3–17, 25–30 August[1] 1–7 September 1976 (Mixing)[1] (Whitesnake) 21 March–6 April 1977; 10–19 April 1976[2] (Northwinds) c. Late 1990s–2000 (Into the Light) c. 2020s (2024 Remix)
"Midnight Blue (2024 Remix)" Released: 16 August 2024
"Wherever You May Go (2024 Remix)" Released: 5 September 2024
"Time & Again (Strings Version) [2024 Remix]" Released: 26 September 2024
Into the Light: The Solo Albums is a compilation album by the English hard rock band Whitesnake that was released via Rhino Records on 25 October 2024 and in Japan on 13 November the same year. The compilation includes tracks from the solo albums of David Coverdale, the band's founder and-singer-songwriter: White Snake (1977), Northwinds (1978) and Into the Light (2000). The collection also includes "revisited, remixed and remastered" versions of material from these solo albums.
Coverdale recorded White Snake and Northwinds after the dissolution of Deep Purple in 1976, before forming Whitesnake. Decades later, following Whitesnake's temporary hiatus, Coverdale resumed his solo career with Into the Light, exploring a more-reflective and blues-influenced sound. Advanced technology was used to remix the albums; tracks from White Snake and Northwinds were separated into their multi-track stems using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) software, while Into the Light was digitally remixed.
Background
Between 1977 and 1978, after the dissolution of Deep Purple, vocalist David Coverdale recorded two solo albums: White Snake and Northwinds. He also reissued multiple compilations, most recently The Early Years (2003).[3] Decades later, after the temporary disbandment of Whitesnake, Coverdale resumed his solo career.[4] The resulting album Into the Light (2000) was commercially and critically his most-successful solo album, charting in six countries.[5][6][7][8]
According to Coverdale, his early work, including his first two solo albums and material from Whitesnake, had been digitally archived and could be restored and remastered, but at that time, they could not be remixed due to the 2008 Universal Studios fire, which destroyed the band's material belonging to Geffen Records, although some of the masters were found safe at the Iron Mountain Storage Facility in Pennsylvania.[9][10]Purple Records, a sub-division of EMI at that time, retained the masters to Coverdale's first two solo albums, although they had long been out of print.
History and production
Into the Light: The Solo Albums features the work of musicians who participated on David Coverdale's solo albums. Coverdale's first album White Snake was released on 20 February 1977 in mainland Europe and on 6 May in the UK;[11][12] it features the work of guitarist Micky Moody, whom Coverdale met in Teesside.[1][11] As his first solo album, Coverdale said the record is "a very inward-looking, reflective and low-key affair in many ways, written and recorded as it was in the aftermath of the collapse of Deep Purple".[13]
The album's title, or the song name, was meant for Deep Purple, but Coverdale presented it to Deep Purple's former bassist Roger Glover to play and produce the album with him after the group dissolved. Deep Purple's management were pressured to support Coverdale and Hughes, and the two were each paid $10,000 to create their own solo albums. According to Coverdale, the concept for the eponymous title track was created between 1975 and 1976, "after Come Taste the Band, or while we [Deep Purple] were touring, promoting that album ... I thought it would be a fun Purple track.[1] The track's name was later used as the official title of Coverdale's formation of the group after his follow-up release.[1] It was followed by its successor Northwinds, released on 10 March 1978.[14] The album, which is viewed as blues-based and R&B-influenced rock followed as an "antithesis" of Whitesnake (1987).[15][16] It was also largely viewed as sounding "absolutely nothing like Led Zeppelin", a band with which Whitesnake had often been compared.[3]Into the Light was released on 25 September 2000; this album has a more stripped-down and blues-influenced sound Coverdale said "felt appropriate" in his songwriting.[17]
Both White Snake and Northwinds were produced by Roger Glover, while Into the Light was produced by Coverdale, and Doug Bossi, Bjorn Thorsrud, John X. Volaitis and Michael McIntyre were credited as associate producers.[11][2][18]
Remixing of David Coverdale's solo albums
Coverdale's first two solo albums were remixed using advanced audio-separation software using Audioshake, allowing them to be separated into their individual multi-track stems using artificial intelligence (AI).[19][20] The original master tapes were lost for two decades and could not be located, largely because both of those albums were out-of-print on the label EMI, alongside early Whitesnake material,[21] which is now owned by Universal Music Group. Many of the out-takes from the album remain accessible.[1] For five years, audio engineers at "Hook City Studios", named after Whitesnake, experimented with open-source software to separate two of the releases.[22]
To remix White Snake, the production team unmixed the record by exporting the stems using AI software, selecting the best-available mixes for comparison and approval.[1] Digital artefacts posed a challenge, which the team addressed by overlaying enhanced versions of individual stems to reinforce the overall sound. Despite this, whilst remixing, they had limited control over the volume and tone, particularly with the lead and background vocals, and the original track's reverb. The team mitigated these issues by incorporating modern remixes of the drums and resamping the guitars and bass through amplifiers to achieve an authentic, contemporary sound. The tape speed was slightly inaccurate but this was digitally corrected to ensure any new instruments were in tune with the rest of the record.[1]
The remixing process for Northwinds was originally inspired by a neural network known as machine-assisted learning (MAL), which had been developed as an audio-restoration technology for the documentary The Beatles: Get Back (2021).[23] MAL was originally named after the Beatles' former road manager, Mal Evans.[24] This process was used to separate John Lennon's home-demo recording from the late 1970s, using a digital copy provided by Sean Lennon that was of higher quality than the third-generation source the three surviving members of The Beatles had used in 1995.[25][26] This restoration preserved the clarity of every multi-track stem, culminating in the release of "Now and Then" in late 2023 and the 2022 remix of Revolver. Audio engineer and producer Tom Gordon, who was working on the remixes for Northwinds, was impressed by this restoration approach and contacted Peter Jackson's company WingNut Films, which used MAL for music and film restorations, including The Beatles' archives. Gordon's request was declined because the technology was exclusive to The Beatles project and was "bespoken for" at the time. Gordon then approached Paris Smaragdis in an attempt to develop a similar version of MAL software, but due to time constraints and limited resources, this was not possible.[1][27][28]
Peter Jackson(pictured in 2003) developed the MAL audio-separation software to enhance and restore the archived music and filmography of The Beatles. Tom Gordon expressed interest in utilising this technology, but his proposal was declined.
After the initial attempts with MAL failed, Gordon was under pressure to find an alternative audio-isolation technology that could separate the tracks from their original stems. For "Time & Again", Coverdale's vocals were recorded on the same multi-track as the Rhodes electric piano.[1] According to Gordon, Coverdale wanted to "ditch the Rhodes" and add string arrangements in the remix. When Northwinds was processed through open-source audio-separation software, the results included digital artefacts, rendering the remixes unusable because "the vocal was so exposed". Gordon learned from a podcast that explained about unmixing Nina Simone's album through a beta software called Audioshake, which produced results that were deemed acceptable, allowing the remix of "Time & Again" to proceed.[1][28]
Into the Light was digitally recorded using Pro Tools.[29] Several tracks from the record were later remixed and included in the compilation trilogy Red, White, Blues (2020 and 2021). The now-obsolete file format Sound Designer II, which is incompatible with modern systems, was used for the original recordings. The engineering team transferred and converted the tracks using legacy equipment. To prevent data loss or corruption during the remixing project, the digital multitrack stems were re-aligned with their original time codes.[1] Tom Gordon was involved in remixing all three albums, but with different personnels: Into the Light was remixed by Christopher Collier, who worked with the group since the late 2010s, while White Snake and Northwinds was remixed by Alex Breckenridge.[30][1]
Release and promotion
Although Coverdale recorded Whitsnake, Northwinds and Into the Light as a solo artist, he now regards them as Whitesnake albums. He stated: "As I'm recognized as 'Mr. Whitesnake', I thought, Why not? They're all Whitesnake albums to me ... we've remixed them to stand proudly alongside any Whitesnake album."[20]Restless Heart (1997) was originally viewed as a solo album but was later grouped as a "David Coverdale & Whitesnake" album due to EMI's contract demands. Restless Heart and Into the Light were envisioned as "brother and sister albums", respectively, due to their similar sound in comparison to Whitesnake's other recordings.[31] Coverdale's first solo work within Whitesnake was on Snakebite, which is considered the band's first official release. It was initially issued as an extended play (EP) and was later expanded into a double EP, featuring four tracks from Northwinds: "Keep on Giving Me Love", "Queen of Hearts", "Only My Soul" and "Breakdown".[32]
On 16 August 2024, Coverdale announced the upcoming compilation on his Twitter/X page.[33] That same day, a promotional music video for "Midnight Blue" from Into the Light was also released. [20]Into the Light: The Solo Albums was released via Rhino Entertainment on 25 October 2024 as a multi-disc box set that includes remastered and remixed versions of the solo albums, and previously unreleased demos. The collection also includes music videos and a 60-page booklet containing photographs and an interview with Coverdale. The set was also released as a double LP that includes tracks from Into the Light, marking its first release on vinyl.[34][20] The 2024 remixes of White Snake and Northwinds were also reissued on translucent vinyl LPs on 4 October,[20][35] following a Japanese release on 13 November.[36][37][38] Snippets of the remixed tracks "Lady" and "Northwinds" are included in their respective promotional videos.[20][39][40][41]
On 5 September 2024, a remixed version of "Wherever You May Go" was premiered, followed by another promotional music video of the song.[42][43][44] "Time & Again" was released on 26 September with a promotional video featuring "Hook City Strings" arrangements[45][46] and a piano version featuring Jeff DePaoli.[47][48] The unboxing of the compilation set was premiered on 17 October, followed by a video release of "River Song" on 23 October.[49][50] "Love Is Blind", featuring a video recorded in the early 2000s and a modern remix, was uploaded on the compilation's release date.[51] Music videos for "Yours for the Asking" and "She Give Me" were uploaded; these were followed by a video for "Too Many Tears", which has a different production style than the version from Restless Heart.[52]
