''The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast'' is a

concept album A concept album is an album whose tracks hold a larger purpose or meaning collectively than they do individually. This is typically achieved through a single central narrative or theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, or lyrical. Som ...

and subsequent live

rock opera A rock opera is a collection of rock music songs with lyrics that relate to a common story. Rock operas are typically released as concept albums and are not scripted for acting, which distinguishes them from operas, although several have been ad ...

appearing in 1974 and 1975 respectively, based on the children's poem of a similar title. The album cover design is from

Alan Aldridge Alan Aldridge (8 July 1938 – 17 February 2017) was a British artist, graphic designer and illustrator. He is best known for his psychedelic artwork made for books and record covers by The Beatles and The Who. Personal life Aldridge was born ...

's design for a 1973 book based on the poem.

Origin and production history

The work was originally conceived as a solo vehicle for

Jon Lord John Douglas Lord (9 June 194116 July 2012) was an English orchestral and rock composer, pianist, and Hammond organ player known for his pioneering work in fusing rock with classical or baroque forms, especially with the British rock band Deep ...

to be produced by

Roger Glover Roger David Glover (born 30 November 1945) is a Welsh bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the member of the hard rock bands Deep Purple and Rainbow. As a member of Deep Purple, Glover was inducted into the Rock and Ro ...

who had recently left

Deep Purple Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock music, but their musical style has changed over the course of its existence. Ori ...

. However, Lord proved too busy with Deep Purple, and Glover took up the reins on his own. Using his connections, Glover recruited a large cast of noted rock musicians, with a different vocalist for each character, including

David Coverdale David Coverdale (born 22 September 1951) is an English singer who is best known as the lead vocalist of Whitesnake, a hard rock band he founded in 1978. Before Whitesnake, Coverdale was the lead singer of Deep Purple from 1973 to 1976, after wh ...

and Glenn Hughes. An accompanying animated short film, ''The Butterfly Ball'', was made by the

Halas & Batchelor Halas and Batchelor was a British animation company founded by husband and wife John Halas and Joy Batchelor. Halas was a Hungarian émigré to the United Kingdom. The company had studios in London and Cainscross, in the Stroud District of Glouce ...

company. On 16 October 1975, a one-off performance at the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London. One of the UK's most treasured and distinctive buildings, it is held in trust for the nation and managed by a registered charity which receives no govern ...

took place. Again it had a star-studded cast of rock musicians, most notably

Ian Gillan Ian Gillan (born 19 August 1945) is a British singer who is best known as the lead singer and lyricist for the rock band Deep Purple. He is known for his powerful and wide-ranging singing voice. Initially influenced by Elvis Presley, Gillan ...

who was drafted in at the last minute and received a standing ovation on his entrance. He replaced an unavailable

Ronnie James Dio Ronald James Padavona (July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010), known professionally as Ronnie James Dio, was an American heavy metal singer. He fronted and founded numerous bands throughout his career, including Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and H ...

who had commitments with

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow ''Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow'' (sometimes stylised ''Ritchie Blackmore's R-A-I-N-B-O-W'') is the debut studio album by American/British rock band Rainbow, released in 1975. Recording During studio sessions in Tampa Bay, Florida on 12 December ...

(although Dio did eventually get to perform the song at the

in 1999 as the guest of

). Gillan had not performed since leaving

in 1973. Also notable was the appearance of

Twiggy Dame Lesley Lawson (''née'' Hornby; born 19 September 1949) is an English model, actress, and singer, widely known by the nickname Twiggy. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenaged model during the swinging '60s in London. ...

as singer and actress and

Vincent Price Vincent Leonard Price Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993) was an American actor, art historian, art collector and gourmet cook. He appeared on stage, television, and radio, and in more than 100 films. Price has two stars on the Hollywood Wal ...

as narrator. Apart from most of the musicians involved in the studio recording, the concert also featured

. The live concert was filmed and released in 1976, produced by

Tony Klinger Tony Klinger (born 29 January 1950) is a British film-maker, author and media executive. He began his career as Assistant Director on '' The Avengers'' in the 1960s, directed several rockumentaries and headed media companies both in the UK ...

Later appearance

Colin Meloy Colin Patrick Henry Meloy (born October 5, 1974) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and author best known as the frontman of the Portland, Oregon, indie folk rock band The Decemberists. In addition to vocals, he performs with an acousti ...

The Decemberists The Decemberists are an American indie rock band from Portland, Oregon. The band consists of Colin Meloy ( lead vocals, guitar, principal songwriter), Chris Funk (guitar, multi-instrumentalist), Jenny Conlee (piano, keyboards, accordion), Nate ...

has used the piece as intro music for the band's shows.Schweber, Nate
"The Making of Meloy"
''The Montanan'', Winter, 2009. Retrieved 2011-04-08.

Track listing

Charts

Personnel (original album)

Jack Emblow Jack Alexander Emblow (born 27 June 1930) is a British jazz accordionist who is best known for his musical work accompanying the Cliff Adams Singers on BBC Radio. Biography Emblow was born on 27 June 1930 in Lincoln, England. His father sang a ...

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

Ray Fenwick Raymond John Fenwick (18 July 1946 – 30 April 2022) was an English guitarist and session musician, best known for his work in The Syndicats and in The Spencer Davis Group in the 1960s, and as the lead guitarist of Ian Gillan's post- Deep Pu ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

* Mike Moran, Ann Odell -

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

synthesiser A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

, piano, guitar, bass guitar,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

Eddie Hardin Eddie Hardin (19 February 1949 – 22 July 2015) was an English rock pianist and singer-songwriter. Born Edward Harding, he was best known for his associations with the Spencer Davis Group, Axis Point, and Hardin & York. Hardin, along with the ...

- piano,

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

, synthesizer, backing vocals *

Eddie Jobson Edwin "Eddie" Jobson (born 28 April 1955) is an English musician noted for his use of synthesizers. He has been a member of several progressive rock bands, including Curved Air, Roxy Music, U.K. and Jethro Tull. He was also part of Frank Zap ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

Chris Karan Chris Karan (born Chrisostomos Karanikis, 14 October 1939) is a Britain-based Australian jazz drummer and percussionist of Greek descent. Life and career Karan was born in 1939 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Karan played in The Three Out tr ...

tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...

* Robin Thompson -

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...

* Nigel Watson -

saw A saw is a tool consisting of a tough blade, wire, or chain with a hard toothed edge. It is used to cut through material, very often wood, though sometimes metal or stone. The cut is made by placing the toothed edge against the material and mo ...

Mo Foster Mo Foster (born Michael Ralph Foster, 22 December 1944) is an English multi-instrumentalist, record producer, composer, solo artist, author, and public speaker. Through a career spanning over half a century, Foster has toured, recorded, and perf ...

- bass guitar,

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

, finger pops *

Les Binks James Leslie Binks (born in Portadown, Northern Ireland), is a Northern Irish heavy metal drummer. He was the drummer for Judas Priest from 1977 to 1979. History Previously working for Eric Burdon, Binks was a drummer on Roger Glover's album ' ...

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

Mike Giles Michael Bryce Giles (born 27 December 1959) is a British mathematician and computer scientist. He is a Professor of Scientific Computing and Head of Department at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Hugh’s Coll ...

- drums * Joanne Williams - backing vocals * Kay Garner - backing vocals * Judi Kuhl - backing vocals *

Barry St. John Eliza Janet Thomson (November 1943 – 24 July 2020), who recorded as Barry St. John, was a Scottish female singer who had a No. 47 hit in the UK Singles Chart in December 1965 with "Come Away Melinda". It was her only solo chart success. Biog ...

- backing vocals * Helen Chappelle - backing vocals * The Mountain Fjord Orchestra led by David Woodcock and conducted by Martin Ford, John Bell and Del Newman. *

, Harry Wilcock - cover design * George Peckham - mastering

References

External links

Roger Glover & Guests - ''The Butterfly Ball And the Grasshopper's Feast''
''AvxHome.se''. Dave Thompson is credited with some or all of the text at this website. The unsourced "Origin and production history" body of this Wikipedia article (as of April 2011) appears to be sourced from—or to be commonly sourced with—this text. *
The Butterfly Ball And The Grasshopper's Feast
at Discogs.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast 1974 debut albums Concept albums Albums produced by Roger Glover Roger Glover albums Purple Records albums UK Records albums Albums with cover art by Alan Aldridge Rock operas