Hi Folks !

Well, what can I tell you about the greatest bands of all times, Deep Purple, that you don't already know? Not too much, I guess. So I don't want to bore you with the so-and-so-many-thousandth Deep Purple biography. We all know they got together in 1968, changed their line-ups a couple of times for different reasons and so on. If you're really a rookie and don't know all this stuff, I suggest you visit the page to learn all that.

For those among you who want to see something besides the usual, I am trying to put this page together, with hopefully unseen stuff (which is almost imposssible since Svante is doing an unbelievable job with the official page! It does already carry almost everything you can think of and I don't want to just copy that.) So I guess what I can do here is express my personal view about the band, because it's my page!

I hope I have something interesting for you here.

How did I become a Purple Maniac ?

I was about twelve years old when my brother played the first Deep Purple record for me, actually it was Shades Of Deep Purple and The Book Of Taliesyn. I wasn't too thrilled then, what did I know as a kid, I was into ABBA then. But he insisted in leaving these records with me, he said I'd get back to it later and would understand how great these guys were. Well, I kept the records, although it was nothing special to me then. But he planted the seed, back then, and now it's grown in full...

A little later my brother's birthday was coming up and I had no idea what my present should be. Having only a little pocket money, I decided to make some tapes for him. I borrowed purple records from some classmates and compiled for him some Deep Purple tapes on my parents' stereo. Through making these tapes I got to know more about Deep Purple's music and started getting into it. Guess that was when my metamorphosis from a popper into a rocker started ...

About six months later I got my first record player (or should I rather say record saw) and the first record I bought for that occasion was Made In Europe. From then on all my pocket money went into Deep Purple records. That's still the case and my collection has grown up to approx. 700 pieces which you can check out on my disc pages. I realised on my first own record that they sounded differently to what I knew about Purple then. What had happened? They had a new line-up. Well, they've been on top of the rock world, touring extensively around the globe and the management forced them to record another album in almost no time, right after the tour without any break. The band got stressed out and especially Ian Gillan got very frustrated about the situation. He decided to leave.

And - that part of the story is still kind of difficult to understand for me - Ritchie insisted on firing Rog. I don't know what his problem with him was, especially if you see that he asked him to produce his Rainbow project and later Rog even joined the band.... A story I don't quite understand. Anyway, they stayed together long enough to finish the Who Do We Think We Are thing (which was actually finished 15 car-minutes away from my hometown and the album title resulted from the reaction of the locals to the noise they were making with their recording mobile....). The guys were tired of each other, a fact that I blame on the overtaxing situation. Ritchie even suffered from hepatitis and had to stay in a hospital for several weeks. At that time he and Pacey already had plans to form a band with Phil Lynott, but things turned out differently, Ian and Rog left the band and Ritchie stayed.

They hired the almost unknown singer David Coverdale (who was earning his living selling jeans at that time) and bass player/singer Glenn Hughes. Glenn was playing at the Whiskey in L.A with his band Trapeze when all the guys from Purple went there as parts of the audience to check him out. A month later they hired him. A friend of mine saw Purple on a kind of test gig with this new line-up and he met them backstage. He reported that David was actually very nervous and shy, obviously having problems with the rise from a "nobody" to the front man of a super group. But he grew into that role pretty quick, I think. This time the record company didn't pressure them that much and they released the album Burn, which Ritchie still considers one of his favourites. On the next album, Stormbringer, Glenn's influence increased and new conflicts grew. The direction it went was too funky for Ritchie. He wanted to stay on the hard rock road. So, since Ritchie couldn't have his way, he took the first chance to leave the band and formed Rainbow. About their gigs in these days: my personal opinion is that Glenn's vocal performance was way better than David's. IMHO David's later performances with Whitesnake had better quality than what he showed with Purple, which I consider rather weak on some events.

The band replaced Ritchie with Tommy Bolin. To be honest, the new stuff with Tommy wasn't exactly my taste. I'm with Ritchie here, that wasn't hard rock anymore, it was too funky/disco for me too and from Stormbringer the only song I like is Soldier Of Fortune.

Forgive me Tommy, hope you're doing great in guitar heaven! There's no doubt about your talent, it was  just my personal taste then. Today I do appreciate your music far more than I did then.

Tommy - as brilliant as he was in the studios - had some serious problems handling the job on stage. Plus, as we all know, he had big time drug problems which finally cost him his life. Glenn had them too at this time, but thank God he later managed to handle them and now he's clean and we have The Voice Of Rock back! By the way: did anybody know that Ritchie was actually happy with his "substitute"? He even visited Tommy at his house in Hollywood once....

I was really glad then that Ritchie formed Rainbow. Their stuff sounded way better to me than what Purple did at that time. It happened to be that Rainbow was in my hometown in 1976 and so this was going to be my first rock'n'roll live concert.

I had to hide this from my parents (thanks for the alibi, Granny!) 'cause they would never have allowed their son at a place with all these "wild animals". Well, Rainbow was making it easier to get over the split of Deep Purple. From then on we all were Rainbow fans, of course, and their first three albums are still some of the finest that rock'n'roll ever created, in my personal opinion. (By coincidence I just found this old picture which you see on the right, showing me at that age - wasn't I cute? - and the poster on the wall proves that I was already a Rainbow fan then - if you are able to see it...) Well, what can I say, after Ronnie left the band, Rainbow wasn't the same anymore. The following line-ups weren't exactly my thing, just mediocre bands. I considered them too pop-ish and commercial oriented and I kind of lost the Rainbow/Purple road and got into different bands such as Saxon, Michael Schenker, Scorpions, Judas Priest, Maiden and, believe it or not, Saga. Of course I still paid attention to what the guys did. Again - the statements here reflect what I thought THEN, I just want to describe the evolution I went through.

The One Gallon Band was too jazzy for me although I (still) love their version of  Child In Time, especially the live version with the great flute intro. The first album of Ian's that caught my attention was the Mr. Universe thing, when he was being a rock singer again. Yep, that thing gave us some hope.... I saw them live during this tour in a tiny little hall and it was great. 'Alrighty', I thought, 'here we have a second leg continuing the Purple story.' Glenn's Play Me Out had nothing to do with Purple Music and neither Jon's nor Rog's solo projects were at all close to continuing Purple's traditions. But that doesn't mean I didn't like them in their own way.

Well, all the signs said that the Purple times were over and all that was left were the things, which were okay, and the new Gillan records. To make that long story short, we had to accept that Purple wasn't there anymore and find our favorite substitute among the projects of the ex-band members. For sure it wasn't Hughes or Glover; Rainbow was getting weaker and too pop-commercial, so (for me) it was Whitesnake and Gillan. They came the closest then. Although I must say I didn't like Whitesnake that much anymore after Moody and Marsden left. David with his dyed hair, I don't know.... They appeared to me to be pretty much shaped by the record company, releasing the same songs seven times, with different B-sides, in different colored vinyl, as 12 inch, 10 inch, 7 inch, shapes and what not.

Then came 1984 and we all were in seventh heaven again. Our guys were back together, something I personally never expected to happen, especially since the gossip was going on for years without anything ever happening. Yeah, it was great news to have THE line-up reuniting. Surprising enough that it had to be Ritchie and Ian Gillan pushing that! Although it's said that Jon and Pacey were working at it at the same time.

Their new album kicked ass, although some say it was too safe. I don't agree on that one. It contained some great stuff and I'm pretty sure that the title track will reach cult status in the future. The guys just let out what they felt at that time. Good evidence is the non-album track "Son Of Alerik" in it's 10 minute version on the 12 inch single, just a jam. The rumor mill says that there are tapes existing with about two more hours of session recordings but Ritchie refuses to give his permission for their release. To me it was surprising how well they worked together after not seeing each other for so long. One could have expected some commercial thing, initiated by the record companies (which always tried to make bucks out of needless compilations and live albums ever since Purple split), but this one came from the guys and it was fresh and powerful and it was a step forward, not just redoing their 1970's style. They did great live performances during 1984/85 as well. Personally, I was positively surprised with the results of the reunion. Now THAT was Purple again!

The gigs in 1987 started getting weaker since Ian was about to lose his voice again. IMHO the House Of Blue Light album was nothing special. (Sorry Ian, I know you liked it very much and rated it the best one after Fireball, but I'm not with you here.) I consider it as one of their weakest. Well, after a while Ritchie and Ian didn't get along (again), topped their relationship with throwing spaghetti at each other. 'Alrighty', I thought, 'that was it with Deep Purple. Now it's definitely over' and I mentally closed the file. I didn't even notice that they tried to continue with this other singer until somebody played a tape of  (I don't remember what it was) to me and insisted it was Deep Purple.

I listened to the song again and again, and, since I was not up to date, I bet the guy that this could not possibly be Deep Purple. That was elevator music, it did not sound like Purple at all. Well, we all know now that I lost this bet... Anyway, even now, with me being a little older, and maybe more open minded, this still is not Deep Purple to me. JLT fans may or may not forgive me, but I don't want to spend more time here with this era.

It was just a mistake to hire him for DP, which simply wasn't his world....

Surprise surprise, they got Ian back (although he had said he'd rather slit his throat than sing with that band again) and the Battle Raged On ! I know, the opinions about this album differ a lot. I personally think it's not the worst they did. It holds some pretty good and fresh tracks and the riffs of Battle and Anya are good enough to be mentioned at a time with the Machine Head ones. I also like Solitaire (but not the vocals) and Ramshakle Man is pretty powerful too. But it was very SAD to see them on tour. Not that the music or the performances were bad, it was just you could see and feel that the band was obviously split. There was no fun on stage, no musical communication whatsoever. If you need evidence for that, watch the video Come Hell Or High Water. Jon was trying hard to get something going with Ritchie but the prince of darkness was on his own. They played their songs in a professional manner but that was it. Sometimes not even that - too often Ritchie wouldn't stick around for the complete show - joining in later or leaving early. Sometimes they even had to play "Smoke" without him! THE rock guitar-riff without a guitar! Isn't that bizzare! Actually, there were gigs where Ritchie'd sit in the dressing room and play the whole gig from there. He wouldn't go on stage because he didn't like the place. There was barely a single gig without fights between Ian and Ritchie but there's - like always - two sides of the story. Ritchie blamed Ian - saying he forgot the words and Ian would say he stopped singing because Ritchie stopped playing. On the other hand, Ritchie wanted to play "Child In Time" every night and asked Ian whether or not he was able to do it. Ian said he had learned a whole new way to sing and he'd never lose his voice again. But, as we know, they barely had it on the set list because when it came time to actually doing it, Ian would say: 'I can't do it tonight. My voice, you know'. Ritchie thought this wasn't right and he got so pissed that one night he went back and started playing it anyway to show that he'd had enough. Anyway - you may judge this if you want, I won't - they just couldn't get along anymore.

Ritchie left in the middle of the tour (ripping his visa for Japan in pieces in front of the band - although it was agreed that they would finish that leg of the tour) and, of course, the majority of us thought now it was finally over. But somehow - ain't that amazing? - they got it going again! They postponed the tour and Satch helped them out. Ritchie told Roger that he was glad about this choice. He would have been definitely annoyed, if there would have appeared a guitarist who tries to play like he does or to imitate him. My opinion about him is split. On one hand I give him big time credit for helping out, maybe without his help DP wouldn't exist anymore....who knows. On the other hand I'm kind of glad that he didn't become a permanent member of the band. I don't like his style too much and the gigs with him were rather disappointing. Also I think he wouldn't have brought the band forward. Anyway, we have to thank him for helping out which was really nice of him. The band says they would have liked to keep him and Satch says he would have liked to stay too, but, according to their statements, there were contract problems for recordings as well as conflicts with the different tour schedules. So they decided to hire another guitarist instead of keeping Joe. Who would that be? We all were guessing and speculating. I had Yngwie (the Clone) Malmsteen, Axel Rudi Pell, maybe Jannick Gers, Uli Roth or Michael Schenker on my list. Talking about lists: that's actually what the band did (according to Big Ian....): they all sat down separately and each one compiled a list of possible replacements and the only name that showed up on everybody's list was Steve Morse. (I'm dying to know who else was on everyone's list but they just won't tell....)

So in came Steve and they recorded the Purpendicular album. For die-hard Ritchie fans (and I admit I am one) it was strange at first. But then, after forgetting about the always-comparing-with-Ritchie- habit, I concentrated just on the music and, the more I listened to it, I started realising what a great album it was. Sure, it is different from the old Purple stuff but it is great music. And Steve brings a totally new influence into the band. It's a real step forward. They aren't just copying themselves, they're evolving. And there's no doubt that Steve is a master of the axe. (How nice of a person he is on top of that I learned later - you'll find more about that at my Steve Morse Corner).

So, how was their live performance then? I must say it was great! Although one could realize that Steve was still feeling a bit different and acting a little static (who wonders - he was replacing a guitar legend and everybody remembers what happened to poor Tommy Bolin). He was kind of shy (didn't you dare then to take over the left side of the stage, Steve?) but nevertheless music-wise we saw great gigs. One of the best ones IMHO was Hanau, Germany. While I was there with a buddy of mine, I kept on saying to him 'man, they are so good tonight, I wish somebody would bootleg this concert'. And - thank God - somebody did and it was released as "The Purple Rose Of Hanau". (In case you want to hear more about DP bootlegs.....)

Then came the long-awaited Abandon. I'm still not sure what to think about this album. It isn't half as strong as Purpendicular, IMHO. Especially Ian's job is not too exciting. Most of the time he's riding on one tone. His singing isn't at all melodic. Plus some songs sound like they were nailed together. I miss a concept in songwriting sometimes. Honestly, I was disappointed. But seeing them on tour made up for it. The songs sounded WAY better on stage.

The gigs during their A-Band-On-Tour were the best ones I've ever seen from DP (and I've seen pretty much all). The guys were just unbelievable. Fun was back on stage, you could feel how much they enjoyed what they were doing. Steve took over the place he deserves (and his playing was unbelievable - that solo was simply from another planet!!) and their entire performance was just too great. Steve and Rog were fooling around on stage and Ian and Steve had "duels" like in Purple's best days. Only the audience sometimes didn't feedback the way they should have done - maybe a syndrome of these days.... everybody is just *cool* and the heat of the seventies/eighties isn't there anymore, well..... I'm from a different generation though.... maybe I'm just too old to understand....

There would - of course - be much more to say. I was trying to restrain myself here. Maybe I'm going to expand that later, depending on your response.

My bottom line is that the actual situation seems to be the best solution for both sides. Ritchie is doing his best performances ever (with Blackmore's Night as well as with Rainbow) and Deep Purple seems to be reborn as well and they're doing their best gigs ever. That's how we want to see them all for many more years!

I know that I expressed opinions here which will piss off some of you. But, hey, it's only a matter of personal taste. If you disagree (or maybe agree) with me, feel free to e-mail me and discuss it. Or sign on to the mailing list where we constantly discuss stuff like that.

I hope you enjoy what I put together and, don't forget, it's still in the growing phase, so come back every now and then to see what's new. And let me know what you think about it.

Purple regards, God bless you all, Ted Mechanic

© 1999 by Axel Dauer