Deep Purple - Machine Head

For those who don’t already know it, here’s the story of the making of Machine Head:  Deep Purple didn’t like recording studios.  They would rather record anywhere but a recording studio.  Other bands didn’t like them much either.  Led Zeppelin was famous for recording much of their untitled fourth album and most of Physical Graffiti with a mobile studio at a house called Headley Grange.  The Rolling Stones built a mobile recording studio so they could record at Mick Jagger’s house, Stargroves.  They used it to record the bulk of Sticky Fingers in 1970 and Exile on Main Street in 1972.  The Who used the Mobile to record Won’t Get Fooled Again for Who’s Next.  So recording an album anywhere but a proper studio in London was becoming less and less of an unusual thing.  DP had played in the Casino in Montreux, Switzerland in in spring 1971.  It was a regular stop on the European touring circuit.  It was the home of the Montreux Jazz Festival.  Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd had also performed there.  They liked the place and decided to record there if they had the chance.  DP went to Montreux to record a new album, and took the Rolling Stones Mobile with them.   

 

When they arrived in Montreux in December 1971, they were greeted with gift baskets from Claude Nobs, the founder and director of the Montreux Jazz Festival.  Included in the gift baskets were tickets to see a matinee show of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.  Since FZ was playing the Casino, DP decided not to unload their equipment until after FZ was gone [a most fortuitous decision].  During the FZ show, somebody shot a flare gun from behind where Ian Gillan was sitting.  The flare got stuck in the wooden trunking above the stage and caught the building on fire.  I was listening to a bootleg of the FZ show last night, and you can hear FZ directing people to calmly head for the exits on the sides of the building.  In a matter of a few minutes the Casino turned into an inferno.  While people were evacuating the building Nobs knew of some places where people might hide to get away from the flames.  He kept going into the building and pulling people out of these hidden places.  As the smoke rose from the Casino, drafts from the nearby Swiss Alps pushed the smoke out over Lake Geneva, hence the title Smoke on the Water.

Montreux Casino [pre-fire]

The Casino Fire

The Mobile Studio

With the Casino in ruins, the band had no place to record.  Claude Nobs found them a place called Le Pavilion, located in the center of Montreux.  They recorded one song there [called 'Title #1'] before they got complaints about the noise from the townspeople of Montreux.  Their roadies held off the police just long enough for them to finish 'THE take.'  Claude Nobs found them a more suitable, more isolated location to record.  The location was the Grand Hotel. It was a hotel that was closed for the season.   Jon Lord described it as a very forbidding place, a Victorian-era pile.  They found an alcove at the end of a corridor off the main lobby to record in.  It was a "T" shaped alcove, so that's where they stuck Ian Paice's drum kit.  The rest of the band recorded in the corridor.  They parked the Rolling Stones Mobile studio outside the front door, so it took some gymnastics to get from the recording area to the Mobile to hear any playbacks.  Maybe it was because of this set-up that the band usually nailed a song in only one or two takes.

Le Pavilion
 

The Grand Hotel

Highway Star - This was the only song the band had written and performed before they went to Switzerland to record Machine Head.  During a fall tour of the UK in 1971, Deep Purple and some members of the music press were taking a bus to a gig in Portsmouth.  On this trip, they asked "how do you write a song?"  Ritchie Blackmore said 'like this,' picked up a guitar and started playing a one-note rhythm part.  Ian Gillan started to ad-lib a vocal about being on the road in a rock and roll band. A song was born.  When they got to Portsmouth Guild Hall, the rest of the band worked out the song during the soundcheck, and Highway Star was in the set that night. Roger Glover said that about the only things he contributed to Highway Star were the title [he was the band's 'title' man] and a few words.  It's mostly Ian Gillan's lyrics. Ritchie did most of the music.  Jon Lord came up with the chords over which he played his solo. He called it a quasi-Bach chord sequence.  He showed these chords on the Classic Albums episode for Machine Head.  Some and members didn’t think it would work, but Ritchie thought it would, and would be proven to be right.  As for Ritchie, he usually made up his solos of the cuff, but for Highway Star he worked one out ahead of time and committed it to memory.  Ritchie once confirmed the chord sequence was, like Jon Lord’s part, inspired by Bach.  His solo is probably his best in Deep Purple.  Roger Glover called Highway Star the quintessential Deep Purple song.

Maybe I'm a Leo - This song originated from a Roger Glover riff.  On the Classic Albums series, he said he got the idea for the riff after hearing John Lennon’s song How Do You Sleep [from Imagine].  He liked the idea that the riff didn’t start on the down beat.  Gov’t Mule covered this song on their The Deep End, Volume 1 CD.  It was one of Allen Woody’s favorite songs so Warren Haynes decided to cover it.  As a bonus, Roger Glover played on their version.

Pictures of Home - This is Ian Gillan being homesick, singing about 'emptiness, eagles and snow' [though there weren't any eagles].  Jon Lord said he thought Ritchie got the idea for the song from a short wave radio that he kept hidden in his hat [he used to wear pilgrim hats back then - see below].  Ritchie did hear the riff from either Bulgaria or Turkey on his short wave radio. The revelation on this song was Ian Paice’s drumming.   Included besides the Blackmore/Lord interplay, Roger Glover played a brief bass solo.  On the deluxe version of Machine Head, Roger Glover [who remixed the album for the deluxe release] opted to let the song progress to its conclusion rather than to fade it.  During that extended ending you can hear Ian Paice make up the drum bits on the fly.  Paicey demonstrated what a truly talented drummer he is.

       

Never Before – This song closes out Side One.  The band was very sure this would be a hit single.  Little did they know the next song on the album would be the big hit, not this one.  It’s a good song, but not a great one.  I’ve heard one live version – from the In Concert 1970-72 album of BBC shows.  They rarely played it live.  On their 2004 tour they played it because they were playing the entire Machine Head album for the tour.

Smoke on the Water – On the live Made in Japan album Ian Gillan introduced this song thusly - “This song is also from the last album.  It tells the story of how we recorded it and what went wrong when we did it.  It happened in Switzerland – the song is a thing called Smoke on the Water…”  This was 'Title #1' that the band recorded at Le Pavilion.  Ritchie came up with the riff, one of the most simple, indestructible and unforgettable riffs in rock history.  It is such an insistent riff that when you hear it you can't get it out of your head.  People used to tease Ritchie about the riff's simplicity, but his comeback to that was always 'what about Beethoven's Fifth?'  Then his teasers would shut up.  As for the riff itself, don't strum it - pluck it.  Roger came up with the title in a dream.  The words are mostly Gillan's.  He tells the entire story of the recording of Machine Head all in one song.  On the deluxe version of Machine Head, as the song is ending you can hear Gillan say "ah, break a leg, Frank..."  The show Frank Zappa did after the disaster in Montreux was at London's Rainbow Theatre.  For some reason, a member of the audience who was jealous of FZ, leaped on stage and pushed him into the orchestra pit.  He broke his leg, his pelvis and fractured his larynx.   This incident nearly killed him.   It was not a good week for FZ.  Of note, the fire in Montreux and the assault on him in London happened during the same song [King Kong].

We all came out to Montreux

On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky, smoke on the water

They burned down the gamblin' house,
It died with an awful sound
and Funky Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids out the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place
But Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky, smoke on the water

We ended up at the Grand Hotel
It was empty cold and bare
But with the Rolling truck Stones thing just outside
Making our music there
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know, I know we'll never forget
Smoke on the water, a fire in the sky, smoke on the water…

Lazy – Deep Purple plays the blues with a long introduction from Jon Lord.  Ritchie’s riff sounds like Steppin’ Out, an old blues song Cream used to play in concert.  The guitar/organ back and forth went on for over four minutes until Gillan started to sing.  He didn’t sing much – he didn’t have to because the soloists were driving the song.  In concert, Jon Lord’s long intro got even longer.  His Hammond would be so overdriven and distorted it sounded like a spaceship about to land.

Space Truckin' - Ian Gillan thought it might be cool to combine the ideas of rock and roll and space travel in one song.  He was inspired somewhat by the old "Keep on Truckin'" cartoon from the early '70s.  Gillan demonstrates why he was one of the greatest hard rock singers of his generation.  He could do a scream and sing at the same time, and you could understand him when he did it.  My son and I still don’t know how he did that without losing his voice for a week.  [Note:  he’s 67 now and can’t do it like that anymore…]  Ian Paice got to show off for about 30 seconds before the whole band comes back full throttle with Gillan screaming at the top of his lungs.  In concert, this 4 and a half minute song stretched out to over twenty minutes.  They added the instrumental part from Mandrake Root onto the end of Space Truckin’, where both Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore would solo their brains out.  I saw them do this in ’85 – most excellent!

When a Blind Man Cries – This is the song that didn’t make Machine Head.  It ended up as the B-side of the single Never Before.  It’s a ballad that Ritchie didn’t like.  They never played it live when he was around.  I don’t know why he didn’t like it because his playing is very emotional, like any good blues player.  Someone else must have written it.  Immediately after Ritchie left the band for the final time in 1993, this song has been a staple of the band’s setlists.

DP recorded Machine Head in two weeks in December 1971.  They just went in, wrote the songs on the spot, banged them out, and they were done.  That kind of efficiency is unheard of these days.  It cost them £8,000 to make the album, £5,000 of which was rent for the Mobile.  Machine Head ended up becoming a good chunk of DP’s setlist until this particular line-up [Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord, & Paice] broke up in June 1973.  A live document of the tour that supported Machine Head was released as Made In Japan [December 1972 – UK, April 1973 – US].

DP had been on the constant album/tour/album/tour treadmill since these five guys came together in 1969.  The cracks were starting to appear, and you can find them in Ian Gillan’s lyrics.

Here in this prison
Of my own making
Year after day I have grown
Into a hero
But there's no worship
Where have they hidden my throne... Pictures of Home

Had a friend once in a room

Had a good time but it ended much too soon

In a cold month in that room

We found a reason for the things we had to do… When a Blind Man Cries

This is foreshadowing of the problems that led to this line-up disintegrating.  The problems apparently began during the making of Fireball.  Blackmore wanted to continue in the heavy rock direction of Deep Purple In Rock, while Gillan wanted to experiment, be more “progressive” [whatever that means].  Blackmore and Gillan didn’t see eye-to-eye, and the overwork from constant touring didn’t help.  The DP Mark II lineup wouldn’t last long after Machine Head.

Machine Head is a very good album.  With Highway Star, Lazy, Space Truckin’ and Smoke on the Water, it’s a bonafide classic.  If you’re a serious hard rock fan, you need a copy.  Absolutely essential.

As a postscript, I read that Claude Nobs died at age 76 last week from injuries he sustained in a Nordic skiing accident.  It is not an understatement to say that were it not for him, Machine Head wouldn’t have been made.  Rock in peace, Funky Claude.

Claude Nobs

February 4, 1936 – January 10, 2013

Rainbow Rising

It all started when Ritchie Blackmore wanted Deep Purple to record a song from a band called Quatermass.  The song’s name – Black Sheep in the Family.  Deep Purple took a pass on the song, so Ritchie recorded it with another band.  In 1974, Deep Purple recorded the Stormbringer album.  He had no use for the funk and soul music favored by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes [who replaced Ian Gillan and Roger Glover in 1973, respectively].  Having expressed his distaste for what he called “shoeshine music,” Ritchie left Deep Purple in 1975 to form Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow.  Blackmore’s band was Elf [minus their guitar player] and included singer Ronnie James Dio.  This band recorded Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, which included the aforementioned Black Sheep in the Family.  It also included the AOR classic Man on the Silver Mountain and the moody ballad Catch a Rainbow.  

After recording the album, Ritchie sacked the entire band [except Dio].  In their places, Blackmore hired Cozy Powell [drums], Jimmy Bain [bass], and Tony Carey [keyboards].  The new Rainbow toured, and then they recorded an album – Rainbow Rising.  Rainbow Rising is a short record – six songs at just over 33 minutes.  But the elements of the Rainbow sound – Ritchie Blackmore’s classically-tinged lead guitar, Cozy Powell’s relentless drumming, Ronnie James Dio’s superhuman vocals – they’re all here.  The first four songs are just that – songs that have nothing to do with each other.  But the final two songs, which occupy all of what used to be Side 2 – Stargazer and A Light in the Black – tell a story.  Musically the songs take on a bit of a baroque character.  This can be attributed to Ritchie Blackmore having taken up learning the cello.  He wrote some of the songs using a cello – he wanted to try a new, unfamiliar tool for songwriting.

The songs:

Tarot Woman – Tony Carey starts things with a spacey 1:15-long synthesizer opening, after which Ritchie Blackmore starts playing a riff for about 20 seconds, when Cozy Powell comes storming in.  Ritchie and the Bain/Powell rhythm section gallop along while Dio sings about a mysterious woman he doesn’t want anything to do with.  At 3:20 Ritchie starts a jaw-dropping minute-long solo that’s equal to anything he did with Deep Purple.

Run With the Wolf – Werewolves!  Dio felt the need to write a song about werewolves.  This song and Starstruck are short, catchy tunes which would have been at home on a Deep Purple album.  Perhaps rocking songs like these would have made Stormbringer easier to listen to.

Starstruck – Here’s the story of RJD [or perhaps Ritchie Blackmore] being unable to shake off a stalking groupie who “wants a souvenir.”  No matter where he goes, there she is [If I'm away from home and think I'm all alone, she's there, somewhere… I could fly to the moon, but she'd soon find a way to be there…].

Do You Close Your Eyes – This is the only real clunker on Rainbow Rising.  Luckily for us, it’s also the shortest song [3:02].  The tune is good, but the lyrics are just plain bad.  For years, Ronnie James Dio said he wouldn’t write songs along the line of “hey baby, let’s make love under a tree.”  And yet, here’s a song the expresses almost that exact sentiment – Do you close your eyes when you making love, yeah, yeah /Making sweet love to me, yeah… Please…I expect much better from RJD. 

Stargazer – The story of an evil wizard who enslaves those around him.  For nine years this evil wizard forces his people to build him a tower made of stone so that he can watch the stars and so that he can fly [High noon, oh I'd sell my soul for water/Nine years' worth of breakin' my back].  This wizard is omnipresent - There's no sun in the shadow of the wizard… The task of building the wizard’s tower is all-consuming [In the heat and the rain with whips and chains, just to see him fly, so many die/We built a tower of stone with our flesh and bone just to see him fly/Don't know why, now where do we go?] When all is done, the wizard climbs the completed tower.  Ritchie’s solo is like listening to the guy climb to ever-increasing heights until the wizard gets to the top.  But when he tries to fly, he falls to his death instead.  Ritchie’s slide down the neck of his guitar is the wizard falling to his death.  When he was in Deep Purple, Ritchie was wary of playing with orchestras, but on Stargazer Rainbow is accompanied by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.  Their arrangement gives the song a bit of a haunting, Eastern character.  The Rainbow/orchestra combination works very well.  Without a doubt, Stargazer is Rainbow’s crowning achievement.

A Light in the Black – The wizard from Stargazer is dead, but those whom he enslaved can’t believe their sudden emancipation [All my life it seems, just a crazy dream, reaching for somebody's star/ Can’t believe it all, did he really fall? What to do now I don’t know…].  The only thing to do is to go home, wherever “home” is.  They’ve been at the task of building the wizard’s tower for so long they don’t know what to do or how to feel [Breathed the air before, heard the thunder roar, never knew it was for me /Always looking down, lost and never found, eyes that looked but not to see…] Instrumentally, this song is like a Deep Purple song.  Tony Carey takes a one-minute mind-bending synth solo, Ritchie matches him note-for-note for about 30 seconds, then takes his own solo [4:06 – 5:43], then Tony Carey matches Ritchie note-for-note until Dio’s vocals come back.  The Blackmore/Carey interplay is like a lot what Ritchie did with Jon Lord in Deep Purple.  While Tony Carey and Ritchie are performing their musical gymnastics, Cozy Powell is hammering away while his double-bass drums sound like Rommel’s Panzers rolling across Africa.

Rainbow Rising was released in May 1976.  Rainbow would tour the rest of 1976 with the line-up that created Rainbow Rising.  But after 1976 turned to 1977, Jimmy Bain and Tony Carey would be out of the Rainbow picture.  The core of Ritchie Blackmore, Cozy Powell, and Ronnie James Dio would record one more album together – Long Live Rock and Roll [1978].  Afterwards, Ritchie decided he wanted Rainbow to sound like Foreigner.  When that happened, Dio split.  But Dio wouldn’t be unemployed for long.  He soon joined Black Sabbath and made Heaven and Hell [1980], but that’s another story.  Rainbow Rising is an essential part of any Ritchie Blackmore or Ronnie James Dio collection.  It is good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Deep Purple In Rock, Machine Head, and Burn.

Deep Purple In Rock

When one hears the name Deep Purple the thing that immediately comes to mind is Smoke on the Water and the album from whence it came, Machine Head.  Machine Head is a great album, but it isn’t my favorite.  That honor goes to Deep Purple In Rock [1970].  For the longest time Fireball was my favorite because it is so much different than either In Rock or Machine Head.  But the more I listened to it, the more In Rock grew on me.  Deep Purple never thought of themselves as a “heavy metal” band.  They were a hard rock band that had influences ranging from jazz to classical, folk to 1950s rock and roll to the blues.

At the end of the 1960s, there were three bands [very LOUD bands] that appeared as if from nowhere.  Led Zeppelin emerged from the ruins of the Yardbirds, and effortlessly incorporated British folk music and American blues into their sound.  Black Sabbath merely invented a genre – heavy metal.  With Geezer Butler’s lyrics of doom and Tony Iommi’s skull-crushing riffs, this was music for the apocalypse.  There was a third group began as a progressive rock band with classical influences – Deep Purple.  The instrumental focus of Zeppelin and Sabbath were their respective guitarists – Jimmy Page [Led Zeppelin] and Tony Iommi [Black Sabbath].  In my circle of friends, most liked either Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath.  I was the Deep Purple guy, because they had a two-headed monster in Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord.  Deep Purple’s sound had a lot to do with the sound of Jon Lord’s Hammond.  He fed his Hammond C-3 through a Marshall stack, which turned a piece of furniture into a smoke-belching beast.  As a guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore is a king among men. The combination of the two is just more interesting to me, musically.

The year was 1969 and Deep Purple was at a creative crossroads.  Both Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore wanted to take Deep Purple in a heavier direction.  Up until then, the band’s music was written mostly by Jon Lord and had touches of classical music thrown in the mix, but they knew they couldn’t carry on in that direction for very long.  They recorded covers from Joe South [Hush], Neil Diamond [Kentucky Woman] and the Beatles [Help!].  Jon Lord was the instrumental focal point for the band.  Ritchie wanted Deep Purple to go in the same musical direction as Led Zeppelin, a more riff-based approach.  Lord and Blackmore both concluded [along with drummer Ian Paice] that their then-current singer [Rod Evans] and bassist [Nick Simper] weren’t up to that challenge.  To solve their problem they recruited singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover from the band Episode Six.  Not only could Gillan go toe-to-toe with any rock vocalist of the day, as a bonus Gillan and Glover were also a songwriting team.  But before they could get into a studio to put something down, there is the not-so-small matter of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra. 

Apparently Jon Lord let slip that he wanted to do something like the Concerto sometime in the future.  Their managers overheard what he said, and before Jon Lord knew it the managers already had the Royal Albert Hall and the Royal Philharmonic booked.  Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore weren’t thrilled about the project, but they did it anyway.  If nothing else, Concerto for Group and Orchestra got Deep Purple noticed.  But since classical music was something the band was trying to get away from, Ritchie was dying to try things his way.  He told Jon Lord that if his way didn’t work he’d be happy to play with orchestras the rest of his life.  Luckily for us, Jon Lord scratched his musical itch and Ritchie got his way.  Once the Concerto was done, they gigged like mad.  They’d play about five shows a week, then they would record whenever they got a spare moment.  Such was Deep Purple’s workload.  On their “off days” they were in the studio creating something new. This was how Deep Purple In Rock was born.  The pattern would repeat on the follow-up, Fireball.  Though the Concerto was the new group’s first recorded effort, Deep Purple In Rock was the group’s proper debut in their new riff-based heavy rock direction.  During the recording of the album, a phrase that illustrated the band’s mindset was born – “can we have everything louder than everything else?”  Ian Gillan can be heard saying it between songs on Made In Japan.  To set the mood for the album, Ritchie Blackmore decreed:  “If it’s not dramatic or exciting, it has no place on this album.”  The songs that became Deep Purple In Rock were dramatic, and they were exciting.

The songs -

Speed King – The chaotic beginning [which the band referred to as “Woffle” – recorded separately from Speed King] was an unusual way to begin an album.  I think it was the band’s way of breaking with their past.  Roger Glover came up with the riff after Ritchie Blackmore told him he really liked Jimi Hendrix’s Fire.  Ian Gillan strung together bits of lyrics from songs like Good Golly Miss Molly and Tutti Frutti.  The song is not a drug song – it’s just about singing fast [I’m a speed king, can’t you hear me sing it/I’m a speed king/ See me fly…].  The song started out with piano instead of organ and was once called Kneel and Pray.  That version is on the 25^th Anniversary Edition of Deep Purple In Rock.  They made the right choice in sticking with the organ.  After Gillan sang the first couple of verses we the listeners are treated to Lord and Blackmore trading solos back and forth while Glover and Paice are playing the groove.  In a live setting, the Blackmore/Lord duel became more intense – for proof listen to the 25^th Anniversary edition of Made In Japan.  This is what set Deep Purple apart from Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.

Bloodsucker – A short song this one.  Not very memorable except for Gillan’s screaming – AAAAAGH NO NO NO!!!!  This was later recorded again with Steve Morse for Abandon [1998].  That version is titled Bludsucker.  I have no idea why they did that.

Child In Time – The masterpiece - this epic from Deep Purple is the band at its most intense.  According to the liner notes, Ian Gillan said “this is of a loser – it could be you.”  Jon Lord pinched the riff from a San Francisco group called It’s a Beautiful Day.  The song he borrowed it from was Bombay Calling.  Apparently It’s a Beautiful Day returned the favor by borrowing Wring That Neck for one of their songs.  This is Ian Gillan’s finest performance – ever.  He scaled three octaves up to a controlled scream.  How did he do that?  There is no way either Robert Plant or Ozzy Osbourne could do what Ian Gillan did on Child In Time - nor could anyone else for that matter.  While Jon Lord played the chords underneath, Ritchie played a 2:32 speed solo.  The longer the solo went, the faster it got.  With 21 seconds left Jon Lord joined him to finish the solo, almost as if they were racing each other to the finish.  That’s what I like about old Deep Purple – Jon Lord was able to match Ritchie Blackmore note for note.  After a couple of seconds of silence, Jon plays the organ riff again.  Then it was a race to the finish with Gillan screaming over all of it, then a thunderous crash to end it all.  Simply breathtaking…Luckily Gillan could still hit the high notes when I first saw Deep Purple in 1985.  He can’t hit them anymore.

Flight of the Rat – How does one follow Child In Time?  You follow it with eight minutes of hard-core riffage.  The riff has got Blackmore’s name all over it.  Powerful.  Relentless.  This would have been a great song to play live, but they never did.

Into the Fire – Roger Glover came up with this riff too.  He also said that lyrically it was a warning about drugs.  This is a good song, but not great.  Deep Purple wasn’t a “drug” band – they were a “drinking” band.  The hard drugs didn’t come into Deep Purple until Tommy Bolin and Glenn Hughes came along.

Living Wreck – This song is the quiet one from In Rock.  It would not have been out of place on Fireball.  I’m not sure how it made the cut, but it does serve as foreshadowing for Fireball.

Hard Lovin’ Man – Here is yet another riff from Roger Glover.  Jon Lord uncaged the Hammond beast on this one.  He fed his Hammond organ through Marshall amps instead of the usual Leslie speaker, giving the Hammond a more metallic, machine-like character.  This was Jon Lord’s live set-up, which accounts for his performance sounding as close to on stage performance as possible [though in the studio].  Not to be outdone, Ritchie Blackmore abused the hell out of his guitar.

Black Night – Recorded after the In Rock sessions were complete. It was an afterthought because the managers asked “where’s the single?” after they finished the album.  It wasn’t included on the album at the time, but later came out as part of the 25^th Anniversary disc.  After wracking their brains trying to come up with a song [they were NOT a singles band], they went to the pub and got pissed.  Afterward they came back to the studio and a song was born.  Ritchie Blackmore borrowed the riff from Ricky Nelson’s Summertime.  The words came about as the group sat around trying to come up with words that matched “black night.”  The band turned their noses up to singles, until this one became a Top 5 hit in the UK.

Cry Free – This outtake came out with the 25^th Anniversary disc.  Back in 1970 there were 20 minutes a side for a vinyl album.  This one didn’t make the cut, but it is no less urgent and aggressive than any of the other songs that made the album.

Jam Stew – an instrumental outtake that would be revived for a session album with Albert Lee called Green Bullfrog.

Also for the 25^th Anniversary disc, Roger Glover remixed three songs – Speed King, Black Night, and Flight of the Rat.  They sound as if the drums were cleaned up, and the vocals are clearer, but that’s about it.  Why he didn’t give the entire album the same treatment I haven’t a clue.

Jon Lord RIP

This is a blog I didn’t think I would write for years, but fate intervened.  This morning I received the sad news via the Internet that a brilliant musician, Jon Lord, had passed away.  Last year he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had been receiving treatments for that disease.  It was during one of those treatments that Mr. Lord had succumbed to a pulmonary embolism.  I had the pleasure to see Jon Lord with Deep Purple twice.  The first time was in 1985.  The album was Perfect Strangers.  The place was McNichols Arena in Denver, Colorado.  My circle of friends in college all loved Deep Purple, so when we heard they were reforming, we waited in the ticket line for four hours, and it was worth it.  We scored fourth row seats on the floor, and as fate would have it, we were on Jon Lord’s side of the stage.  It was quite a night.  The band played everything we wanted to hear.  In the cacophony of sound that was Deep Purple, it was quite the spectacle to see Jon Lord rocking his Hammond organ back and forth.  We all thought it might tip over at some point because a Hammond is a pretty heavy machine, but it never did.  The next time I saw Deep Purple was again in Denver, this time at the outdoor venue Fiddler’s Green.  They were touring in support of the album Abandon.  Dream Theater and Emerson, Lake and Palmer were also on the bill.  Jon didn’t abuse his Hammond like he did in 1985, but to hear him do call-and-response solos with Steve Morse was simply breathtaking.

Who was Jon Lord?  Jon Lord was not a household name in the Michael Jackson or Whitney Houston sense, but in the rock community Jon Lord was a legend.  He was a founding member of one of my favorite bands of all time, Deep Purple.  He was their keyboard player, but he wasn’t just any keyboard player.  After the 1960s turned into the 1970s there were three hard rock bands to come out of England to gain worldwide fame – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple.  Zeppelin and Sabbath were four-piece bands – guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.  Zeppelin had their secret weapon in John Paul Jones.  He is a multi-instrumentalist who could really play anything that had strings or a keyboard.  Sometimes on-stage he would swap his bass for a keyboard instrument, usually an electric piano or a Hammond organ.  Black Sabbath stuck with their four-piece set-up.  If they had a keyboard player [usually Geoff Nichols], he would perform behind the stage curtain – you’d never see him on stage.  This is what set Deep Purple apart from Zeppelin and Sabbath.  Jon Lord was an integral part of Deep Purple.  A classically trained musician who had a love for the blues and rock and roll, Jon Lord was the instrumental counterpoint to guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, a fantastic but mercurial musician.  Jon Lord’s contribution to Deep Purple was taking a piece of furniture, the Hammond organ [then known mainly as a jazz instrument], linking it with a Marshall stack, and turning that “piece of furniture” into a fire-breathing, smoke-belching metallic beast.  He gave Deep Purple a second solo voice that set them apart from the rest of the hard rock/heavy metal bands of the era.

In 1968, Jon Lord founded Deep Purple with Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice, Nick Simper and Rod Evans.  The band recorded three albums with this line-up – Shades of Deep Purple [1968], Book of Taliesyn [1968], and Deep Purple [1969].  They had a Top 5 hit with a cover of Joe South’s song Hush.  During those early years Deep Purple searched for a direction.  Those first three records saw Deep Purple playing psychedelic rock, and some progressive rock with tinges of classical music thrown in.  Given that, the foreshadowing of things to come arrived with the songs Mandrake Root and Wring That Neck.  Each was a fairly short song on record, but in a live setting those pieces became vehicles of wondrous improvisation for both Jon and Ritchie.  In 1969 the Ritchie Blackmore had an epiphany.  He saw that Led Zeppelin had become successful by playing riff-based hard rock, and why couldn’t Deep Purple try it as well?  Jon Lord and Ian Paice agreed, so Rod Evans and Nick Simper were out, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover were in.  The first thing they took on as a group was Jon’s Concerto for Group and Orchestra.  This project was written by Jon, with lyrics from Ian Gillan.  It was a labor of love for Jon, but the band knew that they weren’t going to play with orchestras forever.  They let Ritchie have his way, and a monster band was born.  

What came next was a succession of some of the best rock ever committed to vinyl – Deep Purple In Rock [1970], Fireball [1971], Machine Head [1972], Made In Japan [1973], Who Do We Think We Are [1973], and Burn [1974].  My favorite Jon Lord moments with Deep Purple – Speed King, Flight of the Rat and Child In Time from Deep Purple In Rock, Highway Star, Lazy and Space Truckin’ from Made in Japan, the title track from Burn, and Mandrake Root [In Concert 1970/72, 1980].  Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left Deep Purple in June 1973, to be replaced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes respectively.  They made one great album [Burn, 1974] and one not-so-great album [Stormbringer, 1974], Ritchie left the band in 1975, to be succeeded [not “replaced”] by Tommy Bolin.  Deep Purple made Come Taste the Band with Bolin.  It was a good album, definitely better than Stormbringer.  A highlight for me was the Lord/Hughes piece This Time Around/Owed to “G.”  Things didn’t last long with Tommy Bolin, and Deep Purple split up in 1976.  A couple of years after that split, David Coverdale formed his own band, Whitesnake.  Jon Lord joined as a hired hand.  He wasn’t a soloist in Whitesnake like he was with Deep Purple. Whitesnake was a two-guitar blues rock band, so Jon added “color” to the music of Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody.  But out of all the music that Whitesnake produced during Jon Lord’s stint in the band, I fondly remember one song – Here I Go Again.  It was originally released in 1982 on the Saints & Sinners album.  On this album, it wasn’t the fluffy, synthesized arena rock crap that came out in 1987.  This version was more earthy and more real, more so because of Jon Lord’s Hammond organ.  He stayed with Whitesnake until Deep Purple reformed with the Mk II line-up in 1984.

Jon Lord stayed with Deep Purple until 2002.  The band maintained a very busy touring schedule, one that began to wear on him.  So he amicably left the band to pursue his love for classical music.  Although he played hard rock with Deep Purple and Whitesnake to pay the bills, Jon Lord still maintained an interest in and a commitment to classical music.  He recorded several works during that time – Gemini Suite [1972], Windows [1974], Sarabande [1976], Before I Forget [1982].  Since leaving Deep Purple, Jon Lord composed and recorded several classical works – Durham Concerto [2007], Boom of the Tingling Strings [2008], and To Notice Such Things [2010].  He recently re-recorded his Concerto for Group and Orchestra which will sadly be released posthumously.  They’re available as MP3s, so I think I will check them out.  The last thing I heard from Jon was a song he played on from Ian Gillan and Tony Iommi called Out of My Mind.  This was released under the banner WhoCares for charity.  The charity is support for Armenian music schools, a thing very near and dear to both Gillan and Iommi.  It was very cool to hear Jon Lord and Tony Iommi on the same recording.

Jon Lord left behind him a large musical body of work. One never wants to see a favorite musician or actor pass away, especially when he/she is still active and creative.  I knew he was sick with cancer but I didn’t know how sick he was until he canceled an appearance in Germany not too long ago.  That said, he had a helluva ride and left behind a lot of great music which I will enjoy for the rest of my days.  Hopefully you will too.

RIP Jon – say hi to Ronnie James Dio.

It’s unthinkable that Jon is gone.  My thoughts are for his wife Vicky and all his children and family at this sad moment in their lives.  I wish them all strength.
A great sadness and sense of loss hangs over me.  Not only has the music world lost a fantastic musician but a gentleman of the finest order.  He was a giant in my life, a great friend, a fellow traveler, a teacher, not only of music, but of life.  I am devastated at his passing - Roger Glover

Our beloved Jon passed away on this day Monday 16th July 2012.
We have lost a dear friend, a brother and a wonderful musician.
His dignity and graciousness touched us all. His music was an inspiration and took us to places beyond our imagination…
A truly great man.
We humbly express our eternal love and great respect.
Deep Purple

Friends: I have just landed in LA from London, to hear the sad news of the passing of our brother Jon Lord. I will miss him. – Glenn Hughes

All the members of Whitesnake & all at Whitesnake.com wish to express their sincere condolences to Jon's Family, Friends & Fans...David Coverdale said "It was an absolute joy & pleasure for me to know him & to work alongside him. He is missed already."

The news today has hurt me like no other loss of a musician I have known. I can only thank him for the legacy he has left us all with his great music, great vision and for his kindness as he was one of the most gentle and kind persons I have ever had the pleasure of being able to call my friend. My heart goes out to Vicki his wife and all his family. – Rick Wakeman

"Farewell To A Gentleman.
Jon has left us now but his music and inspiration will live forever.
I am deeply saddened by his departure."- Keith Emerson

A statement from his representatives reads simply: "Jon passes from Darkness to Light".

Tony's Guitarist Picks - Ritchie Blackmore

When I started to broaden my musical tastes in the early 1980s beyond the Beatles, I started with The Doors and Pink Floyd.  Once I absorbed them I moved on to lots more stuff, including [but not restricted to] Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple.  I’ve already written at length about Tony Iommi, and a blog on Jimmy Page will come at another time.  Today I devote this space to Ritchie Blackmore.

The original Deep Purple [Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Rod Evans, and Nick Simper] formed in 1968.  They recorded a trio of albums that were more on the progressive side of things with the emphasis on Jon Lord’s keyboards.  Jon Lord had a keen interest in fusing pop and classical music.  Ritchie wasn’t too interested in that direction.  Ritchie wanted to make music with a harder edge.  After seeing Led Zeppelin, he saw the direction he wanted to take Deep Purple.  In Ritchie’s mind, the singer [Rod Evans] and the bassist [Nick Simper] weren’t the people to get Deep Purple where he wanted them to go.  After seeing an Episode Six show and liking what they saw and heard, Ritchie and Jon enticed their singer [Ian Gillan] and bassist [Roger Glover] to abandon Episode Six and go with them.  As a bonus, Gillan and Glover were already a songwriting team.  But strangely enough, the first project for the new lineup of Deep Purple [the “Mk II” lineup] was a Concerto for Group and Orchestra. The project got Deep Purple noticed, but the resulting album didn’t sell well.  Ritchie didn’t like the Concerto.  He said:

“I wasn't happy with that.  I wanted to play more rock.  And I said to Jon "um, look, let's give this heavy heavy riffy rock a chance and see how it goes, and if it doesn't work then I'll play with orchestras the rest of my life…”  It wasn't until Led Zeppelin came along that we really had a direction.  We thought 'well, that's the type of music that we want to play, the really heavy rock, the riffy kind of rock.’"

It was Ritchie’s way of saying “we did it your way, it didn’t work, let’s try it my way.”  The result of the “new direction” was Deep Purple In Rock.  The entire album, from the beginning of Speed King, through the epic Child In Time, the searing power chords of Flight of the Rat, to the raucous finale Hard Lovin’ Man, you knew Deep Purple meant business.  They could contend with the heavy guys like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.  After the initial trio of albums with the Mk I lineup and the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Ritchie made seven more albums with Deep Purple.  Some of those albums were great [Deep Purple In Rock, Machine Head, Made in Japan, Burn], some that were good but not great [Fireball, Who Do We Think We Are], and one that was just plain awful [Stormbringer]. 

After Stormbringer, Ritchie bolted Deep Purple to form his own group, Rainbow. In Rainbow, Ritchie teamed up with vocalist Ronnie James Dio [from Elf] and a revolving cast of musicians to record some of his finest work – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Rising, On Stage, and Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll.  These albums saw more of Ritchie’s classical influence brought to hard rock paired with Dio’s knack for lyrical fantasy themes.  It was great music, but it didn’t sell well.  Ritchie wanted a more commercial direction [$$$], but Dio would have none of that.  Dio split, Ritchie first brought in Graham Bonnet, then Joe Lynn turner as vocalists.  IMHO, the music wasn’t as good, but it had its moments.  After four albums with these guys, Ritchie reformed Deep Purple with the rest of the MK II lineup and made a very good album, Perfect Strangers.  Then boredom set in for Ritchie again. After three more albums with Deep Purple and one more with Rainbow, Ritchie tired of making hard rock music and dedicated himself to quieter Renaissance music.  He’s been doing that with his wife Candice Night ever since.

What was it about Ritchie Blackmore that appealed to my ears?  Consider the following:

The riff – Though he is not as prolific a riff writer as Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore has produced his share of memorable riffs.  The most famous of these riffs is Smoke on the Water.  It is one of the most famous, most indestructible riffs in all of rock music.  It’s a very simple riff – but then so is the intro to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.  Pluck it with your fingers, don’t strum with a pick.  More memorable riffs include Lazy, Woman From Tokyo, Burn, Man on the Silver Mountain, Black Night [which he admits he pinched from Ricky Nelson’s Sunshine].  Those are just the famous riffs.  Another cool riff of Ritchie’s is Flight of the Rat [Deep Purple In Rock].  On that album I wasn’t sure how Deep Purple would follow the monumental Child In Time, but Flight of the Rat did the trick.  It’s a very intense piece of work.

Speed kills – while my favorite player David Gilmour is much slower and deliberate in his playing and his soloing, Ritchie Blackmore really is a “speed king.”  It’s one thing to be fast, but Ritchie is also very precise.  A sloppy player Ritchie is not.  Of Ritchie Blackmore writer Chris Welch once said "He had this combination of finesse, imagination and taste.  That's the important thing about Ritchie Blackmore." He's the original shredder who didn't lose any ability with age.

Solos – Ritchie admits to having a horrible technical memory and has committed one solo to memory – Highway Star.  But having an inability to remember solos does not equate to being a bad soloist.  In Ritchie’s case, I have never heard him play a bad solo.  If his solos sound like he’s “winging it,” it’s because he is.  Although he is winging it, it always sounds like he knows exactly how to end a solo.  His profound sense of melody gives him that ability to think ahead and know what will work and what will not work.  He seems to get it right every time.  Many guitarists don’t know how to finish a solo.  They’ll play faster until they get to the end.  Not so Ritchie – he knows how to end a solo.  A good example is Street of Dreams.  Forget that it’s a pop song – listen to the solo.  Conversely, there is one example where he doesn’t take a solo at all – Perfect Strangers.  He doesn't solo here because he doesn't need to.  He had the melodic sense to know the song was good enough without one.

The Improvisations – Certain compositions in the Deep Purple repertoire were good vehicles for improvisation and extended soling.  Look no further than Deep Purple In Concert 1970/72, and the listener is treated to three such showcases for both Ritchie Blackmore and keyboardist Jon Lord to stretch out:  Wring That Neck, Mandrake Root and Space Truckin’.  During the Mark II phase of the band (1969-73), the band was very loud, very aggressive, and quite unpredictable.

The Blues – As loud and brash and in your face that Ritchie Blackmore could get, sometimes he could just lay back and play the blues.  He only hinted at it during Purple’s MK II period with Lazy [Machine Head, 1972].  Ritchie once said he tried to emulate Eric Clapton’s Steppin’ Out from the Bluesbreakers period [see also Live Cream Volume II].  There is quite a similarity between the two.  After Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left the band in June 1973, Ritchie wanted to go more in a blues direction.  He slowed things way down with a long slow blues from Burn [1974] called Mistreated.  Ritchie liked the song so much he took it with him to form Rainbow in 1975.      

Classical – Ritchie brought a classical influence to hard rock guitar [see Highway Star].  He injected rock guitar with the classical scales and chord progressions that inspired future legions of rock guitarists. He also brought medieval, baroque influences to his music. These influences particularly color Ritchie's terrific melodic sense.   Since Ritchie tired of playing rock in the mid-1990s, he’s gone all the way over to playing Renaissance music.  I hope someday he will come back, but I don't see it happening.  The guy is going to be 67 next month, so he probably prefers things to be a lot quieter now.

The Slide – Ritchie uses a metallic slide.  Most other players prefer to use glass because it produces a warmer sound.  Ritchie liked his slide sound a bit more harsh.  He doesn’t use it very much, and you have to dig deep into his catalog to find it, but it’s there to be found on No No No [Fireball – a good headphone song BTW], Mary Long [Who Do We Think We Are], Sail Away [Burn], Difficult to Cure [Finyl Vinyl], the aforementioned Catch the Rainbow [Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow], and his epic solo on Stargazer [Rising].

These are things I like about Ritchie Blackmore.  However, he has been described as moody, sullen, incredibly stubborn, and difficult to work with.  He does nothing to dissuade people otherwise.  Ozzy Osbourne claims to be the “Prince of F**king Darkness,” but he has nothing on Ritchie Blackmore.  Lemmy Kilmister once told a story about Ritchie that, if true, depicts a purely evil guy.  The story goes like this – one time while on tour Ritchie got extremely annoyed with a tour manager.  To show his displeasure with this guy he slipped him a mickey in his drink.  While the guy was unconscious Ritchie and company took this poor bastard, stripped him naked, loaded him in a car, put the car on a ferry to Iceland, and left the car without any keys.  That’s just pure, vindictive malice.  I believe the story to be true.  Ritchie is one of those guys that if he is bored or just not inspired, you know it right away.  About half of Who Do We Think We Are, most of The House of Blue Light, and all of Stormbringer contain evidence of Ritchie “mailing it in.”  He’s demolished as many guitars as Pete Townshend and Jimi Hendrix.  I saw him destroy a TV camera during the California Jam in 1974.  During that same show he also set his amps on fire. 

 

There have been eight different incarnations of Deep Purple.  In my view, the incarnation of the band that is the best included Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice [the so-called "Mark II" line-up].  Yes, that means when it comes to Deep Purple, I am a purist.  Ritchie left the band twice.  He was followed [notice I did not say "replaced"] by Tommy Bolin [1975] and Steve Morse [1994].  I saw the band with Ritchie in 1985, and I saw the band with Steve Morse in 1998.  The 1985 show was a great show.  The 1998 was a good show.  This is not a knock on Steve Morse as he is a fine guitar player.  Steve is a very versatile player who can play in many styles, and can probably play rings around most guitarists past and present.  But the intangible magic that was present in 1985 wasn't there in 1998.  Ritchie and Jon established the classic Deep Purple sound in the early 1970s, and it was a unique sound.  That sound remained intact with the change in vocalists from Ian Gillan to David Coverdale in 1973.  It remained intact with the changing of bass players [also in 1973] from Roger Glover to Glenn Hughes.  But when Ritchie left, the dynamic changed.  The albums that came after Ritchie say "Deep Purple" but they don't sound like Deep Purple.  In concert they sound like a cover band that plays Deep Purple songs.  On their own merits any Deep Purple albums without Ritchie have good music, they just aren't "Deep Purple."

There are many places to find the greatness that is Ritchie Blackmore.  Being the Deep Purple fanatic that I am, I have most of the albums.  I first discovered Rainbow on a British import collection, The Best of Rainbow.  It features all the guys who sang for Rainbow until the time of its release [Ronnie James Dio, Graham Bonnet, and Joe Lynn Turner].  I’m partial to the Dio years.  Below are his essential recordings [IMHO].  These are the albums that you can pick any song and you can't go wrong.  I chose my favorites, those that stand out above the rest.  Even on those Deep Purple or Rainbow albums where the entire album isn't up to scratch, there are nuggets to be found if you want to look for them.  Those nuggets are listed here as well.

Essential Stuff

Deep Purple In Rock [1970]

- Speed King, Child in Time, Flight of the Rat

Fireball [1971]

- No No No, Strange Kind of Woman, Demon's Eye, No One Came

Machine Head [1972]

- Highway Star, Pictures of Home, Smoke On The Water, Lazy

Made in Japan [1972]

- Highway Star [best version ever!], Smoke on the Water, Space Truckin'

Burn [1974]

- Burn, You Fool No One, Sail Away, Mistreated

Rising [1976]

- Stargazer, A Light in the Black, Tarot Woman

Long Live Rock 'n' Roll [1978]

- Gates of Babylon, Kill the King, The Shed [Subtle], Lady of the Lake

Good Stuff

Who Do We Think We Are [1973]

- Woman From Tokyo, Mary Long, Rat Bat Blue

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow [1975]

- Man on the Silver Mountain, Catch the Rainbow, Still I'm Sad

Deep Purple In Concert 1970/1972 [1980]

-Wring That Neck, Mandrake Root

Down to Earth [1979]

-Weiss Heim [instrumental, originally a B-side to All Night Long]

Bent Out of Shape [1983]

- Street of Dreams, Desperate Heart, Fire Dance, Snowman

Perfect Strangers [1984]

- Perfect Strangers, Knocking at Your Back Door, Not Responsible, A Gypsy's Kiss, Nobody's Home, Under the Gun

Finyl Vinyl [1986]

-Difficult to Cure [Beethoven’s Ninth] (Live)

The House of Blue Light [1987]

- Bad Attitude, The Unwritten Law, The Spanish Archer

The Battle Rages On [1993]

- The Battle Rages On, Anya, Time to Kill, Twist of the Tale