Deep Purple

Deep Purple seem to be giving some of their new material an old-fashioned road test.

As captured in this fan-shot footage, the band debuted a pair of new songs during their Oct. 25 stop in Łódź, Poland. You can check them out as part of a 21-minute highlight reel from the show.

As guitarist Steve Morse recently revealed, the members of Deep Purple have already written what sounds like a significant amount of material for their next studio LP. Predicting they’d be in the studio “about the middle of January” next year, he said, “We’ve been working on the material, several writing sessions, and we have one more session before we actually start recording.”

Bassist Roger Glover told Ultimate Classic Rock that Bob Ezrin, who produced the band’s most recent effort, 2013’s Now What?!, will be back behind the boards for the new record — and credited Ezrin with breathing new life into their creative process. “He worked us. I think he inspired us,” said Glover. “His two words were, ‘Stretch out.’ I think we did stretch out.”

Ezrin may also be the one to thank for the new songs in Deep Purple’s set list. “It’s something we’ve avoided in the past, maybe because people get a glimpse of your new album on YouTube or something similar and it’s usually from an audience point of view and it’s crap sound, and we haven’t really finished writing the song,” Glover pointed out. “Things proliferate on the internet frighteningly. But Bob Ezrin said, ‘No, it’s a great thing to do; it creates interest’ and this, that and the other, so we might try that.”

New song starts at 6:26.

 
So, I've had the urge for a while to geek-out over a certain band: Deep Purple! I'm in no way a Purple aficionado but I have listened to a fair share of Purple in my life, since discovering Deep Purple In Rock in my father's old record collection when I was a kid. Mostly I've been listening to the classic MK II era of the band - and only hastily glanced over most of the 80's and 90's output - well time to rectify this! My plan is to go through their catalog chronologically and type out a small review for each album. All of the studio albums (19) with a few live releases thrown in (Deep Purple have well over 50 live albums so I'm not going to include all of those) I will add: Live In Concert, Made in Japan and Live In London. Good live albums that were released in the 70's and early 80's and are not later archival releases.

This will be pretty boring if it's just me who'll post review after review so I hope people will join in. But if not I'll probably do the album reviews anyways for my own enjoyment ;) Also there's no time line on this. I plan on giving each album a fair amount of attention before moving on to the next. :)

First up! Shades of Deep Purple (1968)
 
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SixesAlltheway said:
First up! Shades of Deep Purple (1968)
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This album (as well as In Rock) starts with what the Big Bang would have sounded like ("...And the Address")! It is interesting to notice that this album starts with keyboard, while In Rock begins with the full band dominated by guitar, which reflects who the musical leader of the band was at each period.

Although "One More Rainy Day" and "Love Help Me" are not really personal, the other numbers show that the seeds of what the band was to become were already here: loudness, proficiency and an ability to reinvent rock from already existing music, in the case of covers or "citations".

My favourite moments: "...And the Address", "Prelude: Happiness", "Mandrake Root", "Help", "Hey Joe"

EDIT: I forgot "Hush"!!! Shame on me
 
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Shades of Deep Purple (1968)

Deep Purple's inaugural album from 1968 - But don't expect a group of amateurs. At this time the group were already competent players and it shows on this album. It is a well played with quality arrangements, most of the songs driven by the organ playing by Lord, who with his bombastic and whirlwind playing lifts the songs.

The album is still an album of it's time and it is evident that the band hasn't quite found their own direction just yet.Particularly the voice of Rod Evans and the fuzzy warm atmosphere of tracks like Hush (an unexpected top 5 single in both the US and Canada) and the playfulness of some of the tunes leads the mind to American bands like Vanilla Fudge, Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield and the English group, The Nice, amongst others. But it's these traits that also help give the album it's sixties psychedelic feel.

Aforementioned Hush and Mandrake Root, a great groovy rock track that turns into chaotic goodness!, are perhaps the most well known songs from this album. The latter, a song that is perhaps most remembered as a live tune that would be expanded upon on stage into 30 min jam sessions. Other highlights include the rocking instrumental opener And The Address and Help a cover of The Beatles tune released three years prior in 1965. Definitely the best take on Help I've ever heard - slow and moody. Fitting to the song's lyrics. It sounds like something The Beatles could have done with the song if they wrote it during Rubber Soul or Revolver.

Closer, Hey Joe, turns the spotlight on Blackmore, who at the time was still an unknown young guitar player. But he would get more time to shine on the next album The Book of Taliesyn!

Highlights: And The Address, Hush, The fade from Happiness into I'm So Glad, Mandrake Root and Help.
 
I like this album, namely And The Address and Hush. I just have a hard time listening to it on a regular basis, it is an album that has good moments and good songs, but it really is an album rooted in 1968 and does not have that timeless quality that their later work has. A good first effort, but pretty low overall in their catalog IMO
 
bearfan said:
but it really is an album rooted in 1968 and does not have that timeless quality that their later work has.
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The voice of Rod Evans also does nothing to make the songs stand out from the pack of other sixties groups at the time. Very evident that once Gillan joined his distinct voice really helped propel the band and attract attention.

That said though Rod Evans has a great voice and it shouldn't deter anyone from seeking out the first three albums.
 
I agree

Evans does sing well, I am skipping a head a bit, but it was a combo of Gillan and the band settling on a sound that made them a special band versus a good band that if they stopped after the 3 albums would have been mostly forgotten by this point.
 
bearfan said:
I agree

Evans does sing well, I am skipping a head a bit, but it was a combo of Gillan and the band settling on a sound that made them a special band versus a good band that if they stopped after the 3 albums would have been mostly forgotten by this point.
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They fine tune their sound more on the third album Deep Purple, started moving in a much heavier direction which then resulted in letting Evans go after that. or perhaps in mutual agreement over the direction they were taking. But yeah - if Deep Purple had called it quits after the first three they would have been remembered as a talented group of musicians who never made it further except for that one hit single Hush and then some of the members, Blackmore, Lord, Paice etc would have infiltrated other groups or perhaps started something new - and the musical rock landscape would look a whole lot different today!

Black Bart said:
and Captain Beyond!
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...And Captain Beyond!
 
I want to share this clip with you. A fantastic clip of Deep Purple promoting Hush. I'm not sure for what or where it was used. Great song though, Hush :)

 
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The Book of Taliesyn (1968)

Released just three months after the first album to capitalize on the sudden and unexpected chart success of Hush from the first album and to send the band out on tour with more material. Given the short amount of time they had to come up with songs, the album is like the first album a mix of own compositions and lengthy jam covers. Mysteriously titled after a Welsh manuscript (Llyfr Taliesin) with some of the oldest Welsh praise songs and poems to a poet called Taliesin. Only one song seems to be about that in particular though, the opener Listen, Learn, Read On:

"Now hear ye the words of Taliesyn,
On the foaming beach of the ocean,
In the day of trouble,
I shall be of more service to thee
Than three hundred salmon"

The hare he bounds across the page
Past castles white and fair
Past dreaming chessmen on their boards
With a fool's mate as a snare

So listen, so learn, so read on
You gotta turn the page, read the Book of Taliesyn"

After the adventurous opener follows Wring That Neck/Hard Road, a bluesy up tempo track that does little but to act as a solo outlet for Lord and Blackmore. Both delivering pretty good solos on their respective instruments. But overall it's not actually that special on record - live it would become a different beast.Same goes for Kentucky Woman really. Great playing but it's a middle of the road kinda song - except for the organ fills of course! My absolute favorite track on this album is the hypnotic Shield that builds a nice atmospheric feeling with Evans proving he is a versatile singer. Jon Lord provides more of that organ percussion we heard on Hush and the song develops into a lengthy jam with percussion and a nice slow guitar solo by Blackmore. The song also has some of the best lyrics the band had done up until that point:

Mama plays a queen on the hill built on a dream
While the children play in the field
Papa smokes the pipe of a sweet and better life
But how strong is the shield?
Can peace be found on the carpet above ground
Where sky is forever blue

So let it pass baby now, the slow and riding cloud
Which may take me from you

Many things a man can lose
His self, his rights, his views
But never his heart or his love
So take this hand of mine and climb baby, climb
To the hill up above

Now you can play a queen on the hill built on a dream
While our children play in the field
I can smoke the pipe of a sweet and better life
And trust in the strength of the shield


Anthem is not really my cup of tea. I know I just complemented Evans for his versatility - but on this song it sounds like he wants to be Elvis Presley. But musically it shows that Deep Purple weren't afraid of experimentation and Jon Lords fascination with bringing together rock and classical music comes to light here in the middle segment that gets the full baroque treatment. Great guitar playing by Blackmore here too. The album ends with Deep Purple including "Also Sprach Zarathrustra" into the opening of River Deep, Mountain High. It's interesting but I don't feel it works that well.

I still prefer the first album to this, even if musically the band is great on Taliesyn. had Shield and the opner been on the first one, it would have been a near pearfect album.Overall, this album shows a very experimental and adventurous band who weren't afraid of drawing inspiration from a wide variety of sources. Purple's idea at the time to fuse classical and rock was rather groundbreaking and could be seen as a sort of starting point of symphonic progressive rock - but poor sales and recognition steered them in a much more hard rock direction on the next album....
 
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I generally agree with you on this one, there are some cool elements in Taliseyn, but the songs just do not work as well as the first album. You can certainly hear some future Purple elements -- mostly from Lord on this album, but they do not have the great riffs they would really be known for yet. Not a bad album at all, I listened to it yesterday for the first time in at least 10 years and it will probably be another 10 before I do it again. It is really nothing special
 
I'm not a fan of Mk I.
Mk II - first three albums are staples of hard rock/heavy metal of the '70s. Who Do We Think We Are is an album full of fillers, boring as hell. Perfect Strangers rules, it's a great ride from beginning to the end. The Battle Rages On has some great tracks, but it isn't that strong of an album. House Of Blue Light is, like WDWTWA (lol!) full of fillers and generic sound - again bad relations between Gillan and Blackmore reflect in the same way.
Mk III - Burn is better than Stormbringer by a wide margin
Mk IV - Their sole album has two great tracks - Comin' Home and You Keep On Moving. Listen to remasters from two years ago, they're really good!
Mk V - I can't stand JTL for the most part. The Cut Runs Deep is a cool song, but would be almost filler if we were talking Mk II glory days.
Mk VI - Totally unfamiliar territory. It's not that I didn't hear anything from them, it's the stuff I heard, wasn't interesting enough to keep exploring. I did catch them in 2007 and the show was great, and so was Morse's performance.

The most recent Purple stuff I'm listening to are '94 shows with Satch.
 
Right you are @bearfan , Book of Taliesyn is that weird transition piece between being deeply rooted in the late sixties (Shades of Deep Purple) with the tradition of rendering hit songs into psychedelic rock that was popular at the time, and trying to find their own sound (the fuse between classical music and rock that they attempted on this)..It all comes together much better on the next album IMO.

Still musically it's very good, just not very cohesive or developed yet.
 
An album that I find a bit better than the first one, possibly because of the more perceptible psychedelic feel, which is rather odd for Deep Purple compared to their other albums.
My favorite song on it is "Shield", precisely because of its atmosphere, whose eeriness echoes the beginning of "River Deep Mountain High", another album favorite of mine.
I prefer "Wring That Neck" in a live setting but the seeds of this great showcase of musicianship are here. I also think "Anthem" is a bit weaker but the instrumental section is great.
Finally, as much as I love the Beatles, the cover of "We Can Work It Out" is not a success in my opinion.
 
Black Bart said:
Finally, as much as I love the Beatles, the cover of "We Can Work It Out" is not a success in my opinion.
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Agree, the intro piece just feels too hitched on and when they do break into "We Can Work It Out" I feel the song really misses the groove of the original and that Blackmore's guitar licks are too obstructive really. Shame. Help was much more well written, they really made that one their own. A sad psych song :)
 
I am planning to play every album in sync with the Sixes reviews (thumbs up for the initiative).
I think I prefer the debut over the second album, but the track Shield was memorable! Very nice atmosphere on this one, I love the piano sound on it.
 
Alright Foro :) I'm discovering or re-discovering many of these albums myself as we go a long. Do feel free to join in, the more the merrier :ok:
 
Forostar said:
I am planning to play every album in sync with the Sixes reviews (thumbs up for the initiative).
I think I prefer the debut over the second album, but the track Shield was memorable! Very nice atmosphere on this one, I love the piano sound on it.
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I think Nic Simper's sound too is really interesting, mesmerizing at times... but the best example is on the album to come! ;)
 
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I've been putting Deep Purple off for a long time, I don't know why. Before you started to do the reviews I had only listened to In Rock till Burn, but now you made me want to go back to my Deep Purple exploring. I'm going to listen to all the albums as you do the reviews. :)

I already finished listening to the first two and I found them very different from the Deep Purple I knew with all those amazing and memorable riffs. They are not bad albums as I thought they would be, but they feel a bit dated and clearly shows a band trying to create their own sound. I think John Lord and Blackmore are the big highlights of the two albums, it's in their playing that we first hear the elements that would turn Deep Purple into this iconic band. I liked the first album more, I think it's more consistent. Although, Shield is really nice and Wring That Neck is a song that best showcases the elements that the band would be known for.
 
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