Deep Purple

Members: Ian Gillan, Steve Morse, Don Airey, Roger Glover, Ian Paice

Active: 1968-1976, 1984-present

HISTORY

Deep Purple is the name of a British rock group, and is also the name of a song composed by Peter De Rose, from which the band may have borrowed its name. They are one of the first and most famous hard rock bands, and are considered pioneers of heavy metal.

The band Episode Six released several singles in the UK during the mid-sixties. It featured Ian Gillan on vocals, Graham Dimmock on guitar, Roger Glover on bass, Tony Lander on guitar, Sheila Carter on keyboards, and Harvey Shields on the drums. Despite extensive touring, they never had their big break.

In 1967, a band called The Flowerpot Men and their Garden was formed, formerly known as The Ivy League. It was concentrated on a trio of singers. The new name was clearly derived from the children's show The Flowerpot Men, with the obvious psychedelic-era puns on flower power and "pot" (cannabis). The band's most popular song was "Let's Go To San Francisco." Some listeners assumed that the song was a parody of Scott McKenzie's "If You're Going to San Francisco," but the band has denied this. It featured Tony Burrows, Neil Landon, Robin Shaw, and Pete Nelson on vocals, Ged Stone on guitar, Nick Simper on bass, Jon Lord on organ, and Carlo Little on drums. Jon Lord had formerly played in The Artwoods, Nick Simper had been with Screaming Lord Sutch's The Savages, where he also played with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore.

THE DAWN OF THE PURPLE

In 1968, the group Roundabout formed in Hamburg, Germany, consisting of Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Jon Lord on Hammond organ, Chris Curtis on vocals, and others.

After only a month of rehearsals, Blackmore and Lord split from the group. The two joined forces with vocalist Rod Evans, bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice. The new band was named Deep Purple.

In October 1968, the group had tremendous success in the US with its cover of Joe South's "Hush," taken from their acclaimed debut album Shades of Deep Purple. In 1969, two more successful albums followed: The Book of Taliesyn and Deep Purple, the latter of which contained a symphony orchestra on some tracks. After three albums and extensive touring in the States, it was the inclusion of vocalist Ian Gillan (who replaced Evans) and bassist Roger Glover (who replaced Simper) that created the essential Deep Purple line-up. Initially, this line-up released a landmark album in Concerto for Group and Orchestra, a three-part movement written by Lord and performed at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Arnold. It is widely known as the first successful collaboration between a rock band and an orchestra.

TOP OF THE WORLD

Shortly after the orchestral release, the band shocked the music world by creating extremely heavy, hard rock music, and thus becoming a pioneer in the world of heavy metal. Their heaviness was only rivalled by newcomers Black Sabbath. During this period, Deep Purple became one of the most popular hard rock acts in the world, releasing the highly influential and successful albums Deep Purple in Rock, Fireball, and the quintessential Machine Head (the latter featuring their most famous song, "Smoke on the Water"), and the live album Made in Japan, featuring the classics Highway Star, Space Truckin' and Lazy, has long been considered to be one of the finest live rock concerts ever recorded.

The classic line-up continued up through the album Who Do We Think We Are (1973), featuring the hit single Woman from Tokyo, at which point both Gillan and Glover left. They were replaced by an unknown singer named David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes of the band Trapeze on bass and vocals. This new line-up continued seamlessly into 1974 with the heavy blues/rock album Burn, another highly successful Purple album. Hughes and Coverdale added a funky R&B/soul sound to the band's heavy metal elements, a sound that was even more apparent on the 1974 release Stormbringer. Blackmore was not happy with the results, and as a result he left to form his own band Rainbow.

With Blackmore's departure, Deep Purple was left to fill one of the biggest vacancies in rock. The gap was filled by the prodigiously talented American Tommy Bolin who had established himself as a vividly imaginative guitarist with acts such as Zephyr, James Gang and Billy Cobham, with whom Bolin made his mark on the jazz fusion Spectrum album. On the face of it Bolin was just what the doctor ordered. However the subsequent album, 1975's Come Taste the Band, for all its quality, proved unpopular with die-hard fans and didn't attract any new ones. Bolin himself turned out not to be ready for the daunting job of filling Blackmore's shoes, suffering hostility from some crowds while turning in erratic performances varying from the scintillating to the mundane. Bolin also had a drug habit, heroin, which made matters all the worse. After a particularly traumatic tour to promote Come Taste the Band, the band broke up. Later Tommy Bolin died of a heroin overdose whilst on tour supporting Jeff Beck in Miami.

Subsequently, most of the past members of Deep Purple would go on to have considerable success in a number of other bands including Rainbow, Whitesnake and Gillan, while there were a number of promoter-led attempts to get the band to reform, especially with the revival of the hard rock market in the late 70s/early 80s.

THE REUNION

In April 1984, eight years after the demise of Deep Purple, it happened. It was announced on BBC radio's The Friday Rock Show that the "classic" early 70s line-up of Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord, and Paice was reforming and recording new material. The band signed a deal with Polydor in Europe and Mercury in North America. The album Perfect Strangers was released in October 1984 and the tour followed, starting in New Zealand and winding its way across the world into Europe by the following summer. It was a tremendous success. The UK homecoming proved mixed as they elected to play just a single festival show at Knebworth (with main support from The Scorpions). The weather was famously bad but 80,000 turned up anyway.

The line-up recorded and toured The House of Blue Light in 1987 though to lower sales, a live album Nobody's Perfect (1988) was culled from several shows on this tour. While in the UK a new version of "Hush" was released to mark 20 years of the band. In 1989, Ian Gillan was fired from the band, as his relations with Blackmore soured. His replacement was former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. This line up recorded just one album, Slaves & Masters (1990), and toured in support of it.

With the tour done, Turner was forced to go as Lord, Paice, and Glover wanted Gillan back in the fold. Blackmore relented and the classic line-up recorded The Battle Rages On in 1993. During an artistically successful European tour during the fall of 1993, tensions between Gillan and Blackmore came to a head yet again. Blackmore walked out in November [1993]], never to return and leaving the band in a fix. Joe Satriani was drafted in, so the live dates (in Japan) in December could be completed. Satriani stayed on for a European Summer tour in 1994, was asked to stay permanently, but opted to carry on with his solo career. The band unanimously chose the extraordinary Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse to become Blackmore's permanent successor.

REVIVAL

The revitalised band enjoyed success throughout the rest of the 1990s, releasing the critically acclaimed Purpendicular in 1996, and Abandon in 1998. Most of this period was spent on the road via constant touring. The group continued forward until 2002, when venerable founding member Jon Lord (who, along with Ian Paice, was the only member to be in all incarnations of the band) announced his amicable retirement from the band to pursue personal projects (especially orchestral work). Rock keyboard veteran Don Airey (Rainbow/Whitesnake, etc.), who had helped Purple out when Lord was injured in 2001, joined the band. In 2003, Deep Purple released their first studio album in five years, the highly praised Bananas, and began touring in support of the album immediately. In October of 2005, the band's 37th year, Purple released the progressive and adventurous album Rapture of the Deep, considered to be the group's strongest effort since Purpendicular, accompanied by yet another extensive world tour.

DEEP PURPLE AND HEAVY METAL

Despite their association with the sub-genre, Deep Purple have never been purely a heavy metal band, though many later heavy metal bands cite their influence. The group has frequently changed styles and line-ups over the years, but has always included virtuoso players in its ranks and placed a high priority on musicianship. Some incarnations of Deep Purple have brought aspects of jazz and classical influences to a rock context due to their frequent use of their songs as vehicles for extended and sophisticated solos.

Today, Deep Purple steadfastly carries on in the studio and around the globe as one of history's most prolific, longest-lived, and hardest touring rock 'n roll bands. Highway Stars indeed!

STUDIO ALBUMS:

1968 - Shades of Deep Purple

1968 - The Book of Taliesyn

1969 - Deep Purple

1969 - Concerto for Group and Orchestra

1970 - Deep Purple in Rock

1971 - Fireball

1972 - Machine Head

1973 - Who Do We Think We Are

1974 - Burn

1974 - Stormbringer

1975 - Come Taste the Band

1984 - Perfect Strangers

1987 - The House of Blue Light

1990 - Slaves & Masters

1993 - The Battle Rages On

1996 - Purpendicular

1998 - Abandon

2003 - Bananas

2005 - Rapture of the Deep

LIVE ALBUMS:

1969 - Concerto for Group and Orchestra,

1988 - Scandinavian Nights

1972 - Made in Japan

1980 - Deep Purple In Concert recorded 1970-1972

1988 - Nobody's Perfect

1991 - In The Absence of Pink recorded 1985

1994 - Come Hell or High Water

2005 - Live In Stuttgart & Birmingham 1993

1975 - Made in Europe

1974 - Live in London

1996 - Calfifornia Jamming = Live at the Calfifornia Jam, 1974

1996 - The Final Concerts (recorded live in Europe 1975), released 1996

1976 - Last Concert in Japan

1995 - On the Wings of a Russian Foxbat = King Biscuit Flower Hour, 1975

2001 - This Time Around - Live in Tokyo recorded 1975

1997 - Live at the Olympia '96

1999 - Total Abandon : Live in Australia, 1999

1999 - Live at the Royal Albert Hall, 1999

COMPILATIONS:

1972 - Purple Passages

1975 - 24 Carat Purple

1979 - The Mark II Purple Singles

1980 - Deepest Purple/The Very Best of Deep Purple

1980 - When We Rock, We Rock, and When We Roll, We Roll

1985 - The Anthology

1998 - 30: Very Best of Deep Purple

2003 - Winning Combinations:Deep Purple and Rainbow