<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Near the end of my time with the band Knockdown, Lee the bass player loaned me a copy of an album called <\/span>Medusa<\/span><\/i> by an English band called Trapeze. \u00a0He mentioned something about wanting to learn some of their songs, but a few months later, we played our last gigs before Ray the guitar player (and human jukebox) exited the Air Force and returned to his native Illinois. \u00a0I absolutely loved this album but I didn\u2019t know much about the band even though I spent a good deal of time listening to this one album over and over again. In April of 1974, the newest edition of Deep Purple (the Mark III version) made their debut in front of a crowd of 400,000 at California Jam. \u00a0When the band was introduced, newest members Dave Coverdale (vocals) and Glenn Hughes (bass\/vocals) made me sit up and take notice. I had no idea who Coverdale was, but Glenn Hughes was the bass player and lead singer in Trapeze leaving me to wonder exactly what was going on with my new favorite band. \u00a0Like many rock and roll stories, it was complicated.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Glenn Hughes\u2019 teen years in England\u2019s West Midlands were dominated by his three guitar heroes. \u00a0Of course it comes as no surprise that two were George Harrison and Eric Clapton. The third was a slightly older player from his school who inspired him to give up trombone and take up guitar. \u00a0When Mel Galley asked Hughes to switch to bass so he could join Galley\u2019s band Finders Keeper he did so without a second thought. Like many fledgling bands in the late 1960s, they made a respectable go at it. \u00a0When their manager Tony Perry paired them (Galley, Hughes and drummer Dave Holland) with some older musicians from a covers band called The Montanas, it seemed like their fortunes were on the upswing. Joining up with vocalist\/trumpeter John Jones and keyboardist Terry Rowley also brought a new name: \u00a0they were the first version of Trapeze.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Rowley had penned a ballad called <\/span>Send Me No More Letters <\/span><\/i>that was good enough to get the attention of Apple Corps director Neil Aspinwall and the Fab Four\u2019s roadie turned personal assistant Mal Evans. \u00a0Aspinwall and Evans brought the band into Apple\u2019s studio on Savile Row to have a go at recording the band, but it was a disastrous session. The substance addled studio crew couldn\u2019t figure out the new recording board they had imported from America. \u00a0As Hughes recalled the incident for <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i>, \u201cWe were surrounded by greatness, all these drums and guitars that The Beatles had used and no one was capable of recording us. \u00a0After two days of hanging around the place, we left.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They eventually found a home at Threshold Records, the imprint of the Moody Blues (which accounts for the MB\u2019s bassist John Lodge taking the producer\u2019s chair for the first Trapeze album). \u00a0The flowery psychedelia they laid down on vinyl convinced manager Perry that Hughes was a better singer than Jones. Jones and Rowley decided to return to The Montanas, leaving Trapeze as a trio. \u00a0Hughes hadn\u2019t really known he could sing but as long as everyone else thought he could, he resolved to give that a go as well. Figuring they were now in a configuration similar to Cream (the other power trio of that day with a singing bassist), Trapeze set about recording their second album, the aforementioned <\/span>Medusa. \u00a0<\/span><\/i>Without the normal bed of four part harmonies Hughes was used to singing in the middle of, the band began writing riffier songs which required Hughes to step up his vocals a notch. \u00a0Hughes admired the soul-rock singers like Steve Marriott (Small Faces, Humble Pie) so Trapeze began fashioning music that fit Marriott\u2019s soul belter template but was still powerful enough to fill out the sound of the trio. \u00a0Together they forged a new sound that was both heavy and melodic.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Medusa<\/span><\/i> was not released until November of 1970, but by then they had been on tour opening for the Moodies in America. \u00a0When they hit Texas in December, they found the Texas audiences liked them a lot and according to Hughes, \u201cThat\u2019s when the rocket ship lifted off.\u201d \u00a0Four subsequent tours across America in support of <\/span>Medusa<\/span><\/i> built pockets of support but never the big break through that would have made them a household name. \u00a0Spending the majority of their time touring and recording in America also began to influence the music Galley and Hughes were writing. \u00a0The third album (<\/span>You Are The Music…We\u2019re Just the Band<\/span><\/i>) came out in 1972 and the nineteen year old Hughes felt he was progressing as a songwriter. \u00a0<\/span>You Are The Music<\/span><\/i> was a great album and it caught the attention of Ritchie Blackmore who wanted to part ways with two of his fellow founding members of Deep Purple, vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Nine months after Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice caught Trapeze at L.A.\u2019s Whiskey A Go Go, they flew Hughes to New York to see Purple play at Madison Square Garden. \u00a0They told him they wanted him in the band to replace Glover. Hughes pointed out that he was a singer, but was told Purple planned on bringing in Free\u2019s Paul Rogers on vocals. \u00a0That was all it took for Hughes to depart Trapeze and join DP MKIII as their new bass player.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Here the story of Trapeze hits a fork in the road. \u00a0Holland and Galley carried on recording a fourth Trapeze album (<\/span>Hot Wire – 1974<\/span><\/i>) with Galley assuming the lead vocals. \u00a0With interest in the Hughes-less band waning, they broke up. \u00a0Galley joined Coverdale\u2019s Whitesnake for a while and Holland joined Judas Priest. \u00a0There were two attempts to reform Trapeze which we will discuss when we get to the fork in the road taken by Hughes. \u00a0In the end, Holland served time in prison for the alleged 2004 assault of a learning disabled lad he was giving drum lessons to. \u00a0He served his time from until his release in 2012 but repeatedly maintained that he was innocent up to his death in early 2018. Galley was taken by cancer at age 60 in 2008. \u00a0\u00a0Trapeze had began as a band with great promise, but this branch fizzled not unlike one of the branches of the human family tree whose members didn\u2019t evolve far enough to survive.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hughes was eager to join the revamped Deep Purple, but Paul Rodgers was not. \u00a0Rodgers was in the process of forming Bad Company so the new Purple lead singer turned out to be a young unknown named Dave Coverdale (David came latter). \u00a0It was this MKIII version that debuted to the hundreds of thousands gathered at the Ontario Speedway for California Jam. Of course, the Glenn Hughes story line of \u201cjoin a major band and live happily ever after\u201d wouldn\u2019t quite work out even though the MKIII and MKIV (which included guitarist Tommy Bolin after Blackmore\u2019s departure) put out a couple of good albums during this period. \u00a0Unfortunately Hughes set out on the tried and true path of rock \u2018n roll excess and developed a whalloping case of drug addiction. He could have become just another entry on the list of rock stars felled by the three headed dragon of fame, money, and drugs. It took some years for him to get sober and regain his balance, but he managed to do both while still living his rock and roll dream. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For his first post-Deep Purple venture, \u00a0he teamed up with guitarist Pat Thrall in a short lived but highly acclaimed pairing dubbed the Hughes -Thrall Band. \u00a0He also continued to release solo works that were solid even if they didn\u2019t sell mountains of albums. One of the first Hughes solo works I recall seeing was on Mike Varney\u2019s Shrapnel Records imprint. \u00a0The cover photo showed Hughes with shorter swept back hair that made one think he had gone disco, but the self named album leaned more to the melodic pop side of the ledger. There were a couple of failed Trapeze reunions. \u00a0They found they could still make great music together and the audiences and promoters in their former hotspots were still interested. According to Hughes, he was sober by that time and others in the band were not, thus spelling an early end to both reunion efforts. \u00a0With Holland and Galley both in the great beyond, there won\u2019t be a third attempt.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With the new millennium well underway, Hughes connected with rising guitar prodigy Joe Bonamassa, drummer Jason Bonham (son of Led Zeppelin\u2019s John Bonham), and former Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian to form a hard rocking band called Black Country Communion. \u00a0The name is a nod to the shared Black Country origins of Hughes and Bonham. They put out three well received records but then the band imploded. It was a typical clash of egos that lead to a \u201che said, I said\u201d feud that broke the band just as they were gaining a wider audience. \u00a0Their live album and clips from YouTube show a band that rocked hard but also was in touch with both their bluesier and prog rock sides. In later interviews, both Hughes and Bonamassa professed to A) not really know what happened, B) take their share of the blame for the dust up, and C) to leave the door open a crack for possible future collaboration. \u00a0In this case, A + B did indeed equal C. The band, no longer harboring any ill will, reconvened to produce yet a fourth highly touted album in 2017 (<\/span>BBC IV<\/span><\/i>). \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The first couple of times listening through <\/span>BBC IV<\/span><\/i>, I kept thinking that Hughes\u2019 well of songs had finally dried up. \u00a0He could always write memorable hooks (as can Bonamassa) and he has always had a way with words, but some of the tracks here were not what one could call memorable. \u00a0The music and production were great, but it took a reworking of an older Hughes\u2019 tune to start turning my thinking around. <\/span>BBC IV <\/span><\/i>features a faithful rendition of the song that first caught my attention those many years ago: \u00a0<\/span>Medusa<\/span><\/i> from the Trapeze album of the same name. \u00a0It was a great song then and the more I listened to the <\/span>BCC IV<\/span><\/i> version, the more glimpses I began to get of the old Glenn Hughes songwriting prowess spread across the rest of the album. \u00a0It took a while, but <\/span>BBC IV<\/span><\/i> now sits comfortably in line with the previous Trapeze and Black Country Communion albums in my current playlist.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I am not sure what plans BCC has for future tours. \u00a0Sherinian is currently at work with his new band Sons of Apollo (including his former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy and Portnoy \u00a0bassist in The Winery Dogs, Billy Sheehan). Bonham has been touring with his Led Zep tribute tour honoring his late father, and of course, Bonamassa\u2019s plate is always full with various album\/touring projects too numerous to mention here. \u00a0Revisiting <\/span>Medusa<\/span><\/i> may signal that Hughes has now come full circle in his career. \u00a0Spending the summer and fall of 2018 touring with a bill stating \u201cGlenn Hughes performs classic Deep Purple LIVE\u201d may mean he has now gone a circle and a quarter through his career.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The music of Trapeze is still out there and I kind of hope that Hughes will revisit more of those songs from the past by either doing a Trapeze tribute tour of some sort (ala his current Deep Purple gig) or perhaps by resurrecting \u00a0more of them with BCC. Whether or not I get my wish, it gives me just as great a pleasure just to say that Glenn Hughes is alive and well and still living his dream. WOAS-FM 88.5 will soon be hosting a mini-Hughes festival featuring music from throughout his career.<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Glenn Hughes and Black Country Communion do a live take of\u00a0Medusa\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n