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The Original Deep Purple Web Pages
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From black-and-white TV to colour

Yet another rehash of the Classic Rock magazine material as Louder Sound reprints Made in Japan feature penned by Mick Wall that originally appeared in September 2012 issue. Osaka, August 15, 1972. In the Kosei Nenken Kaikan concert hall, Deep Purple are playing their first ever show in Japan. Over the past three years, the […]

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Never comfortable or established

Another Classic Rock magazine rehash: circa 2011 interview with Don Airey reprinted by Louder Sound: You’ve appeared on more than 250 albums between 1976 and 2011. Which are the ones of which you are most proud? Funnily enough, Roger Glover and I were talking about what an incredible time it was making Down To Earth […]

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It’s a simple song

Classic Rock magazine rehashes the story we’ve heard a million times by now — how Smoke came to being. This includes an undated quote from Blackmore (that was at some point subjected to a rather poor OCR, and had to be corrected by us): I was jamming with Ian Paice at a soundcheck, because we […]

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Fighting it out with swords

After a couple of teasers, Ultimate Classic Rock has posted, apparently in full, the interview they’ve recently done with Ritchie Blackmore. Release of the Rainbow 75/76 box set was the occasion, so the bulk of the conversation was actually devoted to that time period.

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The supergroup that destroyed itself

Since nobody bothered to make a documentary about Captain Beyond, it was left to our robotic overlords to create one. It is done on the cheap, with no music licensed to use, still — the facts are there, so here it is.

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All my life it seems just a crazy dream

Wikimetal celebrates 50th anniversary of Rainbow Rising with a short compendium of 6 interesting facts about the album. Which are in no way a surprise to anybody who’s been paying attention. Rainbow Mk1 was short lived and gutted way before work started on the second album. The artwork for the album has become iconic. Munich […]

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With a flying V and long hair

In a new interview to the Ultimate Classic Rock, Ritchie Blackmore confirms the story that in 1970 Christopher Cross has played a gig with Deep Purple in his place. This episode became a minor controversy in the Purple lore as over the years Cross himself claimed it, with further corroboration by Eric Johnson, who opened […]

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Blow you out of your socks

More Tony Carey! This time he talks to the Classic Album Review poscast. These interviews are apparently being done on the occasion of his Planet P Project albums being reissued on vinyl by (who else!) Edel, but a good half of the conversation revolved around his stint with Rainbow.

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A double dose of Hammersmith havoc

The online incarnation of the Classic Rock magazine has a short feature on Whitesnake’s classic live album Live… In The Heart Of The City. It is one of the greatest live albums of all time, a heavyweight double to rank up there alongside classics such as Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous, Deep Purple’s Made In […]

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One of rock’s great unfinished stories

Ultimate Guitar publishes an article by Greg Prato on the “Tommy Bolin dilemma”: When Tommy Bolin stepped into the James Gang, he was replacing Domenic Troiano and, previously, Joe Walsh. When he later joined Deep Purple, he was replacing Ritchie Blackmore. Two wildly different guitarists, two established legacies, and Bolin was expected to fill both […]

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