Deep Purple

In recent months, I have been listening to some of the music of Deep Purple, primarily that which the group recorded during what is generally acknowledged to be their peak period, 1970-73.  It occurred to me that Purple are still somewhat under-estimated in the grand scheme of things, and it is tricky to pinpoint the precise reason for this.

Over the years, the musical “establishment”  seems to have crystallized its view of which artists demand inclusion in some kind of pantheon.  For various reasons, many of the influential writers have had blind spots about artists who by any objective reasoning deserve greater respect.  It strikes me that Deep Purple is one of the groups which suffers unfairly in these deliberations.

I have detected a particularly ambivalent attitude towards Purple here in England, the country where the band was formed.  It is often said of my countrymen that we sometimes fail to appreciate the value of what we have on our doorstep, and this could be just another example of this phenomenon.  Even the mighty Led Zeppelin have fallen prey to this shortcoming, in my opinion.

There may be a residual stigma resulting from Purple’s perceived role in the development of “heavy metal” (debatable in itself), and also a sense that they epitomized the excesses of Seventies rock.

In addition, they were never consciously or identifiably part of any “scene” or “movement”, emerging from disparate origins and sources, and tended to plough their own furrow in the music world.  Also, the fragmented and sometimes acrimonious nature of the band’s history may leave people disorientated.

Although Deep Purple seem to have enjoyed the support of certain journalists who were known to be sympathetic to the practitioners of hard rock and progressive rock, to others they were much less palatable.

Perhaps Purple’s “crime” in the eyes of some pundits was to possess technical proficiency, and to be base their live shows on a display of their improvisational prowess.  Or maybe the group’s lyrics were not as “socially conscious” as the self-appointed arbiters of taste would have preferred?

Oddly enough, many of the factors which led to resistance are the ones which I find so endearing.  A cursory listen to their blistering live album “Made In Japan” should convince anyone without tin ears of their qualities.  It is easy to see why the Mark II incarnation of the band regarded this record as its crowning glory.  Dynamism, energy and inventiveness in abundance.

Admittedly, things post-1973 were a trifle patchy.  If only the Mark III version of Purple had been able to maintain the standard of the title track of the “Burn” album, in my humble estimation one of the high points of the entire Purple saga…