Like Well Aged Wine

Edgar Winter, age 70
Alice Cooper, age 69
Ian Gillan, age 72
Roger Glover, age 71
Ian Paice, age 69
Don Airey, age 69
Steve Morse, age 63

With a combined 483 years of life experience, most of which has been spent as professional musicians, you would expect a performance with Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, and The Edgar Winter Band to show some sort of musical ability, but you would be wrong.  Their performance last night at the Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana, did not show some sort of musical ability, but was rather a demonstration of what happens when human beings dedicate their lives to developing native abilities few others have.  It was like watching Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt.  The years of relentless practice and performance of one particular gift is revealed as fingers fly over strings and keyboards and drumsticks fly in blinding rhythm and voices cry out the songs that have entertained the world for, in some cases, almost fifty years.

The evening started with Edgar Winter, who is, quite simply, a phenomenon like no other.  His diverse virtuosity was on display as he prowled about the stage, moving from saxophone to keyboard to drums to microphone.  At one point he engaged in an extended call-and-response with his guitarist...and then did the same with his bassist...and then did it again with his drummer.  Here are a brief taste of his rendition of the Rick Derringer classic "Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo" and, of course, "Frankenstein."

Clip from "Rock And Roll Hoochie Coo"

Clip from "Frankenstein"

When the giant eyes with spiders for the pupils rose out of the stage, the crowd went wild.  It was time for Alice Cooper.  Vincent Furnier, a.k.a. Alice Cooper, is a true showman.  Known for his outrageous stage presentations, he did not disappoint and took the audience through campy horror set pieces and classics of hard rock.  Here you will see "Frankenstein," "I'm Eighteen," and "School's Out," which brought in part of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2."

"Frankenstein," "I'm Eighteen," and "School's Out"

I loved The Edgar Winter Band and was more than excited to see Alice Cooper for the second time, but the highlight for me was Deep Purple.  It was truly a bucket-list item for me.  Never having seen them in the '60s and '70s, I thought the chance had passed me by.  When they took the stage, I was positively giddy.  I was in the same place as Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, and Roger Glover, three members of the classic Mark II lineup!  There was Steve Morse playing guitar!  And Don Airey, who has played on the studio recording of the 1987 quintuple platinum Whitesnake album as well as with just about every name in classic rock, was right there on keyboards!

 
In all fairness, of all these talented legends, the vocal gift of Ian Gillan has suffered the most over time.  The high notes were not quite there, which is to be expected, and the energy was lacking, but at the end of the night, I'm not sure it mattered.  A nearly complete classic lineup of Deep Purple, including one founding member (Ian Paice), played classics like "Highway Star," "Fireball," "Strange Kind of Woman," "Pictures of Home," "Perfect Strangers," "Space Truckin'," "Hush," and the finale we all had waited for, "Smoke On The Water."  It may have been their Long Goodbye Tour, but fans will savor it for years to come.

On a personal note, I was glad to have my good buddy Sam along for the ride.  And yes, I did change the instrument lighting in my Mustang to purple for the evening!

 
And the evening was made even better when we ran into Hannah, one of my former students who is now a middle school teacher and was headed to the show herself with one of her colleagues!

 

Purple Crush

Where others may sap the emotions, Deep Purple squeezes, then crushes the senses and afterwards it all seems like having been bludgeoned slowly into a condition of acquiescent insensibility. --Daily Telegraph, February, 1971

For me, Deep Purple will always be the Mark I through Mark IV lineups from 1968 to 1976.  Yes, they reformed in 1984 with the Mark II lineup and there have been various changes and new albums all the way to the present, but in my mind they will always be the quintessential '70s hard rock band.

Actually, "hard rock" does not fully describe Deep Purple.  It really does not come close.  Consider the three albums they released in 1968 and 1969, Shades of Deep Purple, The Book of Taliesyn, and Deep Purple.  These were the days of the Mark I lineup of Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Jon Lord (organ), Ian Paice (drums), Rod Evans (vocals), and Nick Simper (bass).  Jon Lord's lush tapestry on the Hammond organ and harpsichord provides the perfect backdrop for the poetry of songs like "Blind," "The Painter," "April," "Listen, Learn, Read On," "Shield," and "Anthem."  Those are moody pieces that convey rich images in word and sound, and while no one who hears them could place them anywhere other than the '60s, they take us back to a time of rich lyrics and experimental music.

 

With the release of In Rock in 1970, the Mark II lineup took the sound in a new direction.  Ian Gillan brought in screaming vocals, and Roger Glover took on the bass duties.  This album is a monster, and while "Child In Time" may be the best known track, "Speed King" and "Into The Fire" are in-your-face sonic attacks.  The whole album is a hard rock masterpiece, which was followed up by 1971's Fireball, itself an interesting mix.  Along with heavy hitters like the title track and "Fools," you have the country-flavored "Anyone's Daughter" and dramatic pieces like "Strange Kind of Woman" and "No One Came."  "The Mule" even has moments when we hear the musical drama in Ian Gillan's voice that he brought to the stage later in Jesus Christ Superstar.

1972 brought the last of the Mark II albums with the inimitable Machine Head.  "Highway Star," "Smoke On The Water," "Lazy," and "Space Truckin'" are the most famous, but "Maybe I'm A Leo" is every bit as hard, and the lyrics to "Pictures Of Home" have found a place in the narrative of my own life from time to time.  "When A Blind Man Cries" ends the album in an exquisite style that makes you realize just how talented a vocalist Gillan is, which is saying something when he is working alongside giants like Lord and Blackmore.

The Mark III lineup with David Coverdale on vocals and Glenn Hughes on bass holds a special place for me.  Coverdale has one of the best voices in rock.  Period.  It has certainly changed over time and is more raw now that he is pushing 70, but I have loved everything he has ever sung.  The first album for this lineup, 1974's Burn, is another monster in the Deep Purple catalogue, including the killer opening/title track, the moody "Sail Away," and the blues-rock anthem "Mistreated."  That same year saw a funky shift in musical direction with the album Stormbringer, which would also be Blackmore's last before the band's reformation in the '80s.  You could easily see this as proto-Whitesnake, the band Coverdale formed in 1978.  In addition to the funky sound and what seems to be more influence from Hughes, the lyrics on songs like "Lady Double Dealer" and "High Ball Shooter" certainly look toward the, um, "romantic" lyrics of Whitesnake.

Come Taste The Band is the one and only release by the Mark IV lineup featuring Tommy Bolin on guitar.  Released in 1975, tracks like "Gettin' Tighter," "I Need Love," and "Love Child" have a distinct '70s sound and more of Hughes's prominent bass lines.

So there you have it, a quick look at the studio albums of classic Deep Purple.  Throw in the numerous live albums they put out in that era, and you will have a solid collection of foundational hard rock music.  And when you play any of them, be sure to crank them up all the way.  After all, this is the band that The Guinness Book of World Records declared was the loudest band in the world thanks to a 1972 concert at the Rainbow Theatre in London.  Their levels reached 117dB, and three audience members were knocked unconscious by the sonic waves.