Who: David Coverdale, founder and frontman of Whitesnake.
What: Five influential songs from his formative years rocking his iPod.
Where: Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Latest Album: Forevermore.
2. THE WHO “My Generation” — “It is the absolute perfect rock song for me — musically, instrumentally, vocally, lyrically.”
3. ELVIS PRESLEY “Jailhouse Rock” — “I’m an only child. My mother was a great singer, and I got the artsy-fartsy stuff from my dad, even though he was unfortunately an unskilled worker. But we never had a record player in the house or anything. It was really bizarre. But I spent a great deal of my formative years with my maternal grandmother, who had two teenage children, Auntie Phil and Uncle Eddie, and they had a huge, old gramophone. I remember the Jailhouse Rock EP. It’s interesting because you don’t know what it is, but it gets you fluffed up. And ‘Jailhouse Rock,’ contrary to what a lot of people imagine, was the inspiration for the verses of ‘Still Of The Night’.”
4. LITTLE RICHARD “Long Tall Sally” — “I didn’t know he was an African-American or black, as it were. I just wanted to emulate this amazing noise. I had no blinkers at the time to say this is a domain that’s reserved solely for African-Americans, that big holler, so I would consciously work on projecting so hard. I didn’t even know that their voices sounded even more distorted, because they were big voices for sure, but they were more powerful than microphones at that time. So a lot of the grittiness was actually distortion, but I worked on emulating that.”
5. CHUCK BERRY “No Particular Place To Go” — “Chuck Berry is one of America’s greatest poets, one of the best storytellers I’ve ever heard. He’s up there with Homer and Shakespeare. I worship and adore Shakespeare, but I will not diminish what ‘No Particular Place To Go’ does to me. Brilliant lyrics, brilliant story. You’re right there with him. I actually had to drive next to Chuck Berry on the Sunset Strip where Sunset Plaza is. He had Kentucky plates on and was with a blowsy white woman. I was next to him in the old white Jag from the videos in those days, and we were at a stoplight looking at each other and going ‘Vroom!’ It was the same stoplight I had with Jeff Beck as well. Very funny. Jeff’s a different story — him and his hot rods, you haven’t got a chance.”
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