1296. Whitesnake / Ready an' Willing. 1980. 3.5/5

As the music world of the late periods of the 1970’s decade began to move through periods of high intensity change, including but not restricted to R&B, AOR, disco, heavy metal and punk, there were still bands who were moving to the beat of their own drum, sticking to the strengths of their members and refining and producing their own sound on their own terms. One of those bands was Whitesnake. Following the demise of Deep Purple, David Coverdale’s next project had released two albums in “Trouble” and “Lovehunter”, both of which had been based around a far more bluesier aspect than the bigger named band had been best known for. Both albums came to the attention of music listeners in the UK but struggled to gain any traction elsewhere in the world. Guitarist Bernie Marsden was quoted in an interview some years later as saying that the band had argued in a positive way during the writing and recording of the “Lovehunter” album, a process he believes made the band a better unit, and was instrumental in helped the band get better as they went along.
One part of that puzzle came to pass with the recruitment of Ian Paice as drummer for the new album. Jon Lord had been on board from just prior to the first album being recorded, and now Paice’s arrival not only brought in a very accomplished drummer, but a third member from the final iteration of Deep Purple. Coverdale had been trying to recruit his former band mate for some time, and his sound was to be a defining piece of the puzzle for the new album.
Given the musical environment that this album was being written and released in, it is an interesting one to go back and listen to in retrospect. Disco, punk, metal... there is none of that here. Whitesnake through their major collaborators in Coverdale, Marsden and fellow guitarist Micky Moody, weren’t looking to make any drastic changes to their own sound. They went into this album to deliver songs that may not have changed in sonics but were, they hoped, better and more pronounced versions of those songs. While the band had their solid core audience at the time, it was a difficult market to produce a hard blues album, which is essentially what the band delivers here with “Ready an’ Willing”, and while looking back from this point on the timeline gives you a sense of what has come since, at the time it must have been an interesting album to pick up on its day of release, and put on the turntable.

This original version of “Fool for Your Lovin’” is dominated by the beautiful bassline from Neil Murray, something you don’t hear on the updated version almost a decade later. Along with the understated keys from Lord and Paice’s beautifully tracking drumming, it makes an instant impact. The solos from Moody and Marsden are also perfect for the package, and Coverdale’s vocals sit in the perfect range and power for the song. It is interesting that this is probably still the standout song from the album all these years later, and yet it is because everyone here has a part in making the song excellent. The following two tracks have a structure that is very Deep Purple but certainly with the adjustments that have been made to them by the Whitesnake sound itself. “Street Talker” has a great upbeat vibe about it, highlighted through the middle by Jon Lord’s excellent keyboards and Coverdale’s enticing vocals throughout. The title track is immediately put into a perfect place by the terrific groove from Paice and Murray on drums and bass, it hits you immediately and creates a warm and comforting feel to the track. Ian Paice’s recruitment for this album is a massive fillip and his touch is over every song, while Neil Murray’s bass lines are nicely woven into the music. The Deep Purple tones are all over this track.
From here it is a different journey, no less enjoyable but of a very varied style. “Carry Your Load” is almost a blues gospel song, slower in tempo and with more emphasised vocals from Coverdale. If the keys were more prominent in the mix it would definitely be classed as gospel. “Blindman” actually comes from Coverdale’s first solo album that was released on the splitting of Deep Purple, “White Snake” (two words not one) the name that he of course took for his new band’s name the following year. It has been updated slightly here, given a bit of power in both music and background vocals. It’s a real creeper, starting off slowly and then building through the middle vocally, with the solos from Moody and Marsden excellent as always. It closes out side one of the album in a positive fashion.
The second half of the album is more defined in its quality. “Ain’t Gonna Cry No More” is a fairly standard blues rock number, not a bad song but also not extending itself to be anything apart from what it is. “Love Man” is the most blues driven track on the album, pure old time blues in every respect. In slow tempo, style, vocally and lyrically, and musically, this is your blues standard. It drags on too long, though also feels longer because of the pace that it is played at and the often-repeated lyrics within the track. “Black and Blue” is a more contemporary version of the blues, along with honky tonk piano from Lord which pick up the mood immediately. Dare I say there is a touch of the early Eagles in this song? The band has subtlety given us a wide range of material on this album; all tied to the blues rock genre but none of them sounding the same. The final song “She’s a Woman” is where we are actually met full force in the face with Jon Lord’s amazing organ skills for almost the only time on the album, and it makes an incredible difference to the song and the finish of the album. It actually makes the album contemporary for the first time with the sound he brings to the track, mirroring what was being utilised in other areas of music at that time.
There has always been a bit of a separation with the Whitesnake fan base over the albums the band has released, and when you listen to “Ready an’ Willing” compared to any album after 1984, you could fully understand why that is the case. For those fans that grew up with albums like this, and then were confronted with “1987” and “Slip of the Tongue”, you can fully appreciate the gulf that they had to come to appreciate. The same is true of younger fans going back to this from the more recent albums, but I think the real conversion of the band during the 1980’s would have been a massive event for the band’s earliest fans, and not surprisingly one that many couldn’t get over.

My own journey with Whitesnake began with the aforementioned “1987” album, one that contained all of the glitz and glitter of the enveloping heavy genre that it was aimed at on its release, and which was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. When it came to all of the Whitesnake albums prior to this, that was more of a journey. It was just a matter of getting down the road to doing it. I went through the Deep Purple discography, and in doing so discovered each of “Burn, “Stormbringer” and “Come Taste the Band” that are in some ways a forgotten branch of music and yet are so wonderful in their own right, and of course are the forerunner to this band, so that when I came to the early Whitesnake albums I wasn’t as unprepared as I could have been when it came to their sound. Well... that’s partly true.
“Ready an’ Willing” for me is and was a big step for Whitesnake. Those first two albums are okay in my opinion, but without a lot that really draws me back into listening to them. But here, when I first listened to the album, there is a hook, a catch. The opening track “Fool for Your Lovin’” is an obvious one, but what really dragged me in from the outset was the musicianship, and the way it was recorded and mixed for our ears. The rhythm of Paice and Murray on this album is just sublime, you can hear everything that Murray is playing which improves and is an important part of each song. And Paice’s drumming just shines with whoever he is playing with. Lord’s keys may not be integral to every song here, such that when they are not, they have been subdued in the background of the track. But when they are, they take front and centre as they did in Deep Purple, and in both instances, it works perfectly. And along with the guitars and Coverdale’s vocals, all of this is what made me notice the album. Take a look at who the producer is? Ah. Martin Birch. Well, that really does explain everything. And for me, his work here brings out the best in the band.
I’m not a huge lover of blues music. I understand its importance in the roots of heavy metal music and appreciate it when it comes to being incorporated at different levels of the genre. But pure blues is not something I am massively in to. And for all intents and purposes this is a blues rock album. So while there are songs here that I really enjoy, there are others that I am happy to listen to when I put this album on, but would probably rarely if ever choose to listen to individually. I’ve now had this album on my work playlist for three weeks – a little longer than I usually do, but this was also a slightly more difficult review to compose. It was important to me to truly root out exactly how I feel about this album for this podcast episode, and not just write something wishy washy or praise for no other reason than because it is Whitesnake. That extra time has allowed me to be sure that I believe this is a very good album, and the place where Whitesnake as a band began to find its feet. For me, I believe each album got better over the next decade, but I also love what they did beyond the tenure of this line up. The true believers have other ideas on that argument.