All about Deep Purple

Music is said to be around since the dawn of time and it has become an integral part of human life. It took different forms since its evolution and from drums to flutes and harps it became better and numerous instruments were added like piano and guitars. The introduction of electric guitar had the most promising effect on music history as it changed the whole form of music once it came into use by the introduction of guitar solo and heavy amplified guitar in hard rock and heavy metal music.

Therefore hard rock and heavy metal music was initiated by the amplified distortion of heavy guitar playing and was called the noisy music by the soft music lovers. But it attracted the people in large numbers and became very popular in early 1970’s and is still recommended by many music listeners especially the young generation(Christe,80). The first bands which performed heavy metal music were Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple and became an attraction for millions of fans.

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Later on Judas Priest, Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Megadeth and Metallica improved the genre of heavy metal music and punk rock, hip hop, and death metal were introduced in the music industry. Since then many bands have taken over the charge of keeping the spirit of hard rock music alive and kicking. New blends of rock and pop music came into bring and a few mixed hip hop and rock music together to give people a new form of music which they can enjoy and spread.

In this era when we talk about greatest rock bands, apart from the pioneers, Guns N Roses, U2, Nirvana, Slipknot, Aerosmith, Audioslave, Linkin Park etc. are mentioned, they have given the music industry some real brilliant songs and people not only appreciate all the new additions but they look up to more genres in music(Phillips,64). This paper talks about the heavy metal and hard rock band Deep Purple, the band’s history, discography and how they took the world by storm. Band’s History and Discography:

The English band Deep Purple are said to be one of the pioneers of the heavy metal and hard rock music. The band was formed in February 1968 by Chris Curtis who was an ex-drummer of the band called The Searchers. At that time The Searchers was quite popular among the crowd and was said to be the rival of the great The Beatles but when Curtis left the band he formed a small band with some session players and had a hit called “Let’s Go to San Francisco” after which he decided to have a proper band .

The band has gone through a lot of twists and turns with some of the members leaving the band and rejoining it later, some just joining the band for a short period of time and then leaving it while a few of them died. Deep Purple initially called “Roundabout” had the first line up of members with Ritchie Blackmore as guitarist, Chris Curtis and Dave Curtis for vocals, Jon Douglas Lord as pianist and on keyboards, Nick Simper as bassist and Bobby Woodman as drummer.

But soon Curtis left the band with his brother but Blackmore and Lord were enthusiastic to carry on the band and so Curtis was replaced by Rod Evans on vocals and when Curtis left Booby Woodman left the band too based on the fact that it was the experimental situation they were going through so Ian Paice came as the drummer for the band and is said to be the only original member who did not leave the band up till now. Therefore the “Roundabout” after their small tour of Denmark in 1968 changed the name of band to “Deep Purple” on Ritchie Blackmore’s suggestion.

It is said that Blackmore’s grandmother loved the song deep purple on which he decided to credit her and this line up of band is said to be the Mark I line up and this band has went through almost VIII line ups. The Mark I line up started to gain fame after doing a cover of Hush a song by Joe South and it got 4th place on the US Billboard chart, the song was from their fist album “Shades of Deep Purple” released in 1968 after which they were signed up for some tours too.

The band launched their second album “The book of Taliesyn” and it reached #38 on the US Billboard chart while the third album “Deep Purple” but due to bankrupting of the American record company Tetragrammaton and numerous tours, the band got left hanging on a thread with no future possibility and financial assets. Ultimately the group members were left in confusion resulting in Rod Evans and Nick Simper leaving the band after they were fired due to some internal matters.

This resulted in the Mark II line up when vocalist and bassist were required by the band. After some searching and auditioning Ian Gillan was selected as the lead vocalist of the band with Roger Glover replacing Simper as bass guitarist. In this time period the band gained popularity with performance at the Royal Albert Hall called Concerto for Group and Orchestra with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the supervision of Malcolm Arnold.

But despite the fact that this move made the band gain fame, some of the band members like Blackmore and Gillan were not amused by this as now the band was being labeled as “a group who played with orchestras” while their actual goal was to make this band a hard rock and heavy metal group but they did go on with it and later again performed with a different orchestra group.

After the orchestral performance the band than started to concentrate on the album launching and finally the album was released in 1970 named “Deep Purple In Rock” and the song that went to top charts was “Black Night” which clearly portrayed that the band was a hard rock band as the Lord’s and Blackmore’s organs combination, Paice and Glover’s beat section along with the high screaming voice of Gillan made a lot of people their fans and Deep Purple, now, got the fame all over Europe.

The second album during the Mark II line up was “Fireball” and was launched in 1971 ad the title track with the same name as album gained a lot of popularity among the fans. The members of the band were writing and composing songs at a fast pace as it is said that within a few weeks after the Fireball was released the band had already written and composed songs for the next album. The third album “Machine Head” was launched by this line up in 1971 in Switzerland and is said to be the band’s most favorite album as some incidents are related to it including the fire that broke out in a hotel and burnt down the whole casino.

The song “Smoke on the Water” is its inspiration, while the other famous song this album had were “Highway Star” and “Lazy” so, after the success of the album the band made a tour of Japan and North America. The seventh album in Deep Purple’s history and fourth album of Mark II line up was released as “Who Do We Think We Are” in 1973 and had the famous number “Woman from Tokyo” however the internal affairs of the band were not sailing smoothly.

So after the band’s second tour of Japan Ian Gillan and Roger Glover both resigned together on the basis that Ritchie Blackmore did not pay heed to their advices and his mood and terrible touring agenda was intolerable. Gillan then went out of the music scene and started a motorcycle manufacturing company and some years later formed his own band with his name while Glover carried out what he did best so after the two left the band the vacancy was to be filled thus auditions were carried out and vocalist David Coverdale and bassist cum vocalist Glenn Hughes were signed in.

Coverdale used to play guitars but decided to sing after some support from the people while Glenn Hughes was known for his notable performance in “Trapeze”. This group or Mark III then launched their first album and overall eighth album titled “Burn” in February 1974, this album is also said to be the best comeback of the band as both the new members did their jobs in a brilliant and fruitful way producing a better output that the band required to get back in shape.

The songs that made the spot light were “Might Just Take Your Life” and “Burn”( Thompson ,90). The second album was released named “Stormbringer” in 1974 but as this album had funky playback, although the album had many popular songs like “The Gypsy” and “Lady Double Dealer” guitarist Ritchie Blackmore again showed desperation and left the band in 1975 to form his own band Rainbow, stating that he was not into funky soul music.

The departure of Ritchie Blackmore was the greatest set back for the band as his position was one of the most important and no other guitarist was available who could perform like him, but the real shock to the fans came when the band decided to carry on replacing the irreplaceable Blackmore with Tommy Bolin who was an American famous for many musical performances making this a forth line up better known as Mark IV line up.

So the band than released the album entitled “Come Taste the Band” in October 1975, the album was a hit but again the problems arrived with the band’s future when Bolin’s drug addiction interfered the bands performance as due to his condition many concerts and low scale appearances were being cancelled. The Mark IV only lasted a year after Bolin was found dead due to drug overdose while after the Britain’s tour in March 1976 Coverdale quit and the band officially announced the split in July 1976(Prato,35).

The band was then split up for almost eight years and during this time each member started some side projects concentrating on them but after an eight year separation the band made a return with the Mark II line up in April 1984 and released an album “Perfect Strangers” in October 1984 and this time it was a massive hit reaching #6 on US Billboard 200. The band’s tour was initiated worldwide in Australia, North America and Europe which made the band financially better too.

“The House of Blue Light” was the band’s twelfth album launched in 1987 but in 1989 Gillan was dismissed as the rivalry between him and Blackmore grew therefore he was replaced by vocalist Joe Lynn Turner who belonged to the band Rainbow of Blackmore. The Mark V line up than recorded only one album “Slaves & Masters” but this was not given a positive response by the fans as they thought it was more Rainbow than Deep Purple.

So after the Mark V made a tour Turner was removed by the record company to bring Gillan back for the bands 25th anniversary, resistance was made by Blackmore but after some cash transfer he agreed and the Mark II line up again released the album “The Battle Rages On” which is the band’s fourteenth album however as the rivalry of Gillan and Blackmore was still on so Blackmore left the band for good in November 1993.

Thus the band’s Mark VI line up came when the famous Joe Satriani replaced Blackmore but due to his own record company contracts he could not carry out the job permanently and therefore he left in 1994 after completing and helping he band with the tours. The band then drafted Steve Morse to take Blackmore’s position permanently and he is still the band’s member today. This was the Mark VII line up of Deep Purple and this line up was carried out till 2002 during which the band released the albums Perpendicular in 1996 and Abandon in 1998.

In 2002 the band’s oldest and pioneer member Jon Lord left due to some personal reasons and his replacement was Don Airey who was a former member of Rainbow thus the band’s final Mark VIII line up came into being and almost two more albums were released named “Bananas” and “Rapture of the Deep”. This is the final change made in the band and currently the members o the band are Ian Gillan on vocals, Steve Morse on guitars, Roger Glover as bassist, Ian Paice on drums and Don Airey on keyboards(Heatley,74).

Conclusion: Deep Purple is said to be the pioneer of heavy metal music and they have indeed proved it through hard rock songs which are still regarded as the best ever made and they were the inspiration to many young generation bands who loved hard rock. Deep Purple are said to be the one of the best touring bands of all time since their formation till present and they earned a unique award for selling 150,000+ tickets in 2007 in France.

Listed as the “World’s Loudest Band” by Guinness Book of World Records they are surely one of the best bands that shaped the music industry and no matter how may changes occurred in the band members they continued to produce some best songs. Work Cited Page: Christe, I. , Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, It Books, 2004. Heatley, M. , The Complete Deep Purple, Reynolds & Hearn, 2008. Phillips, W. , Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal Music, Greenwood, 2009. Prato, G. , Touched by Magic: The Tommy Bolin Story, Greg Pato, 2008. Thompson, D. , Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story, ECW Press, 2004.

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