Dec 14

Deep Purple

Greatly Appreciated

DEEP PURPLE
 
 
Deep Purple  are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968.  They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although their musical approach changed over the years.  Originally formed as a progressive rock band, the band shifted its sound to hard rock in 1970, and in 2013 began exploring progressive metal.  Deep Purple, together with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, have been referred to as the “unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid-Seventies”.  They were listed in the 1975 Guinness Book of World Records as “the globe’s loudest band” for a 1972 concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre, and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
 
Now, on their website, Sundazed insists of the Stillroven that “their pedal-to-the-metal, frenetic version of ‘Hey Joe’ [is] still THE definitive version as far as we’re concerned”.  That’s a pretty strong statement considering that “Hey Joe” was one of the most recorded songs of the 1960’s.  Better-known covers include those by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple (on their debut album, Shades of Deep Purple, they even claimed to be the songwriter!), Johnny Rivers, the Byrds, the Music Machine, and the Leaves.
 
So, if you want to test that claim, here is the Stillroven on YouTube (audio only) performing “Hey Joe”:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-0zMnkCYOE . 
 
(September 2012)
 
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There are two other medleys that were released in the wake of the hit song “Stars on 45 Medley” (Beatles medley).  On what is probably his biggest hit album, In 3-D, “Weird Al” Yankovic put together a hilarious medley called “Polkas on 45” where he performed a wildly wide-ranging medley (all while frantically playing the accordion) that ranged from Deep Purple, to Devo, to the Doors, to Foreigner, to Iron Butterfly, and even to Lawrence Welk. 
 
(September 2012)
 
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For me, most heavy metal bands sound pretty much the same; I say that not with any sort of snooty, snobby air at all but instead with a wistful sort of desire – had I been 13 or 14 years old when heavy metal was at its peak, I would have lapped it up like manna.  As it is, I was well into high school when the earliest heavy metal albums like the first albums by Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple came out; and I had already graduated from college when the first KISS album was released.  I like a lot of the best heavy metal – Led Zep is so good that I hardly even think of them as a heavy metal band.  I played that first KISS live album, Alive! a lot when it first came out for instance, and Shades of Deep Purple has been a long-time favorite.  I might have had a completely different sensibility about me had I grown up a few years later. 
 
(December 2012)
  
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Homer started out as a cover band; Galen Niles recalls that their varied playlist included the Zombies’ “She’s Not There”, Deep Purple’s “Hush”, and Wilson Pickett’s “Land of 1,000 Dances”.  
 
(April 2014)
 
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Ian Gillan, the lead singer of Deep Purple sang the part of Jesus on the Jesus Christ Superstar album.  In addition to Gillan, the presence of rock session musicians like guitarists Neil Hubbard and Chris Spedding, bassist Alan Spenner, and drummer Bruce Rowland gives the album more of a rock flavor than most of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s later work. 

 

(October 2014)

 

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Greg Shaw included both sides of a December 1964 single by a band called the Lancasters on the English Freakbeat, Volume 2 CD, “Earthshaker” and “Satan’s Holiday”; both songs were co-written by Kim Fowley.  One of the members of the band was a young Ritchie Blackmore shortly after being in the backing band for Screaming Lord Sutch called the Savages and several years before he became one of the original bandmembers in Deep Purple. 

 

(January 2015/1)

 

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The name of the British rock band Deep Purple was suggested by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore because “Deep Purple” was his grandmother’s favorite song; she used to play the song for him frequently on the piano. 

 

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Songwriting credits were not handled so scrupulously back then anyway, and those practices continued at least through the end of the 1960’s.  I have already mentioned in previous posts that Buffy Sainte-Marie showed her own name as the songwriter of “You’re Going to Need Somebody on Your Bond” on her debut album It’s My Way!; and that Deep Purple claimed to be the writer of “Hey Joe” on their 1968 debut album, Shades of Deep Purple (the musical bridge before the song was their work, but “Hey Joe” had already been a hit song several times by then). 

 

(February 2015)

 

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The opening track on Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls by Coven is called “Black Sabbath”. Coincidentally, or perhaps not coincidentally, the opening song on the debut album Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath is also called “Black Sabbath”. The Allmusic article on this album by Steve Huey, which came out the following year, opens with: “Black Sabbath’s debut album is the birth of heavy metal as we now know it. Compatriots like Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple were already setting new standards for volume and heaviness in the realms of psychedelia, blues-rock, and prog rock. Yet of these metal pioneers, Sabbath are the only one whose sound today remains instantly recognizable as heavy metal, even after decades of evolution in the genre.”
 
(June 2016)
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Andrew Lloyd Webber’s first major show was the audacious Jesus Christ Superstar (1970); this rock opera actually did start out as an album, Jesus Christ Superstar, with Deep Purple lead singer Ian Gillan in the title role, while Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton musical went straight to the stage.
 
(September 2016)
 
Last edited: April 3, 2021