Graham Bonnet - Line-Up (1981)

Following a rather swift exit from Rainbow after just one album, vocalist Graham Bonnet rounded-up some of his rock luminary friends to produce a solo album, Line-Up, his third and most successful solo release. Featuring the likes of Cozy Powell, Jon Lord and Micky Moody you’d expect quite a strong album and, to be fair, it’s not bad – albeit it’s not greater than the sum of its parts!

Opening with the hit single from the album, Night Games, Bonnet is in fine form with the track itself occupying Rainbow/Whitesnake territory, unsurprisingly, with a very catchy chorus: the single (written by Ed Hamilton – in fact Bonnet didn’t write any of the tracks here) reached number 6 in the UK chart.

SOS is up next, a powerful riff with a driving verse and Bonnet at full vocal stretch – up in the higher registers where he belongs. Micky Moody also puts in a good turn on guitar on this Russ Ballard-penned number (the man behind Rainbow’s Since You’ve Been Gone), a songwriter that was expert in melodic, powerful and catchy rock.

I’m A Lover slips into a slow, bluesy feel – still very much in a Rainbow tradition – with some good vocals and general instrumentation. However, things then go horribly wrong with Line-Up: a cover of the Ronettes’ Be My Baby! Suddenly the band sound like Showaddywaddy, complete with cheesy sax solo – quite what Bonnet was thinking here is anyone’s guess.

Fortunately, a dirty Moody opening riff to That’s The Way That It Is rescues the album for a fairly run of the mill rock plodder. The next track, Liar, is strong and runs around a keyboard/sequencer pattern and nice Joe Walsh-style guitar play from Moody.

Next-up is a reworking of a lesser-known Chuck Berry number, Anthony Boy. As with Be My Baby, this is not good . . . really, really not good at all and some of Bonnet’s band mates should have talked him out of his rock and roll preoccupation.

Dirty Hand is back on a rock footing but is not particularly dynamic and has an awful keyboard sound bursting through now and again. Fortunately, Night Games’ B-side Out On The Water is up next which is quite a belter, opening with a good Moody riff and an uptempo feel – not enough to make Cozy Powell break sweat, but enough to get the toe tapping! There’s also some trademark Micky Moody slide guitar soloing too, which is always good.

Don’t Stand In The Open moves to really bland late-70’s chart material territory and the closing track, Set Me Free does little to lift the sense of despair that slowly creeps in listening to this album at how such a decent bunch of rock musicians could produce such an inconsistent and, in the main, poor album.

You would think that mixing musicians from Rainbow, Deep Purple and Whitesnake together you’d get a real gem of an album but they seem here to be quite disinterested and merely going through the motions for their mate. Bonnet gives a reasonably strong performance throughout but struggles to lift both the backing band and some of the song choices – you can certainly tell which tracks the band enjoyed and which ones they rather wished they didn’t have to play.

For novelty value worth a listen but far from a classic in any way, shape or form! To be fair, Bonnet wasn’t best pleased with the album as he thought the ‘rock’ had been mixed-out of the tracks by the producer in his absence . . . he wasn’t wrong.

• Graham Bonnet – Vocals
• Micky Moody – Guitar
• Cozy Powell – Drums
• Gary Twigg – Bass
• Jon Lord – Keyboards

ELP - Emerson Lake & Powell (1986)

When I originally heard that ELP were to reform but with Cozy Powell on drums my heart sank – I was a big ELP fan and especially a fan of Carl Palmer’s flamboyant and technically astounding drumming on their early albums. Unfortunately Palmer was busy with Asia and so Emerson and Lake had had to seek out another drummer for the new album but I couldn’t quite understand why they settled on Cozy Powell – admittedly he’d done some reasonably nice stuff on the early Jeff Beck albums but the vast majority of his output was at best sadly lacking in finesse and technical merit and if, rumours of the band seeking a drummer with a ‘P’ for a surname had any foundation, I was hoping for Ian Paice!

Looking back, what I hadn’t taken into account was that ELP had changed – the complex time signatures and frantic instrumentalisation had gone and, furthermore, that Carl Palmer had really lost his way . . . in a BIG way . . . and no longer played in the style of his earlier ELP days. To his credit, Cozy Powell actually turns-in a good performance on this album throughout (and his interpretations of early ELP pieces are also worthy of note for those who’ve heard the Sprocket Sessions rehearsal tapes) and certainly stronger than Palmer’s when he returned to ELP subsequently – but I digress!

The album opens with the the unremarkable The Score, Learning To Fly and Miracle which, as was to be increasingly the case with ELP, are largely Greg Lake tracks backed by E and P without much scope for the old-style improvisations that abounded in their early releases.

Track 4, Touch And Go, is a real diamond in the rough however, and whilst of a relatively ‘radio-friendly’ style – featured a powerful riff from Emerson with Powell’s pounding drums really adding to it’s impact (the track was also a single from the album).

The album then drifts back into Lake-led mediocrity with Love Blind. Fortunately, Emerson provides a jazz-piano based number next in Step Aside which swings nicely and has the odd glimpse of the musical ability of Emerson – along with a very subtle performance from Powell. However, just as you think things are looking-up, the blandness returns with avengence on Lake’s Lay Down your Guns which wouldn’t be out of place on a Barry Manilow album!

Finally, a return to their early inspiration is rediscovered with an interpretation of Holst’s Mars The Bringer Of War which is mediocre but, by when you’ve endured the album thus far, is quite a standout moment! And then, at last, some cacophonous chord bashing from Emerson with attacking drums and uptempo instrumentalisation for The Loco – Motion . . . great! But alas, it suddenly turns into the Gerry Goffin and Carole King-penned Locomotion played on the cheesiest keyboard sound ever and is absolutely catastrophically bad . . . really, really bad!

It is with some relief that Vacant Possession arrives to close the album – an average AOR affair from Lake – but after The Loco – Motion, it is relatively enjoyable. In fact I think if I’d penned a song to follow The Loco – Motion it wouldn’t have seemed half bad by comparison . . . although Vacant Possession does have an awfully out of place keyboard solo in it.

I have to confess that listening to this album again some 20 years after I last heard it has really brought back the horror of just how bad it was/is: in actual fact, such is it’s awfulness (just a percentage point above ELP’s Love Beach album) that the only real positive was Cozy Powell which, when considering my opening comments, is something of a revelation – I feel quite sorry for him having to provide backing to such tripe. Consider buying it just so you can have the pleasure of throwing it away!

• Keith Emerson – Keyboards
• Greg Lake – Bass/Vocals
• Cozy Powell – Drums

Rainbow - Down To Earth (1979)

Question: how do you go about replacing Ronnie James Dio? Answer: recruit a short haired bit-part actor and ex-member of 1960s obscurities The Marbles, Graham Bonnet! What an inspired move that proved to be too with Graham Bonnet providing his considerable vocal talent to a ‘new’ commercial-edged Rainbow – gone were the dragons, rainbows and mythology of the Dio era and in came shorter, chart-friendly numbers enabling Rainbow to trouble the upper echelons of the UK chart for the first time with All Night Long and Since You’ve Been Gone reaching numbers 5 and 6 respectively.

Whilst Rainbow had previously been a reasonably well-kept secret of the rock fraternity, now they became more mainstream – a move that gathered apace following Down To Earth. Quite why Down To Earth was to be Bonnet’s debut and swansong (as well as signalling Cozy Powell’s departure) I’m not overly certain but the album contains some classic tracks – including the sublime Makin’ Love.

Bonnet sings his heart out giving full reign to his staggering range while the Airey-Powell-Glover backing was one of the strongest lineups Rainbow was to enjoy: Blackmore, as ever, is consistently good throughout.

This was also the first Rainbow album to reunite Richie Blackmore with ex-Deep Purple band-mate Roger Glover who undertook production duties and co-wrote the majority of the tracks which also helped the band transition from heavy rock to commercial melodic rock. Notable is the absence of writing credits for Graham Bonnet who, with his post-Rainbow band Alcatrazz, co-wrote all the tracks: even Cozy Powell gets a writing credit here on Lost In Hollywood – possibly for the drum roll at the beginning one wonders?

As with the follow-up, Difficult To Cure, this album represents Rainbow at the peak of their popularity.

• Graham Bonnet – Vocals
• Ritchie Blackmore – Guitar
• Don Airey – Keyboards
• Roger Glover – Bass
• Cozy Powell – Drums

Rainbow - Long Live Rock And Roll (1978)

One of the finest proponents of blues-based hard rock during the latter half of the 1970s, Long Live Rock marked the end of the Ronnie Dio era of the group which, including this one, spawned three powerful studio albums.

Despite internal turmoil within the group which would lead to Dio, Bob Daisley (bass) and Dave Stone (keyboards) departing from the group shortly afterwards, the album itself is a classic of its day that still sounds good when cranked up on the stereo!

Kicking off with Cozy Powell’s pounding intro to the title track (Cozy being the only member other than Mr Rainbow Himself, Richie Blackmore, to make it to another Rainbow album) the album thunders along with the trademark guitar/Hammond sound developed in Deep Purple giving a thick and heavy sound to the tracks with Dio’s powerful voice belting out the lyrics with his usual gusto.

Personal standout tracks are the title number and Kill The King which was an earlier Rainbow track that appears on the live ‘On Stage’ album a year prior to this release.

Whilst Rainbow progressively became more and more commercial following Dio’s departure – the three albums with Ronnie Dio were consistently prime examples of 1970s rock at its best and perhaps if Blackmore had been a little less irascible maybe this album wouldn’t have been the swansong of the group’s strongest lineup!

• Ronnie James Dio – Vocals
• Ritchie Blackmore – Guitar
• David Stone – Keyboards
• Bob Daisley – Bass
• Cozy Powell – Drums