Founding Fathers of Metal, Part 4- Deep Purple

I won't begin by saying that I'm again preaching to the heavy metal choir, although I am, but another great band from the early 70s that can be listed as a metal founding father is Deep Purple. Formed in the late 1960s, Deep Purple went on to establish themselves as one of the top rock bands of the early 70s along with Black Sabbath and Led Zepplin. However, unlike the two mentioned, Deep Purple went through many line up changes. It is considered by many officianados that the most success Deep Purple line up was:

Ritchie Blackmore- guitar

Ian Gillian- vocals

Roger Glover- bass

Jon Lord- keyboards

Ian Paice- drums

Whenever Deep Purple are mentioned, the first song the great majority of people think of is "Smoke On the Water." Yes, that song will go down as one of the all time classics, especially as it appears on at least 3 of my compilation albums. However, Deep Purple have many other great hits which could also be counted as classics. Hits like "Black Knight" and "Highway Star," which have made it to compilation albums as well and other great songs like "Hush," "Burn" and my personal all time favourite, "Woman From Tokyo." But, when I saw them play live in 1985, I was completely blown away by the vocal ability of Ian Gillian on the song "A Child inTime" and that now also ranks among my Deep Purple favourites.

It came as no surprise to most people that when Deep Purple reformed in 1984, it was with the above line up. While the album "Perfect Strangers" was thought by many not to rank among their greatest from a decade earlier and fanned the argument that they only reformed for the megabucks, it did re-establish them as one of the all time greats in heavy metal. Having seen them live on that particular tour, not only was I blown away by Ian Gillian's vocal ability as well as the musicianship of  the others, they had a breathtaking light show and I regret that I didn't do it enough justice in my account of that concert in "Rock And Roll Children." That is why Deep Purple can rightfully take their place as one of metal's founding fathers.

I know I said last post that this would be the last of the "Founding Fathers of Metal" posts, but last week, I came to the realisation that Free/Bad Company needs to be included as well and will feature in the next post.
To buy Rock And Roll Children, go to: www.strategicpublishinggroup.com/title/RockAndRollChildren.html