# Into the Light: The Solo Albums

Into the Light: The Solo Albums is a compilation album by the English hard rock band Whitesnake, released worldwide by Rhino Records on 25 October 2024, followed by a Japanese release on 13 November. The compilation includes tracks from the solo albums of David Coverdale, the band's founder and-singer-songwriter: White Snake (1977), Northwinds (1978) and Into the Light (2000). Additionally, the collection includes the "revisited, remixed and remastered" versions of the material from these solo albums.
Coverdale recorded White Snake and Northwinds after the dissolution of Deep Purple in 1976, before forming Whitesnake. Decades later, following Whitesnake's temporary hiatus, Coverdale resumed his solo career with Into the Light, exploring a more-reflective and blues-influenced sound. Advanced technology was used to remix the albums; tracks from White Snake and Northwinds were separated into their multitrack stems using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) software, while Into the Light was digitally remixed.

## Background

After the dissolution of Deep Purple in 1976, vocalist David Coverdale released his solo first album White Snake in 1977; it features the work of guitarist Micky Moody, whom Coverdale met in Teesside. Speaking of the his first release, Coverdale said the record is "a very inward-looking, reflective and low-key affair in many ways, written and recorded as it was in the aftermath of the collapse of Deep Purple". The album's title, or the song name, was meant for Deep Purple, but Coverdale presented it to Deep Purple's former bassist Roger Glover to play and produce the album with him after the group dissolved. Deep Purple's management were pressured to support Coverdale and Hughes, and the two were each paid $10,000 to create their own solo albums. According to Coverdale, the concept for the eponymous title track was created between 1975 and 1976, "after Come Taste the Band, or while we [Deep Purple] were touring, promoting that album ... I thought it would be a fun Purple track. The track's name was later used as the official title of Coverdale's formation of the group after his follow-up release.
It was followed by its successor Northwinds, released a year later. The album, which is viewed as blues-based and R&B-influenced rock followed as an "antithesis" of Whitesnake (1987). It was also largely viewed as sounding "absolutely nothing like Led Zeppelin", a band with which Whitesnake had often been compared. Within twelve years, in 1990, Whitesnake had disbanded, only to reform in 1994 and 1997. This resulted in Coverdale's third solo album, Into the Light being released in 2000; having a more stripped-down and blues-influenced sound Coverdale said "felt appropriate" in his songwriting. It was commercially and critically his most-successful solo album, charting in six countries. Another plans for a solo album were in the works following its release, but were halted in 2002, due to his disdain for the music industry.
Both White Snake and Northwinds were produced by Roger Glover, while Into the Light was produced by Coverdale, and Doug Bossi, Bjorn Thorsrud, John X. Volaitis and Michael McIntyre were credited as associate producers.
In late 2000s, Coverdale considered restoring and remastering his early work, including his first two solo albums and material from Whitesnake, but at that time they could not be remixed due to the 2008 Universal Studios fire, which allegedly destroyed the band's material belonging to Geffen Records. It was later revealed that some of the masters had been preserved at the Iron Mountain Storage Facility in Pennslyvania. Including with the group's pre-1982 material, White Snake and Northwinds multi-track masters were eventually lost for two decades largely because both of those albums were out-of-print on the label Purple Records, a sub-division of EMI at that time. Many of the out-takes from both of the albums remain accessible. In 2017, Coverdale signed a re-issue distribution deal with Rhino Entertainment and Warner Music Group. As part of the agreement, Rhino acquired the rights to all of Coverdale's Whitesnake albums. This was later expanded to Coverdale's solo material and his Deep Purple catalogue when he sold all of his rights and royalties to Round Hill Music in 2022.

## Production

Around 2019, audio engineers at "Hook City Studios", started working on remastering Coverdale's first two solo albums. Of those involved were primarily, Tom Gordon. They experimented with the artificial intelligence (AI) audio-separation software, Audioshake, which separated the tracks into individual multitrack stems and prepared them for further alteration and remixing.
While remixing White Snake, the audio engineers selected the best-available mixes for the band's comparison and approval. The presence of digital artifacts posed a challenge, which the team addressed by overlaying enhanced versions of individual stems to reinforce the overall sound. Despite this, whilst remixing, they had limited control over the volume and tone, particularly with the lead and background vocals, and the original track's reverb. The team mitigated these issues by incorporating modern remixes of the drums and revamping the guitars and bass through amplifiers to achieve an authentic, contemporary sound. The tape speed was slightly inaccurate but this was digitally corrected to ensure any new instruments were in tune with the rest of the record.
The remixing process for Northwinds was originally inspired by a neural network known as machine-assisted learning (MAL), which had been developed as an audio-restoration technology for the documentary The Beatles: Get Back (2021). MAL was originally named after the Beatles' former road manager, Mal Evans. This process was used to separate John Lennon's home-demo recording from the late 1970s, using a digital copy provided by Sean Lennon that was of higher quality than the third-generation source the three surviving members of The Beatles had used in 1995. This restoration cultivates in the release of "Now and Then" in late 2023 and the 2022 remix of Revolver. Audio engineer and producer Tom Gordon, who was working on the remixes for Northwinds, was impressed by this restoration approach and contacted Peter Jackson's company WingNut Films, which used MAL for music and film restorations, including The Beatles' archives. Gordon's request was declined because the technology was exclusive to The Beatles project and was "bespoken for" at the time. Gordon then approached Paris Smaragdis in an attempt to develop a similar version of MAL software, but due to time constraints and limited resources, this was not possible.
After the initial attempts with MAL failed, Gordon was under pressure to find an alternative audio-isolation technology to remaster Northwinds. For the song "Time & Again", Coverdale's vocals were recorded on the same multitrack as the Rhodes electric piano. According to Gordon, Coverdale wanted to "ditch the Rhodes" and add string arrangements in the remix. When Northwinds was first processed through open-source audio-separation software, the results included digital artefacts, rendering the remixes unusable because "the vocal was so exposed". Gordon learned from a podcast that explained the unmixing process of a Nina Simone's album involving the beta software Audioshake, which produced results that were deemed acceptable. Gordon proceed remixing "Time & Again" using Audiosnake.
Into the Light was digitally recorded using Pro Tools into now-obsolete file format Sound Designer II, incompatible with modern systems. Several tracks from the record were later remixed and included in the compilation trilogy Red, White, Blues (2020 and 2021). The engineering team transferred and converted the tracks using legacy equipment. To prevent data loss or corruption during the remixing project, the digital multitrack stems were re-aligned with their original time codes. Tom Gordon was involved in remixing all three albums, but with different personnels: Into the Light was remixed by Christopher Collier, who worked with the group since the late 2010s, while White Snake and Northwinds was remixed by Alex Breckenridge.
Aside from their album versions, "As Long as I Have You", "Yours for the Asking", "With All of My Heart", "Let's Talk It Over" and "All the Time in the World" were recorded during Into the Light sessions. "As Long as I Have You" was later released as an alternative mix on Whitesnake's 2006 Geffen Records compilation Gold. "All the Time in the World" appears as a track in the 2018 Unzipped standard compilation. "Yours for the Asking", "With All of My Heart" and "Let's Talk It Over" appears as a part of the Red, White, Blues trilogy series, featured on the 2020 remixed compilation album Love Songs.
On disc two and four, the tracks contained demos spanning from 1968 to 1997. Some of the demos, "I Will Love You" and "It Would Be Nice", were re-recorded, again appearing in the Unzipped compilation expanded boxset. "Crazy 'Bout Cha" is a rendition of the song "Whipping Boy Blues", featured on the band's 2011 album Forevermore. Additionally, "Lay Your Love On Me", a demo version of "Lay Down Your Love", appears in the 2008 album Good to Be Bad.

## Release and promotion

On 16 August 2024, Coverdale announced the upcoming compilation on his Twitter/X page. That same day, a promotional music video for the song "Midnight Blue" from Into the Light was also released. Into the Light: The Solo Albums was released via Rhino Entertainment on 25 October 2024 and a Japanese release on 13 November. The physical version features a multi-disc box set containing remastered and remixed versions of the solo albums, and previously unreleased demos. The collection also includes music videos and a 60-page booklet containing photographs and an interview with Coverdale. The set was also released as a double LP that includes tracks from Into the Light, marking its first release on vinyl. The 2024 remixes of White Snake and Northwinds were also reissued on translucent vinyl LPs.
Although Coverdale recorded White Snake, Northwinds and Into the Light as a solo artist, he has been regarding them as Whitesnake albums. He stated: "As I'm recognized as 'Mr. Whitesnake', I thought, Why not? They're all Whitesnake albums to me ... we've remixed them to stand proudly alongside any Whitesnake album." Coverdale's first solo work within Whitesnake appears on the group's first release Snakebite, as a double EP format, featuring four tracks from Northwinds: "Keep on Giving Me Love", "Queen of Hearts", "Only My Soul" and "Breakdown".
Before the release, the snippets of the remixed tracks "Lady" and "Northwinds" were teased on social media. On 5 September 2024, a remixed version of "Wherever You May Go" was premiered, followed by another promotional music video of the song. "Time & Again" was released on 26 September with a promotional video featuring "Hook City Strings" arrangements and a piano version featuring Jeff DePaoli. The unboxing of the compilation set was premiered on 17 October, followed by a video release of "River Song" on 23 October. "Love Is Blind", featuring a video recorded in the early 2000s and a modern remix, was uploaded on the compilation's release date. Music videos for "Yours for the Asking" and "She Give Me" were uploaded; these were followed by a video for "Too Many Tears", which has a different production style than the version from Restless Heart.

### Commercial performance

Into the Light: The Solo Albums charted at number 14 on the UK Rock & Metal chart, and at number 98 on the Scottish Albums chart. It also charted at number 90 in Switzerland.

## Track listing

All tracks are written by David Coverdale, except where noted.

## Personnel

Credits are adapted from the original albums' liner notes, including White Snake, Northwinds and Into the Light.
| Musicians (1977 White Snake) David Coverdale – lead vocals, piano, percussion Micky Moody – guitar, percussion, backing vocals Tim Hinkley – organ, percussion, vocals Ron Aspery – saxophone, baritone, tenor, alto, soprano, flute DeLisle Harper – bass, percussion, vocals Roger Glover – bass, melodica, ARP 2600 synthesizer, percussion, vocals Simon Phillips – drums, percussion Liza Strike – backing vocals Helen Chappelle – backing vocals Barry St. John – backing vocals Alex Breckenridge – bass, keyboards, guitar (2024 remix) Tom Gordon – percussion (2024 remix) | Musicians (1978 Northwinds) David Coverdale – lead vocals, piano (CD3: 3); electric piano (CD3: 4, 7, and 11–12) Micky Moody – guitars, backing vocals Tim Hinkley – keyboards, backing vocals Alan Spenner – bass Tony Newman – drums, percussion Roger Glover – synthesizer, clavinet, cowbell Graham Preskett – violin Lee Brilleaux – harmonica (CD3: 1) Ronnie James Dio – backing vocals (CD3: 4) Wendy Dio – backing vocals (CD3: 4) Alex Breckenridge – guitar, bass (2024 remix) Tom Gordon – percussion (2024 remix) Jeff Depaoli – piano, string arrangement (2024 remix) Ruth Lenz – violin (2024 remix) Olga Archdekin – violin (2024 remix) Virginia Evans – viola (2024 remix) Luciana Gallo – cello (2024 remix) | Musicians (2000 Into the Light) David Coverdale – lead vocals; guitar (CD1: 6), string arrangements (CD1: 4), shaker (CD1: 1, 2, 4 and 6) Doug Bossi – guitar; backing vocals (except CD1: 4 and 12) Denny Carmassi – drums (except CD1: 12) Earl Slick – guitar (except CD1: 12) Reeves Gabrels – guitar (CD1: 1) Dylan Vaughan – guitar (CD1: 3) Danny Saber – guitar, bass (CD1: 1) Marco Mendoza – bass (except CD1: 3 and 12), backing vocals (CD1: 2–3 and 5–10), Spanish guitar (CD1: 12) Tony Franklin – bass (CD1: 3) Mike Finnigan – organ (CD1: 2–5 and 7–9), piano (CD1: 6, 8) Derek Hilland – keyboards (CD1: 7) John X. Volaitis – keyboards (CD1: 1, 3, 9–10 and 12), vocals (CD1: 3 and 10), percussion (CD1: 1) Linda Rowberry – vocals (CD1: 12) James Sitterly – strings (CD1: 4) Ruy Folguera – string arrangements (CD1: 4) Jimmy Z – harmonica (CD1: 6) Bjorn Thorsrud – tambourine (CD1: 3), sound effects (CD1: 12) Jasper Coverdale – shaker (CD1: 2, 4 and 6) | 2024 Box Set Credits David Coverdale – executive producer Tom Gordon – producer, remixing Alex Breckenridge – engineer, remixing (Whitesnake, North Winds) Aiden Melendez – A.I. audio restoration Christopher Collier – remixing (Into the Light) Hugh Gilmour – A&R, release coordination, art direction, liner notes, interviewer Scott Hull – remastering Rob Gross – product manager Susanne Savage – A&R administration Kristin Attaway – packaging manager Eric Bello – packaging manager (LP for White Snake, Northwinds) Matthew Taoinio – packaging manager (LP for Into the Light) Dorthy Stefanski – project assistance, editorial assistance Sam Stone – project assistance, editorial assistance |

## Charts

| Chart (2024) | Peak position |
| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) | 90 |
| Scottish Albums (OCC) | 98 |
| UK Rock & Metal Albums (OCC) | 14 |

## Release history

Release formats for Into the Light: The Solo Albums :
| Region | Date | Label | Format | Ref. |
| Various | 25 October 2024 | Rhino | LPCDdigital downloadstreaming | |
| Japan | 13 November 2024 | Rhino | LPCD | |