Deep Purple

(Translated from my original Italian text by Leonardo Horka)

Hard rock was invented by Led Zeppelin but was formalised (for better or worse) by Deep Purple. Deep Purple focused mainly on the amplification and the repetition of a few effective clichés.

Formed in 1968 by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and keyboardist Jon Lord, they debuted with three mediocre progressive rock albums: Shades (Parlophone, 1968), which included the psychedelic suite Mandrake Root and many covers (the classic Hush by Joe South), The Book Of Taliesyn (1968), which included two complex compositions by Lord (Shield, Anthem) and many covers (including a longer version of River Deep Mountain High), and Deep Purple (1969), with the bizarre twelve-minute suite April. This phase culminated with the Concerto for Group and Orchestra (Warner, 1969), written by Jon Lord, one of the most original works of "classical-rock" of those years.

Deep Purple took on the classical guise when they enlisted singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover. In Rock (1970) was a transitional album. On the one hand there was the long, melodramatic Child in Time (partially taken from Bombay Calling by It's A Beautiful Day), which remains one of the pinnacles of melodramatic art-rock alongside pieces by Genesis (Speed King), and on the other hand there were lightning-fast, deafening tracks like Bloodsucker and Flight Of The Rat.

The single Black Knight (1970) is a rip-off of Rick Nelson's Summertime 1962.

Blackmore was one of the least original guitarists of the time, but his style of elemental and excruciating riffs (which were at odds with blues rock and progressive rock of the time) was actually quintessential for future hard rock. It was based on those riffs, and based on Gillan's increasingly hysterical singing, that the band released Fireball (1971), with Fireball (very similar to Rock Star, 1970 single by the Canadian band Warpig) and especially the powerful and ultrasonic boogies of Machine Head (1972): the frenetic Highway Star (the masterpiece of the rhythm section, to which the organ adds a hellish pulse, with their most famous riff and one of the most famous of the whole of hard rock, but taken from an old bossanova song by Astrud Gilberto and Gil Evans, Maria Quiet, from 1966), Lazy (which steals the riff instead from Stepping Out by Cream, year 1972), Smoke On The Water, and the psychedelic blues jam Space Trucking. Deep Purple had transformed themselves into canonical exponents of hard rock. Their kilometre-long songs, performed live, with massive use of amplification, provided excellent fuel for the sado-masochistic libidos of the masses.

The double live album Made In Japan (1972) consecrated them at the head of the movement and sublimated that practice in a delirious version of Strange Kind Of Woman, where all the barbaric excesses of the group are present.

After Who Do We Think We Are (1973), with the single Woman From Tokyo, Gillan and Glover left the group. While Jon Lord recorded the solo album Gemini Suite (1974), accompanied by the symphony orchestra, David Coverdale was hired as vocalist to record Burn (1974) which includes Burn and Stormbringer (1974). Then Blackmore also quit, to form Rainbow, and was replaced by the spectacular jazz rock guitarist Tommy Bolin for Come Taste The Band (1975), which included seven of his own compositions (Bolin died of an overdose shortly afterwards).

Blackmore, Gillan and Glover reunited the band for Perfect Strangers (Mercury, 1984), and The House of Blue Light (1987), Nobody's Perfect (1988). Gillan left his bandmates again to record Slaves And Masters (RCA, 1990), but returned for The Battle Rages On (Giant, 1993). The prestigious American guitarist Steve Morse replaced Blackmore on Purpendicular (1996) and Abandon (1998), which includes Watching The Sky. The new line-up (Ian Gillan, Steve Morse, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice) actually delivered some of the most technically memorable numbers in Deep Purple's career.

In 1978, David Coverdale formed Whitesnake, named after the title of his first solo album, White Snake (1977), a veteran band that also included Jon Lord, and, since 1984, Colin Hodgkinson and Cozy Powell. A new line-up, again led by Coverdale, finally achieved success (after ten years of mediocre albums) with 1987 (Geffen, 1987) and the melodramatic pop metal of Here I Go Again and Is This Love. Steve Vai took part in Slip Of The Tongue (1989).

The terrible Bananas (EMI, 2003) marked yet another return by Deep Purple, followed by Rapture of the Deep (2005) and Now What (2013).

Jon Lord died in July 2012.