RAINBOW Run With the Wolf by Martin Popoff Martin Popoff is a familiar name for Rainbow fans. He already released two books about the band ("English Castle Magic" and the updated version "Sensitive To Light"). Besides he has released many other books on hardrock/heavy metal bands including Rainbow related bands like Deep Purple and Dio. His new book on Rainbow is called "Run With The Wolf; Rainbow On Record". Do we get again an upgrade of the previous book? No, not at all. The previous books handled the Rainbow history in an album by album, song by song form with the view of many ex-Rainbow members on them. For "Run With The Wolf" Martin conducted a panel of fourteen people including music journalists, musicians and other enthousiasts. They went through every song Rainbow has ever released on an album. Your first thought might be "Are we waiting for a book with opinions from (most likely) a bunch of relatively unknowns with a link to the music industry?" for most of us. We are Rainbow fans and already know all these songs better than anyone else who's not a die-hard fan. We heard those songs so often, is there still anything new to say about them? Yes, this book shows that there is definitely. The panel, for every album in a different formation of four or five participants, discuss thoroughly a lot of things. It's pretty much surprising how deep the panel went into things with views on songwriting, production, album covers and line-ups. It makes you want to play the familiar Rainbow records again to check all those things that are mentioned. For musicians there is also valuable information as they go deep into songs with in depth facts about the singer, Ritchie's riffs and solos, drumfills and breaks, keyboards patterns and much more. Not only the 8 studio albums but also the live album "On Stage" and "Final Vinyl" are discussed. That last one gets together with "Stranger In Us All" a lot of different opinions by the panel members who discuss it, which is interesting to read. All in all for a Rainbow fan this is very interesting to read. Sometimes you think spot on, while on other moments you might have a complete different opinion. That's also the case between the panel members at times. That's not more than logical, we do not have all the same taste and thoughts. Is there nothing to complain? Oh yes, there is. There's a lot of recognition with many told facts, but there are also a couple of mistakes that a die-hard Rainbow fan will spot. Although that can be expected in this discussion format. We are the fans that know so much and the people in the panel although they are more or less fans they don't go that far as real die-hards. This is a very interesting book for the real Rainbow fan. Once you start reading it soon brings you to put a discussed album or song on to go and listen and check the opinions of the panelmembers. It might give you a new look on certain songs. So this book can be definitely recommanded for every Rainbow fan. You can order this book directly from Martin Popoff