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Warhorse – Live At Woods

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/07/02

Another new(ish) release courtesy of letters to our better-late-than-never department. A Warhorse live album was quietly released some time in January 2025 via SingSong Music (a company founded by George Harrison himself). It is a recording of their one-off reunion gig from 2001. A founding member of Deep Purple, British music veteran Nick Simper left […]

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Sign of the Wolf

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/07/01

Our better-late-than-never department presents you with the self-titled album of the studio project called Sign of the Wolf, released earlier this year. The project lists several members of the extended Purple family in their ranks: Doug Aldrich and Steve Morris on guitars, Tony Carey on keyboards, and Vinny Appice on drums. The lineup also includes […]

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Banned

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/07/01

Ian Paice not only continues to tour with Purpendicular, but they also completed recording a new album together. The album is whimsically called Banned, and release date is pencilled in for October 10, 2025. In the hot summer of 2024, the band decided to write their fourth album in a remote village high in the […]

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After all we said today

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/30

A second single for the upcoming remix of Rapture of the Deep has been released. Behold, it’s Clearly Quite Absurd. The b-side (whatever it is in this digital world) is an instrumental version of MTV that is said to be previously available as a bonus track on the limited edition of the album (it is […]

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Communion at Hellfest

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/22

Black Country Communion performance at the Hellfest from June 21, 2025, has been posted to YouTube by ARTE Concerts. It is promised to be available for a whole year, until June 20, 2026. Thanks to Daniel Bengtsson for the info.

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Has it been seven decades already?

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/22

Another Purple book from the ever prolific Martin Popoff — Seven Decades of Deep Purple: An Unofficial History. It is due to be published on September 28, 2025 via Schiffer Publishing. Dive into the saga of Deep Purple and unravel the untold stories behind the legendary band, from their groundbreaking albums to their tumultuous journey […]

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Amazing what he does

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/22

Louder Sound publishes a Prog magazine feature on Carl Sentance talking about Don Airey. “I first met Don through a friend many years ago, when I was in Welsh heavy metal band Persian Risk. It was around the time he’d just joined Rainbow, and it was the first time I’d met someone quite famous. He […]

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Hats, socks, and rock’n’roll

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/18

If you felt that you don’t own enough copies of Made in Japan or appropriately branded socks, your prayers have been answered. There will be another super deluxe reissue of the iconic live album, this time remixed by Steven Wilson (original stereo album and Dolby Atmos) and Richard Digby Smith (the 3 shows). It will […]

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Shadow of the blues

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/17

Another book on the horizon, and it is a Whitesnake story by Martin Popoff, being published by Wymer. In Walking in the Shadow of the Blues: The Whitesnake Story, the first ever full biography of the band, top music writer Martin Popoff tells the tale of rock legend David Coverdale, from his Deep Purple roots […]

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Trimming the self-indulgence

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/16

Classic Rock magazine reviews Gillan’s Future Shock for their Album of the Week Club. Fondly regarded in their day, mainly because of their proximity to the classic Mk II Deep Purple sound, it wasn’t until the release of Future Shock in 1981 that Gillan really came into their own. Preceded by the success of singles […]

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Good times, bad times

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/15

Steve Morse took part in a jam that happened in Annapolis, MD, on May 31, 2025. The occasion was the release of a novel Punk Force by Steve’s friend Ward Carroll. Ward is a retired navy F-14 Tomcat pilot, an author of books about life in an F-14 squadron (Punk series), a military commentator, and […]

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The bad news, and the good ones

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/14

CBC profiles Bob Ezrin with a lengthy interview, published on the occasion of him receiving a Governor General’s Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award today, June 14, 2025. Music-wise, the interview focuses on just the two “genre-defining” albums from his vast portfolio — Pink Floyd The Wall and Kiss Destroyer. He also mentions that he just got […]

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Next best thing to Quincy

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/11

There was quite a bit of talk on these pages recently about the production of Rapture of the Deep, and the role of Michael Bradford in particular. Here is an extended interview with him from a couple of years ago, where he talks about working with Deep Purple, among many other things. The interview doesn’t […]

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Glenn’s tribute to Sly

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/10

An acclaimed pioneer of psychedelia, funk, soul, and racial integration in music, Sly Stone (real name Sylvester Stewart) of the Sly and the Family Stone fame has passed away at the age of 82. Louder Sound quotes Glenn Hughes in their obituary: The big turning point for me was when I first went over to […]

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Good day to be alive

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/08

Black Country Communion is on tour in Europe, and on June 7, 2025, they have performed at the Sweden Rock Festival, and Glenn Hughes was interviewed backstage by the Sweden Rock TV podcast. And here’s a snippet from the BCC performance at the festival: …The day before at Amager Bio in Copenhagen: Thanks to Blabbermouth […]

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With his room cleaning kit

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/07

A bit of family history here. Cozy Powell’s interview from 1979, where he talks about Rainbow, their new album, and the arrival of Bonnet and Glover into the band. Interesting to note, that neither Cozy nor the interviewer have any qualms describing the music he’s playing (and yeas, that includes Down to Earth) as heavy […]

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Rapture remix

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/07

Edel is preparing to release a remixed version of Rapture of the Deep for the 20th anniversary of the album. The new mix was done under Roger Glover’s supervision, and mastered at Hamburg’s renowned Chameleon Studios. Bonus tracks include previously unreleased studio jams and instrumental takes, recorded during the writing sessions for the album. Among […]

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The beauty of simplicity

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/06

Smoke on the Water was featured and dissected on the recent episode of BBC Radio 4 show Add to playlist that was on the air on May 30, 2025. The premise of the show is to introduce several pieces of music and find links between them. Composer Gavin Higgins and soprano Claire Booth take us […]

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Very, very scholarly

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/06

There’s a new book on Deep Purple being published, and this time it is a scholarly tome in the Studies in Popular Music series, published by Equinox Publishing. It is called after the last classic Mark II album Who Do We Think They Are? and was edited by Dr. Andy R. Brown (which implies that […]

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Chosen

News – The Highway Star ·

2025/06/06

Glenn Hughes’ new album Chosen is set for release on September 5, 2025, via Frontiers Records. Songwriting is deeply personal to me, and I generally write and record when I have something to say. It’s been nine years since I recorded my last solo album, “Resonate”. While there have been recordings and collaborations with other […]

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