David Coverdale ~ Into The Light (album review) ... Find here music for your break-up or wedding!

Style: hard rock
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 2000
Home: n/a

Members: David Coverdale ~ vocals/guitar
Doug Bossi ~ guitar/b. vocals
Earl Slick ~ guitar
Marco Mendoza ~ bass/acoustic guitar/b. vocals
Denny Carmassi ~ drums
Mike Finnigan ~ keyboards

Additional: Derek Hilland ~ keyboards
John X. Volaitis ~ keyboards/percussion/b. vocals
Dylan Vaughan ~ guitar
Bjorn Thorsud ~ tambourine
James Sitterly ~ strings

Linda Rowberry ~ vocals

Guests: Reeves Gabrels ~ guitar solo
Tony Franklin ~ bass
Jimmy Z ~ harmonica


While many of us turn to Whitesnake for the 80's hard rock band with more love ballads than any band should be successfully known for, it really is all about former Deep Purple frontman turned bit of sex icon DC. Whitesnake might have had some top notch players in its ranks, but it essentially all comes down to the vocals. It's the vocals & memorable lyrics that forms the glue that keeps the Whitesnake machine ticking through line-up changes & musical trends & ups & downs. On his first solo album in a couple decades, actually his third solo album but the others pre-date his time in Deep Purple, DC reminds us of the fact that the secret of Whitesnake is his voice, its particular nuances, the mood he sets as a composer & the lyrics. This is a vocalist's album, more so than any Whitesnake album before or after. The guitars are still there as always, the riffs still heavy & bluesy, the crescendos still cascading as always, but the spotlight here is on the vocals with more ballads than normal or at least the album feels much slower & low-key & less in your face than anything DC had or has put out under the Whitesnake name. That might really be the only difference here, the slower more low-key feeling of the album on the whole. What's interesting about DC's approach here is that it doesn't sound like the bluesy 70's Whitesnake nor the overly polished MTV hit sensation Whitesnake, but an older more mature DC whose performing as much as for himself as for any chart success, if he even has any expectations of chart success at this point in his career. Yet, at the same time it draws more on the blues of the early days than DC has in years, while keeping in all the guitar flourishes that helped make Whitesnake distinctively popular. This album arrived following the dissolution of Whitesnake & the subsequent successful but short-term Coverdale/Page outing & a couple attempts to take a break from the music business. The reunited Whitesnake's Restless Heart was meant to be a solo album, with it's tour dubbed as the band's swan song. Thus, this solo album proper is DC coming out of seclusion yet again & trying to find himself & doing it on his terms not on Whitesnake terms, if such a thing is possible considering its his band & he's the only constant member. Thus it straddles all the facets of his career, yet at the same time doesn't & is its own creature. It's almost the perfect transitional album. It really does sound like a solo album & not just a Whitesnake album under a different name. Though, it doesn't push DC like Coverdale/Page did, yet doesn't try to duplicate what he's done before. It's a modest album where he just sings & has more fun than he might have had in years ... even with a new short haircut with his naturally dark hair returning for the first time in decades versus the long blond he became famous for, while his dress goes from slick 80's jackets to living room jeans. This is DC unplugged & relaxed & might be one of the most forgotten & under-rated albums of DC's career. It doesn't exactly provide a bridge between things as just shows a different rarely seen softer side of DC, a very humble & unpretentious side & very unglamorous. It won't hit you like earlier Whitesnake albums but there's some good later era love ballads here that should be given a second chance & are quite memorable. It does get a little melodramatic though, but just as much as his earlier albums got a little hair metal.

Whitesnake ~ Whitesnake (aka self-titled) (album review) ... Feel its bite!

Style: hard rock
Label: Geffen
Year: 1987
Home: n/a

Members: David Coverdale ~ vocals
John Sykes ~ guitar/b. vocals
Neil Murray ~ bass
Aynsley Dunbar ~ drums

Additional: Don Airey, Bill Cuomo ~ keyboards
Adrian Vandenberg ~ guitar

It might have a Led Zeppelin flair when the album opens with frontman David Coverdale singing out sans music "A black cat moans..." but when the guitars kick in, via the great John Sykes, Led Zeppelin just got turned to 11 with some "Crying In The Rain". Some albums just have the perfect opening & Coverdale hit home with this self-titled release. Whitesnake hit home with a great opening, middle & end, for the most part, nearly perfectly tying together hard rock love ballads & commercially slick radio friendly rock. It's a stew so hot that only the biggest cynical music reviewing will poo-poo, just to be different not to have an opinion that counts. Its so perfect that decades later the songs are still as wonderful & rocking as hard as ever ... & still collecting fans. Why is Whitesnake so loved over the decades? Why is Coverdale considered such a good singer? What is it about his voice that's so mesmerizing, the secret to Whitesnake regardless of the line-up or the material? The tone & the phrasing & the nuance could have a book written about it. The short answer until that book is written is in a listen to this album. It'll only take one listen. "Crying In The Rain", "Here I Go Again", "Still Of The Night", "Give Me All Your Love" & "Is This Love" all became certified top requested MTV hits ... & there's only four more songs on the album & those aren't bad, just a little less memorable. Coverdale is always at his best when he's doing a smooth croon, not a fast lyric run, & the lesser known songs, such as "Bad Boys" tend to have the fast blistering lyrics, while some of the others (i.e. "Straight For The Heart", "Don't Turn Away") are just straight hard rock ballads of filler quality ... "Children Of The Night" could come out of Kiss its lyrics are so bland. These four songs just just don't have that little Whitesnake twist that takes them up a notch, or, they teeter too far on the commercially slick side. It's a fine line walked on this album concerning that dreaded ogre of commercialism. Though, its easy to forget just how many of the best hard rock bands of the 80's & 90's were quite slick & quite commercially bent. Compared to today's more rough & raw standards it can be almost embarrassing to remember. Yet, somehow Coverdale & company are able to keep it rocking, even when keyboards or orchestral parts are dropped in, in a way where the music isn't watered down as was often the case of their peers. In many ways the music is highly predictable from the lyrics to the sound, but yet somehow Whitesnake turned in something that might be cliched bluesy hard rock but upped the ante. This might be Whitesnake at its best. The fact that this album pretty much shot Whitesnake up the charts is proof. It stands proudly alongside Coverdale's 70's output with Deep Purple & his introspective bluesy moment with Coverdale/Page. Ironically, before the tour Coverdale sacked the band & re-recorded some of the songs for single release. His new line-up included all recognizable names with guitarists Adrian Vandenberg & Vivian Campbell, former Ozzy rhythm section Rudy Sarzo & drummer Tommy Aldridge. These are the guys seen in the videos ... alongside a some hot chicks that would set up the Whitesnake image, along with its sound, all in one must have release. No band might ooze sex like Whitesnake! Even Madonna isn't this hot ... & her albums aren't either.

Whitesnake ~ Live: In the Still of the Night (DVD review) ... Making love in the still of the night!

Style: hard rock, blues-rock
Label: Hip-O
Year: 2006
Home: n/a

Concert location: Hammersmith Apollo, London, England
Year Recorded: 2004
Length: under 2 hours
Bonus Features: behind the scenes documentary; photo gallery

Members: David Coverdale ~ vocals
Doug Aldrich, Reb Beach ~ guitars/b. vocals
Timothy Drury ~ keyboards
Marco Mendoza ~ bass
Tommy Aldridge ~ drums

I've loved David Coverdale ever since I can remember, or at least since my earliest MTV watching days. His voice always stood out for me from so many other bands. I even picked up his late career solo album & I think Coverdale/Page might be one of the best both of those guys have done. I've even gone back to his Deep Purple days, though I'm a Blackmore fan so that's a given. Yet, there's still some albums I haven't heard & the early bluesy post-Deep Purple Whitesnake isn't my cup of tea, but where the music lacks I always enjoy his voice. Whitesnake has gone through numerous line-ups over the years, even at one point including Steve Vai, with the current line-up continuing to hold the torch high. Two of the members have been around since 1989, but the rest are all new boys. Though, boys is the wrong word. Unlike Alice Cooper whose filled his band with extremely young bucks & now gals, Coverdale brings in some well-trained old hats whose combined resume includes Pat Travers, Ozzy Osbourne with Randy Rhoads, Thin Lizzy, the Michael Schenker Group, John Sykes, Winger, Alice Cooper & even Don Henley, amongst countless others. There's a bonus to not having a too young back-up group as it takes the focus away from the fact that the frontman has gotten old. This new band has also managed to put their stamp on the old classics, here including Deep Purple's "Burn" & a refrain from "Stormbringer", let alone reaching back to the bluesy roots of the band. It's interesting to note how many of Coverdale's hair metal peers have found a new footing doing basic blues-rock. Coverdale has gone from a big-hair girls-on-cars MTV sex idol to a British elder gentleman of rock, still sexy even if looking a bit wrinkled from the California sun ... & there's more than an occasional or accidental groin shot in the video to show he's not given up on that image of himself, let alone overly excessive microphone stand stroking. He also puts as much energy has he can into his live show as if he's not going to let his age stand in his way. But, watching him today there's something different. The music is great, he basically sounds good though its obvious his voice has changed, the classic 80's hits are as great as ever & shown their legacy is not unfounded, the current incarnation of Whitesnake Coverdale is not going to let go of soon if he can help it ... but, something is different & its in Coverdale himself that the change is obvious. Watching him do "Is This Love" & then stopping to watch the original video it all becomes obvious what the problem is - this Coverdale is an imposter. That's right. It's not him. It can't be. No ... not really, but the changes abound & its hard to reconcile the elder statesman on this stage with the once MTV icon. He's changed that much. Besides his new look & his aging face, though he's still in great physical condition as he goes around with his shirt open, his voice has changed quite a lot. Coverdale basically has two voices - a screaming Robert Plant-esque falsetto & a deep sexy baritone, here obvious in "Sweet Satisfaction" that demonstrates both with abandon. He used the baritone to absolute finesse with Coverdale/Page & that's the voice I like. That hasn't changed, though I wish he'd use it far more as its stronger & more distinctive. His falsetto has changed. It's shrunk down in its ranged & watching him singing it often feels like he's struggling to sing the notes or trying to sing them with clenched teeth. Its not until watching the old videos that it's obvious he's also singing some of the lower songs in his deep voice much more than they were originally recorded. I hate to say he's lost his voice, but he doesn't have the smoothness he used to have. I actually saw Whitesnake with this line-up in concert a couple years ago promoting their new Forevermore album. I was shocked just how much backing vocals were used, something he's been heavily criticized for, that would often drown out his voice. I hate to say that this, amongst some other things, made for the live experience less than I'd hoped for & I'd say stick to the DVD. As for the band, they again deserve mention ... as they're so good they very well mike pull the attention away from Coverdale. Lead guitarist Doug Aldrich has a fingering technique that should be on everyone's top ten list of best guitarists, let alone studied by every guitarist. His sans band guitar solo will make you sweat after only a minute due to its fury, leading into "Crying In The Rain" that is sadly disrupted by a drum solo ... but at least Coverdale lets everyone in the band have their moment to showoff, even if he has to take one of the hits that everyone knows to do it with. I also have to give kudos to his other guitarist Reb Beach, formerly of Winger, who seems to always get lost in discussions. In this DVD Aldrich takes most of the solos, but in the live show I saw the pair had a very prolonged guitar battle. I actually walked out being far more interested in Beach's interesting melodic choices & its only now that I get to see Aldrich. Also of note, live I was mesmerized by bassist Marco Mendoza. Killer playing. Sadly, Mendoza & drummer Tommy Aldridge have been with Whitesnake the longest, but I neither live nor watching this could I tell you a thing about Aldridge or keyboardist Timothy Drury. It's interesting how your ears catch certain things. I mentioned that my live experience, sans re-discovering Reb Beach, was less than stellar. Most of that has to do with Coverdale's desire to talk & talk & talk in this seemingly put-on cockney accent ... for a guy that's lived in America for half his career ... with a lot of bad jokes & sexual innuendos. The banter is chopped down to the minimal here, or maybe edited out. The audience groaned at my show as he flirted with women in the audience then pointed out his wife in the balcony. It's almost as if he's trying to create a character, while it leaves one wondering what he's really like. One may forget that during the 90's Whitesnake dropped off the charts & for awhile didn't exist & Coverdale struggled, even going back to his natural brown hair & cutting it short for his solo album. Coverdale/Page was a comeback in the full sense of the word, cut prematurely short when the Robert Plant comparisons came to the fore. The fact is that Coverdale doesn't need to be anything. Is is truly a survivor of the music industry. One can't help wonder if Coverdale isn't as confident as he puts it out there. Though, there is one great line between some early songs as he takes some flowers from the audience, from a woman whose obviously been his fan for decades: "More fucking flowers, does that mean I have to have my legs in the air all night? But I don't have a vase do I?" Reading note "'Thank you for your voice & your music.' Thank you very much. Thank you for your tits. Most inspiring I assure you. No, they are, they are." It's interesting to think that once upon a time Coverdale was considered a Robert Plant imitator. There's no comparison anymore. Actually, Whitesnake is doing the music that I expected Plant to do, particularly following his Calling All Nations, not the moody blues & folk that I've lost interest in. There's little that would not make this DVD a recommendation. It's also hard to begrudge the set-list, as its a broad swipe from his full career, not just focusing on the hits. He gives the Brits a touch of a lot, while for Americans we'll get the hits. As for the unfamiliar songs, its such a high octane concert one will never get bored. If there's any problem its with the cinematography. Too much bouncing around, cutting back & forth. It's hard to focus, but that's the way video work goes now. What's worse is that there's also an occasional bounce to a shot in black & white. It's not necessary, let alone distracting. Coverdale might have had gimmicky videos with girls - no girls in the live show interestingly enough - but the songs have withstood the test of time & don't need any gimmick. Coverdale could pull out acoustic renditions with lights on full & band sitting down & I think the show would still be great. Maybe he will someday, everyone else has. So, jumping around with black & white cuts to create a flashy experience is not necessary. Bonus features include a behind-the-scenes documentary & a photo gallery. The DVD was also released in a DVD/CD set, with an abridged concert of only an hour on the CD.

Manic Eden ~ Manic Eden (aka debut) (album review) ... The boys of Whitesnake slink out of Eden!

Style: blues, blues-rock
Label: Victor
Year: 1994
Home: n/a

Members: Adrian Vandenberg ~ guitar/keyboards
Rudy Sarzo ~ bass
Tommy Aldridge ~ drums
Ron Young ~ vocals

Additional: CeCe White, Sara Taylor ~ b. vocals
Chris Trujillo ~ percussion

 

If I said I had a one-off band to share featuring the guitarist, bassist & drummer of Whitesnake, or all but Steve Vai & David Coverdale from Slip Of The Tongue, & originally featured House of Lords singer James Christian before bringing in bluesy hard rocker Little Caesar singer Ron Young, whose resumes also include Quiet Riot & Ozzy ... well, your ears are probably going to perk up. They should, but like me you might be a bit surprised by the outcome. Its easy to forget that beyond the girls dancing on cars, Coverdale's British swagger & highly commercialized rock, Whitesnake started as & has always been essentially a blues band coming off the Deep Purple family tree. The recent blockbuster albums have reminded the public of that, but growing up in the 80's & 90's it was easy to forget. Watching girls roll over cars didn't seem very bluesy. Manic Eden, on their one release, have created something that really isn't a rock album ... much to my surprise. It's a complete blistering blues album without the slow ballads. Yet, its the blues of Hendrix & its the blues that spawned rock'n'roll. The album weaves through Hendrix style playing right down to the vibrato (for example, "Can You Feel It", "Do Angels Die") & weaves particularly strongly through the singing, arrangements & feeling of Stevie Ray Vaughn (for example "Gimme A Shot", "Pushing Me", "Crossing The Line"), almost to haunting degrees. It's a shocking yet exciting release for the blues minded. Sadly, it failed commercially & the boys went off to other projects. I can hear no reason why it should have failed, expect for the fact that listeners were probably expecting hard rock not hit the nail on the head smokin' blues. In 1994 Eric Clapton was steering a blues revival & the blues scene, of which I was a big family, was quite popular even given the grunge national scene, so that's no excuse for failure. But, the blues purists probably decried the lack of show for show-off, though certainly both Hendrix & SRV had their moments of pure show. So, while it's a great album it had no audience. Too blues for the rockers & too rock for the blues guys. It's now become a bit of a lost treasure that is worth hunting up.

Whitesnake ~ Greatest Hits (hits comp) (album review) ... Can't stop this snake from biting!

Style: hard rock
Label: Geffen
Year: 1994
Home: n/a

Members: David Coverdale ~ vocals
Mel Galley, John Sykes ~ guitar/b. vocals
Micky Moody, Dann Huff ~ guitar
Rudy Sarzo, Neil Murray ~ bass
Tommy Aldridge, Aynsley Dunbar, Cozy Powell, Denny Carmassi ~ drums
Claude Gaudette, Jon Lord, Don Airey, Bill Cuomo, Alan Pasqua, David Rosenthal ~ keyboards
Tommy Funderburk, The Fabulosa Brothers, Richard Page, The Big 'Eads ~ b. vocals

Guests: Steve Vai ~ guitar
Glenn Hughes ~ b. vocals

There are numerous albums in the Whitesnake catalog that are great purchases but their Greatest Hits is a great starting point & for many might even be all that's ever needed. This collection lives up to its name with all the MTV certified hits until 1994, plus unreleased mixes and recordings that never made it to an album. The one problem is that it's a hits collection not a career retrospective. In the mid-70's singer David Coverdale formed the White Snake Band that toured two albums before the name was combined into a single word. Under the new name Whitesnake formally debuted in 1978 & included Coverdale's former bandmate from Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord. This early line-up was more blues & progressive covering B.B. King & Bobby "Blue" Bland songs. After a break Coverdale reformed the line-up in 1982 with the sound moving more towards the hard rock that was dominating the scene. They'd get their first hit with "Here I Go Again", setting the tone for what would follow with hard rock sex-laced power ballads to find their biggest success with the creation of MTV & the dominance of lots of sexy models along with Coverdale's own Robert Plant-like good looks. The band would go through regular line-up changes with Whitesnake eventually becoming Coverdale's own personal set of rotating chairs, though the sound would largely remain the same to the present day. Whitesnake has always featured some great musicians who have been greatly responsible for making the band into what it was, but they were never able to share the spotlight, thus, outside of diehard fans, for all intensive purposes David Coverdale is Whitesnake. If you like one you'll probably like the other. After 1989's Slip Of The Tongue the hits stopped, the recording slowed down with only three studio albums through 2011, Coverdale did a solo album ... basically the same sound but less flashy & more ballady but where he cut his hair short & like other musicians who did the same found little commercial success ... joined with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin for the quasi-successful Coverdale/Page & basically tried to stay alive in a music scene that turned its back on 80's hard rock. The thing about Coverdale is that he's largely never varied the Whitesnake sound after 1982. One might even call the post-1982 Whitesnake a different band than earlier outings. It's also the hit making band & pretty much all that's featured on this album. Though there is some unreleased tracks from the Jon Lord line-up this is primarily a look at the later hard rock era. This is good in the sense that if you like that era you'll like the whole album as there's a uniformity to the music and not disjointed as some compilations are, but if you want to hear the diversity of Coverdale that's largely not going to happen. Some of the unknown tracks are clearly not hits, so you will get both highs & lows, if that matters & if anything just reflects the fact that for certified greatest hits Whitesnake basically has few. If you don't like Whitesnake with its Robert Plant-esque vocalist but with a darker rasp ... doing the music many of us wish Robert Plant had done ... you probably won't be turned on to them as you might with a career retrospective. There's other compilations that are a more authoritative though the intense career boxset has yet to be released, but Greatest Hits is the most easy to find.

Coverdale/Page ~ Coverdale/Page (aka debut) (album review) ... Un-led-ed blues that will kick your ass!

Style: blues-rock, hard rock
Label: Geffen
Year: 1993
Home: n/a

Members: David Coverdale ~ vocals/rhythm guitar
Jimmy Page ~ lead guitar/bass/harmonica/b. vocals
Denny Carmassi ~ drums
Lester Mendel ~ keyboards/percussion
Jorge Casas ~ bass

Additional: Ricky Phillips ~ bass
John Harris ~ harmonica
Tommy Funderburk, John Sambataro ~ b. vocals

When surviving Led Zeppelin titans Jimmy Page & Robert Plant reunited for their MTV unplugged concert Un-Led-ed: No Quarter it was an event few wanted to miss. It had everything & more. They followed it with Walking Into Clarksdale ... that had everything & less. I couldn't help but want to then turn to the C/P self-titled album, featuring the Deep Purple/Whitesnake singer who sings & looks far too similar to Plant, & thinking how this is the album I wanted to hear from Page/Plant. Though, ironically I'd bought Coverdale/Page when it was first released thinking it was a Page/Plant reunion. I'd seen the video for "Pride & Joy" & was mesmerized by the instrumentation & arrangement. I was just beginning to get into Led Zeppelin & hard rock. I knew that Page had guested on a Plant album & thought this was it, not knowing who look-alike Coverdale was, & went out & bought Plant's Now & Zen. My disappointment was overwhelming, & though Page is on the album it was nothing close to the acoustic/electric mix of "Pride & Joy". I had to wait for the video to come on again before discovering whose album I actually wanted to buy. Though I've since become a Whitesnake fan & love Jimmy Page's Outrider solo effort, even with all its flaws, I consider C/P a highlight of both their careers post-Zeppelin/Purple. It mixes the best of all worlds, with moody songs to hardcore blues to hard rock with great singing & playing along with basically well-crafted songs. A factor might be that this is the first effort, including Zeppelin, where Page was involved in the lyric writing which in-turn influenced his playing & approach to composing. Some critics said Page joined Coverdale because he couldn't get Plant so an imitator was the next best thing. While Coverdale/Page undoubtedly has strains of later era Zeppelin it's anything but an imitation nor sounds remotely close to Plant or Page's respective solo careers up to this time, nor even Coverdale's music & any eclipses any Zeppelin sounding bands on the scene such as Badlands or Bonham. There's no way to listen to anything Page does without comparison to Zeppelin but that was such an influential band it's better to not compare. There's only one winner in that equation. Heavy on the blues some of the ballads would be better if they didn't hit the 6 & 7 minute mark. But, the overall product is farther away from the commercial mainstream three minute rock that Coverdale had been writing since leaving Purple so there is great excitement hearing him try new avenues. He also favors a deep throaty call versus his recognizable tenor that is incredibly attractive & a highlight of many songs. When not wallowing in the blues the rest of the album is pure adrenalized hard rock with Page's most enthused & creative playing since Zeppelin. His riffs are layered but not cluttered as often plagues his work & partially caused Walking Into Clarksdale to not live up to expectations. The rhythm section is also top notch creating some heavy foundations courtesy of drummer Denny Carmassi, known for his work with Montrose with Sammy Hagar & Heart & would return to Coverdale's side later, & bassist Jorge Casas who provides a heavy low end with a couple songs even featuring a second bassist to provide extra punch. It grounds Page's playing in a way that had hurt both his Outrider & the Firm. Page's riffs & rhythms dominate the songs but he doesn't play anything that hasn't been heard before, his playing languishing with a timeless quality of little growth, often leaving the key to the success of many songs on Coverdale's vocals. Luckily, he's up to the challenge. C/P probably never was going to have life beyond a single album due to the requirements of Whitesnake & quirkiness of Page's career, I've always felt sad that the ensuing tour didn't do so well & the potential of anything more was firmly removed because this is a basically everything anyone could really ask for from a one-off unlikely union.