Deep Purple - The Band

I was born in 1974, six years after Deep Purple were formed and I started to hear their musics only when I was 14 years old. Thanks to my elders brother and sister I get to know the band that some years ago came to Portugal and surprised me with their spirit and youthfulness! If I already liked Deep Purple before, know I worship them.

HISTORY

Deep Purple are an English hard rock band created in Hertfordshire in 1968.

The band has gone through many member changes, as well as an eight-year suspension and two reunions. The line-ups are unremarkably labled as 'Mark I', 'Mark II', and 'Mark III'. Their second and most commercially successful line-up combined: Ian Gillan (vocals), Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Jon Lord (keyboard), Roger Glover (bass guitar) and Ian Paice (drums).

Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are regarded as one of the innovators of heavy metal and modern hard rock.

I must say that I am a big fan of Jon Lord he is a headmaster or even better a maestro. He plays the piano/keyboard like no other!

The band benefitted some necessitated publicity with the Concerto for Group and Orchestra, a three-movement epic composed by Lord as a solo project and performed by the band at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Arnold. It was one of the first collaborations between a rock band and an orchestra, although at the time, certain members of Deep Purple (Blackmore and Gillan especially) were less than happy at the group being tagged as "a group who played with orchestras" when actually what they had in mind was to develop the band into a much tighter, hard-rocking style. Despite this, Lord wrote and the band recorded the Gemini Suite, another orchestra/group collaboration in the same style, in late 1970.

In 1999, Jon Lord, with the help of a fan who was also a musicologist and composer, fastidiously recreated the Concerto for Group and Orchestra cause the original score having been lost. It was once again performed at the Royal Albert Hall in September 1999, this time with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Mann. The concert also featured songs from each member's solo careers, as well as a short Deep Purple set, and the occasion was recorded on the 2000 album In Concert with the London Symphony Orchestra.

• Shades of Deep Purple, July 1968 (US)/ September 1968 (UK) #24 US
• The Book of Taliesyn, October 1968 (US)/ July 1969 (UK) #54 US
• Deep Purple, June 1969 (US)/ November 1969 (UK) #162 US
• Deep Purple in Rock, June 1970 #4 UK, #14 US/ US: Gold
• Fireball, July 1971 #1 UK, #32 US/ US: Gold
• Machine Head, March 1972 #1 UK, #7 US/ US: 2x Platinum
• Who Do We Think We Are, January 1973 #4 UK, #15 US/ US: Gold
• Burn, February 1974 #3 UK, #9 US/ US: Gold
• Stormbringer, December 1974 #6 UK, #20 US/ US: Gold
• Come Taste the Band, October 1975 #19 UK, #43 US
• Perfect Strangers, November 1984 #5 UK, #7 US/ US: Platinum
• The House of Blue Light, January 1987 #10 UK, #34 US
• Slaves & Masters, October 1990 #40 UK, #87 US
• The Battle Rages On, July 1993 #21 UK, #192 US
• Purpendicular, February 1996 #58 UK
• Abandon, May 1998 #76 UK
• Bananas, August 2003
• Rapture of the Deep, October 2005 #42 UK

Current members

• Ian Gillan - vocals, harmonica, congas (1969-1973, 1984-1989, 1992-present)
• Steve Morse - guitar (1994-present)
• Roger Glover - bass, synthesizer (1969-1973, 1984-present)
• Don Airey - keyboards (2002-present)
• Ian Paice - drums, percussion (1968-1976, 1984-present)

Former members

• Ritchie Blackmore - guitar (1968-1975, 1984-1993)
• Jon Lord - organ, keyboards, backing vocals (1968-1976, 1984-2002)
• Rod Evans - lead vocals (1968-1969)
• Nick Simper - bass, backing vocals (1968-1969)
• David Coverdale - lead vocals (1973-1976)
• Glenn Hughes - bass, vocals (1973-1976)
• Tommy Bolin - guitar, vocals, piano (1975-1976)
• Joe Lynn Turner - vocals (1990-1992)
• Joe Satriani - guitar (1993-1994)

DEEP PURPLE - The Official Website