Joe Lynn Turner is obviously best known for his stint in Rainbow singing such radio friendly hits as “I Surrender”, “Street Of Dreams” and “Stone Cold”. He’s honestly a great singer and he’s made a solid career singing the songs he’s known for long after the band he sang them in dissipated. He gets tapped for the occasional covers album and has turned out of few strong original projects, his 3 releases with Glen Hughes (dubbed The Hughes Turner Project) and 2006’s Sunstorm project for Frontiers Records come to mind. Of course he’s done his own albums as well like “Rescue You”, “Nothing’s Changed”, “Second Hand Life” and this, his most recent, live album. Oh, and he was in Deep Purple for a few minutes.
Anyway, live albums are basically live Greatest Hits packages and, as one would expect, there is a healthy dose of Rainbow here (the ones I mentioned plus “Death Alley Driver”, “Can’t Happen Here” and “Spotlight Kid”). There’s also a few of his other moments peppered in here, like “Power Of Love”, “Your Love Is Life” and “Blood Red Sky”. Why he chose to include “Burn” here is a bit of a mystery as this wasn’t from his Deep Purple era, but he rocked it. His band sounds seasoned and top shelf, turning in a great performance and covering the Blackmore material like champs. Basically, it opens with Rainbow, puts his other stuff in the middle, and closes with Rainbow & Purple. It’s as to be expected, but it does have a good flow and the man sounds very good.
All in all, this is a great live album for fans of the man. It covers all bases, is full of really good performances and sounds great turned up in the car. Check it out.
I always liked the album he did with Malmsteen. I hate ballads in general, but that album has a great one.
on Dec 30th, 2008 at 19:26