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" Play Me Out was written and recorded under the influence of speed. I didn't sleep for 10 days. I saw a nurse enter the studio with a poodle and I talked to her, only she wasn't real. I stopped the tape saying a girl had entered".
The year is 1976 and Glenn Hughes is recording his first solo album. The next one will be released in 1992.
Of the following decade, he will say he never left the house, so many collaborations started and never finished, lost as he was.
But let's go back to that period. Glenn is 24 years old (!) and has long been a global star; even as a minor with Trapeze and then with the legendary Deep Purple (Mark III and IV) Young, handsome, rich, famous, idolized, addicted, destroyed, obsessed, paranoid, the end of Deep Purple in the air and the death of Tommy Bolin (his equally young and talented friend); in this context, the album is born. Probably the truest of Hughes, the most visceral. The album with his favorite sound; that mix of funk, soul, funk-rock that he always loved. Among Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Billy Cobham, Sly And Family Stone. And his wonderful voice so close to the Motown sound. The Purple fans were astonished; they didn't know he liked funk "this way" and so much.
"What the hell, let me finally play and sing what I truly adore!" Glenn seems to scream in his delirium to the world.
This is a beautiful album, above all it is His album, period. David Bowie and Angie even cut his leonine mane "for the occasion".
But most importantly, his idol Wonder will declare "Glenn is my favorite white singer".
"My album Play Me Out is a very extravagant record full of vocal parts, people love it but it was recorded by a speed maniac. I was completely out of my mind"; Glenn almost seems to apologize, as if he had disrespected the sound that made him immortal.
No excuses, buddy, this is your soul so don't bother.
He felt invincible and indestructible at that moment, and in fact, the title was meant to say "You'll have to wear this body out because I am unstoppable". It was supposed to be the start of a brilliant solo career; it will be talked about again, fortunately, much later.
And today, at nearly 65, the "white man who sings soul like a black man" is in better shape than ever; in hindsight, the thing, "amazing" and wonderful together, is this.
No special 40th anniversary for this album, except for mine here on debaser.
It deserves it: there is your heart, your soul, your current pains; your voice, that's enough, to notice.
Enjoy listening, nobles.
Stay away, subjects and useless ones.
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