Whitesnake

 Today in 1982 Whitesnake released the album Saints & Sinners

Middlesbrough, North Yorkshire, England Hard rock blues rock heavy metal

Status:Active

Years active 1978–1990, 1994, 1997, 2002–present

After recording two solo albums, former Deep Purple vocalist David Coverdale formed Whitesnake around 1977. In the glut of hard rock and heavy metal bands of the late '70s, their first albums got somewhat lost in the shuffle, although they were fairly popular in Europe and Japan. During 1982, Coverdale took some time off so he could take care of his sick daughter. When he re-emerged with a new version of Whitesnake in 1984, the band sounded revitalized and energetic. Slide It In may have relied on Led Zeppelin's and Deep Purple's old tricks, but the band had a knack for writing hooks; the record became their first platinum album. Three years later, Whitesnake released an eponymous album (titled 1987 in Europe) that was even better. Portions of the album were blatantly derivative -- "Still of the Night" was a dead ringer for early Zeppelin -- but the group could write powerful, heavy rockers like "Here I Go Again" that were driven as much by melody as riffs, as well as hit power ballads like "Is This Love." Whitesnake was an enormous international success, selling over six million copies in the U.S. alone.

Geffen/Warner Bros

David Coverdale – lead vocals

Micky Moody – guitar, backing vocals

Bernie Marsden – guitar

Jon Lord – keyboards(R.I.P. 2012)

Neil Murray – bass

Ian Paice – drums, percussion

Mel Galley – backing vocals(R.I.P.2008)

Side one

No. Title Writer(s) Length

1. "Young Blood" David Coverdale, Bernie Marsden 3:30

2. "Rough an' Ready" Coverdale, Micky Moody 2:52

3. "Bloody Luxury" Coverdale 3:23

4. "Victim of Love" Coverdale 3:33

5. "Crying in the Rain" Coverdale 6:00

Side two

No. Title Writer(s) Length

6. "Here I Go Again" Coverdale, Marsden 5:08

7. "Love an' Affection" Coverdale, Moody 3:09

8. "Rock an' Roll Angels" Coverdale, Moody 4:07

9. "Dancing Girls" Coverdale 3:10

10. "Saints an' Sinners" Coverdale, Moody, Marsden, Neil Murray, Jon Lord, Ian Paice 4:25

2007 remastered bonus tracks

No. Title Writer(s) Length

11. "Young Blood" (monitor mix/early vocals) Coverdale, Marsden 3:30

12. "Saints an' Sinners" (monitor mix/early vocals) Coverdale, Moody, Marsden, Murray, Lord, Paice 4:24

13. "Soul Survivor" (unfinished, unreleased song) Coverdale, Moody, Marsden 3:08

Saints & Sinners is the fifth studio album by English hard rock band Whitesnake, released in 1982. It peaked at number 9 on the UK Albums Chart.

Two of the tracks, "Crying in the Rain" and "Here I Go Again", were later re-recorded on their 1987 album Whitesnake.

The recording process began in 1981, just after the end of the Come an' Get It tour. However, tension within the band was beginning to appear. Micky Moody stated in a 1997 interview that:

"By '81 people were becoming tired. We had too many late nights, too much partying. We weren't making nowhere near the kind of money we should have been making. Whitesnake always seemed to be in debt, and I thought 'what is this?, we're playing in some of the biggest places and we're still being told we're in debt, where is all the money going?'. We hadn't got much money out of it and to be told you're 200,000 pounds in debt, when you just had six golden albums. It wasn't just me, cause everybody was getting tired, pissed off and losing their sense of identity. It was over by then, we couldn't get any further. It's difficult for a band to go more than three or four years without getting tired of each other and losing ideas. Nothing lasts forever. Everybody wanted to do something different after a few years, a solo album or write with someone else."

Moody quit the band in December 1981, and soon afterwards David Coverdale called a meeting with all Whitesnake members and put the band on hold. Coverdale was also worried about the lack of financial reward the band were having, and decided to put the band on hold to dissociate Whitesnake from their manager John Coletta (who had also been Deep Purple's manager from 1968 to 1976). After this parting of ways, Coverdale temporarily took over Whitesnake's business side.[citation needed]

During 1982, the news began to filter through the music newspapers and magazines: guitarist Bernie Marsden also quit Whitesnake, as well as bassist Neil Murray and drummer Ian Paice. Only Jon Lord stuck with David Coverdale.

In August 1982 David Coverdale called Micky Moody and asked him to return to the band. According to Moody, "towards the end of 82, David rang me up and said 'we wanna finish the Saints & Sinners album and we need to do some backing vocals etc'."There were also three new members in the band, namely former Trapeze guitarist Mel Galley, former Rainbow drummer Cozy Powell and Colin Hodgkinson on bass guitar.

As the album was almost finished, the only contribution of the new line-up to Saints & Sinners were the backing vocals recorded by Galley along with Moody at Battery Studios in London; Ian Paice's drum parts and Neil Murray's bass tracks were left untouched.