THE ALBUM
In 1973 a book written by William Plomer and illustrated by Alan Aldridge was released and became pretty popular in England. The film company Lion Films had plans to make a cartoon film based on the book but before they started to make the film they wanted a soundtrack for it. In '74 Roger Glover was asked to write the music for the soundtrack. He accepted and in the summer of the same year he started to work on the album. The theme of the album is the story of all the animals and their decision to put their differences aside and live in peace and how they celebrated the event at the ball. An animated cartoon was made to the song "Love Is All" and it was used as a promotion video to get some interest from different TV companies. Unfortunately there weren't any interest so no more cartoons were made and the planned film never did happen.

One interesting thing about the album is the use of different singers for the different characters. On some of the songs RG used non professional singers but for some of the characters he used professional artist. Some of the more well know names who accepted the invitation was the two "new" Deep Purple members David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes. Other friends were Tony Ashton and the soon to be Rainbow front man, Ronnie James Dio.
There are to many musicians on the album to mention them all here but some of the names are: Ray Fenwick on guitar (soon to join the Ian Gillan Band), Les Binks on drums (drummer in Judas Priest on their first albums) and Eddie Hardin from Hardin/York who also co wrote some of the tracks with Roger. The album was released in December 1974 and the preceding single" Love Is All" was a big hit in many European countries and especially in France.

When Deep Purple played the by now famous Royal Albert Hall concerts in September 1999, and on the following Deep Purple and Concerto tour in 2000, two of the songs from the album (Sitting In A Dream and Love Is Al) was performed by DP and their special guest Ronnie James Dio.

THE CONCERT and FILM

Many of the stars that appeared on the album gathered for an exclusive one night only concert at The Royal Albert Hall in London on October 16th 1975. The New World Symphony Orchestra provided the backing and between the songs there where a narrative read by Vincent Price. Both David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes sang at the concert and Roger Glover also got help from his old Deep Purple friend, Jon Lord.

Ian Gillan who had quit the music business after leaving Deep Purple a few years earlier did his first live performance since leaving DP at the concert when he replaced Ronnie James Dio who was busy elsewhere. Ian Gillan have later said that the warm welcome he got from the audience that night was the reason why he decided to continue his musical career.
I guess we all should thank Roger Glover for inviting Ian Gillan to the concert.

The concert was both recorded and filmed but unfortunately one of the directors hired some actors who was filmed dancing in some forest wearing animal costumes. This was later for some reason edited into the filmed concert and the result was both embarrassing and amateurish to watch. The film was distributed to some cinemas but was soon withdrawn. The film was released on home video in 1985 but it was also quickly withdrawn this time because the company who released it didn't have the legal rights to distribute it. But as a result of that short lived release some bootlegs, both on CD and video, have surfaced but hopefully sometime in the future they get an official release

ROGER GLOVER INTERVIEW LP
Released: 1975 [USA]

Tracks:
1. Interview
2. Old Blind Mole
3. Magician Moth
4. Interview
5. Interview w/Aranea
6. Interview w/Sitting In A Dream
7. Interview
8. Watch Out For The Bat
9. Love Is All

Interview LP

Yugoslavia 198-