1972--Never Before--DEEP PURPLE--E.D .1959 .mp3

Members include Ritchie Blackmore (born April 14, 1945, in Weston-Super-Marename, Avon, England), guitar; Ian Gillan (born August 19, 1945, in Hounslow, London, England), vocals; Roger Glover (born November 30, 1945, in Breton, Wales), bass; Jon Lord (born June 9, 1941, in Leicester, Leics, England), keyboards; and Ian Paice (born June 29, 1948, in Nottingham, Notts, England), drums. Joe Lynn Turner replaced Gillan in the early 1990s. The origins of Deep Purple may be traced to a former Searchers vocalist named Chris Curtis. In 1967 Curtis sought band financing from a London textile company boss and an advertising consultant--neither of whom possessed a shred of music business background. With their money, however, a band appeared under the name Roundabout the following year. The group included Jon Lord on keyboards and Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, along with founder Curtis and two others. By all accounts, Roundabout was terrible. Everyone, save Lord and Blackmore, were immediately replaced--including founder Curtis. Ian Paice now sat behind the drum set, and Roger Glover played bass. The new group, calling itself Deep Purple, modeled themselves on a popular American band of the day called Vanilla Fudge. They debuted in Denmark in April of 1968. Success took many weeks. In September of 1969 the band’s first single, a cover version of the American hit “Hush,“ reached Number Four on the U.S. singles chart. A month later, Deep Purple’s first album, Shades of Deep Purple, reached Number 24 on the album chart, though it went unnoticed in England. Finally, in December, Purple solidified their status by reviving Neil Diamond’s “Kentucky Woman“ to the joy of enough statesiders to land a Top 40 hit. EMI Records signed Deep Purple in England during their first year of prominence, as did comedian Bill Cosby’s label Tetragrammaton in the U.S. Despite the first album’s success and the rapid issuance of two more discs in 1969, The Book of Taliesyn and Deep Purple, Cosby’s label folded. It was at this time that vocalist Ian Gillan joined the band. Also that year, a performance of keyboardist Lord’s work, recorded as Concerto for Group and Orchestra, featured Deep Purple ably backed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at London’s Albert Hall. With this album, Deep Purple finally appeared on their native charts--at U.K. Number 26. The album managed only Number 149 in the apparently less classically inclined U.S. 1970 saw the release of Deep Purple in the Rock and the momentary departure of Ian Gillan, who left to play the title role in the stage musical Jesus Christ Superstar, to which his impassioned, often screaming, vocals were ideally suited. A studio recording of Superstar that appeared later in 1970 landed in the Number One spot on the U.S. album chart, a feat Deep Purple would never accomplish. The band’s 1971 offering, Fireball, however, hit the top spot in the U.K. for one week. After a U.S. tour with the Faces, Deep Purple found themselves recording at Switzerland’s Montreux Casino. The band was horrified when the place burned down during a set by Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. Quickly recovering, though, Purple made art out of life and wrote “Smoke on the Water,“ a chronicle of the catastrophe. Machine Head, the album featuring that song and another hit, “Highway Star,“ reached the U.S. Top Ten and topped the U.K. charts for three weeks in 1972, perhaps getting an extra push in Britain from a TV advertising campaign. Eventually the album sold over four million copies. A year later, a single version of “Smoke on the Water“ was released; it hit U.S. Number Four, sold a million copies, and ensured its residency on “classic rock“ radio in the decades to come.