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

Alcatrazz - Disturbing The Peace (1985)

Following their debut album in 1984, Alcatrazz were left without a guitarist leaving Graham Bonnet et al to consider the difficult question: just how do you replace Yngwie Malmsteen? The answer was to recruit ex-Frank Zappa guitarist Seve Vai! Keyboardist Jimmy Waldo’s eye for a talented guitarist – following a recommendation from Rainbow’s David Rosenthal – had not let Alcatrazz down as once again they had an incredibly talented guitarist on board and the band set about writing and recording their follow-up to No Parole From Rock N Roll.

Disturbing The Peace is a strong album with both Vai and Graham Bonnet putting in powerful performances. The album is a marked shift from their Malmsteen work with the distinctive style of Vai taking the band in a different direction of a more commercial edge with the rapid-fire soloing of Malmsteen replaced by Vai’s more harmonic style.

Kicking off with God Blessed Video – which was also a single – Bonnet takes a swipe at the Duran Duran era of music videos: “Some cheap kid from Birmingham blessed with an accent that pours like the darkest brown ale”! Impossibly high-ranged vocals, this uptempo opener features some trademark Vai soloing. Mercy is a bit of a non-entity but the thrid track, Will You Be Home Tonight is a standout track with Bonnet singing in an unusually low register minus the usual growl to his voice until the second verse when he can contain himself no longer and really lets rip! I’ve come across two differing statements from Bonnet as to the background for the track – one being it is dedicated to James Dean, the other that it was written about a fan that the band had heard about who had died in a car accident on the way home from one of the band’s gigs.

The album then gets a little bland for a couple of numbers until the all-out rock of Stripper kicks in at track 6 with a breakneck riff from Vai. Things again drift somewhat until Sons And Lovers, a medium paced melodic rock number with a good hook which is followed by Skyfire, one of the strongest tracks on the album, telling the story of a UFO incident Bonnet witnessed over his Malibu home.

Whilst much trepidation surrounded the post-Malmsteen Alcatrazz, this album turned out a near-cracker, not quite there but very good indeed, with Vai and Bonnet really giving it their all and proving equally as good as No Parole but in a different sound-scape. Unfortunately for Alcatrazz, Vai left following the Disturbing The Peace tour to join Dave Lee Roth but that’s another stony!

• Graham Bonnet – Vocals
• Steve Vai – Guitars
• Jimmy Waldo – Keyboards
• Gary Shea – Bass
• Jan Uvena – 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

Alcatrazz - No Parole From Rock 'N' Roll (1983)

Following an all-too brief stint as frontman with Rainbow, vocalist Graham Bonnet pursued several short-lived projects for a few years – a short stint with the Michael Shenker Group and a solo album – only to re-emerge with Alcatrazz in 1983 and this, their debut album No Parole From Rock ‘N’ Roll. Featuring a largely unknown bunch of musicians, and Bonnet as chief songwriter (as opposed to in Rainbow) the omens weren’t good.

However, what in fact emerged was something of a revelation during what was something of a transition period in the development of rock with Bonnet ‘taking a punt’ on a then-19 year old Swedish guitarist named Ymgwie Malmsteen who, at that time, was heavily under the influence of Richie Blackmore in both classically-influenced style and appearance coupled with rapid sweeps, runs and arpeggios: something which he would develop to a phenomenal extent in his post-Alcatrazz career.

Furthermore, Bonnet’s writing was first rate with Jet To Jet, Hiroshima Mon Amour and Too Young To Die being three of the outstanding tracks from the album. Whilst Bonnet’s vocals were good with Rainbow, the more commercial approach that that band were taking at the time had somewhat limited the scope for his vocal abilities where as here, Bonnet really could let rip with his awe-inspiring range and power.

Unfortunately, the Bonnet-Malmsteen partnership only saw this studio album, and a live offering released, before Malmsteen pursued a solo career but for lovers of melodic shredding guitar, melodic yet powerful rock and soaring vocals, you couldn’t ask for more than No Parole From Rock ‘N’ Roll. My only criticism would be the production is a little ‘limp’ but hey, you can’t have everything!

• Graham Bonnet – Vocals
• Yngwie Malmsteen – Guitar
• Gary Shea – Bass
• Jan Uvena – Drums
• Jimmy Waldo – Keyboards