Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City

Well, Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew has got the needle down on a real slow burner that still gets the bikes revving and the hippie hearts swaying out there in the listening world. Right now the airwaves are filled with Whitesnake’s take on “Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City,” the one that rolled out on their Snakebite debut back in 1978. This was never just some throwaway cover. Bernie Marsden, the guitarist who helped build that early blues-rock fire, spotted the song while hanging around the Anchor Records offices in Soho. Somebody handed him Bobby “Blue” Bland’s Dreamer album, and Marsden knew in a heartbeat it was built for David Coverdale’s voice. Coverdale had heard of Bland, of course, but the track itself was new to him. Marsden remembered how Coverdale lit up the moment he heard it, seeing straight away that he could stamp his own soulful stamp all over it. They slowed the original down, added that little introductory guitar lick that hooks you from the first note, and let the band breathe around it. Micky Moody’s melancholy rising line, Neil Murray locking in the bass, the whole crew turning a soul lament into something that felt like a hard-rock anthem without ever losing the ache.

The first time they played it live, still billed as David Coverdale’s Whitesnake, the reaction was pure magic. Marsden told Classic Rock years later that there were three or four hundred people in the room, and two hundred of them were already singing along even though they’d never heard the song before. People just accepted it on the spot. That night set the template. From then on it became the singalong moment, the Whitesnake Choir, as Marsden called it, where the crowd would take the vocal right out of Coverdale’s hands and sway like a soccer crowd with their eyes closed. Coverdale himself has talked about that first Newcastle City Hall show in 1978, how he was deep in the zone with his eyes shut when he suddenly heard this massive sound and opened them to find the whole room singing back at him. It had only been out a few minutes and already the fans owned it. Years later, when the band hit Japan for the first time, Marsden stood onstage in Tokyo with thousands of people singing the words back in broken English, and it moved him more than almost anything else. They made the song their own, no question, but they never forgot where it came from. Marsden finally met Bland backstage in Brighton in 1990. Bland looked at him and said, “Are you the guy from The Whitesnakes? You did a good job.” Marsden thanked him and said they couldn’t have done it without him. Bland’s reply was classic: he knew one thing for sure, the Whitesnake boys made a whole lot more money off that song than he ever did. That’s rock and roll, folks.

Now, about how David Coverdale got started, because this whole Snakebite chapter only exists because of the road he traveled before it. Coverdale grew up in Saltburn-by-the-Sea in a working-class Yorkshire family. His mother’s side were the singers; his father’s side were the painters and sketchers. He was singing in the school choir as a soloist almost from the beginning, and by fourteen he was fronting local bands, singing through a Dynatron tape recorder or the bass player’s little twelve-watt amp. Vintage 67 was one of those early outfits, then The Government, then the Fabulosa Brothers. He left art college, took a job as a singing salesman in a menswear boutique called Gentry in Redcar, and kept his long hair because any job that wanted it cut was out of the question. One day a guy walked into the shop while Coverdale was reading Melody Maker and sarcastically told him he should go after the Deep Purple gig. Coverdale looked down and there it was: Jon Lord pictured at the organ with a line that said Deep Purple were still looking for a singer and considering unknowns. That was all it took. He called a local manager friend, got the contact numbers, sent a tape of himself singing while pretty well drunk, and next thing he knew he was in the band replacing Ian Gillan. Burn and Stormbringer followed, then Come Taste the Band, and after the Mk IV lineup fell apart in 1976 Coverdale walked away.

He headed to Germany for a bit, then came back and cut two solo records with Micky Moody on guitar: White Snake in 1977 and Northwinds in 1978. Both leaned into the blues, soul, and funk side that Deep Purple never quite let him explore fully. Whitesnake itself started as a one-off promotional outfit to push Northwinds. They played their first show at Lincoln Technical College in March 1978, still calling themselves David Coverdale’s Whitesnake because the name carried some weight from the Purple years. By the time they cut Snakebite that spring, the lineup had settled with Marsden, Moody, Murray, Dave Dowle on drums, and keyboards from Pete Solley or Phil Colley depending on the night. The EP went out in June, and “Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City” was the first single, the one that put them on the map even while punk was still spitting all over the UK. Coverdale’s caramel voice on that track, the way it sits in the groove without ever tipping into bluster, showed exactly what the new band could do. From there it was Trouble, Lovehunter, Ready an’ Willing, and the live album that put the song back on the charts as a concert staple. The Zoo Crew loves spinning these early cuts because they remind everybody that rock and roll can still be soulful, that a bunch of denim-clad cats can take a Bobby Bland record and turn it into something generations of fans still want to sing along with.

If you want to dig deeper into the whole Whitesnake story, the official home is right over at whitesnake.com, where you’ll find the discography, the early years, and plenty of reminders that Snakebite is still part of the foundation. You can catch the official Facebook page at Whitesnake on Facebook, the Instagram account at @whitesnake on Instagram, and the X account at @Whitesnake on X. There are also active fan groups out there supporting the band, including the long-running Whitesnake Facebook group where folks trade stories, share old photos, and keep the choir spirit alive. And of course, you can always find more of this freeform album-rock vibe spinning around the clock over at THE ZOO, where the Zoo Crew keeps the deep cuts and the backstories flowing for all you Zoo Freaks. Keep those ears open, because the next track is already cued up and ready to roll.