Tribute band?

Blimey.  It’s hardly the world’s best kept secret that Metallica are quite fond of a Deep Purple tune, but this new single pushes the envelope a bit – though we cannot rule out them having cleared it with Ritchie’s legal team first!  Anyway have a go and see how long it takes you to spot it.  No prizes!

If you find listening to that much modern Metallica a struggle (and it is quite lacklustre to be honest) then ping on to around 3.25.  The video itself is really nicely done though, a text book of how grown up rockers don’t need to make prats of themselves for MTV.  If MTV is even a thing any more.

Thanks to Tim Summers.

Speedy King

Another group tackling the Deep Purple back catalogue, this time Saxon who have an album of cover versions due, featuring the tracks which inspired them as metal mad kids in sunny Barnsley all those years ago (I had a targeted email advert for retirement flats there only this morning – somebody at DHSS has been selling my personal data!). Speed King is amongst the set, taken at a blistering pace and with more extreme American style guitar histrionics than is perhaps good for you. It’s not my cup of Yorkshire tea that’s for sure but might find some admirers out there and some nice vintage rally footage slung together for the on screen video. What it proves if nothing else is that you can’t do Deep Purple without Jon Lord’s sound. Thanks to John Tucker for the heads up. SR

Little Richard

So exactly why should we be marking the passing of Little Richard here?  Well, Deep Purple In Rock would not have been the same without Richard’s trail blazing contributions to rock’n roll for starters.  Speed King in particular owes even more, with Ian Gillan quoting lyrics from Little Richard classics throughout (to brilliant effect).  Deep Purple often featured manic versions of Lucille and Good Golly Miss Molly (the latter with keyboard work Richard himself would be proud of) as encores for chunks of Mk 2’s early career (check out the amazing version of the former on the BBC In Concert 1972 set in particular).  Cut during the mid-Fifties, these songs and many other Little Richard hits were instrumental in the development of the individual musicians growing up. Check out how closely Ritchie would reference the original guitar break in Lucille.  And we shouldn’t forget The Outlaws’s cover of Keep A Knockin’ which was based closely on Little Richard’s version (Zepp later nicked the 1957 drum intro), while Richard did also cut a track called Baby Face…

Our photo was taken in Manchester in 1964 when Richard played the famous Oasis Club to a packed and reverential crowd, backed by The Dakotas (courtesy Easy On The Eye Books).

Auto Repair

This tickled us seen by Simon in a dusty shop window over in Bridlington a couple of years ago.  It’s probably still there (the shop is just by the walk way at the top of the harbour).  A set of strange ‘Dad’ mugs with various faux adverts on the side and themed handles.  So this Speed King mug advertises an auto repair business with a scooter handle, the snooker hall one has balls…  well, we are in saucy seaside postcard territory here!  As Simon pointed out at the time, if it had just been the mug he might have parted with some of his holiday money, but not with the silly handle. And anyway as readers of the fab Deep Purple In Rock book will know, the song title was inspired by a chain of laundrettes Roger spotted in London,

Long Beach 71

There’s something about old tape reels boxes which sparks the archivist in me (it’s in the blood – my great Grandfather’s collections became the first Hull Museum). The batch on this shelf have been looked after for forty years by a former DJ and engineer who worked for a college radio station out in California. Long John Baldry… Chuck Berry… and Deep Purple?
As well as doing a radio show he also worked with one of the big local area sound companies Tychobrae (one of whose engineers later opened a studio where Mk 4 auditioned and rehearsed) and together with them recorded a few shows for airing locally, with the permission of the bands.
At the end of July 1971 a three band tour arrived in town and the DJ, Eliot, recorded them. His deal was that if the band’s cleared it, he could then air the tape on his show. The Faces wouldn’t play ball and asked for the tapes back (leaving Eliot $20 out of pocket for the cost!). Matthew’s Southern Comfort gave permission and so did Deep Purple.
The reels are of course the long lost Long Beach July 30. 1971 performance. Southern Comfort opened the show, with Deep Purple on second. Legend has it that they worked their socks off and gave The Faces something to think about. Even though the tour was in support of the newly issued Fireball album, the band only did one new track, the single Strange Kind Of Woman (just out on Warners and included on the new album). Speed King and Child In Time came either side and they ended with a lengthy Mandrake Root.
After some of the show was aired American bootleggers produced the Hard Road bootleg, and other titles since have used tracks (one even appeared officially albeit cleaned up off vinyl on the CD New Live & Rare) but we always wondered how the show came to be taped and hoped that someone might have kept the broadcast reels. And what’s more, there is also a stereo mix.
Eliot has dug back through his written archive. “My last radio show at KPPC FM was a 1-hr. show at midnight in early 1973. I’ve been going through my garage and found and old calendar book.  This is what the show consisted of: It opened with Dr. John; Deep Purple live; Sunny Terry and Brownie McGee; Jimmy Hendrix doing Dolly Dagger. ..”
Sounds worth staying in for to me! Negotiations are going on to place the various bands he has (we wish him luck with Randles Island!) but we’re hoping a deal can be done to secure the Deep Purple reels for release (and for this reason we have not given out Eliot’s full name as we don’t want to pre-empt this).

While we’re looking at archives, there has been some progress on soundboard tapes of Mk 4 captured by an engineer including US and UK gigs. And that Mk 1 show from 1969 has also fickered into life again as well. We will try and bring you updates on those. Needless to say whether any of these will appear on CD soon is another matter, but we live in hope.