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Originally Posted by Big Ears
At the time, jazz rock seemed a strange style for Ian Gillan to adopt for the first stage of his solo work - I expected an album of full-on shouting. So, despite the quality musicians involved, it was disappointing. The later Mr Universe album was credited to Gillan (the band) and, although it had a horrible production, was far more in keeping with what everyone expected. In addition, the performance at Reading 1981, showed that Gillan could come up with great music without Deep Purple (even if it did include Smoke on the Water). His live shows were very atmospheric and Glory Road continued the style.
With hindsight, the Child in Time album does not seem so bad, but the remastered Mr Universe is the solo album to which I keep returning. When Deep Purple reformed in 1984, for Knebworth and Perfect Strangers, they were better than ever. Sadly, it didn't last. Listening to Ian Gillan's new EP, Vincent Price, the Bob Ezrin production seems to be turning him into Alice Cooper!
Fireball is a great album and I also like Who Do We Think We Are? Both have a sort of funk-blues feel, especially with Fools and Place In the Line. Both tracks are massively underrated in favour of Black Night, Smoke On the Water, Child in Time, etc.
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I always thought that Mr.Universe was the best solo album that Ian Gillan ever did, It was also produced by a number of lesser known producers which probably didn't help things in that respect. Again you have a lot of experience from this period of having seen these artists like Ian Gillan live, I never saw Deep Purple in concert until many years later. I also never thought of Perfect Strangers as a good album but I do remember that it had some great starting off tracks before fading quite a bit, but when I re-listen to it I'll see what I think of it again, as I've seen quite of lot of reviews mainly positive about it recently.
Well Bob Ezrin is Bob Ezrin when it comes to production and he really made Alice Cooper the star that he was in the 1970s and he also gave Kiss on their Destroyer album in 1976 (there best album imo) the Ezrin workover as well, but then again I'm a big fan of Bob Ezrin as a producer because besides producing he often used to write material and play on the albums that he produced, must admit I didn't know he was working with Deep Purple now!
Fireball was always one of my favourite DP albums even though quality wise it's a notch below Machine Head and In Rock and as for Who Do You Think We Are? I think that's a shambles of an album and the whole thing sounds like a bad studio session, they should've never released it as there was nowhere near enough quality material.
Also do you know that Armageddon album I posted just a page back? As it's the kind of thing I imagine you either really liking or at least appreciating. If you haven't heard it then do so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Urban Hat€monger ?
I've always thought that version of Child In Time is what it would have sounded had Pink Floyd been Ian Gillan's backing band instead of Deep Purple.
I don't really listen to that album much. I find myself listening to Clear Air Turbulence a lot more.
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Good point as it does have an atmospheric feel that Pink Floyd could have offered and I guess the same could be said for "Let it Slide" As for Clear Air Turbulence I think I've only listened to that once but I know I've pencilled it in to listen to for 1977.