Morse, the best guitarist you probably never heard of

Joseph Mangga, Contributor, Jakarta

To be quite honest, I'm not that huge a fan of Deep Purple.

The last time I saw them live was at the California Jam, way back in 1974, when Ritchie Blackmore attacked an ABC television camera with his Fender Stratocaster. Sure, the sounds and images of that legendary performance are still firmly etched in my memory cells, but it's a very rare day indeed that my battered and beer-stained old copies of Machine Head or Made in Japan ever get another spin.

I've always been a far bigger fan of Prog Rock than Heavy Metal, so whenever thumbing through the "D" section of my record collection, my fingers always seem to bypass Deep Purple and come to rest on a cherished slab of vinyl by an often forgotten, but incredibly unique American band known as the Dixie Dregs.

Composed of five uncompromising University of Florida music school graduates, from 1977 to '82 the Dregs cranked out six albums of some of the most all-encompassing and natural-sounding progressive rock ever created.

Best described as classical-heavy metal-jazz-country-bluegrass-rock fusion, their music featured electric violin, no vocals (save for their last album, the appropriately named Industry Standard) and an incredibly gifted and dedicated young guitarist by the name of Steve Morse.

Anyone who's had a chance to see Steve play live generally uses similar expletives. He's pure plain and simple, well-trained and tutored, totally refined and enlightened, hard-working talent.

There is absolutely no guitar style that Morse can't mimic or play consummately, with crisp clean perfect attack, and a Starship Enterprise-fast staccato picking-style that leaves even certified guitar legends shaking their heads with envy and disbelief.

And the emotions he generates -- with warm angelic harmonics, uplifting divine rifts, and miraculous spontaneous improvisations -- are passionate enough to almost inspire some kind of new religion.

This is not to say that his guitar style is soft or mushy (e.g. Pat Metheny, a fellow University of Florida music school graduate), for Morse can effortlessly lay-down some of the baddest, hardest, heaviest chops to rival even Hendrix, Page, Satriani or Van Halen.

Although critically acclaimed (including five Grammy nominations), the Dixie Dregs were, unfortunately, never a huge commercial success. Without any vocals or lyrics, they garnered a devoted cult following, but never any hits or major radio airplay.

In the meanwhile, Morse racked up an unprecedented five consecutive Best Guitarist awards in the annual Guitar Player Magazine reader's poll -- so many that he's been officially prohibited from ever winning it again!

This was followed by an off-and-on solo career, short stints with the group Kansas and the resurrected Lynard Skynard, not to mention the occasional Dixie Dregs reunion.

We met with Morse at the Mandarin Hotel in Jakarta, the morning before Deep Purple's Plenary Hall concert. Still sporting shoulder-length blonde hair, I was blown away by how little he's aged since 1984, when I last saw him play a solo concert in Dallas.

His conversation was engaging, completely unpretentious, sincere, intelligent, and, at times, even a little bit shy.

The Jakarta Post:How did you join Deep Purple?

Morse: In 93' Ritchie Blackmore quit. (Deep Purple) finished their Japan leg of the tour with Joe Satriani.

They said, "What are we gonna do?" (and) decided to go on with someone replacing Ritchie that was different ... not in the same mold. Roger (Glover) had seen me play down in Orlando (with Dixie Dregs), and one of my Dregs' songs (Take It Off The Top) had been used for 15 years on the BBC as an intro, so some people (in England) knew about the Dregs.

My manager called and said, "What do you think of Deep Purple?" I said, "Fine ... why?", with the 'why' meaning "what's the catch?" I thought the record company (wanted me) to cover Deep Purple songs. (I was) skeptical. They were -- who knows what they were? -- it could have been a bunch of mediocre over- the-hill guys trying to pay their mortgage.

Like Steppenwolf?

It could have been lots of things, but I was genuinely blown away. Before we played the first gig, we had a rehearsal, and I couldn't believe how good everybody played, ... how much power they had, and confidence to improvise, and to encourage it ...! It was way better than I ever expected! And the guys get a little offended when I say (this), because I never saw them live, so I had no idea!

Generally, a lot of musicians don't hold Deep Purple in high regard, but they hold you in high regard.

Because they don't know! In the studio, Ian Paice (and) Roger Glover ... do (a) part again with this other drum or other bass. And they'd just plug in and ... nail it!

Roger's like a Ringo Starr. He never blows his own horn or anything to put himself in the spotlight. But he can just play so good and effortlessly. He's always worrying about the song construction, the overall impact of the band musically.

Ian plays rock with a beautiful jazz swing. Just very subtle, but just perfect. I've always tried to do that with my stuff - just have a little bit of swing into it. But ... we just locked instantly.

And (keyboardist) Jon Lord, of course, was phenomenal, his ability to hear things and improvise. We've done two tours with Don Earry. Jon, over the last few years, just became disenchanted with things, just like what we did yesterday -- a 36-hour flight. He's reached retirement age and said, "I'm gonna write classical music."

We performed live for a year and a half (the concerto Jon had written) with various symphonies around the world. He wished us well, and we kept touring with Don. Don has (played) with Rainbow, and Ozzy Osborn, Gary Moore, lots of famous people, because he's that good.

Ian gives his heart and soul, every fiber of his body he gives to the audience. He got the flu ... for most of the English tour, and at the end we had to tell him, "Man, I don't think tomorrow's gonna happen."

So we had to cancel. His voice was totally hoarse with laryngitis. Other than two times, I've never seen him give-up on a gig or giving his 100 percent. Even in La Paz, Bolivia, where the elevation is 13,200 feet. That's above the altitude where I go on oxygen when I fly my airplane, and he had to sing! He's a real trooper.

Your first gig after you joined Deep Purple, that was in Mexico City, right?

Yeah!

So all of a sudden you're in Deep Purple, with 15,000 people out front. What were your feelings?

It was the usual, me feeling I wish I knew the (music) a little bit more intuitively ... and knowing I'm not (going to) relax. Interestingly, they did draw from me quite a few moments of good playing.

I went off a jam on Speed King, and the problem was it wasn't in the spot. So Ian comes up behind me, he's singing along, kind- a into the microphone, "All right, Steve! I love that, hey! Let's do it again. What do you say we come over here and get back into the arrangement?" And I said, "Ohhh?, Ok ... I forgot!" (laughing)

What's potentially changed with Deep Purple's since you joined?

Well, (I tried) to get them to sound a little more like from the Machine Head-era. You know? Smoke on the Water, Highway Star. Specifically, I was talking to Jon (Lord), "Let's (give) the organ a little more that direct, distorted sound that I really miss, cause it sounds a little bit too pretty now." When he originally did his stuff he had it going straight through an amp. So I put one of my guitar devices in-line with his organ, so he could get ... an approximation of the sound he used to get.

The other thing was, they sort-a missed out a lot of possibilities of using the English and Irish folk sounds, of the acoustic, mixed with that heavy sound. So we did some things like The Aviator ... And just maybe heavy stuff that's a little bit more melodic.

What I don't say (is), "We've gotta do this song on the next album." I just bring lots of things to the table and see if anybody likes it. Just like a smorgasbord. See what people are liking, and then make sure that there's lots of choices. But basically I don't want to try to change too much (with Deep Purple).

What do like best about being in Deep Purple, as opposed to your previous stints?

Well, that's a good question. It's more than one thing ...

A steady paycheck?

Actually, ... I have had a very steady paycheck.

Doing my solo stuff, we figured out that net income is relatively modest, even with very large gross income. Just like the government, (when they give) an entity a lot of money they tend to spend it. I had the realization that I don't need much gross income to survive as long as we keep the overhead low. One or two roadies, work hard, go out for 10 or 12 days and play 10 shows (with) no days off.

Stay in very funky places and drive our own cars. And if we flew, ... I would fly the guys in my plane.

I do enjoy the fact that I don't have to do everything. Before I had to own the truck, the plane, to maintain all that stuff and store (it) at my house -- well (laughs) I still do a lot of that (as a solo artist), but I don't have to deal with it constantly. And (it's) the same with the studio, I had to record everything, produce everything. I don't have such a stressed out schedule now. I don't have to say, "Well, I got to go finish this album by the 10th or else I'm screwed."

(With Deep Purple), we work a little bit more than I can stand comfortably. That's the only negative, really! Everything else about it I love, especially playing with these guys. They're so strong ...! And so good of a support band for soloing. It's ... I don't know, it's indescribable, just how great that feels ...

Fast forward to the Jakarta concert. As the Plenary Hall lights came up, the entire audience was fully basking in the afterglow of that indescribable feeling. Morse's blistering guitar solos were by far the major stand-out of the evening.

And Deep Purple -- the legendary rock band that literally wrote the Bible on Heavy Metal (along with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin) -- had generously and willingly and unselfishly given Steve's talent the space and support it needed, to even momentarily outshine their own monumental fame. That doesn't happen very often in the vanity-filled rock n' roll business.

Little Richard didn't have a clue when he sacked a young Jimi Hendrix for upstaging the boss, but thank God that Deep Purple do.