Shades of Deep Purple is the debut album by the English rock band Deep Purple, released in July 1968 on Tetragrammaton in the United States and in September 1968 on Parlophone in the United Kingdom. The band, initially called Roundabout, was the idea of former Searchers drummer Chris Curtis, who recruited Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore before leaving the project. The Mk. I line-up of the band was completed by vocalist/frontman Rod Evans, along with bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice, in March 1968.
After about two months of rehearsals, Shades of Deep Purple was recorded in only three days in May 1968 and contains four original songs and four covers, thoroughly rearranged to include classical interludes and sound more psychedelic. Stylistically, the music is close to psychedelic rock and progressive rock, two genres with an ever-growing audience in the late 1960s.
The album was not well received in the UK, where it sold very few copies and did not chart. In North America, on the other hand, it was a success, reaching number 24 on the US Billboard 200 and number 19 on the Canadian RPM chart. The single "Hush", an energetic rock track written by Joe South and originally recorded by Billy Joe Royal, became very popular at the time, reaching number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The good sales of the album and the intense radio play of the single contributed largely to the attention Deep Purple would get in their early US tours and also during the 1970s. Modern reviews of the album are generally positive and consider Shades of Deep Purple an important piece in the history of Deep Purple.
Background
When Deep Purple's first line-up came together in 1967, there was a moment of transition for the British music scene. Beat was still popular, especially in dance halls and outside the capital, but the tastes of young people buying records and filling up the clubs was rapidly changing in favour of blues rock, progressive rock and psychedelic rock. New bands like The Moody Blues, Procol Harum, and The Nice were pioneers in combining classical music with rock, using complex and daring arrangements. in line with the hippie subculture coming from the USA. Many well-known acts, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who, were influenced by the changing feel and added many elements of progressive and psychedelic rock to their albums of that period.
During this time of great creativity for the British musical scene in the summer of 1967, Chris Curtis, former drummer of the beat band The Searchers, contacted London businessman Tony Edwards to find financing for a new group he was putting together, to be called Roundabout. The name meant that the group would contain a revolving cast of non-permanent members getting on and off the stage like a musical roundabout, with only Curtis as mainstay and singer.
In September 1967, the first successful Roundabout recruitment was Curtis' flatmate, the classically trained Hammond organ player Jon Lord; he had most notably played with The Artwoods, a band led by Art Wood, brother of future Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood, and featuring Keef Hartley. At that time, Lord was playing in a band backing the successful pop vocalists The Flower Pot Men called The Garden, which also included bassist Nick Simper and drummer Carlo Little. Simper and Little were alerted by Lord of the Roundabout project and remained in standby for an eventual involvement. They recommended to Lord the guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, whose playing Chris Curtis had appreciated when his band The Searchers had played at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany. Blackmore had been a member of The Outlaws and had played as a session and live musician with many beat, pop and rock acts, including Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, where he had met Little. Curtis contacted Blackmore to audition for the new group and persuaded him to move from Hamburg, where he was hanging out in local clubs. The guitarist came back to England for good to join the group in December 1967.
Lord signed up as bassist his friend Simper, whose fame at the time came from his membership in the rock and roll group Johnny Kidd & The Pirates and for having survived the car crash in 1966 that killed Kidd. The line-up of Roundabout was completed by drummer Bobby Woodman, recruited by Blackmore. There, while waiting for the arrival of new musical instruments and equipment, they continued the search for a singer through an advertisement in the British music paper Melody Maker. Rod Stewart was among the dozens of aspiring vocalists that were considered for the auditions, but was not up to the standards the band required. Evans brought along after the audition his 19-year-old bandmate Ian Paice, a drummer whom Blackmore recognised from his days in Hamburg. They quickly improvised an audition for Paice and he was chosen on the spot to replace Woodman behind the drum kit. After the two instrumentals, the first proper song to be arranged was "Help!", a Beatles cover that Chris Curtis wanted to include in an eventual album. Evans wrote some lyrics for "Mandrake Root" and reduced to one the number of instrumental tracks. The next addition during rehearsals was "Hey Joe", a song originally, but disputably, written by Billy Roberts and mistakenly credited to Deep Purple on original releases of the album. The main inspiration for the new arrangement of the song was the 1966 hit version by American guitarist Jimi Hendrix, but the track length was stretched with the inclusion of classical-influenced instrumental sections. The band also selected a pop rock song called "Hush", written by Joe South for Billy Joe Royal the previous year, which Blackmore had heard while in Germany.
Recording
With a possible set list shaping up during rehearsals, Blackmore convinced a friend of his, Derek Lawrence, to be the band's producer. They had met years before, when both worked for producer Joe Meek and Lawrence ran an independent production company that recorded singles for release in the United States. HEC arranged for the band to cut some demos for the American label in late March and early April at Trident Studios in London. while "Shadows" was quickly written and arranged by the band for those recording sessions. which offered a deal for distribution in Europe with its sub-label Parlophone. booked as Roundabout by a friend of Lord. Deep Purple played their first gig at the venue of Vestpoppen - a club set up on Parkskolen - a school and youthclub on 76 Parkvej in Taastrup, Denmark on 20 April 1968 and the live set comprised all the new songs and the cover of "Little Girl", originally by John Mayall and Eric Clapton. This was a saving grace, because HEC had spent nearly all their budget for promotion and equipment. The band relocated to Highleigh Manor, in Balcombe, West Sussex, because Deeves Hall was no longer available. There, with Lawrence producing and Barry Ainsworth acting as engineer, they recorded the recently gigged material using a four-track tape machine. Under these conditions it was difficult to do many overdubs and the songs were recorded live in one or two takes. "And the Address" and "Hey Joe" were cut first, followed by "Hush" and "Help!" later the first day. After the final approval, the band members were dressed in fashionable costumes at the Mr. Fish Emporium, where they did a photo-shoot. The resulting shots were shipped with the master tapes to America where Tetragrammaton began production and distribution of the album.
The single "Hush" was released overseas in June 1968 and it turned out to be a huge success, garnering the band considerable attention and peaking at No. 4 on the US charts The album was released in the United States in July 1968 and reached No. 24 on the Billboard Pop Chart.
The use of so many cover songs to fill up the album was a common feature at the time, in an attempt to emulate the American rock band Vanilla Fudge, which many Deep Purple members admired. "Hush" and "Help!" are clear examples of the "Vanilla Fudge style of slowing a song down and bluesing it up" to get a more psychedelic sound. The sound of the band was also heavily influenced by classical music: "I'm So Glad" is introduced by "Prelude: Happiness", featuring an electric arrangement inspired by the first movement of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Scheherazade; the cover of "Hey Joe" was arranged inserting parts taken from the Miller's Dance, suite no. 2, part 2 of El sombrero de tres picos ballet by Manuel de Falla, on a rhythm reminiscent of the Boléro by Maurice Ravel. The dualism between Blackmore's flamboyant guitar playing, which he had honed in many years of daily practice and experimented on tour with Sutch, and Lord's rocking Hammond solos was still in an embryonic stage, but it would soon become an integral part of the band's dynamics.
Deep Purple debuted at The Roundhouse Theatre in London on 6 July 1968, opening for The Byrds, before The Gun and The Deviants. In spite of this, the band went on playing their live set in local pubs and festivals, but were received coldly and ignored by the press. In an interview with Melody Maker, Ian Paice explained that their lack of touring and promotion in England was due to the low wages they were offered and to the fact that they had very few danceable numbers to attract audience. He stressed that "we make a point of warning promoters that we are not a dancing group." The first dates were at The Inglewood Forum on 18 and 19 October 1968, supporting Cream in their farewell tour. A recording of those live performances was released in 2002 with the title Inglewood – Live in California. The band played at many different locations, including festivals and bars, and made several TV appearances, including Playboy After Dark While the Playboy After Dark episode has survived in the archives, the Dating Game episode is now lost.
The songs of this album were performed regularly by the Mk. I formation of Deep Purple, but only "Hush", "Help!" and "Hey Joe" found space for a limited time in the live shows of the Mk. II line-up in 1969. However, "Mandrake Root", in an expanded and mainly instrumental version, was a staple in Mk. II live shows up until 1972, and the instrumental sections of the song survived even longer, being annexed to live versions of the Machine Head recording "Space Truckin'". The opening chords of "And the Address" were used into the Mk. II era as an introduction to the song "Speed King". and is still an integral part of the live set of the current formation of the band.
Critical reception
Reception of the album and the band in their home country was generally negative.
Despite being presented as a "polished commercial group" in their radio appearances, Deep Purple's stage excesses and success in the US did not make a good impression on British audiences. The Deviants frontman and later journalist Mick Farren described Deep Purple's music as "a slow and pompous din, somewhere between bad Tchaikovsky and a B-52 taking off on a bombing run".
By contrast, in the US the band was often introduced as "the English Vanilla Fudge"
Track listing
All credits adapted from the original releases.
Personnel
Deep Purple
- Rod Evans – lead vocals
- Ritchie Blackmore – guitars
- Nick Simper – bass, backing vocals
- Jon Lord – organ, backing vocals
- Ian Paice – drums
Production
- Derek Lawrence – production, mixing
- Barry Ainsworth – engineering
- Les Weisbrich – graphic design
- Peter Mew – restoring and remastering at Abbey Road Studios, London (2000)
Charts
Album
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders sortable" style="text-align:center;"
|+Chart performance for Shades of Deep Purple
! Chart (1968)
! Peak<br />position
|-
|-
|}
Singles
"Hush"
{|class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
!Chart (1968)
!Peak<br/>position
|-
! scope="row"| Australian Singles (Kent Music Report)
| 27
|-
|-
|-
|}
Release history
{|class="wikitable"
|+Release history and formats for Shades of Deep Purple
!scope="col"|Date
!scope="col"|Label
!scope="col"|Format
!scope="col"|Country
!scope="col"|Catalog
!scope="col"|Notes
|-
|17 July 1968
|Tetragrammaton
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|US
|T 102
|Original stereo release.
|-
|rowspan="2"|September 1968
|rowspan="2"|Parlophone
|rowspan="2" align="center"|LP
|rowspan="2" align="center"|UK
|PMC 7055
|Original mono release.
|-
|PCS 7055
|Original stereo release.
|-
|1969
|Parlophone
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK
|PCS 7055
|
|-
|1970
|Parlophone
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK
|PCS 7055. Repress of UK LP.
|
|-
|1977
|Harvest
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK
|SHSM 2016
|Reissue with alternative cover
|-
|1977
|Warner Bros.
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|Japan
|P-10332-W
|Reissue
|-
|November 1987
|Harvest
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK
|SHSM 2016/OC 054-04 175
|Reissue with alternative cover
|-
|rowspan="2"|1988
|rowspan="2"|Passport
|align="center"|CD, Cassette
|align="center"|US
|SHSM 2016/OC 054-04 175
|First US CD release. Pulled from vinyl LP with EQ added.
|-
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|US
|PB3606
|
|-
|1989
|Parlophone
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|UK
|CDP 7 92407 2. Original UK release. UK master was used with vinyl-sourced fixes.
|
|-
|1990
|Creative Sounds
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|US
|CSL 6021. Repress of the US Passport CD.
|
|-
|1991
|Warner Bros.
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Japan
|CSL 6021. Made from Japanese copy of US master.
|
|-
|1996
|Creative Sounds, Power Sound 2001
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|US
|PSSR 6021-2/6021-2. Another repressing of the Passport CD.
|
|-
|10 October 1996
|Warner Bros.
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Japan
|WPCR-861
|
|-
|1997
|Parlophone
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK
|7243 8 21453 1 8
|
|-
|24 June 1998
|rowspan="2"|Deep Purple Overseas
|rowspan="2" align="center"|CD
|rowspan="2" align="center"|Japan
|TECW-21717
|
|-
|21 August 1999
|TECW-21864
|
|-
|rowspan="3"|2000
|Eagle Records
|rowspan="3" align="center"|CD
|rowspan="2" align="center"|US
|ER202242
|Reissue with the original US cover and five bonus tracks. Remastered from the original master by Peter Mew with added noise reduction.
|-
|Spitfire Records
|SPT-CD-15062
| US release of Eagle Records edition. Reissue with the original US cover and five bonus tracks. Remastered from the original master by Peter Mew with added noise reduction.
|-
|EMI
|align="center"|UK & Europe
|7243 4 98336 2 3
|Reissue with the original UK cover and five bonus tracks. Remastered from the original master by Peter Mew with added noise reduction.
|-
|21 March 2003
|Purple, Vap
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Japan
|VPCK-85320
|
|-
|14 February 2006
|Tetragrammaton
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|US
|T-102 - Pirate edition of US release.
|
|-
|2007
|Tetragrammaton
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|US
|T-102 - Another Pirate edition of the US release.
|
|-
|23 July 2008
|Victor
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Japan
|VICP-64302
|
|-
|14 December 2011
|Victor
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Japan
|VICP-75020
|
|-
|19 February 2014
|Victor
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Japan
|VICP-75126
|Reissue of the original mono release.
|-
|19 April 2014
|Parlophone
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|UK
|PMCR 7055
|Reissue of the original mono release.
|-
|2014
|Parlophone
|align="center"|CD
|align="center"|Europe
|PMCR 7055
|Reissue of the original mono release.
|-
|8 June 2015
|Parlophone
|align="center"|LP
|align="center"|UK & Europe
|PCSR 7055
|Reissue of the original stereo release.
|}
Notes
References
External links
- Shades of Deep Purple lyrics