Mandoki Soulmates – Soulmates weekly | PART 6

ab sofort jeden Freitag
from now on every Friday

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The Covid-19 has also stopped our musical activities in the studio.
Thus I had the space and time for new songs, but also to clean up the photo and video archive in the basement of our studios and I´ve found wonderful treasures.

Today I want to tell you the story of one of the greatest songs, "Smoke On The Water".

I was here in the studio with Phil Collins, we played drums together and recorded the Tarzan soundtrack. I was looking for someone who could sing the German versions, but I couldn't find the right one. So I asked Phil if he could imagine singing in German, but he replied that he didn't speak a word of German. I told Phil that I had written down the text of a Hungarian folk song for Freddy Mercury for his concert with Queen in Budapest in phonetic transcription and so I also wrote down the German text for Phil the same way. After the Tarzan soundtrack had won Oscar and Grammy, Phil was kind enough to give me the original sheet with his handwriting along with the golden record.
Phil had written the songs for the second Disney feature Brother Bear movie and we went to Montreux for the recordings because Phil already lived on Lake Geneva. We recorded in the legendary “Mountain” studios in Montreux, where also great bands like the Stones, Queen and many more iconic groups recorded legendary albums.
During a short break, Phil and I walked out of the studio and saw the Freddy Mercury statue and we remembered the Tarzan soundtrack recordings in my studio. We were chatting and came to talk about the story of “Smoke On The Water”, which started in Montreux.

A year later we all were rehearsing for Thomas Gottschalk's show “50 Years of Rock”, with the Soulmates as Thomas's house band, with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Bobby Kimball of Toto, Manfred Mann and Chris Thompson, Jack Bruce of Cream, Peter Frampton, Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Jon Lord of Deep Purple. We had a wonderful time during the rehearsals, also the idea for our current album was born there. Jon Lord told us about his experience in Montreux and the story of "Smoke On The Water".
At the end of 1971, Deep Purple rented a truck with an integrated mobile studio that belonged to the Stones, to record the new album on the live stage of the Montreux casino, because they did not want a sterile studio-sound for their new album. Deep Purple was already at the casino in Montreux, but they couldn't start preparing for the recordings because Frank Zappa was playing a concert on the same stage that evening. A fire broke out during the concert and the casino burned to the ground. “Smoke on The Water” was seen over Lake Geneva.

The later founder of the Montreux Jazz Festival, Claude Nobs, organized the stay of Deep Purple and also took care of the evacuation of the casino. "Funky Claude" was not only immortalized in the text of “Smoke On The Water”, but also on the cover of "Machine Head".
Claude Nobs is a legend himself, who unfortunately died in 2013 as a result of a skiing accident. Around 2006 Ian Anderson sent me a wonderful package with all the treasures from Claude Nobs' Montreux Festival because we wanted to release it on our label with Sony / BMG. Unfortunately, due to the paradigm shift in the record industry the release of these great live recordings were not realized.
But now back to "Smoke On The Water".
So it was the smoke over Lake Geneva that inspired Ritchie Blackmore one of the most famous musical themes. Deep Purple was now without a recording room after the fire, and Claude Nobs arranged for them the Grand Hotel in Montreux, which had wonderful acoustics. There, Deep Purple recorded the album, which was later to sell 12 million copies. Smoke On The Water is the most famous song in the United States after the national anthem. Another proof that the best songs are written by life itself.

Many years later, my dear friend Peter Maffay introduced me to a genius at Hammond, Tony Carey. Tony was discovered by Ritchie Blackmore and played in Ritchie's band Rainbow. Tony has become one of the leading hammond player of the world and a Soulmate. During rehearsals for a Soulmates concert in Budapest 2015, he came up with the idea to play "Smoke On The Water" together with the jazz legend Mike Stern. So here is a very special version of “Smoke On The Water.”

Видео Mandoki Soulmates – Soulmates weekly | PART 6 канала MANDOKI SOULMATES