As an institution in the British hard rock community, Deep Purple, is widely known for ear-shattering volume.  Deep Purple was formed in Hertford, England in 1968 as a progressive rock band featuring guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, vocalist Rod Evans,

Deep Purple

Well, we were not a happy band. There was always an edginess to our relationship, even in the early days, but it was edginess that gave birth to a lot of creativity.

As an institution in the British hard rock community, Deep Purple, is widely known for ear-shattering volume.  Deep Purple was formed in Hertford, England in 1968 as a progressive rock band featuring guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, vocalist Rod Evans, bassist Nick Simper, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice.  Over the years, this band has endured many changes in line-up, even an eight-year hiatus, but still boasts a record of having sold over 100 million albums worldwide.

Deep Purple has been known to incorporate elements of classical music, blues, and pop but they are still known as pioneers of heavy metal and hard rock music.  Their debut album, Shades of Deep Purple, is said to be the most pop-oriented album of their career though it still generated a Top Five American hit in the cover of Joe South’s Hush. 

The Book of Taliesyn, Deep Purple’s next album reached the Top 40 list and included a cover of Neil Diamond’s Kentucky Woman.  By the release of their third album in 1969, titled Deep Purple, the band had begun to experiment with a variety of styles and instruments.  The songs on the Deep Purple album reflected a new level of complexity, containing strings, woodwinds, and a greater focus on Lord’s classical keyboarding. 

After three successful albums and a number of tours, Tetragrammaton, the recording label for Deep Purple, went out of business leaving the band broke and unsure about their future.  Combined with the folding of their record label, the dismissal of vocalist Evans and bassist Simper called for a rebirth of the band.  Roger Glover became Simper’s replacement and Ian Gillan took the reins on vocals and in the early 1970’s the group released an album recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra titled Concerto for Group and Orchestra.  This project was not well-received and several of the band members mourned the deviation from the hard-rock style.  Thus, in their next album Deep Purple in Rock the group sought to distance themselves from the tamer styles of their past and move into a heavier sound.

This album heralded a period of popularity and success for the band and included hit singles like Speed King, Black Night and Child in Time.  The Fireball and Machine Head albums followed in quick succession and included one of the band’s most popular songs, Smoke on the Water.  The albums which followed Machine Head began to take on a heavier blues-rock feel and tension within the band led to Gillan quitting followed by the departure of Blackmore 2 years later.  Refusing to give up, the band hired on American Tommy Bolin which resulted in the Come Taste the Band album in 1975.  The release of this album received mixed reviews but its overall effect was to bring a new edge to the band but it was sadly not enough to keep them alive – the band broke up in 1976. 

After eight years, Deep Purple held a reunion with the classic line-up and released the album Perfect Strangers which sold well and launched a successful tour.  In 1994, Steve Morse signed on with the band as guitarist and in 1996 the group released Perpendicular which was well-received by faithful fans of the band.  Throughout the remainder of their career, Deep Purple released several collections and despite all of the chaos within the band itself, their popularity stood strong in the 21^st century.

Did you know…
-  Deep Purple was initially called Roundabout, assembled as a session band for Chris Curtis, ex-drummer of the Searchers
-  The famous Smoke on the Water song was inspired by a fire during a Frank Zappa and Mothers of Invention gig which burned down the casino in which the concert was being held
-  The Guinness Book of World Records once named Deep Purple the loudest band on the planet

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