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<\/p>\nIf Deep Purple had done nothing more than record \u201cSmoke on the Water,\u201d the band would have earned a place of honor in rock history. Though the riff-based classic (with a true-story lyric about a fire at a Montreux, Switzerland concert venue) has become a clich\u00e9 among musicians and fans alike, there\u2019s no mistaking its appeal. And the album that features the tune \u2013 1972\u2019s Machine Head<\/i> \u2013 is an undisputed classic.<\/p>\n
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The history of this British band \u2013 currently on what may be its final tour \u2013 is winding and complicated; since forming in Hertford, England in 1967, more than a dozen musicians have passed through its ranks. The most celebrated lineup is the one that made Machine Head<\/i> and three other highly regarded albums, but every lineup of the group has created memorable music.<\/p>\n
Deep Purple\u2019s early music was prototypical progressive rock, with the dramatic organ work of Jon Lord at the center of the group\u2019s sound (Lord retired in 2002 and passed away in 2012). By 1970 the group had changed its style to a heavier approach, but dazzling instrumental work \u2013 most notably from Lord, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and drummer Ian Paice \u2013 meant that Deep Purple was always a cut above most hard rock bands.<\/p>\n
Blackmore left for good in the 1990s; today the guitar position is ably filled by virtuoso Steve Morse, a guitarist who came to fame with the fusion band he founded, Dixie Dregs. Drummer Paice is the sole member whose time with the group extends back to its beginning. Longtime in-demand session keyboardist Don Airey took over when Lord retired, and two members of the prime early 1970s lineup \u2013 bassist Roger Glover and vocalist Ian Gillan \u2013 have both been back in the fold for many years.<\/p>\n
Not content to tour and perform as a \u201clegacy group\u201d playing oldies, today\u2019s Deep Purple showcases both its classic material and songs from its two most recent albums, 2013\u2019s Now What?!<\/i> and Infinite<\/i> from 2017. Both produced by Bob Ezrin (whose credits include Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Peter Gabriel, Phish and many others), those albums earned critical praise.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime for Bedlam,\u201d the leadoff single from Infinite<\/i>, balances melodrama, pounding riffs and muscular, flashy instrumental pyrotechnics. In the midst of what the band is calling its \u201cLong Goodbye Tour,\u201d Deep Purple\u2019s current sound is contemporary melodic hard rock, rooted in the classic style that earned the band its reputation as masters of the genre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If Deep Purple had done nothing more than record \u201cSmoke on the Water,\u201d the band would have earned a place of honor in rock history. Though the riff-based classic (with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,62],"tags":[651],"class_list":["post-16286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-rawk","tag-deep-purple","cat-27-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16288,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16286\/revisions\/16288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}