Head the Ball

Zoo Freaks, settle in for a deep cut that closes out Bernie Marsden's 1979 solo album And About Time Too, and the title of that record is a story all by itself. Bernie had been telling folks for years that he was going to make a record under his own name, and when he finally did, somebody close to him, family by his own telling, said "and about bloody time too." That became the name of the album. He never set out to build a big solo career. All he wanted was to be the guitar player in Whitesnake. A Japanese label came calling with a solo deal, the record was only meant for Japan, and then it started selling as an import for something like ten pounds, real money in 1979. Parlophone picked it up for Europe, and for a while Bernie and the Beatles were the only acts on that label. He later said they claimed the imports alone would have charted it, and he was not entirely convinced.

Head the Ball is the instrumental that shuts the original vinyl down, and it is a co-write with keyboard man Don Airey, who had come out of Colosseum II. That is why the track leans fusion instead of straight blues rock. You have got Jack Bruce on bass, and Bruce was one of Bernie's boyhood heroes, Simon Phillips on drums, and Airey on Yamaha CS-80 and Moog, with Bernie out front on guitar. Folks who know the record will tell you that if Simon Phillips ever played a hotter studio session, they have not heard it. It was cut at Central Recorders in London, the place they half-jokingly called Central Recorders Studio and Sauna, and Martin Birch produced it, the same man who was engineering the Whitesnake records at the time. A few of the vocal tunes on the album had been written for Lovehunter and did not make that record, but Head the Ball was always its own animal, the odd one out that still feels like the right way to end the side.

Bernard John Marsden was born on May 7, 1951, an only child on a council estate in Buckingham. He did not pass his eleven-plus, went to the local secondary modern, and his parents bought him a second-hand Spanish guitar. Eric Clapton and George Harrison got under his skin, so he saved paper-round money and bought an electric. He played in local outfits, including one called Clockwork Mousetrap that had been The Daystroms, and at seventeen he formed Skinny Cat, a big band in a small pond. The other fellows were good players, but the drummer had a family and needed his steady wage, and the bass player was taking over his dad's garage. People kept telling them to write their own songs. The rest of the band was not interested, so Bernie started auditioning for name acts.

When he told his mother he was turning professional, she asked what about all the drink and drugs and wild women. He told her that was what he wanted to do it for. His first pro gig was UFO in 1972, and the country boy from Buckingham figured joining a London band would be like the cover of a Beatles EP, everybody jumping in the air and happy. It was fist fights on stage instead, and he was out by 1973. From there it was Glenn Cornick's Wild Turkey, then Cozy Powell headhunted him for Hammer, where he first worked with Don Airey, then two albums with Babe Ruth on Capitol. Cozy recommended him to Jon Lord and Ian Paice for Paice Ashton Lord. Sax man Howie Casey even floated his name for Paul McCartney's Wings, but that never happened. The band folded during sessions in Munich, and that is where Bernie met David Coverdale. In 1978 the two of them, with Micky Moody, started what became Whitesnake, and the rest of that story you already know, including Here I Go Again.

Bernie left us in August 2023, but the records and the stories are still here. His official site is berniemarsden.com. You can find him on Facebook at Bernie Marsden, on Instagram at berniemarsden, and on X at @Bernie_Marsden. Fans keep the conversation going in the Bernie Marsden Appreciation Club on Facebook. That is Head the Ball, Zoo Freaks. Jack Bruce, Simon Phillips, Don Airey, and a Buckingham guitar player who finally made the record he had been promising.