Hello and welcome to my OFFICIAL page .
Despite not touring with my band Trapeze for 10 years I have come to realise that there is still a significant interest in the music I wrote, played and sang during my career with Trapeze , Whitesnake , MGM and Phenomena . As I currently have no website this seemed the ideal place to put some basic info, music, pictures and to keep you informed of anything I think you may be interested in. I would like to thank all the fans on the excellent Glenn Hughes fan site www.ghpg.net who have played a significant part in convincing me to set this up.
And now for a brief biography :
Trapeze were formed in 1969 and consisted of myself, Glenn Hughes , Dave Holland , John Jones and Terry Rowley . We signed for a newly formed label called Threshold that had been set up by The Moody Blues . Our first album was the self-titled Trapeze . Glenn , Dave and I found we were going in a different musical direction to the others and we then became what is now known as a "Power Trio". In November 1970 the three of us released the album Medusa which was received, it’s fair to say, with universal acclaim. One of the press reviews hailed Medusa as, "One of the biggest finds of the year; three English lads have added a new dimension to the loudest of hard rock. For any Led Zeppelin fan here is the group that is to carry on their legacy". We were very much in demand in the USA and soon began to play in big venues. The tracks Black Cloud / Your Love is Alright were released there and attracted heavy radio exposure in the Southern states. We seemed to tour the USA non-stop for a couple of years! Due to our constant touring in 1971 we had no time to write and record anything so it wasn’t until the end of 1972 that we released You Are The Music We’re Just The Band . This was as well received as Medusa and we were really on a roll. But then... in June 1973 Deep Purple made Glenn Hughes an offer few could have refused. An invitation was made to replace Roger Glover who along with Ian Gillan had gone from the band. These days few people seem to mention the fact that Deep Purple were bigger than Led Zeppelin back then, but they were in fact the biggest selling band in America in 1973. At the time I was very upset but I couldn’t really blame him. Who knows what this line-up could have gone on to achieve. The loss of Glenn was a real blow to the band and Threshold America issued "the last rites" by assembling a "best of" compilation called The Final Swing with two previously un-issued tracks Good Love / Dat’s it . With its release, our recording obligations to Threshold were completed. Ironically it was our first album to crack the Top 200.
I must say though that Glenn formed a great vocal team in Deep Purple with the then unknown other new guy David Coverdale and the resulting Burn album is a classic.
We then signed with Warner Brothers with Pete Wright (Bass) and Rob Kendrick (Guitar/Vocals) joining and released Hot Wire in January 1975 and Trapeze in 1976.
For the next album Pete Goalby (who later joined Uriah Heep ) replaced Rob and Hold On was released in 1978. I thought this was a great album. It was released as Running in Germany and had a different album cover featuring 5 naked young women. Well, actually the same woman 5 times. This cover is quite rare nowadays. I haven’t put it in my pictures in case I get told off but you can find it easy enough on the Internet .
Dave Holland then left to have ten very successful years with Judas Priest notching up seven albums with them. He was replaced by Steve Bray and a live album Live in Texas: Dead Armadillos came out in July 1981 with music from our USA tour earlier that year.
After that tour I decided to stay on in Dallas and take some time off to write some new songs. On a visit back to Britain promoter Maurice Jones invited me to the Monsters Of Rock festival at Donington Park where Whitesnake were supporting AC/DC . David Coverdale heard I was there and came looking for me to say he had decided to reorganize the band. He asked me to join but I was busy writing new material for a new project called Phenomena that had been put together with my brother Tom , and also songs for a new Trapeze album. The Phenomena album had loads of publicity due to its great set of musicians including Cozy Powell , Neil Murray , John Thomas ( Budgie ), Don Airey , Ted McKenna , Richard Bailey and Glenn . It was released on Bronze in 1984 and sold pretty well.
I finally joined Whitesnake six months later and we did plenty of touring for the next couple of years including headlining the Monsters of Rock festival in 1983. Some of the songs that I had written during the previous sessions ended up being used on the Slide It In album that came out in early 1984. All of the other songs (except Slow an Easy) were written by me and David once I had joined . There are several bootlegs out there which contain my early pre Whitesnake demos and you will notice that they had different lyrics back then. David used his own for the Whitesnake versions. Micky Moody left soon after recording finished and John Sykes came in to the band. The album was remixed with John adding guitar parts and Jon Lord disappearing in the mix for a more Americanised production sound. The song order was changed round too. There are plenty of opinions as to which version is better but the USA version ended up selling over 2 million copies there so you could say David was right. And of course he went even more that way with the multi million selling follow up 1987 .
In 1986 I formed MGM with former Whitesnake men Bernie Marsden and Neil Murray , plus John Marter ( Mr Big , Voyager & Marillion ). The band toured extensively and received rave reviews at the venues we played. I then decided to take some time off to write some new material and spend more time with my family.
In the summer of 1987 I worked with Tom writing songs for the second Phenomena release Dream Runner . Glenn appeared on this with the likes of Scott Gorham ( Thin Lizzy ), John Wetton ( ASIA ), Neil Murray and the late, great Ray Gillen . This album sold very well and my song Did It All For Love was released as a single and a video made. John Wetton sings it and it’s in my video list.
In 1992 Glenn , Dave and I reformed Trapeze for some shows and Geoff Downes ( ASIA ) played with us ..boards. One of these shows ended up coming out on cd as Welcome to the Real World in 1993. The 3 of us also played some shows in the USA in 1994 as a 25 th Anniversary tour and a tribute show to Ray Gillen .
Since then I have effectively retired from performing but I still like to go and see some bands every now and then and I saw Glenn and his new band featuring Jeff Kollman and Mark Mondesir play a storming show on his tour in 2006 to promote his latest release Music for the Divine . Glenn is still an incredible singer and bass player and I wish him all the best with the continued success of his solo work. The Voice of Rock indeed!
Trapeze albums have continued to be released since the band ended. The live Way Back to the Bone cd was issued in 1998 featuring the 3-piece band playing way back in the early 70s. Another live cd At the Boat Club 1975 was released in 2003. It was one of the last shows played by the line-up of me, Dave , Rob and Pete . I wrote some notes for the cd booklet in which I mention one of my most memorable highlights - playing the Cotton Bowl in Dallas with the Rolling Stones , The Eagles and Montrose . Now that was a show!
Thanks for reading to the bottom and if there is anything I have missed out I’m sure you will tell me!