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Han Myung-Gu/WireImageWith Whitesnake‘s tour plans for 2021 still up in the air, fans of the veteran hard rockers at least can look forward to some cool album releases from the band in the coming months.

One of the releases is the third and final installment of Whitesnake’s “Red, White and Blues Trilogy” series of compilations, The Blues Album, which, as its name suggests, will feature select blues-influenced tunes from the group’s back catalog.

Frontman David Coverdale tells ABC Audio that he thinks the upcoming compilation is “a very powerful piece of work.”

“It’s really the blues-rock things. It’s not me doing Elmore James or stuff,” Coverdale points out. “But…f*** it, if I’m singing, it’s blues, you know?”

Appropriately, The Blues Album will be available on blue vinyl. Like its predecessors, The Rock Album and Love Songs — the “White” and “Red” parts of the trilogy, respectively  — The Blues Album will feature newly remixed versions of various Whitesnake hits and deep cuts.

Whitesnake also is preparing a new, expanded reissue of Restless Heart, an album that came out in 1997 in the U.K. but not in the U.S.

As Coverdale explains to ABC Audio, Restless Heart, which he considers “a very soulful record,” wasn’t released in America because he’d had a falling out with Whitesnake’s U.S. label, Geffen.

The reissue, which he expects to arrive in April or May, will be released as a box set. While remixing the tracks, Coverdale tapped the talents of current Whitesnake guitarist Joel Hoekstra and Dream Theater keyboardist Derek Sherinian to enhance select songs.

Coverdale says Sherinian is “like the illegitimate son of [late Deep Purple keyboardist] Jon Lord, this extraordinary proponent of scorching Hammond organ, which brought this big organic feel of early Whitesnake back into the more flamboyant aspect.”

By Matt Friedlander
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