The Album That Revealed His True Voice

When I looked back at David Coverdale’s first solo album, Whitesnake, I talked about how much I had looked forward to hearing what he would do after Deep Purple. I also said that “Blindman” remains, to this day, one of his finest vocal moments.

What I did not realise when I bought that first solo album was that Coverdale had already recorded the follow-up.

That album was Northwinds.

Released in 1978, Northwinds arrived during a remarkable period for rock music. I was 19 at the time, and it felt like the world was changing every few months. Van Halen’s debut album appeared and altered the landscape completely. Rainbow were still on the rise with Long Live Rock ’n’ Roll. I had recently discovered bands like Styx and Boston. Black Sabbath were about to release Never Say Die!, and Uriah Heep were still part of the wider rock conversation, even if some of those classic 1970s giants were starting to move into different phases of their careers.

Back then, you did not have to wait years for the next record by one of your favourite artists. Sometimes you got two albums in a year. At the very least, there was usually something new within twelve months. So, after White Snake, I wanted to know what David Coverdale would do next. Was he going to form a band? Would he tour? Would he move back towards hard rock, or would he continue exploring the soul, blues and reflective songwriting that had emerged on his solo debut?

Behind the scenes, of course, he was already moving towards what would become Whitesnake. But Northwinds still feels like something very specific: a David Coverdale solo album in the purest sense.

And to this day, I think it is his finest solo album.

The Deep Purple Family Connection

For those of us who had followed Deep Purple closely, this period had a special emotional pull. Northwinds was released on the Purple label, and that mattered. It made the record feel as if it still belonged to the wider Deep Purple family.

I have always seen Deep Purple in that way — not as a battleground between Mark II, Mark III, Mark IV, Steve Morse, Ritchie Blackmore, Tommy Bolin, Glenn Hughes, Ian Gillan or David Coverdale, but as a family of musicians. A sometimes complicated family, certainly, but one that has given us an extraordinary body of music.

That is why I followed all of it. If Jon Lord made a solo album, I was there. If Tommy Bolin released a record, I wanted to hear it. If Rainbow had a new album, I bought it. If Ian Gillan moved in another direction, I followed. And when David Coverdale released Northwinds, I was right there as well.

The first single pushed from the album was “Breakdown”, backed with “Only My Soul”. “Breakdown” is probably the most Deep Purple-like track Coverdale could have delivered at this point. In fact, in some ways, it sounds more like Deep Purple than parts of Come Taste the Band. It has that rolling power, the Hammond organ weight, the sense of drama, and instead of a traditional guitar solo, it brings in electric violin from Graham Preskett.

It is a fantastic track, and it is surprising it did not remain part of the live set for longer. During early Whitesnake shows in 1978, “Breakdown” was sometimes linked with “Whitesnake” from the first solo album, but then it seemed to disappear. That is a shame, because as a bridge between Deep Purple and Whitesnake, it is absolutely fascinating.

Buying Northwinds in 1978

I distinctly remember going into Virgin Records in Birmingham and picking up Northwinds. Like White Snake, the album had that tactile 1970s quality. The sleeve was textured, and the artwork was beautiful.

The cover had this evocative marshland atmosphere, with moody woods in the background and David Coverdale’s portrait photographs appearing as if they had been blown across the landscape by the wind. Some later pressings seemed too dark, and the detail was harder to make out, but the original presentation had a real sense of atmosphere.

It felt autumnal. It felt reflective. It felt different.

That is important because Northwinds is not just a hard rock album. It is full of variety. It moves through blues, soul, rock, balladry, funk and gospel-tinged textures. It shows Coverdale expanding as a writer and as a singer. He is not simply trying to front another version of Deep Purple. He is working out who David Coverdale is outside of that machine.

Some later Coverdale solo albums became Whitesnake albums in all but name, partly because of record company pressure and partly because of how closely his identity became tied to the band. But Northwinds feels like a pure solo album. It is not trying to be a brand. It is not trying to be arena rock. It is not trying to be MTV-ready. It is a young singer and songwriter exploring the full range of his voice.

That is why I think it remains so special.

The Musicians Behind the Album

The album was produced by Roger Glover, which again kept that Deep Purple family connection alive. Glover’s involvement is important, because he gives the record a sense of shape, even though it moves in several different directions.

Micky Moody is also central to the album. He had already become a crucial creative partner for Coverdale, and his playing here helps establish the blues-rock foundation that would soon become part of the early Whitesnake sound. Moody’s presence is all over Northwinds, and it is impossible to listen to this album now without hearing the beginnings of that partnership.

The supporting musicians are excellent. Tim Hinkley provides keyboards, Alan Spenner and Tony Newman give the record much of its rhythmic feel, Roger Glover contributes synthesizer, Graham Preskett adds electric violin, and Lee Brilleaux appears on harmonica. The backing vocals from Doreen Chanter, Irene Chanter and Liza Strike also add warmth and soul to the album.

This is not the sound of a thrown-together solo project. It is a carefully constructed record with a real musical identity.

Northwinds: The Title Track

The title track is a beautiful way to open the album. On some later versions the running order was changed, with “Keep On Giving Me Love” moved to the front, which perhaps makes more immediate sense from a rock perspective. But I have always liked “Northwinds” as the opener.

It gently pulls you in.

There is something very Free or Bad Company about it — that piano-driven, soulful British blues-rock feel. You can hear the Paul Rodgers influence, but Coverdale is not imitating him. He is using that influence as a foundation and then building something of his own.

Lyrically, this is a more reflective Coverdale than the one many listeners would come to know later. Of course, he would eventually embrace the innuendo side of rock and roll with absolute glee, but here he feels more thoughtful, more introspective, more open.

He was still a very young man, but on Northwinds he often sounds as if he is looking back on life already.

Keep On Giving Me Love

“Keep On Giving Me Love” is more direct. It has a funky rock riff and probably would have made the more obvious opening track. It has more movement, more punch and more of the swagger that would eventually feed into Whitesnake.

But even here, it is not simply hard rock. There is a groove to it. That is one of the reasons I like this period of Coverdale’s work so much. The songs breathe. They are not built only around volume or power. They have feel.

The early Whitesnake band would also understand this, especially on albums like Trouble, Lovehunter and Ready an’ Willing. But on Northwinds, you can hear that approach forming in real time.

Give Me Kindness

“Give Me Kindness” is another track that shows Coverdale exploring his vocal range. It is not one of the more famous songs from the album, but it has that sense of a singer stretching beyond what people might expect from a former Deep Purple frontman.

This is one of the great pleasures of Northwinds. Coverdale is not locked into one setting. He can be bluesy, soulful, restrained, dramatic and intimate. He is not simply trying to be the loudest singer in the room. He is using tone, phrasing and emotion.

That is the David Coverdale I sometimes wish more people would revisit.

Time & Again: A Lost Classic

Then we come to “Time & Again”.

For me, this is one of the great hidden David Coverdale songs. I have often felt that, in another artist’s hands, this could have been a massive hit. I have even wondered whether George Michael ever had a sneaky listen to Northwinds, because there are moments in “Time & Again” that seem to foreshadow the emotional shape of something like “Careless Whisper”.

That is not to say one copies the other. It is more about atmosphere, phrasing and emotional lift. “Time & Again” has that quality where the song rises gradually until Coverdale’s voice opens up and carries it somewhere else.

It shows just how versatile his voice could be. Later on, Coverdale would become more identified with the rock monster side of his delivery — the big screams, the huge choruses, the frontman power. But on this album, he uses his voice in a far more varied way. He pulls back, he leans in, he lets the lines breathe.

When he reaches those final emotional phrases, the song becomes something more than just a ballad. It becomes a statement.

The fact that “Time & Again” was revisited decades later with new piano and string arrangements only underlines how much potential was always sitting inside this song.

Queen of Hearts

“Queen of Hearts” opens side two and builds beautifully. I have always felt that the chorus is about to fully explode — as if it is going to go flying over the top of a mountain in the way Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time” does — but it never quite does. It stays more restrained.

That restraint is part of its charm.

It would have been easy to push it into something bigger and more obvious, but Northwinds is not that sort of album. It is more subtle than people might expect. It has rock moments, but it is not always chasing the biggest chorus or the most dramatic payoff.

Again, that is why it feels like a solo album rather than a band album. It is personal, varied and exploratory.

Only My Soul

“Only My Soul” was the B-side to “Breakdown”, and it is one of the highlights of the album.

There is a moment where it drops into that bass and drums groove, with Roger Glover’s synthesizer part coming through, and it is just magic. If you have never heard this track, stream it now. It captures something very special about this album: the way it can be soulful, atmospheric and deeply musical without needing to shout.

This is not Coverdale chasing heavy rock credibility. He already had that. He had been in Deep Purple. He had nothing to prove in that department. On “Only My Soul”, he is doing something more interesting. He is finding atmosphere.

It is one of those tracks that makes Northwinds such a rewarding album for people who only know the later Whitesnake hits. There is a different David Coverdale here — less polished perhaps, but in some ways more emotionally revealing.

Say You Love Me

“Say You Love Me” is a beautiful ballad, and it has a particularly interesting history for Deep Purple fans. A rough version of the song was around during the Come Taste the Band rehearsal period with Tommy Bolin, although it obviously did not fit into what Deep Purple became at that moment.

That in itself tells you something important. Coverdale’s writing was already expanding beyond the confines of heavy rock. He was thinking melodically. He was thinking emotionally. He was writing songs that needed a different setting.

“Say You Love Me” is one of those songs where you can hear him moving away from the strict format of Deep Purple and towards something more personal. It is not a Purple track. It is not quite Whitesnake either. It belongs to this brief, magical solo period.

Breakdown: The Purple-Like Finale

The album closes with “Breakdown”, and this is where the Deep Purple connection comes rushing back.

It is the heaviest and most Purple-esque track on the album, with Tim Hinkley’s organ, Micky Moody’s guitar and Graham Preskett’s electric violin all adding to its drama. There is a looseness to it, but also a real force. It feels like Coverdale acknowledging where he has come from before stepping into what comes next.

As a single, it made sense because it would immediately appeal to Purple fans. It said: yes, this is David Coverdale, and yes, there is still rock power here.

But within the album, it also works as a closing statement. After all the soul, balladry, reflection and groove, “Breakdown” reminds you that Coverdale still had one foot in the world of heavy, Hammond-driven British rock.

The difference is that now he was beginning to decide what to take with him and what to leave behind.

The Connoisseur CD and Bonus Tracks

For many collectors, the Connoisseur CD became a useful way to own Northwinds. Like the CD edition of White Snake, it included a booklet with period images, press clippings and useful contextual material. There were not mountains of archive material from this period, but what was included helped capture the feel of the time.

The two bonus tracks, “Shame the Devil” and “Sweet Mistreater”, were particularly valuable because they were not just alternate versions of album tracks. They were distinct additional songs, making the CD well worth tracking down.

More recently, NorthWinds has been revisited in the Into The Light: The Solo Albums collection, alongside WhiteSnakeand Into the Light. That has helped bring renewed attention to this period of Coverdale’s career, and rightly so. These albums are not footnotes. They are key chapters.

From Northwinds to Whitesnake

By the end of 1978, Whitesnake had released Trouble, produced by Martin Birch. The band was now moving more clearly towards blues-based hard rock, and the early Whitesnake identity was taking shape.

But I have always felt that Northwinds has a magic of its own.

It does not sound like Trouble. It does not sound like later Whitesnake. It does not sound like Deep Purple. It sits between all of those things, which is why it is so valuable. You can hear Coverdale becoming himself.

There is a tendency for history to compress an artist’s story into the biggest moments: Deep Purple, early Whitesnake, 1987, “Here I Go Again”, “Is This Love”, Coverdale/Page and so on. But if you want to understand David Coverdale as a singer and songwriter, you need to hear Northwinds.

This is where the soul singer, the blues singer, the romantic, the rock frontman and the reflective songwriter all meet.

Final Thoughts: David Coverdale’s Finest Solo Album?

For me, Northwinds remains David Coverdale’s finest solo album.

Whitesnake has “Blindman”, which I still believe is one of the greatest vocal performances of his career. But Northwindsis the stronger album overall. It is more focused, more mature, more varied and more emotionally complete.

It captures a brief but magical period between 1976 and 1978, after Deep Purple and before Whitesnake fully became Whitesnake. It shows Coverdale searching, growing and expanding. It shows Micky Moody becoming an essential collaborator. It keeps the Deep Purple family connection alive through Roger Glover and the Purple label, but it also points clearly towards the future.

If you only know David Coverdale from Whitesnake’s later hard rock years, Northwinds may surprise you. It is bluesy, soulful, reflective and at times beautifully restrained. It reveals a singer who did not need to overpower every song to make his presence felt.

This is the David Coverdale album I return to most often.

And if it is new to you, give it a spin. Listen to “Time & Again”, “Only My Soul”, “Say You Love Me” and “Breakdown”. Listen to the range in his voice. Listen to the space in the songs. Listen to a young artist standing between Deep Purple and Whitesnake, with the north wind at his back, finding his own way forward.

Phil Aston
Now Spinning Magazine
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