Whitesnake – Slip of the Tongue

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5 Stars

*The charmingly innocent album cover for Whitesnake’s Slip Of The Tongue.*

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“‘Ere’s an album for ya.”

Whitesnake can quite rightly claim to have released one of the last great rock albums of the eighties, as it was released in November 1989 after a long and difficult recording period.

Slip of the Tongue, Whitesnake’s sixth full studio album, was the follow up to the mega selling album 1987 released that year. Although the band that recorded that album had been shed, the touring lineup had pretty much been kept together with just the loss of Vivian Campbell to musical differences.

*David Coverdale at the height of his powers, all glistening white teeth and big hair.*
*The ultimate eighties rock star.*

The majority of the songwriting was shouldered by Vandenberg and Coverdale. But Vandenberg suffered a serious wrist accident before recording could begin and after a significant wait for the errant wrist to get better, it was decided that time was of the essence and a new guitarist would have to be found for recording.

David Coverdale had never met Steve Vai or even heard much of his playing, but he had seen him playing the Devil’s guitarist in the climax to the film Crossroads (1986). Suitably impressed, he employed him on the spot and a wonderful edition to Whitesnake he was, too. Both in the recording studio (where he had to record some of his parts from his own studio due to finishing up commitments before he could become a full time Whitesnake), and on stage, he was IT. The devil’s guitar player all flash and thunder.

*The very colorful Steve Vai ripping out a solo.*

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Of course, the duo of Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge were more than up for their parts as the rhythm section. All guitar playing is credited to Steve Vai but Adrian Vandenberg is still credited as being a part of the band.

The album was a great hit, selling over a million copies and spawning three hit singles (two top 5s in ‘Fool for Your Loving’ and ‘The Deeper Your Love’). ‘Fool For Your Loving’ was actually an old song by Whitesnake released on Ready’n’Willing in 1980 and written by Whitesnake’s British guitarists Bernie Marsden, Mickey Moody and the ever-present David Coverdale. A trick the band had used on their previous album.

Still, it meant some nice copyright payments for Mr. Marsden and Moody. Of course, all three songs came with very watchable videos that were on heavy rotation on MTV, with all featuring fast cars and the very curvy Tawny Kitaen (shortly to be Mrs. Coverdale).

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The album opens up in true eighties rock style with a steady beat, innuendo, gritty riffs and shredding guitar solos. Keyboards are very much kept to the background for the album and David Coverdale’s roar is at the very pinnacle of every song.

Adrian Vanderberg backstage at Donington Park with David Coverdale. Adrian Vanderberg was extremely accident prone, but worth his weight in gold on the road as a good sparring partner for Steve Vai, as well as drawing a lot of female interest from the crowd.

By the time it came to take Whitesnake out on their biggest ever tour, Vandenberg was fit and the band was firing on all six. The tour took them all over the world, including playing Monsters of Rock at Donington Park, to headline over Aerosmith. The tour split into two sections allowing Whitesnake to play just about every major stadium in the world. David Coverdale had not done bad from the man selling shirts in 1972, playing in covers bands in his spare time.