Ian Gillan & Tony Iommi - Who Cares
by Kevin Wierzbicki
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First of all a little clarification on the title of this album; Who Cares is the name of the one-off band that Gillan and Iommi, legendary components of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, put together with Iron Maiden's Nicko McBrain, Metallica's Jason Newsted, Linde Lindstrom from HIM and late Purple keys man Jon Lord to cut a couple tracks to aid in the construction of a music school in Armenia. Those charity sides, "Out of My Mind" and "Holy Water," previously available only as a CD single, are both included here but fans will love what fills out the rest of this 2-CD set: a hodge-podge of mostly previously unavailable oddities and forgotten tracks. A few familiar tracks are included; from the Sabbath side of things come "Zero the Hero" from the beloved Born Again record and "Anno Mundi" from the mostly overlooked Tyr while from the Purple camp comes a version of "Smoke on the Water" recorded live with the London Symphony Orchestra with Gillian and Ronnie James Dior alternating lead vocals. From there though you need a scorecard to keep track of the goodies; Iommi teams with Glenn Hughes for very rare tracks "Slip Away" and "Let it Down Easy," Iommi and Gillan pair up with Ian Paice and Roger Glover for "Trashed" while Gillan offers tracks recorded solo, with his band Gillan, with Repo Depo, with the Javelins, with Greek artist Mihalis Rakintzis and under the stage name Garth Rockett & the Moonshiners. There's a non hard rock cut too as Gillan teams with Roger Glover and gris gris master Dr. John for a cover of Little Richard's "Can't Believe You Wanna Leave Me," complete with greasy sax solo. This type of compilation sometimes dredges up cuts that would have been better off left collecting dust but other than the silly intro to the set closing Deep Purple studio jam "Dick Pimple" Who Cares offers a cohesive and very satisfying listen and it's satisfying too that proceeds go to the Armenian music school.
Ian Gillan & Tony Iommi - Who Cares
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