Whitesnake - "Live... In the Heart of the City"

Whitesnake
"Live... In the Heart of the City"
Geffen Records
Originally released 1980

It was never more than a second tier hard rock band before "Here I Go Again," but Whitesnake was much more than a hairsprayed cock-rockers that Coverdale eventually hired to top the charts. Before becoming a hair-metal joke and Tawny Kitaen's biggest career boost, Whitesnake was a blues-rock workhorse, cranking out dependable if not remarkable albums since the mid '70s.

"Live... In the Heart of the City" draws from two shows recorded in 1978 and 1980 and captures the band at its pre-MTV peak. Most of the songs won't be familiar to American audiences - only "Fool For Your Loving" ever got significant airplay, and that only after it was rerecorded in the late '80s.

But the album showcases the band's stellar blues rock, thanks to guitarists Bernie Marsden and Mickey Moody, who soars on the 10-minute "Love Hunter" (both guitarists would later be fired before the band's commercial successes) and the amazing pipes of singer David Coverdale. Songs like "Walking in the Shadow of the Blues," "Trouble" and "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" are excellent examples of Whitesnake's early sound.

There are hints of the sleazy rock to come, however, on songs like "Sweet Talker." But those moments are quickly forgiven during the raging finale, as Coverdale leads the band through "Mistreated," a hit he recorded with his previous band, Deep Purple. In fact, fellow Purple alums Ian Paice and Jon Lord are also in this incarnation of Whitesnake (they would also leave before Whitesnake's 1987 breakthrough/sellout album).

This isn't a revelatory live album, but it does offer some pleasure, compared to Whitesnake's later work. But it proves that the band could have been much more respectable than it eventually became.

Which is a pity.