Okay, so I've started this page because a lot of the guys who have been in Deep Purple at one point or another have all released solo records/other projects of their own throughout the years. It's got to the point now where I own enough of them to bundle them together onto this page. Examples include all the stuff Ian Gillan has done outside of Purple, and also albums from Glenn Hughes, Don Airey, Roger Glover etc.. In fact, I originally had a page dedicated purely to Gillan's solo projects, but now I have all this other stuff from other members of Purple too, I've decided to include them here too. The only exemptions for this page are Rainbow (Ritchie Blackmore) and Whitesnake (David Coverdale). Both these bands went on to be huge, and I even have a dedicated Rainbow page already.
Reviewed:
- Ian Gillan Band: Child In Time (1976)
- Ian Gillan Band: Live at the Budokan (1978, live album)
- Ian Gillan & Roger Glover: Accidentally on Purpose (1988)
- Ian Gillan: Gillan's Inn (2006)
- Roger Glover: If Life Was Easy (2011)
- Ian Gillan & Tony Iommi: WhoCares (2012, compilation)
IAN GILLAN BAND - CHILD IN TIME 1976 (Edsel Records)
- Standouts: 'Lay Me Down', 'You Make Me Feel So Good', 'Down the Road', 'Child in Time', 'Let It Slide'
After the famous 'Mk. II' lineup of Deep Purple finished their first stint together and crumbled in 1973, Ian Gillan subsequently took up several business ventures outside of music, before returning to the biz and forming the Ian Gillan Band in 1975. With Ray Fenwick (guitars), John Gustafson (bass), Mike Moran (keyboards) and Mark Nauseef (drums) in the band as well as Roger Glover producing, this project was a departure from Deep Purple's brand of exciting heavy rock. Yep, Child in Time - Ian's first solo album post-Purple - has much more of a jazz rock/fusion style going for it by comparison. Now, I've had this CD in my collection for a number of years. I don't remember exactly when it was I picked it up, but I want to say I was in my early 20s. Hell, I even reviewed some of my Gillan solo venture discs on this blog prior, and in my old review from 2017 I actually thought a lot of critics and listeners were exaggerating the whole jazz fusion label when describing this record. Not that I didn't find it to be jazzy whatsoever, I just didn't consider it to be a full-on jazz fusion experience. Hearing Child in Time again in 2025 as a 33 year old bloke, I sort of get what I was saying back then. But there's definitely jazz techniques on practically all of the 7 tracks here. I still think it's a rock album overall, just a heavily jazz-influenced one at that.
The good news is that despite the massive differences between Deep Purple and the Ian Gillan Band, I actually dig this album a lot! If anything, I seem to enjoy it more as I get older. The opening cut 'Lay Me Down' has some cool, swingy, jazzy grooves written all over it, and even though Ian's singing in a far more laid back style than usual (something he would occasionally do with Deep Purple on songs like 'Our Lady' and 'Anyone's Daughter'), it's actually quite nice to hear this side of him. The equally jazzy 'You Make Me Feel So Good' is cool too, and Ian actually delves back into more of his old self on this one. 'Shame' and in particular 'My Baby Loves Me' actually have some funky rhythms that blend well with the rock and jazz style of the album. 'Down the Road' is a pretty little ballad - very mellow and laid-back. Not in an acoustic, folky way, but in an almost gospel-manner thanks to the fine keyboard work and layered melodic vocals. I like it.
The title track was of course originally an epic masterpiece of progressive proto-metal originally found on 1970's groundbreaking Deep Purple In Rock. This new version holds on to the same lyrics, but the music itself has been altered to suit the rest of the songs here. This means it's no longer the dramatic, screaming heavy rock landmark it once was, but rather a somewhat tame, subdued and jazzy piece now. It doesn't hold a candle to the 10 and a half minute original, but that doesn't automatically mean it's bad either. Just different! In fact, it actually works quite well in this new format (and has also been shortened by around 3 minutes), and Ian even manages to fit those signature screams of his on it. The last song on the album, 'Let It Slide', goes on for nearly 12 minutes. It's a proggy, almost improvised-sounding number with a lot of slow grooves and emotion. It's a track I enjoy depending on what sort of mood I'm in - it's far too slow and laid-back to listen to in the gym, but it's quite pleasant to hear when sat at home in the evening, with a glass of Jameson's! And to be honest, that's kind of how I feel in general about this album. I like it a lot, but it's not one I can listen to every day of the week.
The Ian Gillan Band weren't all that successful commercially, especially compared to Deep Purple and his next project Gillan. They released 2 more studio albums after this one before disbanding in 1978, and Child in Time is still the only one I've managed to acquire in all my years of collecting. Ian Gillan didn't achieve the success he'd hoped with this band but this isn't a reflection of the music he made with them. I think it was more a case of 'wrong time, wrong place'. A lot of rock bands/musicians who'd been popular in the '60s/early '70s struggled by the time punk rock took off around 1977. Look at Black Sabbath - Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! marked their first downfall in popularity, but it doesn't mean the actual records weren't good. I guess the average rock fan wasn't expecting a jazzy rock record from Mr. Gillan either! Then again, Ritchie Blackmore was making big bucks with Rainbow right around the same time, and continued to do so in the '80s... so who knows?! Either way, Child in Time is not one of Ian's absolute best solo works, but like I said before, I seem to enjoy it more and more as time goes on. It's not a go-to album for me and because I don't listen to it very often, I'm finding it hard to call it 'great' (I think his next band, Gillan, were more representative of the man himself). But it's still a very good, underrated album overall.
Adam's rating: 7.9/10
IAN GILLAN BAND - LIVE AT THE BUDOKAN 1978 (Edsel Records)
A strong and energetic live recording of a 1977 concert in Tokyo, Japan. At this point in time, Colin Towns was handling keyboards, and he would be the only member of the Ian Gillan Band who would follow Ian to his next band, Gillan. Anyway, the IGB material on here has been handled very well. They open with the progressive 'Clear Air Turbulence', which is easily one of the highlights of this disc thanks to the technicality of the music, and Ian's equally impressive vocals to match it. But really, I enjoy everything on here. Ray Fenwick's guitar soloing on 'My Baby Loves Me' is just tremendous. The performance of 'Scarabus' here does have some guitar muscle behind it too, so Ian hadn't completely ditched his hard rock side either. Speaking of hard rock, there's also renditions of Deep Purple's 'Smoke On the Water' and 'Woman from Tokyo' - well, I use the term 'hard rock' loosely, because 'Smoke' is actually played in a much funkier than usual manner! The main riff is still kinda there, but the bass playing is funky as hell and gives this air guitar classic a new coat of paint. The band make it work in their favour, and I actually enjoy this version of it. It's not the same as Purple performing the same song of course, but it's a fun little novelty for this Purple fan. As for 'Woman from Tokyo', well, this one's maybe a bit more rockin' in similar fashion to the original, but still has enough differences within the instrumentation to make this IGB rendition unique. With all the Deep Purple live albums out there (lord knows I own far too many of them), it's nice to have this as an alternative.
I hadn't planned on picking this disc up. I recently picked some Gillan releases I was missing in preparation for this page, and Live at the Budokan popped up on eBay. I payed £8 for it, used. My copy - as with most of my Gillan band discs - is the 2007 Edsel reissue. I've been a big fan of these since I picked up Gillan's 1982 album, Magic (the first Gillan solo album I ever bought), way back when these Edsel discs came out in '07. They're all presented really nicely with the slipcases and each one of them has notes from Ian himself in the booklets.
Adam's rating: 8.7/10
IAN GILLAN & ROGER GLOVER - ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE 1988 (Edsel Records)
- Standouts: 'Evil Eye', 'She Took My Breath Away', 'I Can't Dance to That', 'Can't Believe You Wanna Leave Me', 'Telephone Box'
Not too long after Deep Purple's 1987 album The House of Blue Light dropped (an album I'm fairly sure most members of the band weren't too happy with, particularly Roger Glover), Ian Gillan and Roger Glover recorded Accidentally on Purpose as a sort of side piece. This CD is something of an oddity in Gillan's portfolio in that the album is essentially an '80s pop rock affair - synths and all - with basically zero Deep Purple or Gillan hard rock influences (even the Ian Gillan Band were drastically different). Maybe it's not hugely weird for Glover to have been involved in this - I bought one of his solo albums for the first time about a year or so ago (2011's If Life Was Easy) and found that his own material barely dabbles in hard rock, but for Ian Gillan an often-synthy '80s pop album definitely feels strange! Well, I've had Accidentally on Purpose in my collection for a number of years now. I don't remember being all that surprised by the music at the time because I'd already read about it before I got my hands on it. But I'd likely have been disappointed with this if I'd been a die hard Deep Purple and Gillan fan prior! I did actually review it for my old Ian Gillan-related page and gave it a 5.6/10... unsurprisingly, I wasn't really diggin' a poppy, glossy rock album in my mid-20s! I've gotta say though, this album sounds a little better to me in my '30s now! Not great of course, but whatever!
The music is a huge departure from pretty much any of Ian or Roger's Deep Purple songwriting traits of course, but as a mostly poppy rock record, it's really not bad! Barely any guitar riffs, and the drums are mostly electronic from the sounds of things, but not horrible! The closest the album comes to hard rock is 'I Can't Dance to That' - it's a straightforward, riffy cut with enough bite to rock, but still catchy enough that it doesn't sound completely out of place with the rest of this album. Most of the album does not follow suit however - opener 'Clouds and Rain' is a slow-building, smooth kind of synthy number. I'm a little on the fence with the horns, but it's a relaxing listen. 'Evil Eye' is catchy and a little more upbeat. Ian barely raises his voice on 'She Took My Breath Away', almost whispering his way through it. Yet I like it! It's smoooooth! 'Via Miami' is far more energetic and probably one of the rockier moments on the album. Rockier in a boogie kind of manner that is. Ian and Roger also decided to throw a Little Richard cover in here with 'Can't Believe You Wanna Leave Me'. And it's pretty fun! Again, it just adds a little variety to the music. Roger's swingy basslines on 'Telephone Box' stick in my head while 'I Thought No' sounds like both men were genuinely having fun recording it, unlike Purple's The House of Blue Light!
I can't be entirely nice about this album. I'm not a fan of 'Lonely Avenue'. It's not terrible, just slow and a little tedious. The female backing vocals make it stand out, but the fact it feels like a blues song driven by '80s pop keyboards/synths just makes it sound weird to me, and not in a good way. But in all honesty, the only song that sounds like total dogshit to me here wasn't even featured on the original release of the album anyway! Like many of my Gillan discs, my copy of Accidentally on Purpose is one of the 2007 Edsel Records reissues, so it comes presented with the same style slipcase and packaging which is nice - plus 3 bonus tracks ('Cayman Island', 'Purple People Eater', 'Chet'). Yep, 'Cayman Island' - originally a b-side to 'She Took My Breath Away' - is pretty fucking awful if you ask me! It's effectively a reggae number - wouldn't be so bad if Ian - an English white man born in Chiswick - wasn't deliberately trying to sound Jamaican on it!! I guess it's good for a cheap laugh!
It's nice to see this one go up in my estimation. I originally reviewed it in 2020, and I'm not even sure I'd listened to it again until this new review in 2025. I must admit, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Accidentally on Purpose this time around. I still don't think it's a classic of course, but both Ian and Roger sound comfortable here despite the often drastic musical changes from the norm. It's good!
Adam's rating: 7/10
ROGER GLOVER AND THE GUILTY PARTY - IF LIFE WAS EASY 2011 (Ear Music)
- Standouts: 'Box of Tricks', 'The Dream I Had', 'Get Away (Can't Let You)', 'Feel Like a King'
I had no idea what to expect from this 2011 solo album by Roger Glover. I haven't heard anything else he's done solo-wise - unless you count the Accidentally on Purpose album with Ian Gillan - but I do of course know that the man is Deep Purple's iconic bass player, as well as appearing on numerous '80s Rainbow albums and a fair amount of guest appearances on others too (just check out his discography on Wikipedia). It's no secret that the man's also a prolific music producer. But in terms of writing music purely under his own steam, well, as I said, I wasn't sure what to expect. As it happens, the music on this CD is kinda varied and doesn't really follow one particular direction. The songs also feature a number of different musicians, with multiple different people handling vocals throughout the album, including Randall Bramblett and also Pete Agnew and Dan McCafferty from Nazareth. Roger's own daughter Gillian even sings lead vocals on the mellow, almost country-ish 'Moonlight' as well as the ballad 'Set Your Imagination Free' and the bluesy 'Get Away (Can't Let You)'. Roger himself sings on other tracks too, and has quite low, gravelly tone. He even manages to sound a little like Johnny Cash on the title track. All the singers involved differ a lot from one another, but all have been utilised rather well depending on the style of each track.
As stated before, the music is quite varied overall. The songs are relatively short for the most part, with most of them clocking at under, or just over 3 minutes - but there's also 16 of them in total. For example, the opening track 'Don't Look Now (Everything Has Changed)' has a reggae-like shuffle, 'If Life Was Easy' is something of a country-rock ditty, while others have a strong blues presence like the rough n' grimy 'Box of Tricks', and rootsy 'The Dream I Had'. 'Stand Together' is a solid soft rock cut, the acoustic 'When Life Gets to the Bone' is somewhat folky while 'When the Day Is Gone' has something of an art rock touch about it. Although nothing on here really excites me per se, I do dig nearly every track here. Just about the only one I couldn't get on board with was 'The Ghost of Your Smile'; former Elf and Rainbow keyboardist Mickey Lee Soule's almost spoken-word vocals didn't settle all that well with me.
This disc is a far cry from Deep Purple then, but clearly Roger wasn't trying to mimic his primary band with the songwriting and composition of If Life Was Easy. So don't expect to be rockin' out to this one, although closing track 'Feel Like a King' comes close! The long list of varying songs make this album feel a little directionless at times, but I suppose it also held my attention for the same reasons. It's a fairly lightweight, easy listening kind of rock record, and a good one at that. Not the sort of thing I'd typically listen to on a daily basis, so it's quite hard for me to really hold it in higher regard than a lot of Glenn Hughes' or Ian Gillan's solo work - but it's a nice album to just mellow out to after a hard day's work.
Adam's rating: 7/10
IAN GILLAN & TONY IOMMI - WHOCARES 2012 (Ear Music)
A really cool and interesting 2 CD compilation of mostly all kinds of different projects both Ian Gillan and Tony Iommi have worked on over the years! The biggest draw for me however, are the 2 tracks 'Out of My Mind' and 'Holy Water'. See, back in 2011, Ian and Tony formed a supergroup called WhoCares to record these 2 songs in order to raise money for charity (mainly to help rebuild a school in Armenia). The lineup for this temporary outfit was killer. Deep Purple's OG organ maestro Jon Lord, Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain behind the kit, Jason Newsted on bass and also, erm, HIM's Mikko Lindstrom as a second guitarist! Anyhow, it was awesome to hear all these guys playing together, especially Ian and Tony who hadn't really recorded anything with each other since Ian's short stint with Sabbath back in the '80s! The 2 remained good mates, hence why WhoCares existed. Anyway, 'Out of My Mind' is a slow, doomy affair with Tony's signature heavy riffing written all over it. But hearing Lord's organ work behind him is a treat too, and in general it sounds like it could have been on one of Iommi's solo albums. 'Holy Water' is a tad more melodic, but still pretty great. It actually sounds a bit more Purple-ish, like if the roles were reversed and if Tony joined Deep Purple! Either way, it's a shame WhoCares only set out to record a couple of songs. Imagine if we'd had an entire album from these guys! I guess Ian was too busy with Deep Purple, and it was very soon after this period that Ozzy would reunite with Black Sabbath...
The rest of this compilation is a nice mish-mash of Gillan and Iommi-related cuts; studio tracks from albums, rarities, live cuts, b-sides... the works. The CD booklet comes with notes from both men, explaining where each track has come from which is very nice. A handful of these songs I already had - for example, Sabbath's 'Anno Mundi' from the Tony Martin-era album Tyr is on here, as well as the updated version of 'Trashed' from Gillan's Inn. Also, 'Zero the Hero' from the Gillan-fronted Sabbath classic Born Again is here, but they kinda had to include something from that album. Great stuff either way. There's a terrific 1999 live version of 'Smoke On the Water', with Purple backed up by the London Symphony Orchestra and Ronnie James Dio! Yep, Ronnie duets with Ian. Can never have too much Dio! Another choice cut for me is 'Slip Away', which was an unreleased Iommi solo track from the Fused (2005) album sessions. I love the Fused album - as well as pretty much any time Tony has worked alongside Glenn Hughes - and 'Slip Away' is another heavy-ass number with Hughes' amazing vocals on top. I believe the WhoCares compilation was the only way to hear this track until Fused was reissued in 2024. Other favourites for me are the melodic Gillan solo number 'Don't Hold Me Back' and the lengthy Deep Purple studio jam 'Dick Pimple' (weird title).
I don't normally rate compilations if they're just a 'greatest hits' kind of package, but this one isn't. Obviously you've got the 2 WhoCares tracks, which makes it worth owning for that reason alone, but there's also a bunch of fun oddities that I didn't own. Musically both discs are all over the place due to the sheer number of different projects, but it's a very fun listen and one I think most Gillan/Iommi fans will get a kick out of. For that reason it's getting an 8/10.
Adam's rating: 8/10
