2019.
So to get things organized here, the April 1998 show from Argentina is released in November of 2019 while the September show from Germany was issued earlier in June of this same year, 2019, twenty-one years after it was recorded. The Stones made sloppiness their trademark yet if you watch Bridges to Bremen, the 1990s Stones, as they are today, are inescapably refined. A Vegas show as slick as Cher, Elton John, Rod Stewart of Bette Midler. It has to be, these are different times. But a guest star of the magnitude of Dylan takes all bets off the table. Jagger’s harmonica is delightful and the band plays with a wild abandon (yet still in full Vegas mode) that is everything real rock and rollers want. Or maybe what rock historians want.
The press release writes: “Bridges to Buenos Aires captures the complete show from April 5, 1998, the last date of the band’s five-night sell-out residency at the River Plate Stadium in Argentina’s capital city. Without introduction, Bob Dylan, guitar in hand, joined the band on stage to sing “Like A Rolling Stone” with Jagger.”
You can catch some of the videos on YouTube as well as an informative trailer, and as this chronicler has stated in many a review of these magical artifacts, we want it all to sift through. It’s hard to imagine a hard rock band like Deep Purple having fanatics that revere them the way the expanded underground remains in awe of every drop generated by the Velvet Underground, but it is true. Deep Purple has ascended into a place where a multitude of their followers are obsessed with them. Personally I find their first hit, Joe South’s “Hush,” the Deep Purple worthy of that mantle. The first three Tetragrammaton albums were a British band giving their spin on Shadow Morton’s Vanilla Fudge formula. The Stones, Mick, Keith and Charlie, take the cult devotion to a level that only the Beatles and Dylan can share. Star Wars, Harry Potter, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan – the Velvet Underground enshrined as the hippest of all, millions adoring them against the multi-millions the Beatles, Dylan and Stones enjoy.
Now maybe I’m imagining things but the Bridges to Buenos Aires is just a bit more cutting edge than the German show, Bridges to Bremen, and it is much harder to gauge these days for, as stated, the audience demands the mega concert. And as this musicologist does quite often, I bring you back to the future by keying in on the benchmarks, Oakland 1969 and Madison Square Garden 1969.
Fifty years prior to the release of Bridges to Buenos Aires, November 9, 1969 was the performance(s) of the brilliant Oakland concert(s) that is indelibly pressed into the brains and souls of pure Rolling Stones fans. The bootleg, Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be.
Also recorded in November of 1969 were the concerts in Maryland (Baltimore, Nov 26, 1969) and New York (Madison Sq. Garden, Nov 27, 28, 1969) resulting in Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, released September 4, 1970. The bootleg – as legend has it – forcing out the commercial release.
Now here’s the Bridges to Buenos vs Bridges to Bremen 1999 meets Live’r vs Ya-Ya’s. The Dylan track on Buenos Aires differentiates the two concerts which, of course, have some kind of similarity, a professional touring band out on the road forever is not going to be as experimental as they were in 1969. The band featuring the powerhouse Mick Taylor/Keith Richards duo commanded with authority. Just listen to the July 18, 1972 Boston show that this writer attended, 2nd row: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew_F-RHtGhs
Watch “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” from Buenos Aires. The classics work better than “Saint of Me” or “Flip the Switch,” real majesty in “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” methodical, professional and sublime. Ron Wood, God love him, works well on this, yet hardcore Stones’ fans yearn for Mick Taylor’s counterplay with Keith. Nice to hear Mick sing “to my friend Jimmy,” the great Jimmy Miller, and the cameras are thankfully subdued, the main camera on Mick, fades to Keith and then to the backing chicks. It’s terrific, actually, quite terrific. Ronny’s lead is a different dimension, not Mick Taylor, then suddenly the pace picks up, the greatest rock and roll band in the world being just that.
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” has good energy and Mick dressed for the occasion, including sun glasses. Keith, Ronny and Jagger all moving around with Charlie slamming away. Sure, this isn’t the Bill Wyman/Mick Taylor fantastic five, but this particular rendition is superb, chirping horns, the Vegas band actually playing like they’re at Sir Morgan’s Cove in Worcester again, seeming to throw caution to the wind, as Steely-Dan-precise as they actually are. A reasonable facsimile and worthwhile in a way far removed from the July 18, 1972 Boston show. We’ll call this a sophisticated rocking “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”
There’s so much to like about Bridges to Buenos Aires, the packaging, the sixteen-page booklet, the double CD of the concert and the video. It’s a keeper though, as I’ve stated many times, we’d like to have all the Stones concerts in collectible form, from their first show up to present time. In a perfect world, the vibrations – if you believe the scientists and the mystics – are still floating out there in the universe like the light of stars that have long since evaporated.
One of the first record reviews that I ever wrote
Arlington High School THE CHRONICLE
THIS IS PROBABLY AEROSMITH'S FIRST PROFESSIONAL AUTOGRAPH
OUTSIDE OF HIGH SCHOOLS
I SAW AN UNKNOWN STEVE TYLER AND JOE PERRY AT A HUMBLE PIE
CONCERT AND FELT LIKE ASKING FOR THEIR AUTOGRAPHS....
