Sail Away: Whitesnake's Fantastic Voyage

by Martin Popoff

  First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Soundcheck Books LLP, 88 Northchurch Road, London, N1 3NY.

  Copyright © Martin Popoff 2015

  ISBN: 978-0-99-294806-1

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of photographic and other resource material used in this book. Some were unreachable. If they contact the publishers we will endeavour to credit them in reprints and future editions.

  This title has not been prepared, approved or licenced by the management, or past or present members of Whitesnake or David Coverdale and is an unofficial book.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  Book design: Benn Linfield (www.bennlinfield.com)

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Early Years – “The Unrighteous Brothers”

  2 White Snake/Northwinds – “I’m Not Sure You’re The Right Bass Player To Play With Cozy”

  3. David Coverdale’s Snakebite – “A Particular Creative Umbrella”

  4. Trouble – “The Room Literally Shook”

  5. Lovehunter – “It’s Not Shakespeare”

  6 Ready An’ Willing / Live... In The Heart Of The City – “I’ve Seen Paice Reduce Grown Men Drummers To Tears.”

  7. Come An’ Get It – “How’s That For A Double Name-Drop?”

  8. Saints & Sinners – “Are You Thinking It As Well?”

  9. Slide It In – “You’ve Got To Get Rid Of The Old Guys”

  10. Whitesnake – “There Were 30 Something Tracks Of Guitars”

  11 Slip Of The Tongue – “We Made More Money Than God On The Last Record! “

  Epilogue “We Looked Like Christmas Trees”

  Selected Discography

  Notes & Sources

  About The Author

  Introduction

  Those who know me, will know that the web of intrigue that is the Deep Purple family has occupied much of my writing time. I have somehow managed to hatch a book on Rainbow, one on Dio, two Sabs and four on Deep Purple themselves. Perhaps after this, there’s only a Gillan book to come (my second favourite band ever after Max Webster), to round off the significant bits of the family tree. No, I will not be penning a Paice Ashton Lord volume, neither a treatise on the jazz fusion of the preposterous Ian Gillan Band, or a tiny tome on Elf (yes, readers periodically ask me for that one).

  But I digress. Whitesnake, ah yes. A joy to pen, this has been for three main reasons: firstly, how comfortable it is to talk to the players in this drama (Bernie Marsden being of particular note, a man legend that I hopefully can class as something more than an acquaintance at this point); secondly, Neil Murray plus some of the later actors such as John Kalodner, the very funny Keith Olsen, an always gracious Rudy Sarzo; lastly, but not leastly, David Coverdale himself – ever the charmer.

  As well, I was propelled by the facts of the case, the complicated tale as David evolved from Purple through wobbly solo years to the Mk.1 version of the band (I’m really only going to use two Mk.s!). Then it gets rich with detail and manoeuvre, with rock ‘n’ roll business, musical chairs and stratospheric fame as David orchestrates his (solo?) voyage across the bubbling sea toward his destiny as minor British royalty uprooted to the West Coast.

  Hence the title and subtitle of this book, with so much meaning interred in those two words “sail away.” If I have to spell it out once more: it’s about David leaving Britain, Brits and Britishness for American shores, in turn transforming the band and brand into an American monster, despite the United Nations of players represented in his chimera-like and complex fiefdoms.

  In any event, this was very much a fulfilling detective job. Not so much for a huge divulging of the facts, which the interested digger could ascertain for him or herself, but rather the organizing of those facts and wafting from the tea leaves, much about human nature.

  Essentially, however, the fun of all this for me was the fact that I’ve grown up a variously frustrated, non-plussed, hugely rewarded and connected-to-the-band Whitesnake fan. Said lifelong abutment to the group and its catalogue begins with the purchase as a new release of the Canuck [Canadian slang for Canada] version of the first “album,” Snakebite, with the angry metalhead in me only liking it mildly for the sips of angry metal on it.

  Trouble: same deal. Looked great, loved that regal band shot on the back, but a little too jazzy and bluesy for a teenager waiting for the NWOBHM to happen. Lovehunter? Well, my exquisite blue pen rendering of that album cover on my social studies notebook was the talk of the class! The gal looked sexier and the snake, even more heavy metal, more martial and scowling. Ready An’ Willing... began my education within, and appreciation for, how the blues can be added ever so subtly to hard rock (Okay, not the first time... Zep, ZZ, Foghat, Aerosmith), but an evolution in my thinking, let’s say, helped by David on a mission.

  Rock ‘n’ roll forward, and I was caught up – just like everybody else – in celebrating Whitesnake 2.0, the version successful in my part of the world due to Slide It In and Whitesnake (the latter featuring that sledge of all snow tractors, “Still Of The Night.”) And there you had it, all of a sudden it’s a life of rock fandom, with this band as a significant part of the soundtrack.

  Later, I got into the business of interviewing the heroes of my hobby, and that’s when I got to talk to splendid Dave – who immediately puts everybody he converses with at their ease – along with the aforementioned others. The magic and pixie dust of Whitesnake was over after Slip Of The Tongue, but still, there were solo albums, such as Coverdale Page; the live circuit and attendant live albums; then (to date,) two thick and ferocious recent studio albums, which... well, it’s a long debate and I don’t want to get into it here, but both Good To Be Bad and Forevermore fall into that category of debate revolving around “best albums of one’s catalogue if you wipe the dates off the back and shuffle.”

  Seriously, there are about ten of these “heritage acts” who have blessed us with these very cogent modern-day records when no one cares and no one is listening and the ship has sailed a long time ago. Whitesnake is certainly one of those ten, thanks in large part to Doug Aldrich, who helped Ronnie James Dio make his best late period album as well.

  But alas, as you will read, moving ahead through this celebration of the Whitesnake universe, this book will not be fighting that battle at length. There is simply not enough word count assigned to the project to do so. Looking at it another way, there was exactly enough word count to do justice to the labyrinthine story of the classic years, namely up to Slip Of The Tongue, that record’s spent aftermath, and the death of hair metal. This is the story with the highest stakes with respect to the business of the band, the most intense dramatic struggle, the hue and cry of motivation and manipulation, and so this forms the meat of the book. To be sure, the completist in me can’t resist presenting the facts of the post-1980s period of drift, but, alas, that telling is perfunctory and fleeting, as you will see, relegated to the “epilogue” ghetto.

  And there you go. My mission here is to put Whitesnake into the rock history books, in detail, and I
guess until someone does something more (including a book directly from David one day, one hopes), it’s mission accomplished, to a great extent. In any event, I hope you gain a new appreciation for the band, dislodged some of these records from your shelves and rocked the blues one more time. At this end, man, I certainly got to listen to a ton of great music once again, which had, for a spell, just joined the thousands of other LPs and CDs lining the ol’ mancave office.

  Until next time (er, that Gillan book, wot?!), Saints & Sinners all, here’s trouble, Come An’ Get It.

  Martin Popoff

  martinp@inforamp.net

  www.martinpopoff.com

  -1-

  Early Years – “The Unrighteous Brothers”

  Pimply, pudgy, bespectacled, not much of a dresser (despite his job selling pants – that’s trousers to you Brits) and still weeks away from his 22nd birthday... this is the legend of a less-than-unassuming David Coverdale on the verge of crashing his way into the ranks of rock titans Deep Purple.

  It’s the summer of 1973, and Purple is on the ropes, in serious danger of disintegration. In a direct confrontation with chaos, the responsibility to lead the band forward falls upon a nobody from the North, notwithstanding the menacing presence of the Man In Black himself – Ritchie Blackmore – checking passports at every border post looking for proof of blues authenticity.

  To be sure, our present tale is Whitesnake, but would Whitesnake have been given half as much truck had Coverdale not pushed forward with his folly already a bonafide rock star? I think not. In that light, some scene-setting becomes necessary.

  David Coverdale, (born 22 September 1951 in Saltburn-by-the-Sea (pop. 10,000), in the county of Redcar & Cleveland, England) had been little more than a pub singer before answering a Melody Maker ad seeking aspirers to the throne vacated by top rock yowler Ian Gillan. And pub is the operative word here — Dave had been known to lift a few bevvies around Redcar. In fact, his parents, of Irish heritage, had owned a pub (mum has also been described as a school dinner lady and dad, a steelworker), making the habit of quaffing a foaming brew an easy one to acquire. As well, Coverdale has asserted that he’d been singing in North Yorkshire “working men’s clubs” since the age of 11, having cut his teeth singing Tommy Steele medleys at home from the age of 5.

  “The main thing about the working class is the determination to get the fuck out,” David told the NME. “My mother and father gave me full support within the background of the Satanic mills. Nobody could put on any airs or graces — it was two up and two down and an outside toilet. But I didn’t drown myself out. A lot of people are satisfied to sit and watch the new James Bond film. Hollywood has got a lot to answer for as well. Most of the people who make money spend the rest of their lives trying to hold onto it and don’t enjoy it.”

  “I discovered that I could express myself much more with serious immediacy by singing,” mused David back in 1988, speaking with Rock Beat, contrasting his chosen profession versus the visual arts. “Rather than people looking at a painting and saying, ‘It’s nice, what are you trying to say?’ I could express myself very simply and quickly and people knew what I was talking about. I like that. I can’t remember this, but my mother assures me that I could sing the entire Top Ten in those days.”

  Coverdale’s first real band, Vintage 67, opened for business in 1966. David had been bitten by the music bug, most viciously by the Kinks, but also from the Pretty Things and the Yardbirds, though hardest by Hendrix. Then came Denver Mule (‘67/’68) and The Skyliners (‘68/’69), followed by The Government (‘69/’70), who had actually supported Purple back in August 1969 at a gig in Sheffield. It is said that Jon Lord took David’s phone number down in case the then new boy Ian Gillan didn’t pan out as vocalist. All the while, Dave was gathering a wage at the Purple Loon boutique and making his way through arts courses in teaching and graphic design in darkest Middlesbrough, where he first made the acquaintance of future Whitesnake mate Micky Moody. Coverdale told Circus that he’d packed in college because, “I found I could use my body and voice for self-expression, to communicate with people right on the spot, even with a silly song.”

  Back on the music track, leading up to his ascendance through Purple, David was crooning for the likes of Harvest (which got as far as Denmark), River’s Intention and finally The Fabulosa Brothers. At one point, he had been offered the chance to sing with respected progsters The Alan Bown (A.K.A. The Alan Bown Set and Alan Bown). “A friend of mine who knew them told me they were interested in me and wanted to know if I’d sign up. I thought he was kidding and jokingly told him, ‘Fuck off.’ Unfortunately he took me literally.” Robert Palmer, Mel Collins and Jess Roden all passed through the ranks of Mr. Bown’s esteemed band, so you can see why Coverdale felt he had made a bit of a faux pas.

  Lesson learnt! After having sent in a cassette and subsequently put through the Purple paces in August of 1973, to everyone’s surprise, Coverdale landed this slightly bigger gig. More surprisingly, David had to be persuaded to apply for it by a buddy, and what his audition tape contained was a drunken rendition of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talking,” about which Jon Lord said David barely followed the tune.

  “Purple’s office asked me to send a photograph of myself which I thought was a bit daft,” recalled David, speaking about his hiring to Music Express in 1977: “I wondered why they would judge a person’s talent by his looks. The photo I sent down I had to borrow from my mother. It was one of me in my Boy Scouts uniform.

  “Then they asked for a tape of my voice and the only tape I had was one of me singing at a party when I was drunk. I thought I’d had it, but I was invited down to London for an audition and I got the gig. I guess what attracted them was the tone of my voice rather than what I was singing. I was just a local yokel, you know, local boy makes good and all that stuff. I’d never even been in a recording studio before we went in and cut Burn. Now I’m a local hero in Saltburn. They gave me the keys to the town; they also asked me for £25,000 to restore an old bridge but I had to turn them down.”

  David muses: “I remember being so keen. Remember, Burn was the first record I ever made. I knew Deep Purple was big in England, but I had no idea of the global aspect of it, so it was mind-blowing when I got that job. And the band was very supportive and still, to this day, I applaud their courage in taking a risk. No question, I was completely unknown. Obviously they thought I had something, God bless them.

  “But the circumstance is, what a brave thing to do for a band of that size. But Ritchie and I did most of the writing on there. In those days, they split everything five ways which was their agreement, which Ritchie changed after Burn. There’s a certain laziness. If you don’t have to work you don’t contribute as much, and there was evidence of that. So he changed that dynamic on Stormbringer and Purple weren’t very happy about that at all; the old guard. But anyway, what Ritchie said went. I wrote at least six versions of the song ‘Burn,’ I was so fucking keen.”

  One of those sets was a blues thing David had called “The Road,” but, amusingly, he figured he’d better keep Ritchie happy, so he came up with the “sci-fi poem” that proved to be the keeper. The blues would have to wait.

  Critical to the hue and dimension of David’s hiring would be the recent arrival into the Purple ranks of a bass player who also sang quite well, thank you very much; a gent by the name of Glenn Hughes. Coverdale recalls: “One of the ridiculous things was that Glenn was such a talented singer, but Ritchie wasn’t such a big fan of Glenn’s voice. He liked my voice. He said, “You have a great man’s voice,” which was a pretty nice compliment. And he didn’t exactly get the same vibe from Glenn. There is no question that Glenn is extraordinary. Technically he can sing me into the ground, but I can connect deeper emotionally.

  “But what happened is that prior to me getting the job, he really felt that he was going to be the lead singer and bass player and that really is not what Ritchie was after. So once they got the ‘man’s voic
e’ in... And Glenn and I have talked about this; it was ridiculous that I would sing a line, he would sing a line, I would sing a line, he would sing a line, I would sing a chorus, he would sing a chorus. It was just all over the place. One of the perfect examples was the song ‘You Fool No One,’ where we sing it together, or ‘You Keep On Moving,’ and then we’ll each take a break on something else, you know, another sequence of the song. But for anybody wanting to get their hooks into a song, to have this confusion of different voices coming in left right and center is more a distraction than a hook.”

  Having two purposeful singers in the band wasn’t an insurmountable problem, but it was a challenge and a contributing factor to the eventual happenstance that is Whitesnake. But for now, it was a beautiful thing watching the creative tension between David and Glenn, not to mention between David and Glenn versus the trunk of the band, namely Ian Paice, Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore.

  And there were no confidence issues with Coverdale, notes Hughes. “No, David never really suffered from that. David, when he first came into the band, he was a little green, but he developed. We saw, right in front of us, him developing his own style back then. Which took him to Whitesnake. I mean, he became pretty strong, at the end of the Burn tour and into Stormbringer. We weren’t the new boys anymore. He’s a strong character.”

  Hughes believes that: “There were no struggles with David in terms of getting him to lose some weight, pop in some contact lenses... Well, I think he wanted that for himself. I mean, David, from the get-go, was very professional. Obviously he hadn’t worked in this genre before, ever. So you just need the blueprint of how to do it. I’d been on the road for three or four years with Trapeze, and David and I had been, and were, the very best of friends.

  “You know, people ask me were there problems and this and that? I think if you interviewed David he would say there’s never really been any problems with him and me. My singing didn’t deter him from his goal, and his singing didn’t deter me from mine. We were a great team. We were the greatest vocal duo in rock. And I think we still are, when you look back, the only two singers that were really dominant in that role.”