Corridors of Power
| Corridors of Power | |||||
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| Studio album by Gary Moore | |||||
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Publication |
September 1982 |
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admission |
Spring 1982 |
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| Label (s) | Virgin Records | ||||
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Title (number) |
9 |
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running time |
43:10 |
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| occupation |
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Jeff Glixman |
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Studio (s) |
Townhouse Studios , London |
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Corridors of Power is the fourth solo album by Northern Irish hard rock and blues guitarist Gary Moore . It was released in September 1982 and marked Moore's breakthrough in the international hard rock scene. Corridors of Power is now sometimes considered "the guitarist's first real heavy metal album".
Emergence
After the unfinished recordings of his album Dirty Fingers , Gary Moore joined Greg Lake's band in August 1981 . He recorded an album with Lake and went on tour for several months. In early 1982 Moore turned back to his solo career and recorded several demos with his own band. Although he was subsequently involved in a second album with Lake, the collaboration finally came to an end by autumn of that year.
In the meantime, Moore had signed a contract with Virgin Records . In the spring of 1982 he put together a new band, which consisted of a number of well-known musicians with Ian Paice on drums ( Deep Purple ), Neil Murray on bass ( Whitesnake ) and Tommy Eyre on keyboard (Greg Lake). With this line-up they finally went into the studio and recorded the album Corridors of Power . For the first time Moore did most of the vocals himself, only on the track "End of the World" there was another lead singer with Jack Bruce ( Cream ) at the microphone.
The album, recorded in London's Townhouse Studios , was a mixture of hard rock songs and catchy ballads. In terms of the lyrics, simple love songs predominated; With the epic "End of the World" Moore also took up the topic of nuclear war , which he had already dealt with on his album Dirty Fingers . "Wishing Well" is the cover version of a track by the band Free . The name Corridors of Power comes from a novel by the author CP Snow and refers to the seat of the British government in Whitehall .
publication
Moore played his first concerts in England with his studio band in the summer of 1982. As a singer he engaged the American Charlie Huhn ( Ted Nugent ), with whom he had already recorded the album Dirty Fingers a year and a half earlier . Chicken doesn't seem to have lived up to expectations and went back to Detroit at the end of August. After completing the small preliminary tour, the album was finally released in September 1982.
With Corridors of Power Moore experienced his commercial breakthrough. Virgin Records supported him much more than his old record company and brought out singles, EPs and bonus material for the album. In October 1982 Corridors of Power entered the UK album charts for several weeks. Moore also celebrated great success in Japan and in the USA the album stayed in the charts for a total of thirteen weeks for the next year.
After the album was released, Moore went on an extensive world tour in the fall of 1982. Singer John Sloman ( Lone Star , Uriah Heep ) joined the band for Charlie Huhn and Tommy Eyre was replaced as keyboardist by Don Airey ( Rainbow ), who, like Huhn, had already worked on Dirty Fingers . The band also came to Japan in 1983, where the live album Rockin 'Every Night was recorded in January . After that Sloman left the band and Moore took over the vocals himself from now on.
Track list
- Don't Take Me for a Loser - 4:17
- Always Gonna Love You - 3:56
- Wishing Well - 4:06 ( Free Cover)
- Gonna Break My Heart Again - 3:19
- Falling in Love with You - 4:52
- End of the World - 6:53 (with Jack Bruce )
- Rockin 'Every Night - 2:48
- Cold Hearted - 5:12
- I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow - 7:47
Remastered Edition bonus tracks
- Falling in Love with You - 4:17 (single version)
- Falling in Love with You - 4:24 (Instrumental)
- Love Can Make a Fool of You - 4:06 (unreleased)
occupation
- Gary Moore : vocals, guitar
- Ian Paice : drums
- Neil Murray : Bass
- Tommy Eyre: Keyboard
Guest musician
- Jack Bruce : vocals (6)
- Bobby Chouinard: drums (6)
- Mo Foster: Bass (5)
reception
Corridors of Power came out before there were regular hard rock and metal magazines to buy. So it's hard to find reviews from that time. In retrospect, Chris Welsh highlighted a few songs in his Gary Moore Special Rock-History in August 1989 , printed as Fan Mag in Metal Hammer : The live masterpiece Wishing Well , which stands out because of its "expressive and howling riffs" compared to the original version of Free , Don't Take Me for a Loser , which is "provocative" simply by the title , and the ballad-like Falling in Love with You released as a single . The rock-hard encyclopedia published in 1998 only mentions that Moore reduced “his solo excesses to melodic guitar runs” and made himself independent of unreliable singers by taking over the lead vocals. On the occasion of re-releases , Götz Kühnemund wrote in Rock Hard in 2001 that Moore had “an entirely unique, unmistakable guitar style” at an early age. He called End of the World , Don't Take Me for a Loser , I Can't Wait Until Tomorrow and Cold Hearted as "hymns" . The whole album is a “milestone” and “19 years after its first release it doesn't sound a bit out of date”. And Alan Tepper stated in Eclipsed in 2003 that the pieces were “hard and fast”, which is what the “concert classic Rockin 'Every Night ” stands for. End of the World made "every guitarist pale". The cover Wishing Well takes care of cooling down in the “hardness maximum” of the “exceptional guitarist” .
proof
- ^ Corridors of Power at Allmusic (English). Retrieved July 17, 2014.
- ↑ Chris Welsh: Gary Moore fan Mag . Gary More Special Rock History. I'm a guitarist and not a plumber. In: Metal Hammer / Crash . No. 17/1989 , August 11, 1989, pp. 47-70 .
- ↑ Holger Stratmann (Ed.): Rock-Hard-Encyclopedia . 700 of the most interesting rock bands from the last 30 years. ROCK HARD GmbH, Dortmund 1998, ISBN 3-9805171-0-1 , Moore, Gary, p. 257 f .
- ↑ Götz Kühnemund: Gary Moore. Corridors of Power / Run for Cover . In: Rock Hard . No. 166 , March 2001, Re-Releases, p. 97 .
- ↑ [Alan Tepper]: Gary Moore - 5 albums . In: Eclipsed . No. 54 (July / August), 2003, News from the Past, pp. 50 .
literature
- René Aagaard, Finn K. Jensen, The Gary Moore Bio-Discography 1969–1994. Bidstrup, Søborg 1996, pp. 8, 28, 127-150.