Month: August 2019

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Episode #18 – Stormbringer

** Sadly another episode blocked by the dreaded YouTube algorithm. Stick to the audio podcast feeds for this episode. **

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Lead Up To Album & Writing:

  • In the early 2000s at Abbey Road two studio techs took down a box of unlabeled tapes and loaded them into the tape machine to see what they were.  Upon listening to them they still didn’t know but guessed it was “Earth, Wind, and Fire.” What they’d found instead was the lost masters for Deep Purple’s “Stormbringer” album, specifically the song “You Can’t Do It Right.”
  • June and July of 1974 were actually set aside as free time for the band, something that may never have happened before outside of someone getting hepatitis.
  • Once again the band squandered that time off they had.
  • Coverdale: “Theoretically we had a couple of weeks of peace and quiet to write in but inevitably they turned into a couple of weeks of revelry and we found most of the writing was actually done while we were in the studio.
  • Jon Lord used this time to work on two projects: First of the Big Bands with Tony Ashton and his Windows album.
  • Ritchie Blackmore did session work for Adam Faith’s album “I Survive” but only appears on the first 30 seconds of the first song.
  • They spent their time organizing football games, shooting air rifles, and Blackmore did some more seances.
  • In an interview Jon Lord told reporters that they had written fourteen or fifteen songs.  Obviously a large number didn’t make the album.
  • Roger Glover was producing Elf, Nazareth, and continuing work as an A&R guy for Purple records.
  • Glover also began work on The Butterfly Ball and Hughes/Coverdale would both play a part in the recording.
  • Gillan was working on his Cherkazoo project at his new recording studio.
  • The band went back to Clearwell for two weeks of rehearsals ahead of recording Stormbringer.  Again, like with Fireball and Who Do We Think We Are the band went into rest mode.
  • For the first time since Fireball they also decided to go into a studio to record, the Musicland studios in the base of the Arabella hotel in Munich.
  • Lord had used the studio to mix his Windows album.
  • Martin Birch was also very impressed with the studio and called it: “one of the best equipped and technically advanced studios I know.”
  • Whitesnake, Rainbow, PAL would all record there.  Years later a subway was constructed nearby and the studio had to shut down.
  • Coverdale: “We went to Munich with very little worked out.  We had been working so hard on promoting the new band and convincing people of its worth that we never had any time to write.”
  • “The Road of Golden Dust” doesn’t mention it but in “Smoke on the Water” the picture is painted of this great rivalry between Coverdale/Hughes and Hughes diving into drugs partly to curb the frustration he had at not being the lead singer.  Most of the quotes I’ve found were about how they never argued about who sung what and how well they got on.
  • Lord got to work on Windows and Blackmore was beginning work on a solo project.
  • A concept had been suggested earlier that this new album would be divided up amongst each member with each of them able to share their own ideas.
  • Ritchie didn’t bring much to the sessions.  His marriage was in the process of breaking up.  Hughes compliments Blackmore’s playing on his material calling it brilliant.  The band didn’t realize he was thinking about leaving at this point.
  • As Coverdale and Hughes got more interested in soul/funk direction, Blackmore was beginning to get more interested in classical influences.
  • Blackmore: “1974- that’s when it hit me . . . That’s what set my mind thinking.  But I used to love just listening to it — that was enough. Play rock n roll, listen to Renaissance music.”
  • For the first time since 1969 there were songs where Blackmore didn’t get a writing credit.
  • “Musical differences” are almost always brought up in a breakup but in this case it was absolutely true.
  • The band was jockying to get their own songs on the album now for financial reasons.  A big difference from the song crediting process used by Mark 2.
  • Blackmore worked with Coverdale trying to turn his lyrics away from normal Rock and Roll things like groupies, hotels and rock and roll.  Blackmore wanted lyrical imagery about literature and art. In “Smoke on the Water” Dave Thompson writes: “Nobody paid good money to listen to plumbers discuss plumbing or bank clerks talk about banking.  Beyond whatever vicarious thrills might be derived from another life-on-the-road song, why should rock’n’rollers be any different?
  • Blackmore’s interests were in dragons, and fantasy worlds.
  • Birch: “The funk thing started to creep in, it wasn’t going the way Ritchie wanted and by the time it came to the mixing stage he’d lost interest completely.

Album Art & Booklet Review

  • The original title and design for the album was “Silence” based on a sign in the control room at Musicland.  The cover featured a picture of a young woman with her finger over her lips.
  • Blackmore told a reporter at the studio he wanted a girl on the cover because “we’re fed up having to look at our own faces.”  He suggested that the woman would be holding a phallic symbol.
  • The second idea was to call it Stormbringer but the original cover was of the aftermath of the riot in Japan after Who Do We Think We Are.  They decided against this because they didn’t want to encourage more rioting.
  • The same photo was used for Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew” album in 1970 as well as Siouxie and the Banshees album “Tinderbox” from 1986.
  • There is a book “Stormbringer” by Michael Moorcock about a magical sword which was successful in the 60s and 70s but Coverdale denied knowledge of this book until after recording the album.  Coverdale says and claimed the name was from mythology.
  • Interview with Moorcock as outlined in “Smoke on the Water” by Dave Thompson: “I saw an interview a while back with [David Coverdale] . . . There’s an interview in NME that goes, ‘Why did you take Mike Moorcock’s title for your album?’ and he says “Well, I didn’t.  It’s just a general name, it’s a mythological name.’ And the interviewer says, “No it isn’t.’ And it’s going back and forth, and he says, ‘Well I think it is.’” In fact it isn’t, but Moorcock shrugged, “You get used to that after a while. I’m not hugely sensitive about that.”
  • The cover design was given to Joe Chabalka who commissioned the painting by Joe Carnett.  He gave him the black and white photo by Lucile Handberg. Joe Garnett explains in a 2014 interview: “. . . I was briefed to do an oil painting using the photo provided, only adding a horse with wings and rainbow lightning.  The result is the cover and back of the album, “Stormbringer.”
  • “Sadly John Cabalka passed away last September.  He was the creator of more than 175 album covers.  I miss my old friend a lot. I only did about 35 album covers over a span of 24 years.  I rarely got to meet any of the recording artists, including members of Deep Purple.
  • Joe Garnett did album covers for Captain Beyond, Cheech & Chong, Jethro Tull, and REO Speedwagon.
  • Joe Garnett on Discogs.
  • First album cover not to feature faces of any of the band members.
  • No gatefold for some reason.
  • Lyrics were printed on the back cover.
  • This was the first time the Deep Purple logo would be used once more for “Made in Europe” and then wouldn’t be used again until it was brought back it in the nineties.

Album Details and Analysis:

  • Recorded in Munich in August of 1974.
  • Coverdale says the album was written mostly in the studio.

All tracks by Blackmore, Coverdale, Hughes, Lord, Paice except where indicated.

  • Stormbringer (Blackmore, Coverdale)
    • Glenn Hughes claims the slurred gibberish by Coverdale is the same backwards dialogue that Linda Blair’s character utters in the film The Exorcist. C**ksucker, Motherf**ker, Stormbringer.
    • Hughes says it’s “Your mother sucks c**ks in hell” after having seen a private screening of the movie.
    • Hughes says he is saying the words when Linda Blair meets the priest.
    • Lyrics written in the fantasy realm at Blackmore’s request.
    • Coverdale insisted that “Stormbringer” was a heavy metal song. “I know because I wrote the bloody thing.”
  • Love Don’t Mean a Thing (Blackmore, Coverdale, Hughes, Lord, Paice)
    • Hughes says Ritchie found a busker who was singing a song similar to this. They brought him on to the Starship, had him play the song, and paid him some money and decided to do a take on it.
    • Ritchie: “Some coloured guy came up to me at a party and said I’ve got a song for you.’ So I said, ‘Right, leave me alone.’ But he insisted, so I told him to sing it.  He started snapping his fingers and it sounded great. I figured it sounds this good just with him snapping his fingers, then it’s got to be a good tune for the band. We rearranged it, added some parts and recorded it.”
    • Hughes confirms this story and gave more information: “It was written on our private plane, The Starship.” He says Blackmore encountered the busker in Downtown Chicago singing a song about money and then invited him back to their plane.
    • Hughes: “Blackers, David, myself and the busker started jammin’ away on the song.  It took about twenty minutes to write. I added the music to the bridge and vox bridge and David and I , with the help of our guest, wrote the lyrics.”
    • Afterward the busker disappeared and no one could remember his name.
    • I read elsewhere (can’t remember where) that they tried to contact the busker but couldn’t find him.
  • Holy Man (Coverdale, Hughes, Lord)
    • Coverdale had written some of this presumably before Deep Purple.  He remembers Jon and Ian saying “there’s no way on earth you’re going to get Ritchie to play that.
    • Glenn wrote the chorus lyrics and Jon wrote the synth parts.
    • Some people said “Called to Madonna” was a reference to cocaine.
    • Hughes refutes this and says he never put drug references in songs.
    • Holy Man was about having the strength to continue to be on the road.
    • Hughes: Holy Man was actually written about the endurance of being on the road, and having to find inner strength to cope with things.  It’s calling to Madonna to give me some help, or advice, that’s what it is. It was never, ever about cocaine, because while I may have taken drugs one thing I never ever did was to glamorise it in a lyric. It was a song about spiritual support and strength, basically.
    • First song on a DP album since “Chasing Shadows” and “Blind” on the “Deep Purple” album to not feature a credit for Blackmore.
    • Hughes says Blackmore didn’t want anyone in the room with him when he recorded the solo but Hughes stayed with him.  Hughes suggested he play the solo with a slide. There was a slide across the room but there was a screwdriver six inches away from him so he grabbed that and played it with the screwdriver with one take.
    • Mr. Burns has no time to watch the people of Australia spell out his name in lights – Simpsons S05E04
  • Hold On (Coverdale, Hughes, Lord, Paice)
    • Came from an idea Jon Lord had on the organ.  Everyone liked it except for Blackmore who hated it.
    • Coverdale: “The song was Jon’s idea.  Everyone loved it except Ritchie. I sat with him while he did the solo, sitting in the control room with the speakers on.  He played it so casually, said he couldn’t be bothered, but it was fantastic.”
    • Paice: “Ritchie’s ideas about what he will and won’t play are quite firmly stated.”
    • He claims to have played the solo in one take using only one finger, his thumb.
    • Never played live.
    • David Bowie loved the track and considered covering it.
    • Simon Robinson says the organ opening may have been inspired by work with Tony Ashton.  It does sound like Paice Ahston Lord.
    • Hughes tells a story in his autobiography about being in the studio recording ‘High Ball Shooter’ and ‘The Gypsy’ and he went to the bathroom and bumped into Stevie Wonder.  He introduced himself to him and confessed that he was trying to imitate Stevie’s style with this new song. Stevie said he had to hear it so Hughes got him a tape.
    • Stevie touched Glenn’s face and hair and called him “Leo” because of his mane of hair.  He said, “You’ve been listening to my records!” They talked for about an hour then he brought him over to meet Coverdale while Coverdale was recording the vocals to “Hold On” with Martin Birch.  Coverdale sees someone in there and gets angry telling Hughes to get out and that he doesn’t want anyone there while he’s doing his vocals. Hughes explained that it was Stevie Wonder and they had a bit of a laugh and they said they hung out all night listening to Stevie play and sing.
    • While Hughes was doing vocals David Bowie stopped by and was dancing next to Hughes while he sang the vocals.
  • Lady Double Dealer (Blackmore, Coverdale)
    • Blackmore riff.
  • You Can’t Do It Right (With the One You Love) (Blackmore, Coverdale, Hughes)
    • Mostly Hughes written showing his Stevie Wonder influence.
    • Divisive among fans showing the funky direction the band was headed.
    • In the liner notes for the special edition, Simon Robinson states that he believes the Eagles may have been influenced by this in writing “Life in the Fast Lane”
  • High Ball Shooter (Blackmore, Coverdale, Hughes, Lord, Paice)
    • Blackmore said he was so disgusted by “High Ball Shooter” that he didn’t even know the title or lyrics until the album was released.
    • Blackmore: “I didn’t stick around to find out the title of the song, although I recall it is in the key of A . . .”
    • Hughes: “The great fill that Paicey kicked off the song (with) says it all, I guess playing as a rhythm section was finally paying dividends… he was on fire.”
    • Third song to make it to the live set.
    • Steve Pilkington: “some of the worst lyrics ever to grace a Deep Purple song — even counting some of the horrors Gillan had visited upon us.”
    • Hughes mentions they were two songs short and this one was added at the end.
  • The Gypsy (Blackmore, Coverdale, Hughes, Lord, Paice)
    • Tells a more interesting narrative story.
    • Hughes says this was the other song added because they were short on the album.
  • Soldier of Fortune (Blackmore, Coverdale)
    • Blackmore states that the other three members of the band hated this song and it was difficult just getting them to play on it.
    • Blackmore and Coverdale recorded their own demo with Blackmore playing bass. When the band heard it they liked it and they re-recorded it.
    • Blackmore: “David and I wrote that song.  It’s one of my favorite songs. It’s got a few of those medieval chords. You will be surprised how difficult it was to convince the others to play that song. Jon fairly quickly said okay, but Ian and Glenn didn’t want to know about it.  So I said “I’ll play your funky song if you will play mine. Glenn hated that song he thought it was shit. Ian quit after two takes as well. Not enough for him to do in that song to prove himself.”
    • Coverdale says he and Blackmore wrote it at Clearwell Castle while the others were playing soccer.
    • They recorded a demo of it together.
    • Coverdale states that he and Blackmore shared a love of early Jethro Tull and incorporating bits of Bach, English folk music, etc.
    • Blackmore was reportedly disappointed that the lyrics were not more literal about an actual soldier returning home.
    • This would be the last time that Coverdale and Blackmore wrote together.

Reception and Review

  • This album did not perform as well as past albums.  Went gold in America in a few weeks and was certified gold on Jan 9th, 1975.
  • Peaked at 6 in Britain and was top 10 in most other European countries.  It reached number 2 in Norway. In America it reached #20 and stayed there for 20 weeks.
  • Coverdale handled all press about the album.
  • I an interview with NME, Coverdale said, “There’s a whole lot of new ideas going down. It isn’t contrived rock’n roll.”
  • Rolling Stone Review by Alan Neister on January 30, 1975: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/stormbringer-251303/
    • With Burn and now Stormbringer, Deep Purple has attempted to prove, firstly, that replacing the departed Ian Gillan and Roger Glover with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes has in no way weakened the highly successful and profitable D.P. sound and, secondly, that to continue to sell albums the band need no longer rely on the unique but overdone speedo-riff rock that made the five albums from In Rock to Made in Japan quadrillion sellers. While the two newcomers are just as competent as their predecessors (as witnessed on the title cut, one of the few real throwbacks to Machine Head days), the attempts that the band has made at diversifying its sound have been only partly successful. While the group-?? “Hold On” should rightly be considered one of the neatest, most accessible and rockiest songs they’ve ever done, slower paced stuff like “Holy Man” or the Uriah Heep-like “Gypsy” hardly rate above the commonplace. Stormbringer still exhibits a few points of flash — the occasional familiar Blackmore riff or Lord organ wail — but in total it’s a far cry from the band’s peak.
  • Lord, in an interview with Mick Burgess: “David and Glenn certainly did have more of an influence on Stormbringer for the simple reason that Ritchie took his eye off the ball as he had his idea in his head about Rainbow.  He could’ve been stronger during the making of Sormbringer and if he had been stronger then Stormbringer could have been a better album, not that it’s a bad album but it could’ve been a better one. It’s quite a confusing album.  At the time our fans got a little confused by it. With Burn we picked up the torch and ran with it, I just wish we could have stayed with it. I think Ritchie lost a bit of energy trying to deal with the runaway train that was Glenn Hughes.  At the time he was a bit of a loose canon and hard to deal with and I think Ritchie just had enough.”
  • Blackmore, on why there wasn’t as much guitar on this album: “There wasn’t as much guitar because in a way I was going through some personal problems and I didn’t have the people there that I wanted to record with.  I was thinking about other things when I should have been thinking about the music.”
  • Blackmore, in an interview in Sounds: “I don’t like . . . funk.  It bores me to tears. But this is as far as it goes no, it’s the end of that.  Back to rock and roll next LP.”
  • Blackmore quoted in Neil Priddey’s Purple Records 1971-1978 put it very simply: “Stormbringer was crap.”
  • Hughes in Martin Popoff’s “Sail Away”: “… when David and I came in, the band started to become more, and I’m going to say, soulful.  Because we grew up in the North of England, we grew up listening to American R&B. Rather than try replacing Gillan and Glover with two look- and sound-alikes, they replaced them with two totally different commodities, and it showed very strongly on Stormbringer what it was all about.  And I like change in music. I don’t want to make Burn II. Led Zeppelin did a really good job in their careers of making different records every time. So that’s how I feel about Stormbringer — it’s a different record.”
  • Ian Paice: “David was the new kid on the block and he was very malleable.  He was just enjoying the vibe of being in a big rock ‘n’ roll band. Glenn’s influences were so different, although on the first album, Burn, they were kept under control.  When it came down to getting down to the second one, Stormbringer, I mean, Glenn can’t help it. He likes the music that he likes and that was starting to change it. So it was starting to change from being a hard rock’n’roll band to something that was becoming a little more funky, which Ritchie hated.”
  • Coverdale: “Oh my God! I wrote two songs which could be termed heavy metal or whatever.  I’ve never embraced the term ‘heavy metal’ because all my themes are emotional. But I wrote two songs to keep Ritchie Blackmore happy which were Burn (which I still think is a classic) and Stormbringer which basically if you look at the lyrics, they are more or less sci-fi poems.  But it never felt comfortable for me to have those. In fact, I think that’s where he got the name Rainbow from, the hook in “Stormbringer.” “Burn,” I can enjoy any time of the day but I don’t really go for “Stormbringer.” 
  • Coverdale: “The year that I joined Deep Purple my most played records were Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘There’s a Riot Goin’ On,’ Steveie Wonder’s ‘Music of My Mind’ and Donny Hathaway’s ‘Live.’
  • Hughes: “The crazy thing about Ritchie’s disliking of what he calls “shoe shine music” (a term I find to be less than amusing) is that on songs like ‘Hold On’ and ‘You Can’t Do It Right’ and ‘Love Don’t Mean a Thing’ which he played on, the only word for it, or description of his style is . . . funky. Check out his picking, he astonished (us) with the way he used his right hand. He played wonderfully and appropriately.”
  • Blackmore really wanted to do a cover song on this album, “Black Sheep of the Family” by Quatermass.
  • Mick Underwood had popped in during the In Rock sessions to show him a tape of this new song beginning Blackmore’s obsession with the song.
  • The band refused to do it.
  • Blackmore didn’t like his ideas not being used.
  • Blackmore claims he brought it to the band and they didn’t want to do other songs because they wouldn’t get writing credit.  Lord and Paice were the most against the idea.
  • Lord remembers it differently saying that Blackmore would play them things during the sessions and then when they said they  liked it and wanted to record it he would say, “No, I’m saving that for my solo album.” Much like previously with Who Do We Think We Are.
  • The band were making so much money on tour reportedly bringing in well over 100,000 pounds after four shows in the US.
  • Their accountant told them to move abroad to avoid paying the tax rate in the UK that was well over 90%.
  • Blackmore moved to America first.
  • Lord was annoyed that he had to move away from his home country despite liking America.  He says that his first marriage fell victim to the move to California.
  • Coverdale claims that he was being taxed 98%.
  • Their contact with their management became less frequent due to the distance.
  • Traveling they all had their own routines.
  • Their live set changed.  Lay Down, Stay Down and Might Just Take Your Life were replaced by The Gypsy and Lady Double Dealer, and Stormbringer.
  • They did a very short tour with the feeling that they’d come back and work on some solo projects.
  • Blackmore first approached Coverdale in joining him to leave the band and form Rainbow.  Coverdale declined.
  • Blackmore got Dio drunk one night and convinced him to go to the studio and record “Black Sheep of the Family.”  Blackmore liked the working relationship so much they did a B-side then started talking about when to record an album.
  • After Elf’s “Trying to Burn the Sun” was released Blackmore flew in Mickey Lee Soule, Gary Driscoll, and Graig Gruber to Munich to work on the album.  Blackmore’s wife, an opera singer, also did tracks for the album. The album was completed on March 14, two days before Purple’s European tour began.
  • All of Deep Purple had no idea this project was going on.
  • This is shocking considering Martin Birch and a lot of DP’s road crew were involved.  Was Blackmore trying to keep this secret or was the rest of the band just not paying attention?
  • Bowie asked Hughes to fly to New York to work on Young Americans but Blackmore refused to let him go.  He was very firm and put his foot down.
  • Blackmore, Paice, and Coverdale headed to Yugoslavia to meet up with Hughes and Lord for two shows which would be the first shows DP would play in an Easter Bloc country.
  • At one of the shows a woman in the audience attempted to hand a note to Blackmore and was punched in the face by a security guard.  Blackmore, seeing this, kicked the guard in the back of the head.
  • After the Yugoslavia shows Jerry Bloom reports in “The Road of Golden Dust” that an exhausted Blackmore said to Pete Makowski, a journalis with Sounds, who was reporting on this glimpse behind the Iron Curtain, “See these hands? I probably own two fingers if I’m lucky.  The rest belongs to the management. All of my life I’ve been ripped off and undervalued and I”m just sick of it all.”
  • Blackmore was now traveling promoting an album he wasn’t happy with after finishing a project he had much more passion for.  The only songs he allowed on the tour were three he had writing credits for on the album: Stormbringer, Lady Double Dealer, The Gypsy.
  • Reviews of these concerts seemed to all report the same thing: Blackmore played well but seemed disinterested.
  • Glenn Hughes, in his autobiography, states that by the end of the year there was really no communication between Blackmore and the band.
  • Midway through the tour Blackmore informed management that he was quitting.  They kept it secret from the band. The band, of course, figured out something was up.
  • They recorded the last few shows Blackmore could play concluding in Paris where Coverdale thanked the crowd after the show and said, “We hope to see you again in some shape or form.”
  • Coverdale wanted to press on. 
  • On the last show where they had been recording “Made in Europe” Hughes says he was doing a line in the bathroom and came out to see Ritchie standing there and smling.  He told him it had been great working with him but he felt ashamed and dirty of his habit at that point.
  • Hughes states that the cocaine up until this point was under control and he was just dabbling with the drug.  But things were starting to change.

This Week in Purple History . . .

August 26 through September 1


  • August 27, 1960 – Neil Murray is born
  • August 30, 1950 – Micky Moody is born
  • September 1, 1973 – Bang by James Gang is released
  • August 27, 1978 – Gillan plays their first show at the Reading Festival

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.
Posted on

Episode #17 – Burn

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Show Updates:

  • Comments from social media.
  • Rad from Russia wrote an email to tell us that I got a fact wrong when I referred to Ian Hansford as an Elf roadie when he was in fact, as Rad says, the very first DP roadie.  Thanks, Rad!

Thanks to Our Patrons:

Lead Up To Album & Writing:

  • At this point when Coverdale/Hughes come on board both versions of “Smoke on the Water” are in the American  top ten at the same time.
  • Glenn Hughes says he was one of the first to arrive at Clearwell Castle to begin writing Burn.  He picked a bedroom and unknowingly Ritchie had set up speakers in his closet so in the middle of the night Glenn was awoken to sounds of ghosts.
  • They wrote and rehearsed.  Coverdale lost his nerve and froze up.  Jon Lord took him aside, gave him a few drinks, and said they played a Beatles melody for two hours.
  • On September 1, 1973, Coverdale was back up north celebrating his new gig.  Hughes, Paice, and Lord got together for a jam session with Hughes playing lead guitar.  They recorded two songs, “Don’t Know Yet” and Grand Funk Railroad’s “Some Kind of Wonderful.”  These have never been released.
  • On September 23rd they announced their new lineup at a press event.
  • On October 4th Hughes accompanied Lord to perform on his Windows album.  Yvonne Elliman, Peter York, Ray Fenwick were also present. Ritchie went as a spectator.
  • In the same month Gillan had bought De Lane Lea studios and renamed it Kingsway.
  • In November they returned to Montreux – Burn was recorded in Montreux in November of 1973 again using the Rolling Stones mobile unit.
  • Hughes contributed to songwriting but wasn’t able to be given credit due to unexpired contractual obligations.  The 30th anniversary release included Hughes in the credits for all track except Sail Way, Mistreated, A 200, and the bonus track “Coronarias Redig.”
  • Jon Lord got more into experimenting with synthesizers on this album.
  • Lord and Paice agreed to give Ritchie more creative control in this lineup.
  • Martin Birch was very patient and supportive of Coverdale in the studio.  Coverdale was inexperienced and had only recorded demos up until this point.
  • Coverdale’s mind was blown by the quality of the musicianship around him.  He felt very self conscious and would stay up all night working on his lyrics and making alternate versions for the band to choose from.
  • They set up at the top floor of the convention center in Montreux.
  • Glenn had lots of experience in the studio but Coverdale had only recorded a few tracks with The Government and The Fabulosa Brothers.
  • Lord says: “David has always been a very self-confident man and if he was overawed to be working with us, it only showed when we were talking between ourselves over a beer later,never during the actual recording.”
  • Birch: “It was a much happier session than “Who Do We Think We Are.”
  • Coverdale, hopped up on diet pills, was an emotional wreck and considered leaving the band as he wasn’t thinking clearly.

Album Art & Booklet Review

  • Design by Nesbit, Phipps, and Froome who did “In Rock.”
  • Shot by Fin Costello.
  • Candles were specially commissioned but never commercially available.  A second unused set was later auctioned off.
  • Nigel Young talks in the Burn booklet about how this was just meant to be a mock up for the band to see the idea he had.  It ended up being picked up and used for the sleeve. Years later he relit his candles and shot it again and it was released in Kerrang! Extra Magazine No. 5 in the May/June 1985 issue.
  • Thanks again to @JoergPlaner for coming through with these great scans.

Album Details and Analysis:

  • All tracks by Blackmore, Coverdale, Hughes, Lord, Paice except where indicated.
  • Burn
    • Written in the dungeon of the castle.
    • One of the last songs written for the album.  Hughes wrote the middle parts, the parts he sings.  They knew they were going to divide up the vocals from the beginning but had to sort out who was taking each part.
    • Hughes said there was no competition for vocals and described it by saying it was more “you take this part, no after you.”
    • Coverdale wrote several sets of lyrics for this song and Blackmore chose his favorite.
      • One was called “The Road.”
      • Lord: “David had some trouble with Ritchie because he wanted a certain type of lyrics.  He wanted songs about demonology, mythology, that type of thing.” You can see why he ended up in a band with Dio.
      • Coverdale: “I had some problems in finding the lyrics, I wanted them to have a modern setting yet give a surrealist flavor.  Ritchie and I wrote “Burn” but Jon put the classical progression in, which to me is brilliant.”
    • Hughes talks about taking PCP (Accidentally) for the first time during recording Burn.  His girlfriend sent him a letter. Blackmore recalls Hughes crawling around behind the drumset asking Ritchie why his head was expanding in size.  Ian took him out for a walk.
    • Jerry Bloom reports that the riff for this song was inspired by the 1936 song “Fascinating Rhythm”
      • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRSmEMc8vvA
      • Blackmore: “I came up with the riff on the spur of the moment while we were jamming.  Jon took a tape home a few days later and his wife at the time pointed out the similarity.  Maybe subconsciously I was playing that but it worked very well.”
    • At the end of the song there’s a big mistake where Ritchie accidentally hit his fingers on the strings.  Everyone said it sounded natural so they left it in.
  • Might Just Take Your Life
    • Song started by Jon Lord laying into this organ riff.
    • Written at Clearwell with different lyrics and a chorus about “rock and roll.”
    • Lyrics tell the story about how Coverdale and Hughes ended up in Deep Purple.  Talks about people who laughed behind their backs when they talked of joining the band.
    • Single released three days before the album on Feb 12, 1974. Did not chart
    • B-side was “Coronarias Redig”
    • First UK single since “Never Before”
    • Riff reminiscent of Woman From Tokyo
    • No guitar solo!  So the last 2 out of three DP tracks have no guitar solo!
    • Steve Pilkington says in his book on Track Deep Purple and Rainbow:
      • This lyric is the first example of what would become something of a Coverdale trademark of the ‘drifter without a home and needing no friend’ song.  There would be many variations on the theme over the years.
    • Coverdale says this song was influenced by “Chest Fever” by The Band.
  • Lay Down, Stay Down
    • Original title of “That’s Alright.”
    • Paice says it’s his favorite on the album.
    • Blackmore wrote the riff.
    • First song recorded for the album.
    • Ian Paice is just doing a drum solo the entire song.
    • Coverdale says this was how he was broken into the band and this was one of the first lyrics he’d ever written.
  • Sail Away (Blackmore, Coverdale)
    • Wanted to release this as a single but record company said “Might Just Take Your Life” was more commercial.
    • Starts with backwards cymbal.
    • Shows the direction Blackmore was looking to go.
    • Talks about “getting old.”
    • Tune Ritchie had been holding back from the Mark 2 lineup.
    • Verse lyrics were changed in the studio.
    • David holds it up as a sign of them going into a more funk/rock direction.
    • David did it in a lower register but didn’t think it sounded right.  Jon and Ritchie convinced him that it sounded great.
    • Blackmore’s solo is using a Synthi Hi-Fi guitar synthisizer with slide on the fade out.
  • You Fool No One
    • Paice came up with the drum pattern.
    • Ian Paice was dripping with sweat after four takes and reportedly upset that others in the band weren’t keeping up.  He threatened to walk out and they got it on the next take.
    • Successor to “The Mule” in the live set.
    • Coverdale/Hughes together on verse, trade choruses.
    • This was a long jam number live going 15 minutes.
  • What’s Goin’ on Here
    • Hughes describes this as something they put together in the studio as a throwaway bit of fun.
    • Jon on piano.
    • Steve Pilkington says: “Lord is also clearly having a good time but, with his rather unfortunate barrelhouse honky-tonk piano solo, that enjoyment fails to extend to the listener.”
  • Mistreated (Blackmore, Coverdale)
    • Hughes announced this song live as a song Ritchie had written a couple of years ago.  Another that he held back from the Mark 2 lineup though it was considered for “Who Do We Think We Are.”
    • Only track where Coverdale sings alone.
    • Recorded from 11pm to 7:30am.
    • At first playbacks Coverdale thought it was terrible.  It was so bad that he sat down and cried because he wanted it to be good.
    • The next night they had another session and nailed it on the second take.
    • Coverdale: “It’s like a progressive blues.  I wasn’t raised in a shack by the railroad tracks but I’ve still had emotional hassles and that’s the only kind of blues I can interpret.  I tried very hard because I knew it was essential to get the strong emotive quality the song needs. The thing I wanted was for somebody who was listening to the song to thing ‘I know what he’s talking about’ and the feeling, then the song would be worth it.  It’s essentially a physical feeling. The reason it didn’t come off straight away was simply that I was trying too hard.”
    • Longest track on the album.
    • Coverdale and Hughes were very proud of their multi-tracked harmonies at the end of the song.  When Blackmore showed up he said, “You can’t hear the guitar solo for the voices…”
    • Coverdale said you could hear a pin drop after the volumes were lowered.
    • This would be played by Rainbow, Dio, Whitesnake, Glenn Hughes, 
    • Coverdale and Hughes spent all night crafting vocal harmonies in the studio only to have Blackmore come in the next morning and say they were overpowering the guitar and lower them all in the mix.
  • ‘A’ 200 (Blackmore, Lord, Paice)
    • Originally titled “Touching Cloth.”
    • Written in the studio.
    • First time an eighth track would appear on a Deep Purple album in years.
    • A 200 was the name of a cream used to treat crabs and apparently the band was familiar with this particular ointment.

Reception and Review

  • There are only three dates on the reels, 11/8, 11/12, 11/14.  Was this completed in only three sessions?
  • They recorded for two weeks before returning home.  Album was mixed at Kingsway Recorders which was a studio owned by Ian Gillan.
  • Martin Birch did the mix and reportedly Ian Paice to his side watching the drum levels.  All others were coming and going.
  • Glenn: “It was too basic rock for me.  I wasn’t into that kind of material. I had to work with Jon and Ritchie to really get into that kind of music.”
  • Lord: “It had been worked on in rehearsal and thought out beforehand instead of albums where we just jammed in the studio until a song arrived.  The only track where that happened was the instrumental and that was only because I wanted to use a synthesizer.”
  • Album was released on 2/15/74.  Was almost late because of a worldwide shortage of vinyl.  What??
  • Album hit #3 in the UK, #9 in the US and #1 in 4 European countries.
  • Mostly positive reviews.  Two standout bad reviews:
  • Rolling Stone Review: Burn by Ken Barnes April 25, 1974
    • Deep Purple’s first album since last year’s departure of vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist/composer Roger Glover is a passable but disappointing effort. On Burn, new lead singer David Coverdale sounds suitably histrionic, like Free’s brilliant Paul Rodgers (rumored to have been Purple’s first replacement choice). But the new material is largely drab and ordinary, without the runaway locomotive power of the group’s best work.
    •  The title track is a notable exception, attractively energetic, with appropriately speedy instrumental breaks. And “Sail Away” is a Free-like mesmerizer. “Mistreated” again sounds like that lamentedly extinct group, but is flaccidly lengthy (7:25).
    • They fill out the LP with the relentlessly mediocre single “Might Just Take Your Life,” the stodgy blues-rocker “What’s Goin’ On Here,” the commonplace Cream-like funk riffs and harmonies of “You Fool No One,” and with a tedious Moog/bolero instrumental retread applying the coup de grace. Much of the LP is skillfully wrought and likable, and the new line-up has potential. But the Gillan/Glover spark that created “Highway Star” and other memorable Purple smokers is regrettably absent.

This Week in Purple History . . .

August 19 through August 25

  • August 19, 1945 – Ian Gillan is born
  • August 21, 1951 – Glenn Hughes is born
A side-by-side comparison of Glenn Hughes and his resemblance to Bob Hope as outlined in Glenn Hughes’s autobiography.
  • Glenn Hughes and Bob Hope for reference
  • August 25, 1970 – Concerto for Group and Orchestra was performed for the last time at the Hollywood Bowl

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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.
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Episode #16 – Before They Were Purple (Part 3 – Hughes & Coverdale)

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Glenn Hughes:

  • Grew up as an only child.
  • Had a very good, happy, and comfortable childhood.
  • His first instrument was a trombone but he wasn’t very interested in it.  Then his parents got him a cheap guitar and he was hooked.
  • He saw the Beatles on TV and saw the girls screaming.  He was on 12 but he knew that he liked that.
  • He wasn’t as into Elvis and was more into Doo Wop and soul music.
  • Glenn’s mother talks about the girls being very interested in him.
  • The Hooker Lees (named after John Lee Hooker) in 1965
    • Changed their name to The Intruders
  • New Band “The News” where he was lead guitar and vocals
  • Finders Keepers (1968):
  • Band broke up in 1969.  Mel Galley, Glenn Hughes, and Dave Holland went on to form Trapeze.
  • Trapeze:
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapeze_(band)
    • Live in 1969: “Meet on the Ledge” (British Folk Song) and The Nazz “Open My Eyes”
    • https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Jv8UhtQ56j0
    • Recorded live at Club Lafayette in Wolverhampton, UK on Saturday, July 5th, 1969
    • Mel Galley guitar
    • Dave Holland drums
    • Glenn Hughes vocal, bass guitar
    • John Jones vocal
    • Terry Rowley guitar, keyboard
    • Lineup through their first album.
    • Second album “Medusa” stripped down
    • They were on a show on BBC 2 called Colour Me Pop.  The morning after this aired they were contacted by George Martin to join The Beatles’ Apple label. The band opted not to join Apple because the direction George MArtin had in mind would have taken them in a different direction than they wanted to go.
    • Their first album “Trapeze” was released and played track-by-track on BBC Radio 1, something they’d only previously done for the Beatles.
    • They had huge success in the US.
    • Glenn talks in his book of the abundant drugs in this time period but how he stayed away and how he was scared of the drugs.  He didn’t even like taking Tylenol.
    • Trapeze – Suicide written by Jones/Galley
    • The new three piece played 15 shows in 15 days and ended up in LA without money to get home.  They wanted to play NY but they’d just played there so they set up a show in Houston so successful that they demanded a second night.
    • Playing Medusa one night John Bonham came up and took the sticks out of Dave Holland’s hands and played the song without stopping and it turned into a 15 minute long version.
    • Mesudsa written by Hughes
    • Third Album “You’re The Music . . . We’re Just The Band”
    • “Coast to Coast”

Acquiring Hughes:

  • Ritchie said he wanted to get a new bass player and singer and do more melodic content.
  • Gillan had given nine months notice but the band and management had done nothing until after Gillan left in June to look for a replacement.  Maybe they didn’t believe he’d go through with it.
  • Jon Lord quoted as saying that their routine was “getting tired.”
  • Lord had also toyed with leaving the band at this point and wasn’t entirely happy with what they’d done to Glover.  He’d also gotten offers to work on his Windows project with Eberhard Shoener.
  • Two singers were being entertained: Paul Rodgers and Glenn Hughes.
  • Paul Rodgers had a reputation of being a control freak and would likely have clashed with Blackmore.  He wanted to start his own thing and formed Bad Company instead.
  • Rodgers was offered the job.  He turned it down, allegedly not happy with it being leaked to the press that he was being offered the job.
  • Ritchie: “Jon is going to go with Tony Ashton and I said I’m off to make a rock band like Deep Purple and Paice is coming with me.”
  • Blackmore: “I wanted a new band.  I didn’t want to get a new singer in and carry on where we’d left off.”
  • Roger took over as head of A&R at Purple Records and focused on production.
  • “I was writing about 80% of the stuff but the credit was being split up five ways.  I got tired of not getting the respect. Then I decided that we were stagnating. I told Ian, the drummer, that I wasn’t happy with the way things were going.  He didn’t want any trouble within the group, so he calmed me down most of the time but it gradually got out of hand, and I decided to leave and form my own band.”
  • Glenn Hughes in late 1972 played a few nights at the Whisky a Go Go and noticed Ritchie, Jon, and Paice in the audience, all separately on different nights.  He thought they were just really big fans of Trapeze. Same thing again happened at the Marquis in London. He said, “I had a feeling they were there for another reason.”
  • They asked him to join and he said no.  Eventually, after about a month, he changed his mind.
  • Ritchie invited Glenn to his house in South London where they jammed on what would eventually turn into “Mistreated” and talked about Ritchie’s vision for the band.
  • Glenn joined under the assumption he’d be replacing both Glover and Gillan. They debated moving forward as a four piece.
  • When they entered the band there were huge write ups about Deep Purple being the number 1 band in the world with a huge picture of the Mark 3 lineup.
  • Glenn Hughes talks about getting plaques, and watches and saying, “These should be Roger’s!” engraved for the sales of “Made in JApan.”  Hughes: “It’s a bit embarrassing receiving a gift for something you didn’t play on.”
  • Roger was upset at this being taken away from him but didn’t hold it personally against Coverdale or Hughes.
  • Hughes claims Coverdale was the only one auditioned.  Coletta said they auditioned multiple other people at Scorpio Sound.  It could have been that they were auditioned before Hughes joined.
  • Coletta recalls that the people coming in to audition didn’t realize they were auditioning for Purple so it must’ve been a shock.
  • Sheila Hughes states in Hughes’ biography that he had also been courted by ELO and agonized over the decision before choosing Deep Purple.  In “Smoke on the Water” Dave Thompson says that had turned down the gig in ELO previously.

David Coverdale:

  • Also grew up as an only child.
  • Started performing professionally at 14.
  • Was in a few bands:
  • The Skyliners
  • Vintage 67 (1966-68)
  • Magdalene
  • Denver Mule
  • The Government (1968-72)

Acquiring Coverdale:

  • Blackmore: “Glenn we saw at the Marquee, and Ian and Jon said we must have him, but we still needed another singer, a more masculine voice.  I was off to form a band with Ian Paice, I thought it would be an adventure, but Ian Paice said it would be silly to abandon all our efforts.  Probably in three years the band will have a reshuffle again; maybe David and Glenn will be getting in new members!
  • Blackmore: “I could put Ian down, but I don’t think I want to get into that, because he’s never put any of the band down.  I thought Ian was a very good vocalist and he had a great face and image. He got a lot of people interested in Deep Purple.  But then his vocals began not to do anything to me. I used to say, ‘I think that vocal is a load of shit’ and this is why Ian and I fell out.  I wasn’t quite satisfied. The band was always a bit poppy. It was quite nice but it was too poppy.
  • They went through many demo tapes including a lot of Gillan impersonators and even a fifteen year old with no experience who was looking to start big.  Who they would up with wouldn’t be too far off.
  • They were so desperate at one point they considered being a four piece with Hughes oas the lone vocalist.
  • Coverdale had supported Deep purple on 11/22/1969 at Bradford University and had given Lord his number.  In 1973 he was an unknown 21 year old (meaning he was 17 when he supported Purple??) It was here that Coverdale gave Lord his 
  • He was working at a “Stride In Style” clothes shop in Redcar.  Coverdale read the Melody Maker advertisement during his lunch break and decided to audition.
  • Roger Barker, a local promoter for the Redcar Jazz Club where Purple had played, helped him send off his application and demo tape.  Coverdale didn’t have any pictures so he got a picture from his mother of him dressed in his Boy Scout Uniform.
  • Coverdale’s demo featured his band, The Fabulosa Brothers, playing funk rock covers and recorded at Strawberry Studios in Stockport.
  • Ian Paice from “Smoke on the Water”: “David’s tape was rubbish except for four bars where he actually sung really hard and I thought there was something in his voice that was really good, so I said let’s get him down here.  He had these incredibly awful glasses on and this strange, not quite straight hair, and he had an eye that wandered around. I’m sure it was a nervous thing and he was massively overweight but we got him in the studio and he sang very well.  But part of the deal was, if you are going to come into the band, you’ve got to look a bit different to that, because he looked exactly what he was, a chap from a clothing store who really didn’t give a toss about himself. He agreed to everything because he wanted in and became the glorious David Coverdale that everybody knows and loves today.”
  • Coletta: “He was very overweight with pimples all over the place.  We got his eyes fixed, put him on a diet, and gave him the right food to eat.”
  • They gave him contact lenses “diet pills.” Rob Cooksey, their road manager, says: “He was wired out all the time when they made the album but he weathered the problem because he is a such a strong personality.”
  • A few days later Barker received a call to bring David Coverdale to London for an audition at Scorpio Sound Studios.
  • Coverdale says he arrived with some “Dutch Courage” inside him meaning Bells Whisky.  There he met Jon and Ian:
    • “Paicey and Lordy were already at the studio when I arrived. Mr. Lord was exceptionally charming and welcoming, doing his best to put me at ease…whilst Ian messed around on his Ludwig drum kit. Ritchie arrived next with his then wife, Babs, and their two wolfhounds whom Ritchie obviously doted on. He completely ignored me, other than a quick surreptitious look to check me out…a brief nod when we made eye contact. Without missing a beat I was off to the whisky for a quick, nervous sip…er…make that a gulp!”
  • He felt very self conscious about his looks and borrowed clothes from the boutique back home.  Coverdale says he felt more at ease when Glenn arrived.
  • They jammed with Coverdale improvising.  Coverdale said that he’d learned “Strange Kind of Woman” which they played slow and bluesy (would love to hear this).
    • Blackmore: “Ok, you can sing rock, let’s see what you can do with a ballad…anything you want to sing?”
    • Coverdale suggested “Yesterday.”  He says this is what got him the gig.
  • Coverdale met with John Coletta who Coverdale says “interrogated” him about if he had any criminal convictions or an “unsavory past” that could embarrass the  band. He passed the test and Coletta gave him 50 to get a new haircut and some better clothes.
  • Ian Paice drove Coverdale to the train and Coverdale used the money to buy himself a first class ticket on the train.
  • Coverdale didn’t hear anything for a week before he got the call from Tony Edwards to come back to London.
  • When he met with management they told him he’d be paid 80 a week to sign the contract.
  • Coverdale said he was earning almost this from working at the clothing store.  They then told him that 80 was for him and that everything else (clothes, equipment, living expenses, travel) would be paid by the band. On top of that he would be a one-fifth member of the band.
  • Coverdale said he’d take the contract to look it over and Coletta lost his mind saying that he could get Mick Jagger if he wanted to and that he needed to sign it or he’d be out.
  • Coverdale was intimidated and scared and signed a ten year deal.
  • Coverdale confided in Jon Lord years later about this meeting and Jon Lord was furious and told him he never should have signed.
  • Coverdale was invited to Blackmore’s house for a writing session.
  • Blackmore wanted to pursue a solo career and only agreed to stay in Purple for more creative control.
  • Coverdale returned home with a cassette tape of Blackmore’s music and began writing lyrics.
  • The band then met at Clearwell Castle in Glouscestershire and set up a studio in the cellars.
  • Coverdale was extremely nervous and Lord jammed Beatles tunes with him to get him warmed up.
  • According to Coverdale the songs were put together with input form Lord, Paice, and Hughes but they all deferred to Blackmore for the final decision.
  • Coverdale was in disbelief:
    • “What a band. What an unbelievable, powerful collective this was. It was easy for me, as the singer, to stand back and watch and listen… and it was incredible! I couldn’t believe my luck in being involved with this enterprise. Please… if this is a dream… don’t let me wake up!”
  • The band flew to Hamburg and checked into the Atlantic Hotel for a long weekend off from rehearsals.
  • While at the clubs Blackmore told Coverdale to watch what tempos the girls were dancing to the most and to apply it to his songwriting:
    • Coverdale: “I learned an immense amount from him [Blackmore].”

  • At the castle the new band was announced to the world.  The press was invited and all of them asked questions similar to “who is this guy?”  The band was very supportive.
  • Blackmore, on new lineup: “You could say a Beatles feel with a hard rock backing in the basic thing.  We expect a vocalist to take on the part of a lead instrument . . . Who knows? After th eLP I might be saying he’s [Coverdale] a shitty vocalist as well.  I’m not going to say he’s the best vocalist int he world but when we heard him we thought, “Christ he’s good” . . . There are now two other guys involved so it makes it more or less a new band to me.  IT’s not Deep Purple anymore although it’s still the same name. Really, it’s a completely different band.”

This Week in Purple History . . .

August 12 through August 18

  • August 15, 1950 – Tommy Aldridge is Born
1 CD Packshot
  • August 15 & 16, 1972 – Made in Japan Live Performances
  • August 16, 1980 – Cozy Powell’s last Rainbow gig

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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.
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Episode #15 – Who Do We Think We Are (The End, Part 2)

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Lead Up To Album & Writing:

  • In “The Road of Golden Dust” Jerry Bloom lays a little more blame at the feet of Ian Gillan for the break of of Mark 2. In the book he states that Gillan insisted on traveling with his girlfriend, Zoe Dean.  The rest of the band were enjoying all the stereotypical perks of the 70s rock star including many, many groupies.  Zoe reportedly would phone the wives and girlfriends of the other band members and report in on what was going on in the road.
  • Jon Lord said to Mike Eriksson (trinkelbonker!) in 1981: “Ian was a primadonna.  On stage he played a primadonna and offstage he was a primadonna.”
  • Gillan soon felt isolated from the band and began traveling separately.
  • One source says this was because the band gave Gillan an ultimatum of leaving Dean at home or traveling separately. This hasn’t been corroborated by anyone in the band but the rumor is out there.
  • Ian Hansford, roadie for Elf, says during a song one night Ritchie took his guitar off, threw it on the stage and walked off after Ian Gillan told him, “Look at me you c-word.” Blackmore told Hansford that he’d had it with Gillan
  • Gillan had started working on his Cherkazoo project on the side but the tour schedule gave him little time.  He’d gotten in the studio with Glover, Lord, and Fenwick and completed some songs. Gillan also worked on producing an album by the band Jerusalem.  That band broke up and members formed another band called Pussy which Gillan also produced.
  • He’d been in talks with Disney to develop a movie with Cherkazoo which he described as a “an animal/space/musical travelogue fantasy”
  • Back with Deep Purple Glover had the job of serving as a liaison between Gillan and Blackmore.
  • Blackmore claims he never spoke to Gillan during the entire recording of Who Do We Think We Are.  Blackmore said he started holding back, not sharing all his ideas as he was saving them for a potential future project such as Baby Face.
  • Martin Birch says he never saw any confrontation, just Gillan and Blackmore purposefully avoiding each other.
  • Blackmore said everyone gave their worst and called the album rubbish.
  • Glover was much more positive on the final result.
  • The record label was starting to cash in and released “Purple Passages” compilation album around this time.  It included 4 tracks from the “Deep Purple” album which was out of print at this time. This was good for Rod Evans giving him probably better royalties than he’d made with Purple in the 60s.

Album Art & Booklet Review

  • Album art removed the bubble of text.  Simon Robinson: “The cover was in attempt, using an image from a NASA satellite, to have the heads of the five band members floating above the landscape. It was only partially successful and was altered for the US And Canadian version in an attempt to improve on the effect.  Any subtlety they did manage with the complex overlaid color transparencies was lost by the cheap looking title lettering (which we’ve omitted on this edition).”

Album Details and Analysis:

  1. Woman From Tokyo (‘99 Remix)
  2. Woman From Tokyo (Alt. Bridge Version)
  3. Painted Horse (Studio Outtake Version)
    • The sessions on produced two songs, Woman From Tokyo and “Painted Horse” which Ritchie hated and would not allow on the album.
    • Allegedly only Jon Lord may have been happy with the vocal performance and Gillan refused to redo it.
    • Each verse about death in a different form, a child, a carpenter, the narrator himself.
    • It wasn’t released until 1977 on  the “New Live and Rare” compilation.
    • Gillan refused to do a second take, unhappy about having to redo the Machine Head formula.
    • Their process was to work in vocals later after recording music.  This process didn’t work here because when Blackmore heard the vocals he didn’t like them and Gillan refused to do it again because of their relationship.
  4. Our Lady (’99 Remix)
  5. Rat Bat Blue (Writing Session Version)
    • Shows Ritchie’s guitar solos being worked out before ultimately handing all the solo over to Lord.
  6. Rat Bat Blue (‘99 Remix)
  7. First Day Jam (Instrumental Version)
    • First day was a write off.  Roger got stuck in traffic in Rome and they recorded this instrumental with Blackmore on bass.

“Smelly Botty” and Conway Twitty’s “It’s Only Make Believe” were nixed by Lord for the special edition as he thought they would be a little distracting.

Reception and Review

  • Lord: “Ian’s timing of leaving was terrible. The band was just on the edge of becoming absolutely massive.  And indeed Burn as an album actually did take advantage of that. IT was a tremendously good album.”
  • In 1973 they had 11 different entries in the billboard charts – when Ian Gillan left.  #1 selling artist in the US.
  • John Lord in Melody Maker told Michael Watts on the last day of their US tour before flying to Hawaii then Japan.
    • “He told us nine or ten months ago that he wanted to leave this summer,” said Lord. “He feels he wants out of the business entirely. What do you call it? Re-evaluating? He may sing some more: in fact, knowing Ian as I do, I don’t think he can give it up completely.” Lord said that when the group returns to England they are to re-examine and re-evaluate their music.
    • “We want to get into regular rehearsing rather than just playing together to make an album which is what we have been doing during the last eighteen months.
    • “The only moves forward have come when we have gone to sound checks in the afternoons before gigs and sorted a few things together.
    • “I would like Deep Purple to develop into a freer group. We are a very tense band and orgasmic solos are our trademark. We actually want to become more vocal.”
  • Gillan: “We had just come off 18 months of touring, and we’d all had major illnesses at one time or another. Looking back, if they’d have been decent managers, they would have said, ‘All right, stop. I want you to all go on three months’ holiday. I don’t even want you to pick up an instrument.’ But instead they pushed us to complete the album on time. We should have stopped. I think if we did, Deep Purple would have still been around to this day.”
  • Ian Paice was going back and forth between leaving with Blackmore to form a new band and staying.  The money rolling in with Purple convinced him to stay and convince Blackmore of the same.
  • Ronnie Jame Dio toured with Elf and DP for their last tour with Gillan.  He said: “ Ian would stay in a different hotel to the rest of the band; he’d turn up at the gigs in a car, two or three minutes before the gig started, go onstage and do his bit, then as soon as it was over, he’d go back to his hotel again.  We couldn’t understand that. This isn’t how bands should be! For me that was the most unusual thing that ever happened on the purple tours, seeing a side of things that I just didn’t know existed. I thought bands got on really well and stayed together forever.  Boy, have I learned that lesson well over the years.”
  • A year later in Japan things weren’t as great for the band.  One of their last shows at the Budokan ended with a riot after Ritchie walked off stage and refused to do an encore.  The famous image of the chairs piled up and the place destroyed is from that show. Gillan got in a fight and was bloody and confronted Blackmore back at the hotel asking what the F that was all about.  Blackmore reportedly said: “The audience sucked. They didn’t deserve an encore so F ‘em.” 
  • On December 9th 1972 Gillan wrote a letter after a show in Dayton OH on stationery from the hotel they were staying at that he would be leaving the band after their tour obligations were complete on June 30, 1973.
  • He used the paper from the hotel which had printed on the top: Where every guest is king!”
    • Dear Tony, 
    •          Thank you for your telegram. Perhaps in my letter to you, the word ‘affiliations’ misled you. I must now make it clear that my doubts lie in the direction of my own desires to perform as an artist. I am so depressed with my occupation at the moment, as well as the circumstances and attitudes I have to work with that I felt it very necessary to put on record my intentions to leave the group on 30th June 1973. This decision is not impulsive, but is made after at least six months of thought. 
    •         I am certainly not considering moving to any other companies for management, etc. It is quite simply that if, after three months complete break I decide to continue in this business, I shall find a new way of expressing my ideas, or at least a more varied way. I suppose I could sum up by saying that I think D.P. has become a boring, stagnant machine, far removed from the refreshing, innovative group it once was. I think this was inevitable and that we should ‘quit while we’re ahead’. 
    •          Another advantage to deciding upon a date at least six months in advance is that nobody will be able to take an unfair advantage of the situation. You must admit that this is almost a probability, were matters allowed to follow an unguided course. 
    •          I have already formulated a basic pattern for the future and I shall obviously make you aware of my intentions when I reach London. 
    •         Yours Sincerely, Ian Gillan
    • Scan of this courtesy of @JoergPlaner’s tweet on Twitter.
    • From Chris Charlesworth’s book Deep Purple: The Illustrated Biography.
    • This would have been just about the time “Made in Japan” was released.
  • Ian Gillan writes in “Child in Time” that neither John or Tony asked him to reconsider or told him to take a break and think it over.  He speculates that had he and Ritchie and the rest of the band simply had some time off instead of being worked like dogs that perhaps their relationship could have improved.
  • The next incarnation of Mark 2 shows this may not have been the case.
  • He admits he didn’t want to leave.  The letter was a cry for help but no one was listening.
  • Ian Gillan decided that the band had gone as far as it could with that kind of rock.  There was too much talent in the band for it to remain static. Felt band was losing integrity.
  • Ian wrote a letter stating he would leave on June 30th, 1973.  
  • Jon Lord said this was a cry for help that management didn’t understand.  It broke his heart.
  • They thought it would be Ritchie who would leave as he was toying around with a band with Phil Lynott.
  • Management had meeting Tony Edwards, John Coletta summoned Jon and Roger to restaurant and asked if they could convince Paice to stay and get a new guitarist and new vocalist and stay.
  • Management asked Blackmore what it would take for him to stay.  Ritchie said he wasn’t into what Roger was doing but it wasn’t fair to him because he’s done nothing wrong.
  • Paice says he was just a kid, partying and living day to day, not worrying about what would happen next.  He left that to Ritchie and Jon.
  • In early 1973 they agreed to fire Roger if Ritchie would stay.  Ritchie felt awkward saying he’d rather leave and start something new.
  • Roger went to Tony Edwards to find out what was going on.  Felt like no one was talking to him. Tony finally gave in and told him they wanted him to leave the band.  Ritchie said he’d stay on the condition that Roger leaves. Roger says, “Pretty hurtful thing to hear.”
  • Roger asked why no one  told him before. Tony said because they wanted to finish the tour and they didn’t want him leaving in the middle.  Glover said, “F them, I’ll be the gentleman, I’ll fulfill my duties and then I’ll be gone.”
  • Roger sat next to Jon on the flight and Jon said he felt bad for what had happened.  Roger said he felt more let down by Jon and Paice more than Ritchie.
  • On the final night Ritchie said to Glover, “It’s nothing personal, it’s business.”
  • Blackmore was really starting to withdraw and become more remote from the band.
  • Roger Glover: “It had gotten to the point where Ritchie wasn’t interested in doing anybody else’s ideas. I remember in particular coming up with a chord sequence which I thought would be an interesting idea for a song. I’d written this out on a piece of paper – four or five chords or whatever, nothing much, and a certain rhythm. I said to Paicey: ‘Start this rhythm, about this time.’ Jon started playing. I started playing. But Ritchie just looked over my shoulder at this piece of paper and didn’t put his fingers on the strings even once – so the jam quickly fizzled out. “Instead, he started playing another riff. It may have been Mary Long or perhaps another one – something mid-tempo – as a lot of his riffs were starting to sound the same, nearly all variations in G…”
  • Gillan’s Last words in Osaka.  June 29, 1973: “All I want to say to all of you is thank you very much, you’ve been great. Thank you for everything you’ve given us in Japan and thank you . . . really you’re the representatives of the whole world as far as we’re concerned. Thank you and God bless you for everything you’ve ever given us. This is the last night. The end. God bless you. Thanks a lot. Good night.”

In The News . . .

  • Three performances:
    • Contractual Obligation #1: Live In Moscow (On Blu-ray)
    • Contractual Obligation #2: Live In Warsaw (On 2CD & digital)
    • Contractual Obligation #3: Live In St. Petersburg (On 3LP)
    • Still fresh from the success of the studio album “NOW What?!”, and just a few months before the release of the latest and equally successful album “inFinite”, Ian Gillan accepted the offer to tour for a month in Eastern Europe with a full rock show, accompanied every night by a different local orchestra.
    • Gillan decided to recruit the Don Airey Band, which features the guitar talent of Simon McBride.
    • All shows were truly unique, with Airey and McBride delivering perfect performances night after night. Deep Purple material (including rarities like “Razzle Dazzle” or “Anya”) went hand in hand with Gillan solo songs and surprises for those into the deepest catalogue.
    • The title is a humorous reference to Ian Gillan’s notorious reticence to pay any attention to his own or Deep Purple live releases (as he explains in the album liner notes). This live album and video might well be one of the nicest chapters in Gillan’s solo production ever and a reminder about how great his solo music and concerts have been over the years.
    • Curiosity: The last Deep Purple album was named “Infinity” (which later turned into: “inFinite”) during the afternoon preceding the Warsaw show that ended up being immortalized for its CD release.
    • 1. Hang Me Out To Dry
    • 2. Pictures Of Home
    • 3. No Lotion For That
    • 4. Strange Kind Of Woman
    • 5. Razzle Dazzle
    • 6. A Day Late ‘N’ A Dollar Short
    • 7. Lazy
    • 8. Rapture Of The Deep
    • 9. When A Blind Man Cries
    • 10. You’re Gonna Ruin Me Baby (with Grace Gillan)
    • 11. Ain’t No More Cane On The Brazos
    • 12. Difficult To Cure (Beethoven’s Ninth)
    • 13. Anya
    • 14. Perfect Strangers
    • 15. Hell To Pay
    • 16. Demon’s Eye
    • 17. Smoke On The Water
    • 18. Hush
    • 19. Black Night

This Week in Purple History . . .

August 5 through August 11

  • August 8, 1942 – John Gustafson is born
  • August 8, 1980 – Gillan releases Glory road, their third album
  • August 7, 2002 – Ian Paice releases instructional video “Not For The Pros”

For Further Information:

Listener Mail/Comments

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