Episode #14 – Who Do We Think We Are (The End, Part 1)

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Show Updates:

  • Thanks to @JoergPlaner on Twitter for coming through with our request for the NME review of “Burn” in record time!
  • We’re now on Spotify !

Thanks to Our Patrons:

  • Clay Wombacher
  • Steve Seaborg

Lead Up To Album & Writing:

  • They began recording in July of 1972 just a month before performing “Made in Japan.”  Only Woman From Tokyo would make the album. They completed the album upon returning from Japan in October.
  • Woman From Tokyo was written before they’d ever been to Japan.
  • In the US they were more interested in the next studio album.
  • They recorded Who Do We Think We Are but since Made in Japan was “The ‘Machine Head Album’ they decided to release that first (in December) while Who do we think we are was released a month later in January of 1973.
  • Eventually Warner Bros. released it internationally because Deep Purple’s management was importing copies into the United States and they were losing out on not releasing it.
  • The band flew to the States four times in the first six months of 1972 as well as doing European dates.  Almost everyone in the band had suffered from fatigue and serious illnesses.
  • When they stopped touring in July to begin recording they rented a villa near Rome.  
  • Roger Glover says they had a supply of good cheap local red wine and hundreds of bottles were delivered  at the start of recording.
  • The villa had a living room, dining room, five or six bedrooms, a patio, a swimming pool.  They recorded in what Glover called “the feasting room.”
  • The first problem was that the mobile wouldn’t fit through the archway to the villa so they had to go out and buy extra long cables.
  • They had to walk a third of a mile to listen to the takes.
  • The equipment was all late so the first day was spent drinking wine.  There was an old piano in the room that they used to have a singalong.
  • The first night there Glover writes about the cook bringing in the meal: “As evening fell, the cook, a dentally challenged woman who would soon be known affectionately as Fang, served the pasta and we all continued dipping into the copious supply of wine and grappa, confident that we were in good shape and that when the gear eventually arrived we would have a lot of fun making this album.”
  • They spent three weeks doing not much other than playing cards, drinking wine, swimming in the pool, and eating meals prepared by Fang.
  • Blackmore refused to stay in the house with the others and often didn’t come to the sessions at all.
  • Gillan: “I remember the joys of the local red wine, the underwater swimming championships in the pool and the eternal frustrations of trying to perform as a band while 20 per cent short in number…”
  • The sessions on produced two songs, “Woman From Tokyo” and “Painted Horse” which Ritchie hated and would not allow on the album.
  • Gillan write in “Child in Time” about a third song “Smelly Botty.”  This was supposedly sung by Jon Lord.
  • Ian Gillan also did a cover of Conway Twitty’s “Its Only Make Believe.” with the band singing backup vocals.
  • Blackmore was trying to recruit Paul Rodgers to replace Gillan and trying to launch Baby Face who had done some demos.  There were even rumors that Blackmore was trying to get Rodgers to front Baby Face.
  • Thin Lizzy would release a Deep Purple tribute album in 1972.
  • Glover, in an interview with Steve Pilkington, quoted Paul McCartney’s line about the album “Let it Be.”  “It was 90% enjoyable but everyone wanted to focus on the 10%.”
  • Glover: “That’s how it was with Ritchie — a lot of the time it was fine, we had a great time, and it was a really good dynamic, it wasn’t these constant arguments that people imagine.  The thing with Ritchie though is that while he’s a great, gifted musician, he’s not a natural team player.
  • Glover talks about starting up a riff and they’d all join in and say let’s do it but Ritchie would say he was saving that for his solo album.
  • I wonder if any of that was stuff that ended up on Burn.
  • Italian journalists showed up and saw Glover, Lord and Gillan set up to record in one room with Blackmore and Paice in a garage.  There were fights that were witnessed and one Italian paper wrote, “if Deep Purple are always like this, a split cannot be far away.”

Album Art & Booklet Review

  • Title of the album.  Ian Paice said: “Deep Purple get piles of passionate letters either violently against or pro the group. The angry ones generally start off “Who do Deep Purple think they are…”
  • Another such letter was criticizing Paice for kicking over his drums at the end of a performance.  Ian said: “I bought it so I’ll bloody well boot it!”
  • Cover designed by Roger Glover with John Coletta.  Photography is by Fin Costello.
    • Uriah Heep
    • Trapeze
    • Nazareth
    • Budgie
    • Kiss (Alive!)
    • Aerosmith
    • Rainbow
    • The Jackson Five
    • Many, many more on his entry on Fin Costello on Discogs.
  • Cover described as a “stormy sky” which is fitting given the state of the band.
  • It’s actually an image from a NASA satellite that was used.
  • Original idea for the cover was cardboard cutouts of all the band members propped up like mannequins as if fame and fortune had somehow turned them into “merely images.”
  • Roger said he didn’t care for the cover design they wound up with.
  • Gatefold of album features news clippings about the band to keep with the theme of the album title.
  • Ad to promote the album ran in Melody Maker on February 17, 1973.  There were also teaser ads throughout the magazine. The record company seemed to be making more of an effort to promote the album.  Theory is that they knew Deep Purple was doomed and they wanted to make sure they got the maximum back on their investment.

Album Details and Analysis:

  • Album was more of a turn to blues-based music.
  • It took longer to record because they had to arrange schedules to record parts when certain band members weren’t present.
  1. Woman From Tokyo
    • Gillan heard the guitar and sang “TO-KY-O!” to match and he and Glover finished the rest of the lyrics imagining what it would be like on their upcoming trip to Japan.  An imaginary love affair with a woman in Tokyo that Ian and Roger hoped they would meet.
    • Glover states: “The lyrics spoke authoritatively about something we knew very little about at that time.”
    • Only song on the album recorded at the villa in Italy.
    • Written in advance of going to Japan (where they recorded Made in Japan) though many people think it was inspired by their trip to Japan as this album came out after Made in Japan.
    • Refers back to another song, “Black Night”
    • Single was a hit.  Achieved gold status faster than any previous single in the US (three months).  Was not released in the UK. It was scheduled for release but was never released.
    • They never played it in Japan.  They never played it live until Deep Purple reformed in the 80s.
    • Was their most well known song off this album.
    • Song cost £8000 for the whole session, as much as the entire Machine Head album.
    • Avery Molek – Woman From Tokyo (Drum Cover)
  2. Mary Long
    • The Story Behind The Song: Mary Long by Deep Purple
    • This song was in their live set which is odd given the absence of “Woman From Tokyo.”
    • Was recorded in October using the mobile unit near Frankfurt.
    • Combination of names: Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford.
    • Glover said they got the newspaper delivered at the studio:
      • “We had English papers delivered at the studio so we kept up with the news and those were the two people that got up our noses. It seemed that it was all getting much too pro-censorship and pro-do-gooder.”
      • Whitehouse’s pregnancy was announced in the newspapers. Glover: “Ian Came up with a great line: ‘We really didn’t know you’d had it in you’ — ever the master of the double-entendre!”
      • Mary Whitehouse
        • English social activist who felt that the liberal media had encouraged the youth of Britain to be more sexually promiscuous.
        • Founder and president of the NAtional Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association.
        • Opposed feminism, gay rights, and the sexual revolution.
        • She was against Doctor Who, Benny Hill, and the series “Till Death Do Us Part” A particular favorite of Ian Gillan’s.  “Mary told Johnny not to write such trash . . .” reference to Johnny Speight, the creator of the show.
      • Lord Longford
        • Mary Whitehouse’s ally in government.
        • He was instrumental in decriminalizing homosexuality in the UK but later became a staunch opponent of homoosexuality calling it “utterly wrongful.”
        • He was kind of incompetent, being moved around from one position to another by his own party.
        • Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson said that Longford had the “mental capacity of a 12-year old.”
        • He was discovered attending strip clubs thus the “porny lord” reference and claims of hypocrisy as he was very vocally speaking out against all forms of adult entertainment.
    • Gillan recalls: “Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford were particularly high-profile figures at the time with very waggy-waggy finger attitudes. On reflection, it’s a little bit unfair because the generation before – in the post-war period – were extremely generous to us. But it’s just natural to rebel.
    • “Mary Long grew out of the whole idea of dealing with an imaginary person. It was about the standards of the older generation, the whole moral framework, intellectual vandalism – all of the things that exist throughout the generations.
    • “I had a lot of issues with the religion that I grew up with, but as I found out later, those issues exist in all religions, so Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford became one person – fusing together – to represent the hypocrisy that I saw at the time.
    • “So there I was slinging names about and accusing them of all sorts of things – dastardly deeds and vile occurrences! The idea was that we are young, we are naked and therefore we are truthful. I never met a 20-year-old who didn’t think they were immortal and didn’t lack an opinion on everything – it was that sort of time.”
    • This is the only song from the album the band performed live.  The band projected pornographic images to convey the message of the song.  This was only played live for about two dozen shows.
    • Even Blackmore said this was one of the best tracks on the album.
  3. Super Trouper
    • A Deep Purple song under 3 minutes!
    • Titled after the name of the big spotlights used at the time.
    • Glover had been thinking of Freddie King’s song ‘Going Down’ when he wrote the riff.
    • “I was a young man when I died.” Inspired by deaths of Jimi Hendrix and other rockers at a young age.
  4. Smooth Dancer
    • Gillan: “I admit taking my anger out on Ritchie in particular, and did so in the only way I knew best – hidden in the lyrics. ‘Smooth Dancer’ is an example of this, with frequent references to black suede, his favourite clothing. Unfortunately, I don’t think he saw the subtlety, which made me even more angry!”
    • Black suede is a reference to Ritchie’s “man in black” persona.
    • References Blackmore’s attempts to force Ian out.  Ian declares that instead he’s going to “Walk to freedom.”
    • It’s actually a pretty touching song when you read the lyrics. Both angry and sad.
    • Glover: “It’s illuminating to read those lyrics and realise what was going through Ian’s mind.  He wasn’t going to take what Ritchie was handing out but at the same time he wanted to be friends with him again.”
  5. Rat Bat Blue
    • Reportedly about Gillan’s misogynistic tendency to “use and discard” groupies.
    • Organ/key solo is a stand out.
    • The title of the song may be from the name Ian Paice gave a drum fill that he used to warm up. The words “Rat Bat Bat Bat Blue” match the hits on the snare drum.
    • Glover’s favorite track of the album.  Glover: “About picking up a loose chick for the night.”
    • Refers back to “Hard Loving Man.”
    • Roger Glover says Ritchie was bored with their normal solo structure and just gave the solo to Jon.
  6. Place in Line
    • Filler song.
    • Straight blues number.
    • About the rat race of the music business.
    • “Nine long years” could be his reference to the music business and his desire to leave.
    • Inspired by a concept in a sci-fi novel which Glover read and passed to Gillan.  It’s about the repetitive life they lead at the time.
  7. Our Lady
    • Heard it compared to “I Am The Walrus.”
    • No guitar solo.
    • Ian Paice believed and was quoted as saying the band was “finding it harder to come up with killer riffs.”
    • Blackmore came up with the title for this song after walking by a church of the same name.
    • Lord: ““Our Lady might be quite surprising, for a start it’s very slow and concentrates more on the tune and the lyrics and there are no solos.  It’s just a song, which is not normally the way Deep Purple seems to work.”

Reception and Review

  • Ian Paice viewed the album as the band moving forward: “there’s more melody and more electronic effects without losing any of the guts.
  • Lord was also happy: “If you don’t do what they expect people cry ‘cheat’ and if you do what they expect they should ‘formula; at you.  There’s obviously a nice middle passage between those two and that’s what we’ve tried to get on this album.”
  • Glover tells a story of The Wasp being a karate student.  He was practicing his punch when Ian Gillan decided he’d show Martin how much harder he could punch.  He ended up breaking his hand. They had to re-break it and set it in a cast and to this day he has no knuckle on the little finger of his right hand which Glover describes as “an odd legacy of the album.”
  • Album received mixed reviews.
  • UK Music Paper Review (positive): http://www.deep-purple.net/review-files/68-76/68-76mk2a.htm
  • Rolling Stone Review by Ann Cheauvy April 12, 1973 (negative): https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/who-do-we-think-we-are-249952/
  • Now if I really wanted to get picky, I could point to the “join the crowd” moog solo on “Rat Bat Blue.” What a cliched instrument the synthesizer has turned out to be — even boogie monsters like TYA’s Chick Churchill are playing around with it. And speaking of Churchill, Lord manages to sound just like him on the Purple blooze, otherwise known as “Place In Line.” It’s sorta like a sound sleep imitating a coma. And then (then) there’s “Smooth Dancer,” where they rhyme “dancing” with “pregnancy” in a chauvinistic power play that curdled every drop of Women’s Lib blood in my veins.
  • Well, at least “Super Trouper” ain’t half bad, but how can you possibly fault a song with such a nifty title? For that matter, how can you slam a group that makes an album like In Rock? It’s easy when their three follow-ups get you wondering if it’s the same group — real easy.

In The News . . .

  • Rick Wakeman remembers keyboard compatriot Jon Lord
  • David Coverdale ‘Felt Presence’ of Jon Lord in Whitesnake Remix: Exclusive Interview
    • From March 2019
    • Talks about remastering “Slide it In” 35th anniversary edition
    • “What was the most amazing thing for me, was while we were remixing this in the studio, I felt the presence of [guitarist] Mel Galley, [drummer] Cozy Powell and [keyboardist] Jon Lord,” he recalls. “Half the band that made that record have passed away.”
    • “Chris turned ’round to me, he said, ‘Are you okay?’ I said, ‘My God, I can so feel their energy in here.’ And he goes, ‘Oh my God, I hope it’s positive.’ I went, ‘Oh, it’s absolutely positive.’ And I just felt them — I could see them standing here, behind us, like, hands on his shoulders and my shoulders as we were mixing. Hearing the individual performances, like from 24-track analog transfers to digital … hearing Jon Lord’s sound on its own, and then hearing Cozy Powell’s immense drum sound — …. It was wonderful. It was touching. It was rewarding. It just made the project fresh and exciting for me.”

This Week in Purple History . . .

July 29 through August 4

  • August 1, 1951 – Tommy Bolin is Born
  • August 2, 1951 – Joe Lynn Turner is born
  • August 3, 1975 – Deep Purple begin recording Come Taste The Band
  • August 1, 1977 – Captain Beyond release their third and final album “Dawn Explosion” without Rod Evans.  They tried to contact him but couldn’t find him. Willy Daffern replaced him. Was in a band called “Hunger.”

For Further Information:

Listener Mail/Comments

  • Comments about the show? Things you’d like us to cover?  We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@deeppurplepodcast.com or @ us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Episode #13 – Made in Japan

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Show Updates:

  • Comments from social media.
  • Audio/Video issue on last episode – the one time there’s no copyright issues!

Lead Up To Album & Writing:

  • Machine Head original concept was to be a studio album, with a live performance after.
  • Machine head was a hit but it wasn’t really until “Made in Japan” came out that people really registered it.
  • Was supposed to be a Japan only release initially.
  • The band didn’t like the idea of live albums.  Agreed on condition it would only come out in Japan.
  • H-Bomb bootleg being sold illegally.  This was a bootleg of a show they did on July 11, 1970 in Aachen, Germany.  Virgin Records. Richard Branson. This was later released in 2001 as Space Vol 1 & 2. 20 minute wring your neck, 33 minute Mandrake Root.
  • Deep Purple had been heavily bootlegged for years.
  • Live albums were thought to be budget albums.
  • Glover (in Sounds magazine): “There are so many bootlegs of us going around, if we put out our own live set, it should kill their market.”
  • Japanese record company wanted to record it and the band kept saying no.
  • Finally they agreed to do it under certain conditions:
    • It only comes out in Japan.
    • It doesn’t come out at all if they don’t like it.
    • They mix it and record it with their own engineer.
  • Enter “The Wasp” Birch!
  • Control room was backstage, no eye contact with the band.
  • In the United States “Made in Japan” was a huge hit and introduced a lot of the US to their hits.
  • Ritchie and Ian weren’t getting along offstage but on stage the chemistry was great.
  • It was truly live, no overdubs which was a big deal as there is controversy over other live albums.
  • They recorded three shows (Osaka on August 15 & 16, Tokyo on August 17) and selected from them.
  • Interplay between Ritchie and Gillan was something you didn’t see on the records that had developed in their live show.
  • Jon, Roger, speak about this being the peak of their abilities and their best moments.
  • When they got back to England they listened to the tapes and were really impressed and decided they’d like to put it out.
  • In the US they were more interested in the next studio album.

Album Art & Booklet Review

  • Title was a joke – if something was made in Japan it was thought to be second rate.
  • Scene between Marty and Doc from “Back to the Future III.”
  • Cover was designed by Glover.  Featured a color photo of the band. With the famous font.
  • Japanese release featured an overhead shot of the band at the Rainbow in London.
  • Phil Collen of Def Leppard was at the show and can be seen on the album cover.

Album Details and Analysis:

  • Recorded three nights, August 15 in Osaka (band was jetlagged thought to be the least impressive of the three nights)
  • August 16 in Osaka where the bulk of the album is from.
  • August 17 in Tokyo which was a good performance but was thought to have inferior sound quality.
  1. Highway Star
    • Osaka – August 16
  2. Child in Time
    • Osaka – August 16
    • “You’re only about four foot six, but don’t worry about it.  There’s always somebody smaller than you.”
    • Suggestions that this remark was a reference to Ronnie James Dio as Elf would have been opening for Deep Purple at this time.
  3. Smoke on the Water
    • Osaka – August 15
    • The August 16 recording’s opening riff was too crazy for the record company
    • Only track from that night
    • Blackmore’s improv opening.
    • Blackmore talks about how he originally wrote it with this really medieval style lick between the chords but the band didn’t like it so he went back to the chords.  Sounding just like something out of Blackmore’s night.  95% sure Blackmore is pulling our legs with this.
    • Song extended about another minute.
  4. The Mule
    • Tokyo August 17
    • Only a minute and half of the main riff before going into drum solo.
    • Track preceded by Ian Gillan asking for a bit more volume in the monitor.  Blackmore can be heard saying “everything louder than everything else.”
  5. Strange Kind of Woman
    • Osaka August 16
    • Hearing Ritchie and Ian trade off, which they would do in later years as well.
    • Very long version at almost ten minutes
  6. Lazy
    • Tokyo August 17
    • Extended opening.  Vocals don’t come in until about 6 minutes in.
  7. Space Truckin’
    • Osaka August 16
    • 20 minutes, four times longer than original
    • They’d perfected this with their 20-30 minute versions of Mandrake Root and Wring That Neck.
    • Blackmore throws in “Jupiter” from Holst’s the Planets.

Reception and Review

  • The album was an immediate success.
  • The band really didn’t give it much thought.  Glover and Paice were the only two who showed up for the mixing sessions.
  • According to Martin Birch Gillan and Blackmore have never heard the finished album.  (From “Smoke on the Water”)
  • Release was delayed in the US until April (January in the UK) because they didn’t want too much overlap with “Who Do We Think We Are”
  • Warner Bros released the Smoke on the Water single coupling it with the live recording.
  • Gillan was critical of his performance on the album (despite having never heard it?).  Paice thought it captured the spirit of the band at the time.
  • Jon Lord says it’s his favorite Deep Purple Album: “The band was at the height of its powers.  That album was the epitome of what we stood for in those days.”
  • The critics were very kind to the album as well.
  • Both versions of “Smoke on the Water” (live and album) were in the American top ten at the same time.
  • The album redefined Deep Purple and live albums in general.
  • Expanded edition released with performances not included on main album.
  • Rumors went around for years  that the shows had been filmed.  In 2009 they discovered an 8mm film of about 40 minutes from Tokyo that they were able to sync up to the music.  This can be seen on the “Deep Purple – History, Hits, and Highlights” DVD.

In The News . . .

  • N/A

This Week in Purple History . . .

July 22 through July 28

  • July 25, 1969 – Hallelujah Single Released
  • July 28, 1954 – Steve Morse is born
  • July 26, 1974 – Windows is released
  • July 28,1979 – Rainbow’s Down to Earth
  • July 22, 2015 – Eddie Hardin Dies

Deep Purple Deep Track of the Week:

  • N/A

For Further Information:

Listener Mail/Comments

  • Comments about the show? Things you’d like us to cover?  We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@deeppurplepodcast.com or @ us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Episode #12 – Machine Head

Apologies for no video this week. We had some audio/video issues and lost about 75% of the video in the process. Decided to just do audio only instead.

Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Anchor.fm, Breaker, PodBean, RadioPublic, or search in your favorite podcatcher! 

Show Updates:

  • T-Bone’s Prime Cuts – An excellent “deep cut” classic rock show.
  • Skynyrd Reconsydyrd – A great podcast that could turn anyone into a Skynyrd fan!
  • Sabbath Bloody Podcast – One of our earliest supporters and a great podcast about Black Sabbath!
  • YouTube problems with copyright issues.
  • Ian Desrosiers on Twitter explains similarities between “Rockstar” by Warpig and Deep Purple’s song “Fireball.”
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJVSymN0yqM
    • Notes that there are hints of “Speed King” and “Hard Lovin’ Man” in this song.
    • Some speculate DP was playing this live and that Warpig stole it from them.
    • DP don’t exactly have a clean track record to support this.

Patron Thanks!

  • Clay Wombacher

Notes From The Field:

  • John’s Ace Frehley show review.

Lead Up To Album & Writing:

  • The day that “Fireball” was released, it appeared in the press that Deep Purple would be recording a follow up album in Switzerland using the Rolling Stones’ mobile unit.
  • They were now under the newly formed “Purple Records.”
  • Management wanted to avoid the disjointed recording sessions that lasted forever like the previous albums.
  • They had the month of August off to prepare for a three month tour schedule after which they would record “Machine Head.”
  • Fireball didn’t have as many songs that worked well in a live setting. (i.e. “Anyone’s Daughter”).
  • They went to America for a month and were headliners for the first time.
  • Two shows in Gillan became very sick and they did a third show with Glover on lead vocals.  It didn’t work out and the band went home.
  • While Ian recovered Blackmore and Paice went into the studio to work on their Baby Face project with Phil Lynott. This never panned out.
  • Glover was really happy to have the break.  “I got most of my ideas during the four weeks off just because I was able to relax.”
  • They also wanted to try recording outside of a studio and they picked the casino in Montreux.  The idea was to record on the stage as if they were performing a concert.
  • The Rolling Stones had this hugely expensive mobile recording studio that allowed them to record in more interesting locations.  It was so expensive to operate they’d begun renting it out to other acts to offset the cost.
  • They worked with Claude Nobs on the Montreux Jazz Festival and Claude, who was involved in running the Casino.
  • There were plans that after they recorded the album they would perform it live and record that as well to release a double album with one half in the studio and the other half live.
  • Machine Head title is about the part of the guitar.  Roger Glover came up with it. “Struck me as a good title.  It had the word head, of course, which is always a good word to have.”   Roger Glover said the term “has a certain menace to it.”
  • Went to Switzerland to use the Rolling Stones’ mobile unit.
  • Taxes, you can avoid paying taxes if you make it outside the country.
  • Recorded in two weeks.
  • Everything had been worked on in rehearsal except “Smoke on the Water.”
  • They got shut down recording “Smoke on the Water” a The Pavilion and had to find a new place.  They they’d only be able to record during the day.
  • Since the casino was destroyed (more on that later) Claude had to help the band find a new location to record.
  • Found an old hotel (The Grand Hotel)  that was closed for the season. Found the end of a corridor of the hotel.
  • Because of how the mobile unit was set up it was very difficult to record/listen.
    • Mobile parked outside front entrance, cables run in
    • The had to go out of the area they were recording, into a bedroom
    • On to a balcony, climb over to another balcony
    • Down the balcony, back through another bedroom
    • Though two doors, onto the landing
    • Winding staircase, through hall, to front door
    • Across the courtyard, to the truck
    • Up the steps to the truck to hear the playback.
    • This was in winter, in the snow.
  • Martin Birth set up a CC TV to monitor things.
  • Estimated that the album cost £8000 to record, £5000 just for the mobile unit.

Album Art & Booklet Review

  • The cover image was made by taking a sheet of polished metal and die stamping the type right onto it.  It was then propped up and used as a mirror with the band reflected in it.
  • If you look closely you can see the camera man, Shep Sherbell.
    • Born in New York City.  In 1960s London he photographed musicians including the Beatles, The Who, Keith Moon, Cat Stevens, Jimi Hendrix, Badfinger, the Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, Frankie Valli, Humble Pie and Grand Funk Railroad. In the mid 70s, Sherbell moved to Washington and became a photojournalist covering the White House and Capitol Hill.
    • After the photoshoot he sold the camera he used to Roger Glover (his first Nikon!)
    • Shep passed away on August 18th of last year (2018)
  • Gatefold includes everyone who worked on the album.
  • The montage on the gatefold were simply cut up and put together.
  • Tony Edwards called Roger Glover to the office to suggest which image to use on the album.  The rest of the band ignored Tony’s request and that’s why there are more shots of Roger than anyone else.
  • The original album came with a lyric sheet written in calligraphy.

Album Details and Analysis:

  1. Highway Star
  2. Maybe I’m a Leo
  3. Pictures of Home
  4. Never Before
  5. Smoke on the Water
  6. Lazy
  7. Space Truckin’

Bonus: When a Blind Man Cries

Reception and Review

  • Album heavily promoted with ads on TV:
  • Album reached #1 on the UK charts as well as many other countries.  Did not chart in the US.
  • Has since received 2x Platinum in the US selling over 2 million copies.
  • Lord: “the apex of what we started to do with In Rock. I think we should try and go around a few corners with the next one. Some people say we don’t seem to have progressed very far since In Rock. Where some of that justification lies is in the fact that we haven’t really deviated from the set lines and I think it’s time we started to shoot for the stars a little bit more.”
  • Blackmore: “I think Machine Head is a good LP. I think the ideas are better and the group were playing well when we recorded it.  Two tracks especially – Highway star and smoke on the water – i like. The whole album is a lot better than the last one.”
  • Started to show some stress about writing credits.  Agreed in 1969 they’d credit everything to everyone.
    • Blackmore: “On this LP I wrote six tracks and Roger wrote two.”
    • Glover: “Sometimes I feel I’d like more credit for some of the stuff I do.  I think it avoids friction this way, though I can’t say it won’t in the future.  As soon as money comes into it people change; some for better, some for worse.”
  • Glover: “Machine Head was the beginning of the bad period. It was coming because as far as the writing side of it was concerned we’d agreed at the outset that we were going to share everything five ways, because everything we wrote was part of a jam, and in those days we had nothing to lose. It’s only when you realise how much money is involved in publishing that people turned around and said ‘he had nothing to do with that and yet he’s getting a lot of money for it.’ Those kind of things cause tension.”
  • By the time the album hit record stores in April of ‘72 Blackmore was telling journalists the the end was near.  “”I suppose we’ll see the year out if we’re lucky.”
  • One morning Blackmore was late to a hotel reception on the tour.  Their roadie, Colin Hart, went to get him and found him in the hallway of the hotel in tears.  Blackmore had no memory of what had caused this nervous breakdown but he was able to get it together enough to complete the tour.

In The News . . .

  • Joe Satriani’s “Squares” album released today (July 12)!

This Week in Purple History . . .

July 15 through July 21

  • July 15, 1956 – Joe Satriani is born
  • July 16, 2012 – Jon Lord Dies
  • July 17, 1968 – The album that started it all, “Shades of Deep Purple,” is released

For Further Information:

Listener Mail/Comments

  • Comments about the show? Things you’d like us to cover?  We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@deeppurplepodcast.com or @ us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Episode #11 – Fireball (25th Anniversary Edition)

Video for this one is blocked in the US and US territories despite trying to remove offending audio. If you live outside the US you can attempt to watch here.

Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Anchor.fm, Breaker, PodBean, RadioPublic, or search in your favorite podcatcher! 

Show Updates:

Patron Thanks!

  • Clay Wombacher

Album Art & Booklet Review

  • Ian Gillan had issues with drinking at this point.  He contributed extensively to the In Rock 25th anniversary CD booklet.  When asked about contributing to Fireball he said, “I can’t remember anything.”
  • Doing the Hollywood Bowl Concerto gig to try to ignite excitement in America, the same way it had in the UK.  This did not work.

Album Details and Analysis:

  • 25th Anniversary Booklet Review.
  1. Strange Kind of Woman
  2. I’m Alone (B-Side)
  3. Freedom
  4. Slow Train
  5. Demon’s Eye (Remix)
  6. The Noise Abatement Society Tapes
  7. Fireball (Take 1 Instrumental)
  8. Backwards Piano
  9. No One Came (Remix)

In The News . . .

This Week in Purple History . . .

July 8 through July 14

  • July 10 1942 Ronnie James Dio Born
  • July 10, 1969 Gover/Gillan’s first show at the Speakeasy
  • July 9, 1970 Fireball was released
  • July 14, 1973 Roger Glover quits deep purple
  • July 9, 2006 John Coletta dies in Spain

Deep Purple Deep Track of the Week:

For Further Information:

Listener Mail/Comments

  • Comments about the show? Things you’d like us to cover?  We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@deeppurplepodcast.com or @ us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

Episode #10 – Fireball

Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Pocket Casts, Anchor.fm, Breaker, PodBean, RadioPublic, or search in your favorite podcatcher!

Show Updates:

  • In response to the question posed “Deep Purple in Rock” or “In Rock.”  James Massa came in with a good point that the I is lower case.

Patrons to Thank:

  • Clay Wombacher

Lead Up To Album & Writing:

  • They toured for 15 months straight after the release of “In Rock.”
  • “Fireball” was initially meant to be released at the end of 1970 but recording lasted from September through June.  It wasn’t released until July of 1971 as a result.
  • They recorded at De Lane Lea and Olympic Studios in London.
  • They also rented a house called “The Hermitage” in North Devon to prepare for the album.
  • The sessions weren’t very productive.
  • Blackmore was a bit of a prankster and smashed Glover’s door with an axe in the middle of the night leading to Glover chasing him and almost killing him.
  • During the two weeks locked away at this house Blackmore held a lot of seances.
  • The band was exhausted from being on the road and used the time to relax and spent a lot of time at the local pubs.
  • During this time Gillan and Blackmore’s relationship started to show its first signs of stress.  Gillan was starting to drink a lot more.
  • In “Deep Purple – A Matter of Fact” Jerry Bloom tells this story Jon Lord told him about how he drove to pick up his wife who’d just had a baby and drives back to the writing sessions in the middle of the night.  His child got sick and he had to drive them back to London. He missed three days of the recording session and they band was upset with him. It turned into a huge fight and he threatened to quit the band.
  • Roger Glover told a story about Ian Paice just walking all over the place holding a snare drum and hitting it.  He didn’t like the way it sounded in the studio but preferred the sound he got in the corridor. Because of this he set up his drums in the corridor to record.  Glover says the band was annoyed but they were happy with the resulting drum sound.
  • Blackmore was considering himself much more the focal point of the band, shifting from Jon Lord.  Ian Gillan was drinking a lot and starting to fight with Blackmore. Roger Glover states: “Ian seemed to go off the rails with attitude and drink problems.  He and Ritchie were at complete loggerheads and Ian may have got to the point where he thought ‘I’m the singer, if Ritchie can behave like that, so can I’. So he became just as big an arsehole.”
  • John Lord was having back problems which was a holdover injury from the Artwoods days when he was his own roadie, lugging a Hammond organ to gigs.
  • Roger Glover collapsed on stage one night and diagnosed with stress-related stomach problems.
  • Blackmore had to have his appendix removed.
  • Live shows were starting to show some strains.  Set was unchanged wince they didn’t have time to write new material.
  • They hoped to not be in the same position of having short studio sessions between gigs like for In Rock but it didn’t work out.
  • In the middle of all of this Lord took Paice and Glover off to join his other guests to perform “The Gemini Suite” with the Royal Philharmonic.

Album Art:

Album Details and Analysis:

1.) Fireball

  • Intro sound effect is meant to be a fireball moving by.  It was made by an air conditioning unit being turned on. The band apparently told the press it was a “special synthesizer.”
  • Gillan says it’s a song about “unrequited love.”
  • Track was released as a single and reached number 15 in the UK charts.
  • First instance of Ian Paice playing a double bass drum.
  • Legend has it that he borrowed a second bass drum from Keith Moon who was recording next door.
  • When played live a roadie used to add a second bass drum to his kit as double bass pedals didn’t exist yet.
  • It was dropped from the setlist early on, perhaps because of the work needed.
  • Legend also has it that this laid the blueprint for metal moving forward with two kick drums.

2.) No No No

  • Political and social protest song against environmental destruction.
  • Roger: “Ritchie is very influenced by Shuggy Otis these days, that’s what all those bits are.  A lot of it is very understated, it’s not flash, very cooly played.

3.) Demon’s Eye

  • This song is not on the US version that we had. Instead it was replaced with “Strange Kind of Woman.”

4.) Anyone’s Daughter

  • Tells a story in true Gillan fashion.
  • Gillans says this was a fun song but probably shouldn’t have been on the album.
  • The idea for the song came from Blackmore who was trying to emulate Albert Lee’s playing.
  • Recorded at the first session.  Roger Glover stated: “It was recorded the day after we’d had a big discussion about being exciting and heavy.  We were sitting around the studio waiting for inspiration when Ritchie just started tinkling around with that chord thing and we joined in.”
  • Jon Lord: “Ritchie has always admired country and western guitarists so he wrote it in that vein.”

5.) The Mule

  • Sounds like “Tomorrow Never Knows” by the Beatles.  Same idea, not my favorite of either band.
  • You can hear him start to lose the drums toward the end.
  • Lyrics are about the Isaac Asimov character “The Mule” from the Foundation series.  Odd that I never picked up on that because I would have been discovering this album around the time I was reading those books.
  • This song was in the set list until Mk 2 disbanded but mostly to serve as a launching point for Ian Paice’s drum solo.

6.) Fools

  • Song brings up Christian imagery such as “dying on a distant hill.”
  • Roger Glover from liner notes: “It’s about a guy who dies and he’s looking abck and can see the world is run by fools.  Ian’s voice has ‘thickened’ on this one. We’d been using the guitar solo on stage for some time, we never thought it would work on record, but it’s great. None of it was worked out, it’s just ad libbed.”
  • Ritchie used the volume swells he’s been using live on “Mandrake Root.”

7.) No One Came

  • Gillan says in “Child in Time” that this song came out of his fear that one day they’d play a show and no one would show up.
  • Another song that was never played live by the band.
  • Roger Glover from liner notes: “When we first recorded it, there seemed to be an awkward ending, so we made a ‘loop’ of eight bars of the basic riff and edited it on to the end.  Jon sat at the piano and played anything that came into his head while in the control room, on an empty piece of tape we recorded it, slowing it down and speeding up the tape speed, creating a strange effect.  This was then reversed and overdubbed randomly on to the new end section. No one knew what it would sound like but the very first time we tried it we loved the placement of it and that became final position.

Reception and Review

  • The band has been largely critical of this album over the years.
  • Blackmore was upset because he said that they were being pressured to record and not being given time to write.
    • “That was a bit of a disaster, because it was thrown together in the studio. Managerial pressure, we had no time. ‘You gotta play here, here, there, then you’ve got to make an LP.’ I told them, ‘if you want an LP, you’ve got to give us time.’ But they wouldn’t. I just threw ideas to the group that I thought up on the spur of the moment.”
  • Blackmore claims the only good tracks on the song are Fireball, No No No, and Fools.
  • Jon Lord said the album went in a direction they weren’t intending to go.
  • Gillan was the exception stating that Fireball was his favorite album.  He said it was progressive and experimental.
    • “The reason I liked that so much was because I thought, from a writing point of view, it was really the beginning of tremendous possibilities of expression. And some of the tracks on that album are really, really inventive.” However, Gillan also said that the inclusion of “Anyone’s Daughter” on the album was “a good bit of fun, but a mistake.”
  • David Hughes of Disc Magazine questioned how Purple could be progressive and still have hit singles (e.g. Strange Kind of Woman).
  • The album was a huge success and reached number one in the UK and 32 in the US though it stayed in the charts for a much shorter period than In Rock.
  • Lars Ulrich states that he bought this album within 12 hours of having seen them live for the first time.
  • Yngwie Malmsteen says his sister gave him this album when he was 8 and it “changed everything.”

In The News . . .

  • N/A

This Week in Purple History . . .

July 1 through July 7

  • July 4, 1969 – Mk I plays their last show at the Top Bank Ballroom in Cardiff, Wales
  • July 1, 1975 – Ian Gillan Band Forms
  • July 2, 1993 – The Battle Rages On released

Deep Purple Deep Track of the Week:

Listener Mail/Comments

  • Comments about the show? Things you’d like us to cover?  We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at info@deeppurplepodcast.com or @ us on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.