Roger Glover and Guests

A project assembled to musically support William Plomer's (1903-73) book of poems called 'The Butterfly Ball and Grasshoppers Feast'; in which Alan Aldridge had provided the illustrations. British Lion had secured the rights, and commissioned Glover, through Tony Edwards (the Deep Purple manager), to add the musical dimension that it required if it were to be made into a 26-part animated cartoon series, suitable for TV.

After over-coming his initial doubts, Glover set about assembling the personnel he felt he needed in order to bring such a commission to fruition. He began recording in the summer of 1974, and by the time it was completed he had involved over 30 individual musicians, and an orchestra. Glover decided to assign a musical identity to each of Aldridge's illustrated characters, and to this end he wrote motifs for all of them. To further enhance this identity he assigned each lead vocalist to a specific role.

It was released in December 1974, to a lukewarm reception in the UK, though the single 'Love Is All', and accompanying animation, was well-received in continental Europe. Unfortunately, they failed to find any financial backing for the animated series, or film, and the project was, metaphorically, put on the back-burner. Glover resolved to produce it as a stage musical, and on 16th October 1975, it was performed at the Royal Albert Hall. British Lion took the opportunity to film the concert, and released it in March of the following year - The Butterfly Ball (A Fun Musical Extravaganza).