Stay Tuned – Stay Tuned

Stay Tuned is the project of Austrian multi-instrumentalist Bernhard Welz. Put simply it’s an album he put together with a few friends, with money going to the Linda McCartney fundraising centre charity. Of course with a project like this it really helps to have the right friends, and Bernhard Welz has plenty of those, so the musicians featured here include Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Don Airey, Ian Paice, Steve Morse (ie all of Deep Purple), mark King (Level 42), Steve Lukathor (Toto), Steve Hackett (Genesis), Suzi Quatro, Dan McCafferty (Nazareth), Jeff Scott Soto, Tony Martin (Black sabbath), Bob Daisley (Rainbow) and Marc Lynn (Gotthard).

As well as the main part of the album there are two live tracks, one from 2002 with Ian Paice on drums, and the final track being “Child in time”, recorded live in 2009 with Jon Lord on Keyboards.

The opening track “Jazz police” is as the title suggests, Jazz. It’s interesting hearing rock stars perform something like this – it’s certainly different to Suzi Quatro’s usual work, but with the way Deep Purple have experimented over the years, particularly in their recent albums, it’s less of a departure from the norm for them.

Of the rockier tracks, “I don’t believe rock’n’roll is out” is a great song – nice heavy guitar parts in the chorus and slightly reminiscent of KISS. There’s plenty of keyboards during the verses too.

The final track, “Child in time” is a bit of a treat. Not only do we have some superb keyboard playing from Jon Lord, we also have Gotthard singer Steve Lee on vocals – so that’s two superb musicians, both sadly no longer with us.

It’s a great album. One or two of the tracks aren’t quite as strong as the others but it’s still a great album and well worth a listen, particularly for Deep Purple fans.

“Stay tuned” is out now on earMUSIC.

Track listing:

1. Jazz Police (with Mark King, Ian Paice, Steve Morse, Suzi Quatro)
2. Fading Away (with Ian Gillan, Dan McCafferty, Mark King)
3. Let The Stars Shine On You (with Steve Lukather)
4. Traffic Night (with Don Airey, Steve Morse, Carl Sentance)
5. I Don’t Believe That Rock’n’Roll Is Out
6. Empathy (with Jeff Scott Soto)
7. Yound Free And Deadly
8. It’s Just A Long Way (with Carl Sentance)
9. Always Behind You (with Mark King)
10. Believe Me (with Roger Glover)
11. Secret Land (with Don Airey, Carl Sentance)
12. Wanna Give You My Lovin’
13. Drum Jam (Live 2002) (with Ian Paice)
14. Child In Time (Live 2009) (with Jon Lord, Steve Lee)