A short article on Purple and a little bit about The Faces. Not the greatest piece of journalism but it is always nice to read anything written about bands this early in their career. And these days, when we do miss the great, late Jon Lord, it is a pleasure to “hear” from him again. So enjoy, my friends.
A purple passage in Texas
Allan McDougall reports from Hollywood on Deep Purple in America
It`s 3 P.M. on a 95 degree Hollywood Friday afternoon, and you`re sitting high in your office thinking Friday thoughts of the beach, or the mountains or maybe the desert. Your intercom buzzes and your secretary says there`s a Jon Lord at the gate, should the guard let him in?
Then you remember tonight is the night to go down to Long Beach. Not to tour the Queen Mary, all high and dry and hamburger and cake stands, but to see Jon Lord and his organ and Ritchie and Roger and Little Ian and singer Ian who are gigging at L.B. with Rod Stewart and the very big now Faces.
You run out and meet Jon and say, “Far out, didn`t think you`d have time to fall by, watcha up to?” And Jon, as elegant as ever in his Avis renta-thing says, “I came in early to buy an organ – bloody airlines dropped mine.”
But first: liquid refreshment. Which in 95 deg. Hollywood means not the boozer because (A) there`s no pubs in L.A., really, and (B) imagine the kind of hangover you`d get in that kind of heat.
TOUR
So, sitting sipping our strawberry malts, Jon tells us about this tour of America:
“Actually, it been the best tour Deep Purple have done of the States. The most worthwhile so far. Gigging with The Faces has been so good. You know, obviously in most places we`ve played it`s been their audiences – Especially in Detroit and Chicago, which is where Rod Stewart`s label, Mercury, is headquartered.
ENCORES
“But in Texas, it seemed like they`d all come to see Deep Purple. Anyway, we usually had to work very hard to get the audiences going, and always got encores – which meant that The Faces also had to work especially hard to follow us. All of which meant a lot of fun for the audiences at every show.”
Knowing that Ritchie Blackmore is not quite the world`s No. 1 America fan, we ask if the man in black is digging it?
“Yes, Ritchie`s really getting into it at last, bless him. Now, he can see the sense of it – we all can. Did you know that our new album, `Fireball`, shipped 55,000 in the last three days?”
We pause to faint for a minute, because that`s a whole lot of albums for 3 days, and we think that all the signs that told us “At last Deep Purple are going to really do it in the States”, all those signs spoke with straight tongue.
“And there`s re-orders coming into Warner`s from all over the place,” Jon smilingly concludes.
JAMS
Later that day my lady and I drive down to Long Beach, but the traffic jams caused by the 20,000-odd people with tickets (and the 10,000-odd ticketless people) all trying to get in make us late for the show, and we get there at the end of “Strange Kind Of Woman” which goes down well.
Then Purple sneak into “Child In Time” which really gets the audience going. Having seen Purple perform in Paris and Berlin and London last year, we observe one big change in the act, and a nice one, too. Ritchie does an incredible solo where his guitar sounds like some monstrous cello.
Then comes the usual closer, “Mandrake Root”, great as ever with the strobe-lights and all, and the audience go crazy and Deep Purple should be very proud and happy.
EFFECTIVE
A word or two about those Faces: they are fantastic. Rod was just great, prancing around in his leopard-skin suit and while Mac and Ron and Ronnie and Kenny may not be the world`s flashiest musicians, they probably are the world`s most effective.
BOPPING
From “It`s All Over Now” to “Maybe I`m Amazed” to the Everly`s “When Will I Be Loved”, through old favourite “Country Comforts” and “Every Picture Tells A Story” new favourites “Maggie May”, they had the entire audience bopping happily at their feet.
And that was the best rock show South California`s seen in some years.
I have personally transcribed this from the original paper. Any errors in the text from the original magazine may not have been corrected for the sake of accuracy. If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!
This number of Sounds also contains articles/interviews with these people: Ravi Shankar, Mickey Finn, Roger McGuinn, Rick Nelson, Howard Riley, Eddie Harris, Mike Albuquerque, Supertramp, Mark/Almond, East of Eden, Woody Allen, The R&B Show, Terry Reid, Viv Stanshall, Louis Armstrong, Joseph Spence.
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!
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My Things - Music history for those who are able to read. 