Graham Bonnet recalls past in tour doc

Graham Bonnet visits the Cozy Powell memorial in Cirencester and recalls the moment his haircut upset former Rainbow bandmate Ritchie Blackmore in part two of his tour documentary.

The second instalment of All Day And All Night Long shows Bonnet and co on the road across the UK, playing the Giants Of Rock Festival and heading off to their Skegness hometown show.

Bonnet also visits the recently unveiled Cozy Powell plaque at the Corn Hall, Cirencester, and says he was invited to the ceremony, but couldn’t make it.

He points at the plaque which reads, ‘World famous rock drummer’ and says: “This is an understatement.”

He adds: “My friend, forever. This is the town where he lived, where he’s from and where his adoptive mum brought him up. He was given the name of Colin Powell. He never really knew his real parents – and never knew his real name! But he was Cozy Powell.”

Bonnet is also asked whether Ritchie Blackmore’s claim in his own documentary that he once fled out of the hotel fire escape to get a haircut while on tour with Rainbow is true.

He replies: “That never happened. It was untidy so I decided one afternoon in Edinburgh that I would go for a walk in the city and I’d go for a haircut.

“There was no guard on the door. I didn’t go out the bathroom window. But I can’t understand why Ritchie is still talking about it. I would never do anything to sabotage the show or upset him in any way.”

Canadian music website The Metal Voice announced in January they would be filming the Graham Bonnet Band on tour. Bonnet is set to release a new album and an authorised biography later this year.

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.