A Deeper Shade of Purple:
The Fist-Pumping Biography
Ritchie Blackmore looks at me with those dark-as-coal eyes. "To tell you the truth," he says, "this so-called
legend crap just makes me sick. People can become overawed by it, so that they're just kind of bowing down to
this legend thing. And that was never what Purple was about." He offers one of his rare, wintry smiles. "The
whole point of Deep Purple, what made it tick, was that we refused to bow down to anybody. Musically or
personality-wise. We would just say, 'Fuck it.' And we meant it, and that bothered some people. But it's what
gave us an edge, not walking round going, 'Hey, look at me--I'm a legend!' Our attitude was really, just . . . 'fuck
it!' You see, I'm still saying it . . ."
The words may come from another time and place--in this case '80s New York, in the aftermath of the first
zillion-dollar Deep Purple Mark II reunion tour--but the message has remained unchanged throughout the
adventure-filled careers of both guitar wizard Blackmore and Deep Purple, the group for which he cast his best
spells. Simply put: be who you wanna be, but be it to the max. For if there was ever a rock group that
specialized in taking things to the very limit, that group was Deep Purple. As Ian Gillan, singer in the best-known
lineup of Purple, tells me: "We always wanted to take things further, to be more than what people expected from
us. Purple was always at its best when it tried to push open doors and surprise people." Or as David
Coverdale, the singer who replaced Gillan, puts it: "We wanted to see just how far we could go. And the answer
was 'pretty fucking far!'"
Indeed, despite the seemingly endless personnel changes over the years, the setbacks and in-fighting that both
marred and helped to create their legend, the Deep Purple we all remember best is the one that threw caution
to the wind and, through a seemingly magical process that Gillan once described as "improvisational
combustion," came back with some of the most powerfully evoked and, at its best, truly momentous rock music
the world has ever seen.
Whether or not Purple was actually the best British rock band of its generation is a matter of debate--one that
will go on forever. (Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath fans will no doubt have something to say on that subject.)
That they were among the most influential groups of their era, however, is beyond question.
From Lars Ulrich of Metallica--who gave up a promising career as a pro tennis player to become a rock
musician after, as he puts it, "becoming addicted to Deep Purple in my teens"--to late Def Leppard guitarist
Steve Clarke--who once told me how "every rock guitarist secretly wants to be like Ritchie Blackmore, not just
for his music but for his whole bad attitude"--Purple's impact continues to be felt to this very day. From the
original Purple vinyl stashed at the back of Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament's record collection to the TV
advertisers who never tire of recycling that riff from "Smoke On The Water," the Purple sound continues to affect
a generation. When Britain's latest retropsychedelic chart sensations, Kula Shaker, had a national hit in 1997
with "Hush," tellingly it wasn't the Joe South original they chose to cover, but the Purple hit from 1968 replete
with the impossibly fat sound of Jon Lord's Hammond organ. (The Charlatans UK also borrowed the
arrangement for their 1990 hit "The Only One I Know.")
Which is why the time seems right for a serious reappraisal of this classic band's true place in the history of
rock. Hence this marvelous box set: 62 tracks which include all the highlights of their amazing 30-year career,
plus many outtakes and rarely-heard-before cuts culled from the most significant moments of that career, thus
making for the most comprehensive Deep Purple collection ever assembled.
In putting these tracks in chronological order, we tell, as best we can, the real story of Deep Purple. That said,
longtime fans will note that of the 62 tracks--while we give as much space as we can to the various Purple
lineups--we have focused primarily on the lineup that has become known as Deep Purple Mark II: Ritchie
Blackmore (guitar), Jon Lord (keyboards), Ian Gillan (vocals), Roger Glover (bass), and Ian Paice (drums).
This was the quintessential Deep Purple roster, and the albums they recorded--particularly Deep Purple In
Rock, Fireball, and Machine Head--remain their most celebrated achievements. As Jon Lord, the only founding
member to survive every incarnation of Purple, puts it: "To me, when [the Mark II] lineup split, Deep Purple
stopped. Of course, I know we carried on for a few years after with David and Glenn, and then Tommy, but . . . I
don't know, it was never quite the same again."
As this collection attests, following the Mark II break-up, there were still a great many musical heights left for the
group to scale, but, essentially, the thrill was gone. The chemistry had been tampered with and things would
never be the same again--for any of us.
Formed in February 1968, Deep Purple--or Roundabout, as they were originally known--was the brainchild of
ex-Searchers drummer Chris Curtis. An early-to-mid-'60s Merseybeat group whose popularity in Britain once
rivaled that of The Beatles, The Searchers had built their success on covers of American hit songs (The Drifters'
"Sweets For My Sweet" was their first #1 hit). But by 1967 a combination of the psychedelic explosion brought
about by the release of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's and the devastating effect of the appearance of Jimi Hendrix
on the scene had led to a rash of brilliant heavy-rock outfits, such as The Jeff Beck Group (featuring a shy,
youthful Rod Stewart), The Nice (with an equally youthful, though far from shy, Keith Emerson), and Cream
(featuring triplet virtuosos Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker).
Free expression was the order of the day, and by 1967 Curtis had already broken away from The Searchers
and had a hit with "Let's Go To San Francisco" under the alias of The Flowerpot Men--essentially Curtis and a
bunch of session guys. Now he wanted to go one step further and form a proper band.
Curtis was "a very '60s man," Jon Lord recalls, "who had this very off-the-wall idea for the time." Namely, that he
and Lord should form the nucleus of a band, along with a dazzling new guitarist named Ritchie Blackmore,
whom Curtis had recently unearthed. That, as Lord puts it, "[we] should be the center of the roundabout and
other musicians could jump on and off the roundabout as they chose." It was "a lovely, psychedelic sort of idea,"
he adds.
Born June 9, 1941, in Leicester, Jon Douglas Lord was a classically trained pianist who appeared to give up
classical music entirely--much to the consternation of his father--when in 1960 he moved down to London to
study drama. It was there that Lord began listening to jazz. "In about 1961 I heard Jimmy Smith playing 'Walk On
The Wild Side,'" he says, "and from then on I was enraptured by the organ."
Suitably inspired, he joined his first group, the Bill Ashton Combo, in 1963. He later became a member of the
influential Art Wood Combo (aka The Artwoods). Wood, brother of future Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood,
remains one of the unsung musical heroes of '60s London, and between 1965 and '66 Lord played on Wood's
album Art Gallery and at least half a dozen of his singles.
Lord also plied his trade behind the scenes as a session musician; his biggest claim to fame before Deep
Purple was his piano work on The Kinks' 1964 #1 U.K. hit, "You Really Got Me." His involvement with The
Flowerpot Men had been of a similar nature: he didn't play on the single but filled in on keyboards on their one
and only tour. Looking to break the mold, Lord readily agreed to Curtis' proposal to form a more experimental
group.
And so it was that the embryonic Deep Purple first came together as Roundabout, with a loose lineup that
included Blackmore (guitar), brothers Chris and Dave Curtis (vocals), Lord (keyboards), Nick Simper (bass),
and Bobby Woodman (drums). Woodman was a veteran skinsman who, under the name Bobby Clarke, had
played in '50s rocker Vince Taylor's backing band. At age 22, Simper was less experienced but had played in a
number of short-lived '60s beat combos, most notable of which was Johnny Kidd & The New Pirates. But when
Kidd died in a car crash in October 1966, Simper found himself back doing session work. Like Lord, he had
been a touring member of The Flowerpot Men.
However, no sooner had Curtis talked everyone else into his "lovely, psychedelic sort of idea" than he himself
got cold feet and dropped out of sight, taking his brother Dave with him. Blackmore, a taciturn personality at the
best of times, was not impressed, and it wasn't until Lord and Simper had organized suitable replacements and
set up a string of practice dates in Denmark that the errant guitarist agreed to "stay long enough to see what
happened."
Richard Hugh (not Harold, as is sometimes mistakenly reported) Blackmore was born April 14, 1945, in
Weston Super Mare, on the southwest coast of England. He was ten when his father bought him his first guitar
and paid for him to have classical lessons. A gifted student, Blackmore was still in school when he began
playing electric guitar in such semipro outfits as the 21's Coffee Bar Junior Skiffle Group, The Dominators, and
The Satellites.
By the time he was 17, he was cutting records, first with the famously eccentric Screaming Lord Sutch (whose
1963 single, "Train Kept A-Rollin'," reputedly contains the first-ever Blackmore guitar solo), and then soon after
with The Outlaws, which released any number of singles under their own name as well as several others
between 1963-66. The Outlaws also toured, backing such U.S. stars as Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent, and
it was during this period that Blackmore perfected his stony-eyed, Man in Black image. "We were a bit mad,"
he recalls. "We'd play at places and really smash them up . . . We got a lot of bills and not many return
bookings."
Despite his classical training, Blackmore's boyhood guitar heroes were Hank Marvin (of The Shadows), Duane
Eddy, and Elvis' six-string sidemen James Burton and Scotty Moore. But it was Big Jim Sullivan who proved to
be the biggest influence on Blackmore's burgeoning style. Sullivan, who was well-known in Britain as Tom
Jones' guitarist, had played on hundreds of chart hits both in the U.K. and U.S. throughout the '60s. By a strange
twist of fate, Blackmore's family had lived on the same London street as the amiable guitarist, and the teenage
Ritchie was frequently knocking on his door, guitar in hand. "He was just about the best guitarist in England,"
says Blackmore. "He taught me quite a lot of tricks."
By 1967 Blackmore was living in Hamburg, Germany. Like Lord, after years of playing other people's music, he
was itching to try something different. When the invitation to join Roundabout arrived, he was ready. With Curtis
gone and Woodman deemed too out of touch with the new psychedelic scene, vocalist Rod Evans and
drummer Ian Paice completed what is now regarded as the Deep Purple Mark I lineup. Evans and Paice had
met and played together in The MI5, which later changed its name to The Maze and released a couple of (flop)
singles in 1967. In fact, when Evans auditioned for Simper, Lord, and Blackmore in March 1968, Paice tagged
along, unaware that the band also needed a new drummer. Invited to sit in while Evans auditioned, Paice was
surprised but delighted when the band then offered them both jobs.
Born January 19, 1947, in Slough, just outside London, Evans' contribution to the early Purple sound has been
unfairly overlooked. By the time he joined, the band had already auditioned a number of different singers,
including Rod Stewart, who, according to Simper, "was pretty awful." They had also asked Mike Harrison of
Spooky Tooth to take the mic, but, as Blackmore recalls, "he didn't want to know."
Just 21 years old, Evans' only previous musical experience was with small-time outfits such as The Horizons,
and The MI5/The Maze. But as Simper once observed, "Rod Evans was magic."
Born June 29, 1948, in Nottingham, Ian Paice was a natural-born drummer. The story goes that for his tenth
birthday, his parents gave him a violin. When he immediately turned it upside down and started hitting it, Mom
and Pop took the hint and invested in a small, $50 kit. Soon little Ian was accompanying his father, who played
piano, at pub dances and the like. "It was a wee bit insipid, but it was a start," Paice shrugs. He joined his first
proper group at 18: Georgie & The Rave-Ons, which morphed into The Shindigs and released two singles in
1965. From there he joined The MI5.
With the new lineup intact, the band launched a brief tour of Denmark. But the wave of changes wasn't yet
behind them. A new name was in order; Roundabout just wasn't doing the trick. Initially opting for Fire, they were
informed that there was already a group by that name. No matter. Ritchie had come up with something better.
The title of an old Nino Tempo/April Stevens soul tune, Deep Purple didn't win over the entire group--not
everybody was convinced the name held the right connotations--but Deep Purple it stayed. It would not be the
last time Ritchie would get his way.
The first tracks the group cut under their new name were "Shadows" and "Love Help Me" (the original
recordings of which, though unreleased at the time, you will find here). The former was written within days of
Evans' and Paice's arrival and had been one of the few original numbers they had included in their Danish
stage show. The latter is an instrumental for which Evans now insists he wrote lyrics and recorded vocals, but
that for some reason they never made it onto the final cut.
The group's first release as Deep Purple, however, was the single "Hush." Written and originally recorded by
Joe South, the song was later covered by Billy Joe Royal as a short, snappy pop/soul number. Royal's was the
only version the group knew, and they extended it into a lengthy rock jam that included a 90-second Hammond
organ solo--a touch which, at the time, was unheard-of. "It was my idea to do 'Hush,'" Ritchie claims. "I heard it
in Hamburg. So I mentioned it to the band, and we did it."
Released in the U.K. in June of '68 on Parlophone Records, "Hush" missed the pop chart by miles. Much to the
band's astonishment, however, the song became a Top 5 smash in the States and won them a deal with the
Tetragrammaton label.
Recorded at Highleigh Manor, a spooky tenth-century manor house in the quaint English village of Balcombe,
"Hush" was completed in two takes during the nonstop 48-hour session that produced all the tracks on Purple's
first album, Shades Of Deep Purple. Released in the U.S. in July of '68, Shades Of Deep Purple contains
mostly covers, the best example of which, "Hey Joe," had recently been a hit for Jimi Hendrix. "Emmaretta" was
recorded at a later session and kept from the album. Already a hit in the U.K. for middle-of-the-road crooner
Vince Hill, the song was an unabashed stab at a commercial follow-up to "Hush."
The band maintained the same formula for their second album, The Book Of Taliesyn, released in the U.S. in
October 1968. Two tracks--a full-bodied rendition of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman" and a somewhat
over-ambitious attempt at "River Deep-Mountain High" (not even Purple could wring anymore drama out of Phil
Spector's rousing classic)--were released as singles and were successful enough to make The Book Of
Taliesyn another Top 20 hit in the States.
Between the covers, though, they were beginning to insert more of their own material. And the self-penned
"Anthem," which was included on the album, indicated what the band was really capable of--Lords' synthesized
string section representing the first time he or Blackmore had allowed their classical backgrounds to influence
the group's direction.
Their next album, simply titled Deep Purple and released in the States in June of '69, was their first to actually
warrant the term heavy. While "Hallelujah (I Am The Preacher)"--another cover of an old hit not included on the
album but released as a single--trod the well-worn commercial path, "Lalena" was indicative of their new style,
with hefty riffs and pounding percussion pushed to the fore.
Live onstage, however, was where the band's music first exploded. As you can hear from "Grabsplatter,"
recorded live for the BBC in 1969, Purple was not just a pop group anymore. Even their stage take on the
Stones' hit "Paint It, Black" became a sumptuous feast of guitars and keyboards, turning a three-minute hit into
a lengthy showcase for their individual talents.
"We're much louder live than the records would lead you to suppose," Lord told Melody Maker in September
1971. As if to prove the point, when Purple opened for Cream on their farewell U.S. tour, the headliners were
thrown off, Lord claimed, "because we went down too well."
With his penchant for holding the guitar close to the amp, creating what he calls "chance music" out of the
screaming distortion that ensued, Blackmore quickly became the star of the show. No longer content with just
churning out the hits, he wanted to take the group's new sound even further. The success of such British
contemporaries as Zeppelin and Sabbath demonstrated the public's taste for such ideas. But to fulfill their
full-bore potential, the band would need to make drastic changes. So out went Rod Evans and Nick Simper and
in came vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover.
Born August 19, 1945, Ian Gillan was a Londoner who at age 15 decided that he wanted to be famous, so he
formed his first group, Jess Thunder And The Moonshiners, with himself as Jess. The Moonshiners became
The Javelins, which Gillan describes as "next to Purple . . . the most exciting band I have ever played with."
He left The Javelins, however, in 1965, for Wainwright's Gentlemen, a group he thought had a recording contract
(they didn't). But his luck changed when he accepted an invitation to join Episode Six, a group which did record,
and which also included bassist Roger Glover and drummer Mick Underwood. The latter had played with
Blackmore in The Outlaws and introduced Gillan to the guitarist when he learned that Purple was looking for a
new singer.
Gillan says he was elated at joining the band. "When I first heard them, I had never been moved musically so
much in my life." At last the singer could write lyrics that meant something to him, while the band improvised
around him. "We don't plan things," Gillan told Melody Maker in September 1971. "If Ritchie wants to play a
150-bar solo, he'll play it and no one will stop him."
Born November 30, 1945, Roger Glover was raised in a family-owned pub in Brecon, South Wales, where he
became fascinated by the local bands which played there. He took up guitar, then bass, while studying art at
Hornsey College in London. It was there, in 1963, that he joined his first band, The Madisons. Two years later,
The Madisons merged with another local outfit, The Lightnings, and changed their name to Episode Six. When
Gillan went to audition for Purple, Glover accompanied him, much as Paice joined Evans on his audition the
previous year. They ended up recording a studio jam with the band, and Glover was unexpectedly offered a job.
He initially turned it down, but, thankfully, changed his mind the very next day. "I felt very awkward at first," he
says. "I was signing copies of the group's album which had Nick's face on it."
Musically, Glover would provide the anchor the rest of the band needed, while Gillan's extravagant vocal style
perfectly suited their new, adventurous musical approach. Ironically, however, the new, improved Mark II lineup
of Deep Purple commenced with an album that barely hinted at what they were capable of: Concerto For Group
And Orchestra.
Credited to Deep Purple and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Concerto was recorded live at the Royal Albert
Hall on September 24, 1969, and released in the U.S. three months later. Gillan had finished his lyrics just
minutes before taking the stage. For his part, Blackmore frankly loathed the experience, dismissing the
violinists, who, he said, put their fingers in their ears while he was playing, complaining it was too loud.
Though Purple performed Concerto for a second time at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1970, the album
disappointed many of the band's longtime U.S. fans. Back in the U.K., it had been televised and brought the
group to the attention of the nation's media for the first time. As Lord assesses, "Controversy is never really a
bad thing, and in our case it was a turning point."
The quintessential Purple sound as we fondly remember it today, however, was first heard on Deep Purple In
Rock. "That record was sort of a response to the one we did with the orchestra," Ritchie explains. "I wanted to
do a loud, hard-rock record. And I was thinking, This record better make it, because I was afraid that if it didn't
we were going to be stuck playing with orchestras for the rest of our lives."
Released in the U.S. in September 1970, Deep Purple In Rock contains many of the classic cuts we now
associate with the name Deep Purple. The album was a monster success on both sides of the Atlantic, staying
in the U.K. Top 30 for more than a year.
The first Purple lineup, Lord told Melody Maker in March 1971, suffered from "a lack of direction. The first three
albums were pleasant but directionless . . . Then we made a conscious effort to stop and think about writing
material we all understood. And the result was Deep Purple In Rock."
Deep Purple In Rock's lengthy "Child In Time" had been recorded in three stages, not unlike three acts of an
opera. "Nobody else would have attempted that, going up in octaves," Blackmore boasts. Gillan's vocals
scatted along to the guitar and keyboard breaks like a third lead instrument. "Ian was probably the only guy who
could sing that," the guitarist claims.
"Speed King" was less fanciful than "Child In Time." A balls-out rocker of the first order, it proved that Purple
could play not only fast and heavy, but also with breathtaking dexterity and dynamism. The Mark II lineup had
sparked an amazingly prolific period for the band--so much so that they felt confident enough to leave otherwise
excellent tracks like "Jam Stew" and "Cry Free" off the finished album. "Black Night" was also left off, but when
it was released as a single in May 1970, it was clear that the band had cut themselves another classic. It was
also their first big hit single in the U.K., where it reached #2.
"Strange Kind Of Woman" was recorded in the summer of '71 as the follow-up single to "Black Night," and it,
too, went Top 10 in the U.K. Interestingly, the interplay between Gillan's call-and-response vocals and
Blackmore's wiry guitar--a signature of the band's new sound--had been inspired by Edgar Winter's version of
"Tobacco Road" (from his 1970 Entrance album), in which the albino rocker trades histrionic vocal lines with
Randal Dolanon's police-siren guitar. Blackmore, as usual, claimed credit for the move.
"'Listen to this scream,' I said. And Ian's like, 'Who's that?,' and I said, 'Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter's brother.'
And all of a sudden, Ian started screaming. That's where the scream at the end of the song comes from."
Released in the U.S. in July of '71, Fireball was another great album and a huge hit. Somewhat overlooked by
rock historians, coming as it did between Deep Purple In Rock and Machine Head, Fireball nevertheless
remains one of the most impressive collections of Purple's turbulent career. Recorded at De Lane Lea studios
in London (where Paice set up his drums in the corridor--"It was such a good sound"), Fireball was, according
to Gillan, "one of the most important albums Purple ever did . . . We'd just had this great success, [and] we
wanted to prove we could still be innovative. And I think on tracks like 'Fools,' 'Anyone's Daughter,' and 'The
Mule' we really succeeded. It laid a cornerstone for everything we did afterwards."
Gillan was right. From Blackmore's splenetic new showcase, "Demons Eye," to the frantic, pumping title track
itself, there wasn't a duff moment in sight. Even the songs the band chose to leave off the finished album had
something going for them. "Slow Train" is a fiery piece of psychedelic blues that could have sat comfortably
anywhere on Fireball. Instead it lay in the can, unheard for years. Another great track that didn't make the cut is
"Freedom," a fine example of the swinging R&B and hard-edged megarock that became the band's trademark.
"I'm Alone," the last of the great unreleased Fireball tracks, was only deemed good enough for the B-side of the
"Strange Kind Of Woman" single, so high were the standards the band were setting for themselves.
But the biggest, and some say best, album Deep Purple ever recorded is Machine Head. Released in March
1972, Machine Head was the critical and commercial apotheosis of the Purple Mark II lineup. Not only is it
jammed with classic cuts, but it also went to #1 in the U.K. and sold more than two million copies in the U.S.,
where it spawned another Top 5 hit, "Smoke On The Water."
The genesis of "Smoke On The Water" lay in the band's decision to record Machine Head live, at the Casino in
Montreux, Switzerland. Taking with them The Rolling Stones' 16-track mobile studio, they tried to capture their
dynamic onstage sound, which they felt they had heretofore failed to do in the relative sterility of the recording
studio.
However, the day before Purple was due to begin recording, Frank Zappa And The Mothers Of Invention were
playing the Casino. Halfway through the Mothers' set, fire broke out. Someone who escaped in the confusion
had fired a flare gun into the ceiling. (Zappa's parting shot before fleeing the stage was, "Ah, Mr. Arthur Brown in
person!") Thankfully, there were no serious injuries, but the old Casino was burned to the ground. Forced to look
for a last-minute alternative, Purple settled on the Grand Hotel.
As it turned out, the Grand Hotel had its own hazards. Not two hours into their first recording session, the group
received a dubious welcome by local police. It seems several neighbors had called the cops, complaining
about the noise. But the band was cooking on a track for which Blackmore had already come up with the riff,
and for which Gillan was hurriedly writing new, postfire lyrics. Hence the opening line: "We all went down to
Montreux . . ."
Reluctant to interrupt the flow of their session, Purple left the Swiss police to bang on the locked studio doors
while they frantically tried to finish the track. "The police, who had a fleet of cars outside, kept hammering at the
door," Blackmore recalls. "We didn't want to open up until we knew we had gotten the right take."
The rest of the sessions took place back in England, and, as you can hear, resulted in many other superb
moments. Such Machine Head tracks as "Space Truckin'" and "Highway Star" were the natural successors to
the material on Fireball and Speed King--as fast and furious but with more depth and color. For "Highway Star"
Blackmore had even worked out his guitar solo in advance, something he rarely did. "I fancied putting a bit of
Mozart over that chord progression," he explains, "which itself is taken from Mozart." Such cuts as the reflective
"Pictures Of Home" and the wide-eyed "Never Before" demonstrate that there's more to Deep Purple than a
fistful of top-notch rockers. Ironically, nowhere was this better expressed than on "When A Blind Man Cries," a
track they left off the finished album. Although all the early Purple albums split the writing credits equally five
ways, in truth, "When A Blind Man Cries" was a Gillan song that showcased not only his immense vocal range,
but also his abilities as a lyricist.
It would surely be impossible to come up with a follow-up that could beat Machine Head. And so it proved.
Released in the U.S. in December 1972, Who Do We Think We Are! would be the last studio album from the
Mark II lineup for nearly 12 years, thus bringing to an end the golden age of Deep Purple.
Recorded partly at a villa outside Rome, where they again drew complaints about the noise (the locals kept
asking, "Who do they think they are?"), and written at a time when personal tensions within the group were
reaching the boiling point, Who Do We Think We Are! was seen as something of a disappointment after the
massive success of its three illustrious predecessors.
Only one track, "Woman From Tokyo," reached the dizzy heights of previous efforts. Released as a single in the
U.S. in January 1973, the song features a remarkable riff that, Blackmore later admitted, was pinched from Eric
Clapton's "Cat's Squirrel." Eventually, the song climbed onto the U.S. Hot 100 and became a Deep Purple
anthem in--where else?--Japan.
But while the rest of the album featured such crowd-pleasers as "Mary Long" (based on a true story, as are
most of Gillan's lyrics), the spacy, ironic "Super Trouper," and the cranked-up "Smooth Dancer," in hindsight
Who Do We Think We Are! was hardly Purple at their best. Strange, then, to relate how once again they
managed to leave one of their more outstanding tracks off the album: "Painted Horse," its restless tone a
reflection of the band's deepening inner turmoil.
"No, it wasn't a happy album," Blackmore confirms. "It was all very . . . strained." He claimed he couldn't even
remember what tracks were on it, which perhaps explains why he always refused to play "Woman From Tokyo"
live after the group got back together again in 1984.
But Ritchie wasn't the first to crack. That distinction goes to Ian and Roger, who both announced their retirement
from Deep Purple while Who Do We Think We Are! was still riding high on the charts. Exasperated with
Ritchie's moods and the punishing tour schedule, Gillan vanished from the music scene completely--turning his
attention to a motorcycle manufacturing company, a recording studio in London, and an English country
club/hotel--only to return three years later with his own Ian Gillan Band. Glover merely wished to step out of the
limelight for a while and concentrate on the production work he was being offered.
As Glover told Kerrang! magazine in November 1984: "In 1972 we were on the road nonstop for 44 weeks. Six
nights on, one night off for 44 solid weeks! And there was the most horrendous pressure on us at all times."
Something had to give, and when it did, it nearly finished off the band. Fittingly, however, their last performances
together, on tour first in Japan and then Germany at the tail end of 1972, were some of the most powerful and
unremitting they had ever given. The band fortunately taped some of those final shows in Japan. The resultant
live double album, Made In Japan, released in the U.S. in December 1972, was an enormous tribute to a great
band operating at the very peak of its powers. The live-in-Japan version of "Lazy," a Blackmore tune inspired by
Eric Clapton's "Steppin' Out," is equally stunning.
"The original conception of the live album was to get as close to a natural sound from all the instruments as
possible--the presence of an audience bringing out something in the band that could never be replicated in a
cold studio," Blackmore explains. Well, it certainly did that, and Made In Japan is now regarded, alongside The
Who's Live At Leeds and the Stones' 'Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!', as one of the greatest live albums of all time.
In June 1973 the three remaining members of Purple decided to find replacements and soldier on. Enter
vocalist David Coverdale and bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes.
Like Glover, Coverdale was raised in a family-pub atmosphere. Born September 22, 1951, in Saltburn-on-sea,
Yorkshire, he began his musical journey playing the guitar, but switched to singing after receiving
encouragement from friends. Though he had been a member of several short-lived local bands, including
Denver Mule, The Skyliners, The Fabulosa Brothers, and The Government (which actually supported Purple in
Sheffield in August of '69, at which time Lord took the singer's phone number in case Gillan didn't work
out)--Coverdale was working in a fashion boutique when he answered the ad Purple had placed in Melody
Maker.
Glenn Hughes, who was born August 21, 1952, in Cannock, left school at 15 to play guitar in a local group
called The News before switching to bass in Finders Keepers, which released one single during his tenure,
"Sadie." But his major claim to fame before joining Purple was his work in Trapeze, which had released a clutch
of fine albums in the early '70s, most notably their 1972 classic, You Are The Music . . . We're Just The Band.
The album was a medium-sized hit in the States, where the band toured successfully with The Moody Blues. But
their popularity in the U.S. was not sufficient to keep the lineup from fragmenting, and when, in June of '73,
Hughes was offered the job of replacing Roger Glover in Deep Purple, he leaped at it.
The first album from the Purple Mark III lineup, Burn was released in February of '74. It was a marvelous
comeback. Coverdale's deep, rich vocals and Hughes' higher-pitched, soulful backup reintroduced a more
bluesy feel to the band's sound while adding extra layers of power. Tracks such as the frenetic "Burn" and the
surprisingly funky first single, "Might Just Take Your Life," proved a superb showcase for the twin-vocal lineup,
hinting at new depths to the band's music. When the smoke cleared, Burn was recognized as the band's finest
hour since Machine Head.
Stormbringer followed in November 1974, but aside from the epic title track, the album was a disappointment
after the rekindled promise of Burn. Blackmore was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the band's move
toward a funkier, white soul sound, and he now admits that he had begun keeping his best songs for his
planned solo album. The result: Blackmore's decision to leave the band in April 1975 and form the first
incarnation of his solo vehicle, Rainbow. It would prove to be a terrific blow, but the rest of the band refused to
go down without a fight, and to the surprise of many longtime observers, actually announced a replacement for
the previously considered irreplaceable Man in Black. His name was Tommy Bolin, and the arrival of the young
American opened up a new and exciting chapter in the band's story.
It was Coverdale who had suggested auditioning Bolin. Jon Lord told writer Simon Robinson in his notes for
Ultimate, the 1989 Tommy Bolin anthology: "He walked in, thin as a rake, his hair colored green, yellow, and
blue with feathers in it. Slinking along beside him was this stunning Hawaiian girl in a crochet dress with nothing
on underneath. He plugged into four Marshall 100-watt stacks and . . ." The job was his.
Born April 18, 1951, in Sioux City, Iowa, Thomas Richard Bolin had played drums and piano before switching to
guitar when he was 13. Moving to Denver in 1965, he was a member of many now-forgotten mid-'60s
bands--Denny & The Triumphs, American Standard, and Zephyr, which released three albums from '69-72. But
before Purple, Bolin's best-known recordings were made as a gun-for-hire on Billy Cobham's 1973 jazz fusion
album, Spectrum, and on The James Gang's Bang (1973) and Miami (1974).
He had also jammed with such luminaries as Dr. John, Albert King, and Alphonse Mouzon and was busy
working on his first solo album, Teaser, when he accepted an invitation to make history as a member of the new
Deep Purple Mark IV lineup.
The resulting album, Come Taste The Band, was released in the U.S. in November 1975. Despite mixed
reviews, the collection revitalized the band, bringing a new, extreme funk edge to their hard-rock sound. Bolin's
influence was crucial, and with encouragement from Hughes and Coverdale, the guitarist came up with much of
the material. "Gettin' Tighter," a Bolin tune with words by Hughes, who also sang lead, was an album highlight
that would become an onstage favorite, typifying the band's new direction.
"Comin' Home," another Bolin tune, written with Coverdale and Paice, leaned toward the hard-rock tradition of
old. "[Ian] started a beat and I just started making up these chords," Bolan recalled in a rare interview broadcast
in November 1975 on 7H0 Radio Melbourne, Australia. "We built the whole riff around that. So the tune took,
like, ten minutes to write." Another firm favorite of the new show, the song's ultradextrous guitar--the longest
guitar solo on the album--soon evolved into Bolin's own onstage showcase.
But not all the members of the band were convinced about the new, soulful direction, and when Bolin's own
personal problems with drugs began to manifest themselves in cancelled shows and missed cues, the writing
was on the wall.
The end came on tour in Britain in March 1976, before Blackmore's immense following, when the pressure to
show what he could do proved too much for the increasingly addled guitarist. At the final show in Liverpool,
during his solo spot, Bolin's nerve failed him, and he completely dried up. Coverdale walked off in tears. It was
all over. "It was a tragedy," Coverdale says. "Tommy was a brilliant guitarist, but he just couldn't . . . help
himself."
Undeterred, Bolin had just finished recording his second solo album, Private Eyes, when, on December 4,
1976, the real tragedy struck. In Miami, during a tour supporting Jeff Beck, Bolin was found seemingly
unconscious by his girlfriend. Unable to wake him, she hurriedly called paramedics, but it was too late. The
official cause of death: multiple-drug intoxication. He was 25 years old. That night Ritchie Blackmore, touring
Japan with Rainbow, dedicated a song to his memory. Bolin was buried back in Sioux City, wearing a ring his
girlfriend had given him. It had been on Jimi Hendrix's hand the day he died.
And so once again we arrive at a point when the saga of Deep Purple might have come to an end. But there
were still more twists and turns to come. Naturally, there was the obligatory live album, Made In Europe,
released in October of '75, which features live shows by the pre-Bolin, Mark III lineup, and from which we have
extracted "Lady Double Dealer," the mammoth, heart-rending ballad with which Coverdale would become most
associated during his tenure with the group.
But by the dawn of the '80s and the onset of such post-Purple rockers as Van Halen, Mφtley Crόe, and Iron
Maiden, the name Deep Purple had been consigned to history. So when it was announced in April 1984 that the
original Mark II lineup of Blackmore, Gillan, Lord, Paice, and Glover were back together again, the news was
greeted with surprise. None of the members of Purple had been idle in their years apart. Gillan had formed his
own, eponymously named band and enjoyed a string of hits everywhere except the States, where his only solo
success had been his performance on the soundtrack to the million-selling early-'70s rock opera Jesus Christ
Superstar. His Stateside fortunes improved with his one-off album, 1983's Born Again, and subsequent tour
with Black Sabbath, where, bizarrely, he replaced former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio. (Even more
bizarrely, Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi originally offered the job to David Coverdale, who turned it down.)
Meanwhile, Blackmore had built Rainbow's revolving cast of members into another major headline attraction in
both Europe and the U.S. Glover, who joined the group in 1978, had also made his name as a top producer,
working with Rory Gallagher, Judas Priest, Nazareth, as well as doing albums for Gillan, Rainbow, and
Coverdale's own post-Purple band, Whitesnake.
Lord and Paice were no slouches either. Apart from such high-profile releases as the Paice, Ashton & Lord
collaboration with bassist Tony Ashton, Lord had played on David Gilmour's 1984 solo album, About Face, and
Paice had recorded several albums with ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore. But at the dawn of the '80s, both
men found themselves in Coverdale's Whitesnake.
Nevertheless, encouraged by the renewed boom in heavy metal, the Mark II lineup came back stronger than
ever with Perfect Strangers, the album which launched Deep Purple back onto the U.S. charts. Their first
get-together was in a conference room in Greenwich, Connecticut, overlooking the harbor. Lord, who was
"nervous as a kitten," hadn't seen Ritchie in ten years. "And when he walked into that room, and suddenly these
five people were together for the first time in ten years--together--everyone just started smiling. And I think it was
Ritchie who said, right then, 'Well, let's do it.'" As you can hear from the Zeppelin-esque "Knocking At Your Back
Door" and the swirling title track, Purple had not sounded so good, so fresh, and so vital since their vintage
Machine Head era. As Lord commented at the time: "Ritchie jokingly said we should call the album At Last The
1974 Album!"
"The most creative we ever were, the most identity we ever established, was with this exact lineup," Blackmore
says. "Obviously it could have been any lineup, because they would have all been there quick enough, no matter
what they say! But it was established years ago that this had to be it . . . there is a chemistry within these five
people, some sort of rhythm; it's a pulse, and it does work."
"Purple is like an old love affair," Glover says. "And love can be very close to hate. Friction was the thing that
caused this band to split in 1973, but friction was also the thing that gave us the success we enjoyed in 1973."
Certainly the energy always crackled when these five were in the same room. The question was: how long could
they channel that energy into positive results before their egos drove them apart again? Predictably, the answer
was: not long. There was a follow-up re-formation album, 1987's The House Of Blue Light, the best two tracks
from which you will find included here--"Bad Attitude" (written by Gillan after a fight with Blackmore in which the
guitarist accused the singer of having a bad attitude) and "Call Of The Wild" (a rousing call to arms)--but by then
it was becoming increasingly clear that things were not working out again. And by the time they released the live
Nobody's Perfect album in the summer of '88, Gillan had announced that he was leaving . . . again.
It was all very sad. As you can hear from the live take of "Hush" that we have selected, on those nights when
Ritchie and Ian weren't at each others their throats, the band could still turn on the goods and then some.
Many fans thought the group would splinter again, but they confounded all expectations by continuing with the
surprise recruitment of former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner, recording one good-but-not-great album
together, Slaves And Masters, released in October 1990. Born Joseph Linquito on August 2, 1951, in
Hackensack, New Jersey, Joe Lynn Turner began his career in the mid-'70s fronting a Purple covers band
called Ezra. Before replacing Graham Bonnet in Rainbow, he had recorded three albums with New York
rockers Fandango. When Blackmore iced Rainbow to return to Purple, Turner released a solo album, 1985's
Rescue You, paying the bills with session work (that's Joe singing backup on Cher's 1987 hit "We All Sleep
Alone") and occasionally teaming up with the Blackmore-fixated Yngwie Malmsteen. Being invited to replace
Gillan in Deep Purple was, he said, "a lifelong dream come true."
As you can hear from Slaves And Masters' title track, Joe certainly felt right at home. Not so the fans, though,
who largely failed to pick up on the album. It was no surprise when Gillan reunited with the group in 1993 for the
album The Battle Rages On . . ., the bristling title track of which is included in this collection.
The '90s has seen another splintering of the Deep Purple lineup, this time when Ritchie left yet again and the
band replacing him with former Dixie Dregs/Kansas guitarist Steve Morse. Their most recent album, 1998's
Abandon, is a decent enough offering, if lacking a certain crucial element. But, then, as Gillan says, "You can
only be Ritchie Blackmore's backing group for so long!"
That said, who would bet against that magical and, yes--sorry, Ritchie--legendary Mark II lineup finding a way to
come back and surprise themselves, and us, yet again? Until then, here's a little something to remind the world
of what it's missing.
Cue: lights.
Cue: smoke.
Cue: that riff: Durh durh durh! Durh durh durh durh! Durh durh durh! Durh! Durhhh!
--Mick Wall
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