THE BUTTERFLY BALL & THE GRASSHOPPER'S FEAST - A Rock Opera (1974)
The Butterfly's Ball & the Grasshopper's Feast is a poem written by William Roscoe in 1802 and it's telling the story of a party for insects and other small animals.
A couple of centuries later, in 1973, it became a children's picture book loosely based on the poem, written by Alan Aldridge and William Plomer.
And finally, in 1974 it became a Rock opera by Roger Glover, based on the children's picture book I mentioned above.
The project started as a collaboration between Roger Glover (who had recently left Deep Purple) and John Lord, but because Lord was too busy with Deep Purple, Glover decided to run the project on his own. Using his connections, Glover recruited a large cast of noted Rock musicians to perform on the album, using a different singer on each track. In order to understand how big this project was, I should mention that almost 30 musicians and singers participated in the recordings, not to mention a whole symphony orchestra. Some of the most famous musicians who participated in the recordings of the album were: Roger Glover, David Coverdale & Glen Hughes (from Deep Purple), Tony Ashton (from Paice Ashton Lord), Michael Giles (from King Crimson), Ronnie James Dio (from Rainbow), John Gustafson (from The Ian Gillan Band & Roxy Music) and John Lawton (from Lucifer's Friend & Uriah Heep).
There was a single that came out of this album, the song 'Love is all' (with R.J Dio on vocals), which reached at No.1 in Holland and became rather famous in France.
In 1975 the album was presented live in a one-off performance that took place in the Royal Albert Hall in London. At this performance there is a different cast, including Ian Gillan in the place of Ronnie James Dio, because he was unable to participate, due to his commitments with Rainbow.
The original version of the album was released as a double vinyl, it contains 20 tracks, and has a total running time of almost 75 minutes. In the 1995 reissue of the album on cd, there are 9 more tracks included, but there is nothing new there. The 9 tracks are just remixes and demo versions of some songs.
If you want my personal opinion, I don't think that it is a "must have" album, but it is a nice collector's item for those who like Rock music.
My rating would be 2.5 out of 5.0 stars
In the following link you can see the whole album performed live at the Royal Albert Hall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSEW_4c2o1Y
Enjoy! :-)
The Butterfly's Ball & the Grasshopper's Feast is a poem written by William Roscoe in 1802 and it's telling the story of a party for insects and other small animals.A couple of centuries later, in 1973, it became a children's picture book loosely based on the poem, written by Alan Aldridge and William Plomer.
And finally, in 1974 it became a Rock opera by Roger Glover, based on the children's picture book I mentioned above.
The project started as a collaboration between Roger Glover (who had recently left Deep Purple) and John Lord, but because Lord was too busy with Deep Purple, Glover decided to run the project on his own. Using his connections, Glover recruited a large cast of noted Rock musicians to perform on the album, using a different singer on each track. In order to understand how big this project was, I should mention that almost 30 musicians and singers participated in the recordings, not to mention a whole symphony orchestra. Some of the most famous musicians who participated in the recordings of the album were: Roger Glover, David Coverdale & Glen Hughes (from Deep Purple), Tony Ashton (from Paice Ashton Lord), Michael Giles (from King Crimson), Ronnie James Dio (from Rainbow), John Gustafson (from The Ian Gillan Band & Roxy Music) and John Lawton (from Lucifer's Friend & Uriah Heep).
There was a single that came out of this album, the song 'Love is all' (with R.J Dio on vocals), which reached at No.1 in Holland and became rather famous in France.
In 1975 the album was presented live in a one-off performance that took place in the Royal Albert Hall in London. At this performance there is a different cast, including Ian Gillan in the place of Ronnie James Dio, because he was unable to participate, due to his commitments with Rainbow.
The original version of the album was released as a double vinyl, it contains 20 tracks, and has a total running time of almost 75 minutes. In the 1995 reissue of the album on cd, there are 9 more tracks included, but there is nothing new there. The 9 tracks are just remixes and demo versions of some songs.
If you want my personal opinion, I don't think that it is a "must have" album, but it is a nice collector's item for those who like Rock music.
My rating would be 2.5 out of 5.0 stars
In the following link you can see the whole album performed live at the Royal Albert Hall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSEW_4c2o1Y
Enjoy! :-)
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