The last time I saw Whitesnake...2016

This will seem an odd post on a blog almost entirely dedicated to education, but if you know me, you know that music is so intricately woven into my being that I would not be who I am without it, and I ask that you allow me to share a glimpse into my heart.

When Music Came On Cassettes

As I wrote on another blog a few years ago, my life changed significantly with the Columbia Record and Tape Club. This was a mail-order business that offered eleven albums on cassette for one penny, and a twelfth for free. It was an effective strategy, for after taking advantage of such an offer, you were enrolled in the club and received monthly circulars of the latest music. Its significance for me was that through it, I purchased the 1987 self-titled album by a band called Whitesnake, and my life would never be the same.

The moment I put that cassette into my boom box from Sears, I was hooked. It was blues-based rock cranked to eleven and performed by musicians with hair teased to the stratosphere with Aqua Net. It was the epicenter of what some would derisively call hair metal, but the blazing guitars and thunderous bass and drums ripped off the doors of my soul the way Pyrrhus, the son of Achilles, did when attacking King Priam's palace in the Trojan War. And what was even better, I could sing along.

I was a choir kid, so my contribution to music was through my voice, and while I loved the grit of Tom Keifer, lead singer for Cinderella, and the unearthly high notes of Michael Sweet, lead singer of Stryper, it was the rich baritone of David Coverdale that allowed me, at least in my own mind, to enter the loud, bombastic, and thoroughly exciting world of arena rock. David could hit soaring high notes, too, which prompted me to exercise my falsetto to match him, but the richness of his voice along with the platinum-selling sound of his band hooked me like nothing else.

From England to The Delta and Beyond

So enthralled was I with that one album that I immediately wanted more, and that desire led me to the discovery not only of the earlier Whitesnake albums, for the band had debuted in 1978, but to Coverdale's previous band, Deep Purple, and once I discovered them, I was headed down a path I am happy to say I still travel. As I learned more about the British hard rock bands of the '70s, I discovered their roots in American blues, and this led me first to the electric blues of Chicago and then to fountainhead of it all, the Mississippi Delta. Suddenly this young man from Indiana was drinking deeply from the waters of Robert Johnson. No longer would the chain record stores at the mall meet my needs. I was hitting the local music shops where the truly good stuff could be found.

Over time I would develop a wide musical taste, and today I enjoy blues, jazz in many of its incarnations, classic hard rock, metal, soft rock, pop rock, classical, and more. My master playlist on Spotify, which continues to grow, contains 366 hours of songs, which would take more than two full weeks to listen to. Although I maintain that master playlist, I also have 95 separate Spotify playlists dedicated to various groupings of music. Along the way, I have co-hosted a podcast dedicated to Christian metal, and one of my dear friends hits me with a lyric each day for which I must come up with the song title and artist. Not often am I stumped.

And all of this goes back to David Coverdale.

Mistreated In The Heart of The City

Those only casually aware of Whitesnake may associate David Coverdale with little more than "Here I Go Again," the video for which stands at 145 million views on YouTube, but his body of work is far more extensive. He began his career fronting local bands in his neck of the woods, which was Saltburn-By-the-Sea, England, starting with Vintage 67, The Government, and The Fabulosa Brothers. An advertisement in the music magazine Melody Maker led to his taking over lead vocals from Ian Gillan in what would be known as the Mark III lineup of Deep Purple. He recorded three albums with that band...Burn (1974), Stormbringer (1974), and Come Taste The Band (1976)...before heading out on his own. Two solo albums, White Snake (1977) and Northwinds (1978), paved the way for the launch of the band Whitesnake in 1978. Originally a blues-rock outfit that leaned as much into blues as rock, the band released six albums before the 8x-platinum '87 release. Five more albums followed, along with numerous live albums, compilations, another solo album for Coverdale, and an exquisite 1993 release he recorded with Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page.

Although it was the arena rock of the '87 album that started it all for me, it is the bluesier material that I find myself whistling and singing as I go about my day. In fact, the epic "Mistreated" from Deep Purple's Burn and "Ain't No Love (In The Heart of the City)," a Bobby "Blue" Bland cover from Whitesnake's debut EP Snakebite (1978) are what I can be heard whistling at least on a weekly basis. Although some of Coverdale's lyrics can be puerile, and some cross far over the line of good taste, many touch a deep chord, and it is with those that I will close, but I must first make something clear.

I have enjoyed David Coverdale's music for decades, but that does not mean I like all of it. In fact, there are certain songs I simply will not listen to. The lyrics are inconsonant with who I am. Some would argue that I should, therefore, not listen to any of his music, but I am reminded of something St. Thomas Aquinas wrote. "You should not consider the source from which you hear something, but whatever good is spoken, commit it to memory." If I were to cut out of my life every person with whom I disagreed on any issue, mine would be a lonely existence indeed, and I would be the lesser for it.