On this slow news day the mailman brought us a couple of semi-interesting tidbits for the trainspotting department.

In a recent interview, Hollywood star Jim Carrey professes his love for Deep Purple and recommends Lazy off Machine Head in particular as “one of the great, great jams ever”. Continue Reading »

And to spare you trying to click the unclickable link, here it is…

Music: Yukihide YT Takiyama and YOYOKA
Arrangement: Yukihide YT Takiyama

YOYOKA – Drums
Yukihide YT Takiyama – Guitar
Rhonda Smith – Bass
Derek Sherinian – Keys

An interview with Jon Lord, published at a critical point in Purple history. It first appeared in New Musical Express on March 17, 1973 — weeks after the release of Made in Japan and Who Do We Thing We Are, yet mere weeks before Mark 2 imploded. One can not help but wonder, did he know at the time that IG had already submitted his resignation?

Who do Purple think they are?

In context, we`re as valid as anything by Beethoven.
Jon Lord talks to Keith Altham.

SO HERE I AM, ensconced in Jon Lord’s music room, attempting to find out just who Deep Purple think they are — if you’ll pardon the pun on their new album.

Following a few recent performances, there seems to exist an ill-considered critical opinion that the answer is that Deep Purple are five maniacal egotists trying to blow each other off the stage?

“I really don’t think that is fair criticism,” says Lord.

“We do a drum solo like most bands because we’ve got a fine drummer, and like to show him off. I do an organ solo at the beginning of ‘Lazy’, which was on the record anyway and was how the song grew.

“It would have been truer of the group some years ago when I did that 20-minute organ solo, although it never seemed to bore anyone when it was fresh and new.

“It only became boring and self-indulgent when I lost the need to go on for 20 minutes and the band realised we didn’t need to play two hours to please people. Now we play for about one hour-twenty and have a much more contained programme.

“If I slip a bit of Bach or something into my work, it’s not in order to impress people with the fact that I know a bit about classical music. It does not matter to me if they don’t recognise it either as long as it is enjoyable to me and the audience.

“That’s how I build a solo now — so that it is enjoyable to me on an emotional basis. There’s no reason why other influences should come into your playing. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a musical vacuum anyway.

“We’ve not had enough time to consider if there was another way to go — we’ve probably moved sideways. The songs have got better but the sound is much the same, and it seems silly to change a successful format until you have time to come up with a better one.

“I think Ian, Ritchie and myself would like to introduce a little more delicacy in certain areas – become a little less frantic.

“In June we are going to come to a full stop for three or four months because we are all shattered after two years without any real break in our activities. That will give us a chance to formulate some new ideas and reorganise our thinking on the band. It will also give us the chance of a good holiday.”

Read the whole thing in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read.

Many thanks to Geir Myklebust for his continuing efforts to digitize rock’n’roll history.

BraveWords reports that The Dead Daisies have been in a Los Angeles studio working on the follow-up to 2021’s Holy Ground with producer Ben Grosse. The new album is slated for release in August, with first single out some time in late May. Continue Reading »

Another installment in the Live From Daisyland series. It’s a track called Long Way to Go that was written before Glenn’s time with the band, and originally appeared on The Daisies’ 2016 album Make Some Noise. This version was recorded on November 7, 2021, at the Rock City in Nottingham, England. Continue Reading »

Louder Sound has a story of how a cover of Since You Been Gone became the first ever Top 10 hit for Rainbow.

Russ Ballard admits he got his recording of Since You’ve Been Gone all wrong, bur Rainbow gave the song a tough exterior and sent it up the charts

Having quit the band Argent two years earlier, Russ Ballard had hoped that a second solo album would ignite his solo career. Winning, released in 1976, did bring attention to several of Ballard’s songs, although little of it under his own name; Santana covered its title track on their album Zebop!, the Bay City Rollers re-recorded Are You Cuckoo? and Roger Daltrey borrowed Just A Dream Away for the score of the film McVicar in which he starred. But it was Since You Been Gone that cemented Ballard’s reputation as a go-to songwriter to take rock music into the charts.

“I knew immediately that Since You Been Gone was radio-friendly,” Ballard recalls now. “Because I wrote it on the piano, we recorded it that way. Which was bad because it was an obvious rock song. My version was kinda soft.”

Continue reading on Louder Sound.

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the heads up.

The following message have been posted today on the band’s official site:

Today, Deep Purple announce that due to a family matter, Steve Morse will be taking a temporary hiatus from Deep Purple live shows but remains a full member of the band.

Steve’s replacement for the upcoming live shows in May, June and July 2022 will be guitarist Simon McBride, who has previously toured with both Ian Gillan and Don Airey amongst others.

Statement from Steve Morse:

Hello, everybody. I’ve just done a few gigs with the band, after years (!?) of not playing live. It’s a bittersweet, wonderful time to get together.

However, my dear wife Janine is currently battling cancer. At this point, there are so many possible complications and unknowns, that whatever time we have left in our lives, I simply must be there with her.

I am not leaving the band – I hope that after she gets a clean bill of health, I can re-join the tour. However, I am not seeing any likely situation which would allow me to do overseas touring in the immediate future. I continue to be privileged to be a part of the Purple family tree, and also to get to feel the amazing support of so many loyal fans and the rest of the band.

There’s a certified world class guitarist ready to take over for the live shows whom everybody will surely be happy to hear.

I appreciate all your sincere prayers for Janine and thank you all.

Steve Morse

Statement from the rest of the band:

All of our thoughts are with Janine during her fight against cancer and also with Steve while he supports his wife at a very difficult time.

We hope that Steve will be able to join us back on the road later this year.

Ian, Roger, Ian and Don

Statement from Simon McBride:

I’m deeply honoured to be asked to stand-in for Steve and play for such an iconic rock band like Deep Purple. They are amazing musicians and amazing people… I’m very excited to get out and play all those iconic songs and rock the stage with such legends. My thoughts are with Steve and Janine and their family.

There will be no further comment and we kindly ask to respect the family’s privacy and keep them in your prayers at this time.

Simon McBride with Ian Gillan and Don Airey:

Simon McBride with Don Airey & Friends:

News from the branch of the family tree rarely visited on these pages. In the early 1980s Gary Driscoll and Craig Gruber (of Elf and the first Rainbow album fame) were in a band called Bible Black. Their album The Complete Recordings 1981-1983 will be released on April 14 via the freshly inaugurated Louder Than Loud Records.

Bible Black was an East Coast American band formed by former Elf/Rainbow musicians Gary Driscoll and Craig Gruber, along with Andrew “Duck” McDonald. The bands longest tenured singer was Jeff Fenholt, well known for his very brief stint with Tony Iommi/Black Sabbath and his work with the band Joshua. The band also featured Lou Marullo who later became known as the one and only Eric Adams… and Joey Belladonna who of course went on to join Anthrax. All three vocalists recorded demos with Bible Black between the periods of 1981-1983.

This CD for the first time compiles all recorded works of the band in one place. Sadly Gary Driscoll, Craig Gruber and Jeff Fenholt have all since passed away, making this release a fitting epitaph to their time together as Bible Black. Restored and remastered by Patrick Engel and licensed directly from the last surviving member Andrew “Duck” McDonald” we can now hear one of the great “lost bands” and a piece of Heavy Metal history.

Tracklist:

1. Gone
2. Metal Man
3. Back To Back
4. Down On the World
5. Ain’t No Crime
6. Fighting The Wind
7. Back Door
8. Paint It Black
9. Fires Of Old
10. You Got Me Where You Want Me
11. Deceiver
12. Midnight Dancer
13. Gone (Jeff Fenholt vocals)
14. Metal Man (Jeff Fenholt vocals)

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Mansion Global reports that a stately country house in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, once owned by Jon Lord is up for sale. The Burntwood Hall has an eponymous track dedicated to it on Jon’s ’82 Before I Forget album.

Today, Kate and Ian Gethin are the owners of the home. They paid a little over £5 million for the property in 2009, records show.

“The link with Jon Lord often provides an interesting talking point and we have seen photographs of him sitting at a piano in the drawing room,” Ms. Gethin said in a statement. “The piece of music he named after the house is instrumental and I think it really captures the spirit of the property and surrounding countryside. It was obviously an inspirational and relaxing place for him to live—as it has been for us and I’m sure will be for others.”

The house is listed at 15,551 sq ft (1,444.73 m²), located on a 9.81 acres (3.97 Ha) property, and comes with 8 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and 4 living rooms. The amenities include a bowling alley, a cinema, a swimming pool, a tennis court, a cricket pitch, and an outdoor kitchen. “Guide price” for the estate is £8,500,000.

Thanks to Mansion Global and Savills UK for the info, and to Jim Collins for the heads up.

Tidal magazine is celebrating 50th anniversary of Machine Head with a special:

At the summit of heavy-rock greatness there are three entities: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. The trio is united in bombast but vastly different in style and legacy. Sabbath is immutable, untiring and dark. Led Zeppelin is mythical and flashy and lost in time. And Deep Purple is the band of gentlemen gunslingers, the professionals who streamlined the power of muscle cars into a sonic call to start your engines.

This week marks 50 years of Deep Purple’s crowning commercial achievement, Machine Head, and a revival of affection for its formidable power is overdue. This was Purple’s sixth album in four years — not including a live classical outing! — and the third long-player to feature the fabled second-generation “MkII” lineup with scream virtuoso Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover alongside the founders: guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, organist Jon Lord and drummer Ian Paice. Any one of these players alone would have been star material in any other band. Together, they comprised a proper juggernaut.

Continue reading in Tidal.

Sleaze Roxx continues the theme:

In early spring of 1972, Deep Purple unleashed their sixth (and most popular album) on the rock and roll masses en route to their part in a hard rock triumvirate influencing metal to come, along with fellow Brits Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. In comparison, the shelf life of most rock bands expire well before six records but somehow not only were Deep Purple able to hit their prime six releases in, they’ve managed to weather a break up and countless line-up changes to release a whopping 22 studio album including last year’s impressive Turning To Crime. This is astonishing when considering that since the band’s inception in 1968, only drummer Ian Paice remains, having rocked his way through over five decades alongside three different bass players, six vocalists, a couple of keyboard players and a group of highly acclaimed guitarists by the names of Blackmore, Bolin, Satriani and Morse.

Continue reading in Sleaze Roxx.

And so does Music Radar:

London 1969. There’s something in the air. Flower power has wilted. The rock scene is sprouting chest-hair and testicles. Zeppelin are already out of the blocks, Sabbath are on their heels, and at a low-key club gig in June, Deep Purple’s guitar wizard and dark lord, Ritchie Blackmore, is head-hunting the final members for his near-mythical Mk II line-up.

Given the animosity that would later derail the band’s four-year run, perhaps it’s apt that bassist Roger Glover sensed a malign presence in the crowd as he and vocalist Ian Gillan performed with doomed outfit Episode Six that night. “These two shadowy figures arrived,” he recalled in Classic Rock of Blackmore and Purple organist Jon Lord. “I remember being rather scared. They were very dark, broody sort of villains. I felt they were from another world, not mine.”

Continue reading in Music Radar.

Italian language Swiss site tutti.ch features writeup of the story how the album was made. Consult SotW lyrics for the English version. 😉

Wall Street Journal has also jumped on the anniversary bandwagon, but their effort is hidden behind a paywall. Let us know if there’s anything interesting if you’re a subscriber.