There were great Whitesnake records before this one. There were great Whitesnake records after it. But for many fans, especially British fans, Whitesnake never made a better record than Live… In The Heart Of The City.
It is one of the greatest live albums of all time, a heavyweight double to rank up there alongside classics such as Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous, Deep Purple’s Made In Japan, UFO’s Strangers In The Night, Scorpions’ Tokyo Tapes, Rainbow On Stage and Kiss Alive!. There is, however, something unusual about Live…In The Heart Of The City. It is actually two albums in one…
In March 1980, Whitesnake released a single-disc live album exclusively for the Japanese market, recorded at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on November 23, 1978, and titled Live At Hammersmith. According to David Coverdale, this album “marked the beginning of a fine love affair with the Far East”. But in late 1980, Coverdale would find another use for Live At Hammersmith.
In the UK, Whitesnake were more popular than ever before, with a first top-ten album in Ready An’ Willing, and a major hit single in Fool For Your Loving. The next logical step was a live album. But simply repackaging Live At Hammersmith was not the answer. Having been recorded in ’78, that album didn’t include any songs from Ready An’ Willing or its predecessor, Lovehunter. Moreover, it didn’t feature the current Whitesnake line-up, with Coverdale’s former Deep Purple bandmate Ian Paice having replaced drummer David ‘Duck’ Dowle in ’79.
Instead, Live At Hammersmith was included as the second disc of a new double-album, paired with a fresh recording from a two-night stand at the same venue on June 23 and 24, 1980, taped during the Ready An’ Willing tour. Given the more poetic title of Live… In The Heart Of The City (suggested by bassist Neil Murray), the album was released on November 1, 1980. And it was an instant hit, reaching No.5 on the UK chart, which was one place higher than Ready An’ Willing.
Originally issued as a double-vinyl set and extended-play cassette, and reissued in 2007 as a double-CD, Live… In The Heart Of The City does have one minor flaw. Unlike Live And Dangerous and those other iconic live albums, Live… In The Heart Of The City is not a cohesive whole. On the original release, there were two versions of the same song, Come On – one from 1980, the other from ’78. And on the CD reissue, a second song, Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City, is also repeated. But other than that, Live… In The Heart Of The City is just about perfect.
More so than any of the band’s first three studio albums, what Live… In The Heart Of The City captures, across both discs, is the full brilliance and the true spirit of early Whitesnake. First and foremost, Whitesnake was always a great live act. It was on stage that the band truly came alive. And between the band and its audience there was a special kind of rapport. All of this is evident on Live… In The Heart Of The City.
The 1978 Live At Hammersmith performance has Whitesnake in transitional phase. Recorded only two years after Coverdale and keyboard player Jon Lord emerged from the disbanded Deep Purple, it features two songs from Purple’s classic 1974 album Burn – the menacing, slow-rolling Might Just Take Your Life and the thunderous blues of Mistreated. In addition, there are songs such as Trouble and Come On that defined the nascent Whitesnake’s signature blues-based hard-rock sound.
But the standout track, from which this album took its name, is Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City, a blues standard first recorded by Tennessee-born Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland and later adopted as an anthem by Whitesnake fans. The band’s version is subtly played and beautifully sung by Coverdale, and when 3000-plus voices join – what Coverdale proudly refers to as “the Whitesnake choir” – that bond between band and fans is powerfully illustrated.
And the 1980 set is even better. It features what is arguably the best ever Whitesnake line-up: Coverdale, Lord, Paice, Murray, and guitarists Micky Moody and Bernie Marsden. And at that stage, with three albums behind them, the band no longer had to rely on old Purple material. They had enough great songs of their own.
Two old early ’Snake favourites still made the cut: opener Come On, a mighty rallying call, and Take Me With You, the gung-ho finale. But the remainder came from 1979’s Lovehunter and the recently released Ready An’ Willing. From the former, the badass title track and the mythic Walking In The Shadow Of The Blues. And from the latter, four songs: Ready An’ Willing itself (another big crowd-participation number, with Coverdale imploring, “Lemme fuckin’ hear ya!”), the blistering Sweet Talker (complete with pre-PC warning: “The bitch is in heat, so you better run!”), the beautiful Ain’t Gonna Cry No More (on which Moody and Marsden proved the best twin-lead guitarists since Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson), and Fool For Your Loving, perhaps the greatest of all Whitesnake songs, introduced with Coverdale’s classic line, “’Ere’s a song for ya!” and a touching note of thanks: “This is one you put in the Top 20 for us…”
It’s all brilliant stuff. As Coverdale told Classic Rock’s Geoff Barton in the liner notes to the 2007 CD reissue of Live… In The Heart Of The City, “Whitesnake ‘live’ is what it’s all about.” Referring to the band’s early studio albums, he admitted: “I’d been conscious of hardly ever being able to capture the heart, soul and spirit of the band.” But with Live… In The Heart Of The City, he got it all.
It was a very different Whitesnake – with Coverdale, of course, the sole survivor – that went on to its greatest success in the late 80s. But for certain ’Snake connoisseurs, Live… In The Heart Of The City will always remain the definitive Whitesnake album. It is, in the words of Manic Street Preachers bassist Nicky Wire, “proper Whitesnake”.
