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After leaving Deep Purple in June 1973, lead singer Ian Gillan began to pursue other avenues for his creativity.  He purchased a hotel, built motorcycle engines, and opened a recording studio.  But the siren song of singing was too difficult to resist, and in 1975, he founded The Ian Gillan Band.  Though ostensibly a jazz-rock outfit – with keyboards, but no brass or winds in the core lineup – Gillan didn’t ignore the rock part of the equation.  Now, Edsel has collected the group’s recorded output on the comprehensive 7CD box Down the Road: The Complete Ian Gillan Band Story.

As lead singer and bandleader, Gillan brought the same power and authenticity he’d brought to all of his endeavors, from Deep Purple to the role of Jesus on the original concept album of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar.  The Ian Gillan Band would come together in no small part due to Gillan’s ongoing friendship with bassist Roger Glover, who had departed Deep Purple at the same time he did.  Glover had remained active in music as producer for Nazareth and architect of his own concept album The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast.  For that LP (reissued by Cherry Red in 2018), Glover enlisted Purple’s David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, John Lawton (later of Uriah Heep), Ronnie James Dio (whom he had produced when Dio was part of Elf), guitarist Ray Fenwick, bassist John Gustafson (who had sung Simon Zealotes on the Superstar LP and later joined Roxy Music), and keyboardist Mike Moran.  The latter trio of musicians would become the nucleus of The Ian Gillan Band.

Ian had sung live with them at London’s Royal Albert Hall for a special staging of The Butterfly Ball in October 1975; when Dio had dropped out (having joined Rainbow by this time), Glover asked Gillian to take his place.  Within two months, Ian was back in the studio with the band and Glover as producer for the first IGB album.  American drummer Mark Nauseef (The Velvet Underground, Elf) would complete the quintet.  (He had also appeared as part of the illustrious Butterfly Ball live lineup.)  The Ian Gillan Band combined prog rock and jazz on their debut album, 1976’s Child in Time, for Purple Records’ Oyster imprint.  Despite referring back to Purple with the title track (originally recorded on Deep Purple in Rock), the sound was new: deeply funky, hard-rocking, and musically unexpected, with twists and turns a-plenty.

Child in Time opens Edsel’s box set, fleshed out with mono versions, demos, and backing tracks.  1977’s Clear Air Turbulence, bolstered here by an entire disc of early, alternative mixes, arrived with Colin Towns having replaced Mike Moran on keyboards.  (Elf’s Mickey Lee Soule briefly filled the keyboard role on a handful of live dates.)  Clear Air Turbulence was even more heavily jazz-influenced, with trickier song structures and the introduction of a horn section arranged by Cy Payne.  With punk on the rise, however, the album didn’t make much of a commercial impression.    The band’s third and final album, Scarabus, followed later in 1977.  The band’s frontman was growing weary of the fusion sound and inching closer to pure rock with this album which foreshadowed the sound of his subsequent group, Gillan.  (He would also recycle the melody of “Scarabus” when he joined Black Sabbath, reworking it as “Disturbing the Priest” on Sabbath’s 1983 LP Born Again.)  He paid tribute to one of his rock-and-roll idols, the recently-departed Elvis Presley, with the lyrics to “Poor Boy Hero.”

The final date of the Scarabus tour, on September 22, 1977 at Japan’s Budokan, was recorded and released as a live album; it appears on Edsel’s box along with the May ‘77 show Live at the Rainbow (from London’s Rainbow Theatre) and another show from the Japan Scarabus tour recorded in Hiroshima.  The collection is rounded out by a disc of rarities, most of which originally surfaced on CD in the early 2000s.

Down the Road is housed in a 7-inch format with O-card (a slipcase open on both sides), with a 24-page booklet featuring photos, memorabilia, and liner notes by Rich Davenport.  Phil Kinrade has mastered the audio.  The CDs are housed in slots within folders replicating the original albums’ artwork.  It’s a fitting tribute to one chapter of Ian Gillan’s remarkable and still-ongoing career.  (After returning to Purple for a few years in the ‘80s, he rejoined in 1992 and remains in the band today.)  The box is available now at the links below.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Down the Road: The Complete Ian Gillan Band Story (Edsel (U.K.), 2026) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada)

Disc 1: Child in Time Plus…

1. Lay Me Down
2. You Make Me Feel So Good
3. Shame
4. My Baby Loves Me
5. Down the Road
6. Child in Time
7. Let It Slide
8. Down the Road (Mono Edit)
9. Finally, the Finale (Studio Demo)
10. Reaching Out (Studio Demo)
11. My Baby Loves Me (Studio Demo)
12. Down the Road (Studio Demo)
13. You Make Me Feel So Good (Studio Demo)
14. Child in Time (Studio Demo)
15. Let It Slide (Backing Track)

Tracks 1-7 released as Oyster/Polydor 2490 136 (U.K.), 1976
Track 8 released on Oyster/Polydor U.S. promo single OY 703, 1976
Tracks 9-15 released on Rarities 1975-1977 – Angel Air SJPCD134 (U.K.), 2003

Disc 2: Clear Air Turbulence (The Rockfield Mixes) (released as Angel Air SJPCD007 (U.K.), 1997)

1. Over the Hill
2. Clear Air Turbulence
3. Five Moons
4. Money Lender
5. Angelo Manchenio
6. This is the Way
7. Goodhand Liza

Original mixes and sequence of Tracks 1-5 and 7 released as Island ILPS 9500 (U.K.), 1977

Disc 3: Scarabus (released as Island ILPS 9511 (U.K.), 1977)

1. Scarabus
2. Twin Exhausted
3. Poor Boy Hero
4. Mercury High
5. Pre Release
6. Slags to Bitches
7. Apathy
8. Mad Elaine
9. Country Lights
10. Fool’s Mate

Disc 4: Scarabus Extras

1. Country Lights (Studio Backing Track)
2. Scarabus (Studio Backing Track)
3. Twin Exhausted (Studio Demo)
4. Fool’s Mate (Studio Backing Track)
5. Apathy (Studio Backing Track)
6. Mercury High (Studio Backing Track)
7. Smoke on the Water (Live At The Budokan) (Single Edit)

Tracks 1-4 released on Rarities 1975-1977 – Angel Air SJPCD134 (U.K.), 2003
Tracks 5-6 released on The Rockfield Mixes Plus – Angel Air SJPCD166 (U.K.), 2004
Track 7 released on Eastworld Japanese single EWR-20472, 1978

Disc 5: Live At The Budokan

1. Clear Air Turbulence
2. My Baby Loves Me
3. Scarabus
4. Money Lender
5. Twin Exhausted
6. Over the Hill
7. Mercury High
8. Child in Time
9. Smoke on the Water
10. Woman from Tokyo

All tracks recorded live at Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan – 9/22/1977. Tracks 1-5 released as Eastworld LP EWS-81112 (JP), 1978. Tracks 6-10 released as Eastworld LP EWS-81113 (JP), 1978

Disc 6: Live At The Rainbow (released as Angel Air SJPCD017 (U.K.), 1998)

1. Clear Air Turbulence
2. Money Lender
3. Child in Time
4. Smoke on the Water
5. Woman from Tokyo
6. Twin Exhausted

All tracks recorded live at the Rainbow Theatre, London, England – 5/14/1977

Disc 7: Live Yubin Chokin Hall, Hiroshima, 1977 Plus…

1. Money
2. Twin Exhausted
3. Child in Time
4. What’s Your Game
5. My Baby Loves Me
6. Trying to Get to You
7. Mercury High
8. Rock ‘N’ Roll Medley: Lucille/Jailhouse Rock/High School Confidential/Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On/Lucille (Reprise)
9. Woman from Tokyo
10. Over the Hill
11. Smoke on the Water

All tracks recorded live at Yubin Chokin Hall, Hiroshima, Japan – 9/16/1977. Tracks 1-9 released as Angel Air SJPCD076 (U.K.), 2001. Tracks 10-11 released on The Rockfield Mixes Plus – Angel Air SJPCD166 (U.K.), 2004