Album review: BERNIE MARSDEN- Stage

August 27th, 2026 by andynathan

Conquest Music (Release Date 21.8.26)

Bernie Marsden’s passing three years ago still hits hard, not least as he still had much to offer musically, and there have been a stream of recent releases, some of them posthumous. A brilliant guitarist and equally good storyteller, his real strength lay in his respect for the legacy of the greats in his profession, making his ‘Inspirations’ series a fitting swansong.

‘Stage’ is the final volume of the series and is a live album with a difference. Rather than a single show, each of its four sides represents excerpts from a different gig, with great variation in style and period.

Slightly counter intuitively, the first offering is an acoustic show from 2008, with the unusual addition of strings. A trio of early Whitesnake classics- ‘Till the Day I Die’, ‘The Time Is Right For Love’ and of course ‘Ain’t No Love In the Heart of the City’ show off that his guitar prowess often unfairly overshadowed a pure and surprisingly youthful sounding singing voice.

Sandwiched among these is his tribute to Rory Gallagher (via Leadbelly) in ‘Out On the Western Plain’, even complete with the great Irishman’s introductory catchphrase ‘hope you like it’.

The second mini-set shows him in full trad blues mode on a cruise in 2019, with a fuller sound in which horns, piano and organ play a full part. There is a nice symmetry in that the opening number of four, ‘Boss of the Blues’ which is a tribute to BB King, name checks other greats including ‘Ain’t No Love’ writer Bobby Bland.

All that is missing are his usual stories of when he met the greats, including BB addressing him as ‘Bern-ARD’ rather than the more English pronunciation with the emphasis on the first syllable.

The third segment goes back nearly a quarter of a century to a blues festival in Norway with a star-studded line up including another undervalued guitarist in Snowy White. It ends fittingly as he covers a couple of numbers by Peter Green, another man he idolised whose legacy he promoted lovingly – namely ‘Love That Burns ‘and ‘Oh Well’.

The final selection is a very poignant one, taken from his show at Under The Bridge at Chelsea FC early in 2020. It was part of London Blues Week and I covered the show for this website. Weeks later, we were plunged into the pandemic and it also proved to be the last show of his I saw.

It was a memorable night, represented here by three tracks in a signature Whitesnake number, ‘Walking in the Shadow of the Blues’, an Albert King cover ‘I’ll Play the Blues For You’ and a memorable moment to close the album. The respect in which he was held was shown by the fact that Joe Bonamassa joins him to jam on a version of ‘Walking By Myself’, popularised by another great who straddled blues and rock, Gary Moore.

To make a culinary analogy, this is very much a buffet and any of these tasters could, and maybe will one day, be expanded to a full album. But it is a fitting addition to the legacy of a much-loved master. **** 1/4

Review by Andy Nathan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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