Track Listing

1. Come On
2. Bloody Mary
3. Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City
4. Steal Away
5. Keep on Giving Me Love
6. Queen of Hearts
7. Only My Soul
8. Breakdown

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28635 in Music
• Released on: 1996-03-19
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Customer Reviews

Excellent but too brief early Whitesnake
This is music of another place and time, before MTV mattered. David Coverdale's Whitesnake rose from the ashes of Deep Purple in the late '70s, the singer taking his love of blues and R&B and welding it to traditional hard rock in a defiant kiss-off to punk, disco, and New Wave.

"Snakebite" is one of their earliest efforts, actually an amalgamtion between a 4-track EP released and 1978 and 4 of the best tracks from Coverdale's solo album "Northwinds." The tracks show Coverdale at his vocal best and loosest, a sense of fun alternating with genuine pathos.

1. Come On--slower than the familiar live version, but still a keeper. Sets the tone for much Whitesnake to come.

2. Bloody Mary--a piano driven boogie tune, almost like Elf in a way, but with rather ribald lyrics to boot. "Bloody Mary" is not a drink made with vodka and V-8 but instead a woman who likes to have sex.

3. Ain't No Love In The Heart of The City--Coverdale puts much "heart" into this rendition of the minor Bobby "Blue" Bland classic. The minor key guitar figure fits in well with the well-tempered vocalisms.

4. Steal Away--slide guitar dominates this borderline camp tune.

5. Keep On Giving Me Love--this tune defies categorization. Not quite rock, not quite funk, not pop...a new genre is born, but never really expanded upon. One of the five best tunes Coverdale has ever sung.

6. Queen of Hearts--excellent ballad, with effective dynamics.

7. Only My Soul--the second best song on the album (after Keep On Giving Me Love). Coverdale sings of children who are lost but searching.

8. Breakdown--uptempo, tough rock with classical solos in it (perhaps the most Deep Purple-like tune found here). And this makes sense, for the lyrics concern the final breakup of Deep Purple in 1976.

All in all, a worthy little gem to add to your CD collection.

This is a very good Rock album!
If you dig Classic Rock but always thought that Whitesnake was too bubble-gum metal for you, then this is the right album to listen to and have a better opinion of the band.

SNAKEBITE is probably the least comercially sucessful album of Coverdale's band, but for me it is the most charming. It includes 8 good songs. Only the 4 first songs were actually performed by Whitesnake, the band that included the former Purple Jon Lord and the guitarrist Bernie Marsden. The last four songs belong to Coverdale's second solo album, NORTH WINDS, recorded some months earlier, and probably were included because: 1) they fit in the context; 2) they were the best material Coverdale had to offer. Produced by Roger Glover and with the precious help of Micky Moody on guitar, the final half of SNAKEBITE is the best and most mature music Coverdale has ever sung.

This is a 1977 rock album, so don't expect any metal guitar virtuosism or high-pitched over-the-top screaming. SNAKEBITE is a collection of good and honest songs. There are some good rock'n'roll ("Come On", "Bloody Mary"), a funky gem ("Keep on giving me love"), the definitive Micky Moody's slide guitar work ("Steal Away") and a hard rock that, if recorded during the Deep Purple era, would be considered a classic: "Breakdown".

Two ballads show that Coverdale can be a sensible song writer, as well as a great singer: "Only My Soul" and "Queen of Hearts". The arrangements are terrific, mainly in "Queen...", that begins smooth but ends with all the Rock and R&B excitement a good long-haired British band could offer 25 years ago.

Classic Rock music fans that pay attention to this overlooked album may have a pleasant surprise!

Coverdale Stretching His Musical Legs Here
After his stint in Deep Purple, Coverdale went on to produce this album. The latter half of the album is produced by Roger Glover. Not surprisingly, "Snakebite" has a Purple quality to it, however, it is more bluesy than Purple's traditional sound. Overall, it's a good album; I can't think of a song that I don't like.

Coverdale, at times, seems to imitate Robert Plant (something that becomes more obvious in later albums). This is especially true in "Steal Away," which never ceases to remind me of Led Zeppelin's "How Many More Times," lyrically speaking, of course. However, this doesn't detract from the song.

This album appeals to me, not only because the songs are good, but because we see a different Coverdale here, one less concerned with makeup and Jaguars. As Coverdale says in the cd insert, this is his first solo production following the "twilight zone" of Purple's (temporary) demise. This album was born in the late 70's, when the musical tide was changing, and here we have an artist determined to keep true to his bluesy-rock roots. Give it a listen; I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.