HUGHES THRALL: LP Glenn Hughes (ex- Trapeze, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath). The Voice of Rock has never sounded so confident. Check videos & audio description / commentary

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An audio description / audio commentary of what the HUGHES THRALL album is all about. Listen: https://voca.ro/118k2kQO6rbK  or 


 

Hughes/Thrall. 1982 UK pressing EPC25052.
There was quite a weight of anticipation on this album when it came out, as no one had heard much from Glenn Hughes since 1976’s Play me out LP . Most thought he had fallen into the abyss of excess in LA (and frankly i believe that wasn’t far from the truth). Fortunately the album lived up to the expectations and revealed Glenn on top form. It couldn’t really be pigeonholed style wise, but there are some heavyweight rockers, alongside sublime ballads. There actually is not a dud on here, and certainly some of Glenn’s purest vocals. The article is from Kerrang magazine and shows the excitement that this created in the rock music community.


Hughes/Thrall. 1982 Uk pressing EPC25052.


HUGHES / THRALL - ST [Rock Candy remastered & reloaded +2] booklet

Without a doubt, HUGHES / THRALL is among the finest works from Glenn Hughes’ fructiferous career. When Deep Purple finally collapsed in mid 1976 beneath a blanket of fatigue and insurrection all bets were off as to which members would fly phoenix like from the wreckage. Loaded with talent, Purple was a breeding ground for a significant amount of lofty and successful spin off projects including Whitesnake, Rainbow and Gillan but it wasn’t until 1982, following a couple of low key solo projects, that bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes resurfaced with a unit that would quite rightly stop the Rock world in its tracks.
Teaming up with highly respected guitar maestro Pat Thrall (Automatic Man, Pat Travers Band, Asia) the duo formed HUGHES / THRALL, a collaboration that not only promised much on paper but would eventually deliver one of, if not the best, post Deep Purple records in that particular cannon of excellence.

Meticulously produced by seasoned studio guru Andy Johns (Free, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen) the record received an overwhelmingly enthusiastic reception from old and new fans alike.
Basking in clear cut melodies, razor sharp guitar chops and edgy production there’s some of the best Melodic Hard Rock songs crafted in the first half of the ’80s, on par with any Journey or Foreigner album.
The icing on the cake? Well, Glenn Hughes pipes, of course. The Voice of Rock has never sounded so confident and so well suited to the material displayed on this album.
Every song, every phrase, every lick; pure manna from heaven.

Songs like “I Got Your Number’, the AORsish ‘The Look In Your Eye’ (my favorite and a true classic), ‘Beg, Borrow Or Steal’, ‘Where Did The Time Go’, ‘Hold Out Your Life’, ‘Who Will You Run To’, ‘Coast To Coast’, just to name some, are timeless classy Melodic Hard Rock songs.
“Hughes / Thrall” is a magnificent Melodic Hard Rock record.
Every song is special, musicianship top notch – Quiet Riot’s Frankie Banali recorded most the drums – and production is simply brilliant.
Hughes remembers it as it was yesterday: “When we put Hughes / Thrall together, we immediately had this great sound. As a trio we sounded huge.
Pat had his synthesizer guitar back then, and we had this amazing depth to pull from. We wrote a lot of material too and we were in pre-production for maybe six months before we went into the studio”.

Hughes remarks; “I have lost count of the many people (and musicians!) who have put this LP at the top of their playlist. I am very proud of this project. There is a definite vibe on this gem”.
One thing is for sure: there was a certain chemistry between Hughes and Thrall that drove them to incredible heights.
Back in the day, “Hughes / Thrall” went quite unnoticed in America, but it was big in Japan & Europe becoming a classic in Melodic Hard Rock circles.
A Must Have

HUGHES & THRALL – I GOT YOUR NUMBER

1982 RELEASE ON EPIC  Uk pressing EPC25052.

SIDE 1
1-I GOT YOUR NUMBER
2-THE LOOK IN YOUR EYE
3-BEG,BORROW OR STEAL
4-WHERE DID THE TIME GO
5-MUSCLE AND BLOOD

SIDE 2
1-HOLD OUT YOUR LIFE
2-WHO WILL YOU RUN TO
3-COAST TO COAST
4-FIRST STEP OF LOVE


Often cited by musos as a favourite album, ‘Hughes/Thrall’ was released in 1982. By all accounts Glenn Hughes (bass and vocals in MK III and IV Deep Purple) ‘stole’ guitarist Pat Thrall after seeing him play with Pat Travers when that band opened for Def Leppard.

Pat Thrall’s jazz rock approach had been honed when playing in ‘Go’ an experimental fusion outfit featuring Stomu Yamahsa and Steve Winwood, and Michael Shrieve whom he subsequently joined in Automatic Man. Thrall featured on five Travers albums including the live ‘Go For What You Know’ in 1979.

With Hughes suffering from addiction and alcohol abuse, this album was never really going to happen and the duo never toured to promote it.

The album is a mixture of the hard rock and funk styles so beloved of Hughes and a fusion texture from Thrall. The standouts include ‘Hold Out Your Life’ and ‘Coast To Coast’.

In spite of a reunion of sorts in 1987 when they recorded a track for the ‘Dragnet’ movie, Hughes and Thrall went their separate ways, with Thrall pursuing session work and appearing with Meat Loaf.

“It formed the template for much of the 80s hard rock scene. Solid bass and outstanding guitar, coupled with keyboards and polished production; you only have to listen to opener ‘I Got Your Number’ to realise how enjoyable and essential the whole album is.”

When I asked Glenn Hughes about the album in a 2006 interview he told me: “It’s a musicians’ record, every musician I know seems to have it in their collection”.

Was he disappointed that the album was not more successful than it was?

“It didn’t do well for two reasons: first, sex, drugs and rock n roll again – I wasn’t well enough in the eighties to tour – and secondly, Pat and I were also going in very different musical directions. He wanted to go more fusion on the next Hughes/Thrall record and I wanted it to be more straight down the middle rock and funk.”


HUGHES & THRALL – THE LOOK IN YOUR EYES

Once described as a “”marriage made in hard rock heaven,”” Hughes/Thrall paired the legendary talents of English vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes (ex-Trapeze and Deep Purple, aka “”the Voice of Rock””) and American guitarist Pat Thrall (formerly with Automatic Man and Pat Travers’ band). The latter had slowly made a name for himself in both hard rock and fusion circles (having briefly worked with Al di Meola among others) but had yet to capitalize on his burgeoning fame, come the early ’80s; while the former had managed a perfunctory solo album shortly after the disintegration of Deep Purple, but otherwise spent the previous five years mired in a mixture of drugs, lack of inertia, and grief over the heroin-related death of former running mate Tommy Bolin. In fact, it has been argued that it was partly Hughes’ nostalgia for the supremely talented but doomed Bolin effortless dabbling in rock, jazz, blues, and beyond that sparked his interest in working with the similarly versatile Thrall. Thus was born Hughes/Thrall in late 1981, and months of rehearsal, songwriting, and all around woodshedding followed in Los Angeles, where the duo eventually began recording an eponymous album with heavyweight producer Andy Johns (Led Zeppelin, Free, etc.), keyboard player Peter Schless, and a variety of drummers including Gary Ferguson, Gary Mallaber, and Frankie Banali (future Quiet Riot). Ironically, all of this adventurous musical pedigree somehow translated into a remarkably safe-sounding, commercial AOR album, clearly aimed to appease American radio stations, and released with little fanfare by a short-lived Epic subsidiary named Boulevard Records. Hughes/Thrall did film two promo videos (for singles “”I Got Your Number”” and “”The Look in Your Eye””)

In rocking  retrospect no one should’ve been surprised when the debut  and so far only  album from Glenn Hughes and Pat Thrall turned out to be such a consummate release. The shrewdly titled, and supremely crafted, Hughes/Thrall was, and remains, a prime example of  if you’ll pardon the variation on a theme   Heroic/Teamwork.
Even today, many people   most notably musicians   speak about Hughes/Thrall in hushed, reverential, we re-not-worthy tones. That this tremendous record never enjoyed the success it deserved first time around is completely inexplicable. Or is it? You better read on:

Making Hughes/Thrall was to prove an inspirational, not to say spiritually uplifting, experience for both bassist/vocalist Hughes and guitarist Thrall. But for the former in particular, it was also a cathartic exercise after a lengthy time spent in kicking his dusty heels in the backwoods of the Los Angeles music scene.

“I had been bored to death for five years”,  Hughes affirms today. “So, yes, thank God the formation of Hughes/Thrall came about.

Since the 1976 demise of the Mk IV version of Deep Purple and also the tragic death of Hughes’s buddy and soulmate in the Purple, guitarist Tommy Bolin , Glenn had been biding his time. Or something like that, anyway.

When Tommy died it was difficult for me, says the Cannock, Staffordshire-born Hughes. I was still in my dark period. From March or April 1976 when Purple broke up, to August 1981 when Hughes/Thrall began to take shape, I was definitely just hanging out rather than working. That five-year period I hate to use the word hiatus, but that’s what it was. I wasn’t interested in doing very much at all.

Immediately post-Purple, Hughes had released a masterful solo album, Play Me Out. Away from the pressures of DP, Glenn gave himself free rein to wallow in his two great loves besides rock n roll music: sensual, slinky funk and smooth, blue-eyed soul.


GLENN HUGHES: Play me out LP 1977 original, 1st press mint condition. THE VOICE OF ROCK. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Trapeze. Check audio

But then Hughes fell firmly off the radar. One of his first attempts at a comeback revolved around a super-group comprising himself, fusion guitarist Ray Gomez and R&B/soul star Narada Michael Walden. The trio was supposed to sign with Atlantic Records but Gomez opted for a solo deal with Columbia instead. (Nevertheless, Hughes continued to work on and off with Gomez, while keeping his options open.)

I had Play Me Out which came out in Europe but not in the US, at least not initially, Hughes recalls. Besides the so-called supergroup you mention, me and Gary Moore tried to do an album with [Elf, Thin Lizzy and Ian Gillan Band drummer] Mark Nauseef, called G-Force. But that was aborted in 1980 for numerous reasons. Sharon [Osbourne] was managing us.

That he once claimed to have fired himself from G-Force on his birthday, no less  says a lot about Hughes’ state of mind at the time. Moore’s new outfit continued on without him, recording a single album for Jet Records, but with false starts aplenty it really did seem as if Glenn’s career was going nowhere fast.

Thankfully, a hot guitarist called Pat Thrall was waiting in the wings. But how exactly did he manage to hook up with Hughes?

I was aware of Glenn from Purple, but the first time I really heard him was when I was hanging with Pat Travers and he put on the Play Me Out album. Travers plays on it; he was very proud to be a part of Glennâs record. I was hugely impressed by Play Me Out. At that point I thought: Great, I’m starting out with Travers now, but at some point I know I’m going to be playing with Glenn Hughes.

Hughes was similarly impressed by Thrall. At the beginning of the 80s I went to see Def Leppard open for Pat Travers at the Santa Monica Civic. It was Travers together with Mars Cowling [bass], Tommy Aldridge [drums] and Pat Thrall. And I saw first-hand what Travers was talking about when he told me: You’ve got to see my new guitar player, Pat Thrall. The two were sharing lead guitar duties. Immediately after the show I said to Pat Thrall: Do you want to form a band with me? Because I just loved what he was doing.

Thrall, however, remembers the events leading up to the formation of Hughes/Thrall a little differently: After I left Travers’s band I got in touch with Glenn to see what he was doing and he said: I’ve already got something going with Ray Gomez. So I went up to the San Francisco Bay Area, where my family is and where I grew up, and I started a band with my brother.

About four months later I got a call from Foreigner’s manager, Bud Prager. He said he was concerned because it wasn’t working out with Glenn and Gomez. Apparently Prager had invested a lot of his own money into the project and it wasn’t going anywhere. Prager knew Glenn had expressed an interest in working with me, but I thought his [Pragers] approach was kind of disrespectful. He wanted me to haul my ass down to LA, and spend a lot of my own money on rehearsal studios, demos and suchlike. Prager implied that, in the unlikely event of things working out between me and Glenn, if I was lucky he might take us on.

But all I cared about was playing with Glenn, so I moved to LA and we began working together regardless. Eventually Prager came into town, and when he heard what we were doing he flipped out and wanted to sign us. But I wasn’t so sure because of his attitude, and because of the way he approached me initially. So Glenn and I decided not to get involved with Prager, although obviously he did play a role in bringing us together

Hughes, for his part, didn’t see any problem in linking up with a guitarist who, prior to his time spent with Pat Travers, had gained a rather eclectic, left-field reputation as a player. I enjoy things that are totally out of the box – particularly after the experience of playing with Tommy [Bolin], which was total fusion in some respects. I’ve always wanted to work with people who’re a little on the edge, a little different. When we put Hughes/Thrall together we immediately had all these amazing signatures and this great sound. As a trio [drums being supplied by a varying cast including Gary Ferguson, Gary Mallaber, Peter Schless and Frankie Banali] we sounded huge. Pat had his synthesiser guitar back then, and we had this amazing depth to pull from. We wrote a lot of material. We were in pre-production for maybe six months before we went into the studio.

Hughes has since described Thrall as the best guitarist I’ve worked with in my entire career.

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