And so Deep Purple begins

What did you do at the weekend just gone? Me I walked round to the shops for some bread rolls and a Saturday paper, did a bit of weeding in the garden and gave a talk on pre-War commercial street photography.

What did Derek Lawrence do with his weekend just gone fifty years ago? Only produced (with the help of a BBC Sound Effects LP!) the first Deep Purple album Shades Of Deep Purple. Happy 50th Deep Purple!

Yes we know they did some shows before, and a few demos, but to me that trip to the Pye basement studios (at ATV house) near Marble Arch meant it all suddenly got real. How could they cut an album so quickly? Well they’d rehearsed and done most of the material either live or in previous groups, so it was all fairly well bedded in. Plus they were damn good musicians. And they had no more budget!

Derek did a bit more work on the Monday, cut and mastered the first (proposed) single later in the week, EMI got on board, and the rest is, well history. History which continues to prove fascinating for many, and music which has given millions pleasure over those fifty years.

The studio? Pye were there until 1989 in one guise or another, but the Sixties building where so many other great recordings were also made was demolished in 2003.

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East Coast Blackmore

Blackmore’s Night have announced seven shows around the East Coast of America for July 2018. Each show is a passport to a time gone by according to their press release. Thanks to Tom Dixon for sending this on. Dates added to our diary page.

Fifty once

Classic Rock have pushed the boat out with a Deep Purple cover issue on sale now. Some of us have been admiring the cover art too, would look great as a poster. It’s actually quite a strange image, familiar but not quite right. The answer turns out that it really is a montage – Ritchie’s head is from a 1969 pic, the rest of him from Mk3 days! Frankenpurple.

Not been into town to buy a copy yet but several people have. Tom Dixon reckons “the angle this time is the justifiable, inarguable fact that shows “how the Deep Purple Family tree ruled rock” Inevitably for most of us there is nothing new but they do interview all the members (bar Morse, and Blackmore of course) and even do a ‘special’ on the Butterfly Ball. Airey gets a couple of pages too to expand on Moore in particular with a sidebar on Simon McBride as he has featured with Don a few times and is on his forthcoming album. Warhorse, and Captain Beyond get a brief appearance. Some nice period pics too. Nicely put together piece on the huge influence the band and its’ many members have had on rock.” There is a sample CD with the magazine featuring a few old Purple label tracks.

Funnily enough we were watching the lengthy Jeff Beck special on BBC4 TV the other day and were quite touched by the way Cozy Powell was bigged up when they came to talking about The Jeff Beck Group (and nice to see a bit of rare footage too). Jeff says he got his label to organise the auditions, and when he turned up they pointed Cozy out and said “forget the rest”, some of whom were already packing their drum sticks away! The show is on iPlayer.

 

Purple Dates

Deep Purple have announced another batch of concerts. They are kicking off in the third week of August in the USA, Cincinnati on the 21st and running right through to the very end of September. Tickets are on sale from today. The band then head over to Japan for five shows. Nothing listed for Tokyo yet but there is some leeway for them to add a show there. In total this means the group are doing around 50 shows in the year, which does suggest they are easing off the workload a little.

The American shows are in partnership with Judas Priest.

The diary page (see menu on right) is now updated, and our thanks to Lutz Reinart, Greg Tarlinton and Tom Dixon for the extra information.

 

45 and counting

Forty five years ago this month someone was sweltering away in London hacking apart both Machine Head’s Smoke On The Water and the live version from Made In Japan. One of the execs at Warners had been to see Deep Purple on their American tour and seen the amazing reaction Smoke On The Water was getting on-stage, thanks to air-play on local radio across the country. A light-blub moment!
Five various edits were freighted over and they picked the shortest studio one and the longest live version (figuring it would be the flip side so it didn’t matter so much). A white label radio promotion copy was soon pressed up (see photo above) and release was set for mid May…

 

 

PS: if anyone has a GOOD clear scan of the label with the rubber stamped release date on do drop me a line, the scan we have is too low-res to use

Swiss time

Deep Purple return to play the Montreux Jazz Festival again this year, and appear on July 4th. They are headlining the Stravinski Auditorium (with support band). They last played here in 2016. My thanks to Lutz, Tom, Bo, Denis and everyone who sent me the update this week! Below, nice snap of fans waiting for an earlier show there, by Tiny Rager. One of those barriers would look good across the drive…

 

Joe Lynn Turner

Joe Lynn Turner was taken to hospital late last week having suffered from a myocardial infarction. Needless to say all live engagements are off for now, but JLT should be able to resume live work after a good rest and the right medication. This all happened over in Belarus where he now lives, and he was treated at a hospital in Minsk.

Photo of Joe Lynn Turner on stage with Graham Bonnet by Marko Syrjälä courtesy Easy On The Eye Books

Roger on bass

Roger Glover is joining his old mate Pete York’s Rock and Blues Circus for a tour of Germany in November/December 2018. Dates are on our diary page.
The other musicians are: Pete York, Miller Anderson, Zoot Money and Albie Donnelly.

Thanks to Luts Reinert for the info and the flyer below.

Ticket prices rise

I try not to look at auctions sites too often, but occasionally items are flagged up which fit with our archive remit, negatives and memorabilia (I got a nice letter signed by IG recently, sent out to publicise the launch of his studio in 1973, as it helps fill in a gap in his immediate post-Purple history.).  However even I was astonished to see an original ticket for one of the 1972 Made In Japan concerts sell for $2,000 recently. I think someone bought it early to close the auction too, so they must have been keen!
This comes not long after the sale of a Norwegian issue of Hush / One More Rainy Day in a picture sleeve which fetched £1753 according to our friend George Costantini who follows these things closely. This is a real rarity even though the sleeve has the same front design as elsewhere, as so few were pressed.
A recent issue of Record Collector rounded up some of the other top prices which include a rare acetate of One More Rainy Day / Hush which fetched £652.
Mint or clean copies of Deep Purple first pressings continue to attract a lot of interest as well, arguably these are the closest to the artist’s vision for the record as they would have approved these. A first press Book of Taliesyn went for a shade under £500 and a stereo first press Shades fetched £361. One item which was on many collector’s lists does seem to have come down in price, that’s the Japan red vinyl issue of The Concerto, which sold for £218. My thanks to Tom Dixon for his help.

 

Don’s solo

Don Airey is releasing a new solo CD out soon, a bit more of a rock themed offering apparently. It will also come with a live CD from his recent support shows. He was quite poorly with pneumonia for a time causing him to pull out of some of the concerts but is on the mend. Thanks to Tom Dixon. Photo courtesy Mascot Records.