April is approaching quickly ...

[Basvarken]

That was when he was still cool.

I think he's turned all poppy and bland over the years

[Pilgrim]

You just earned a free listen to my band's version....


https://soundcloud.com/colocoug/polk-salad-annie-jam

[Dave W]

that's poke salad, Tony Joe. Made from pokeweed. Not "polk."

[uwe]

Didn't you mean very boring instead of groovy?

My goodness, it's Tony Joe White meets Dire Straits (in a bad way)

See what I mean, everyone?! One cannot live in peace with these Dutch aggressors. Rob's posting is tantamount to another unprovoked border skirmish and can really not be countered by anything other than a Junkers 52 Geschwader filled with daring Fallschirmjäger.

Did I not offer peace? Were my comments about these non-talents from Led Zep not of most benevolent measured nature more recently? And that ear-ringed Irish drug-addict that overdubs his bass parts in the studio and then calls it "Live and Dangerous" while his guitar buddies rip off Wishbone Ash (in a pedestrian "twin lead guitars-drawing by numbers"-fashion), I even had kind words for him!!! All to no avail ...

I did not want this. My hand was forced.

[Basvarken]

Come on Uwe.

Do you honestly find that new DP song exciting?
Or are you just excited about a new album (no matter how boring it will be?)

Now take those fallschirmjäger out of your ears and listen again.

[uwe]

I'm genuinely pleasantly surprised for a couple of reasons:

- Gillan sings in a key and a register he can handle today, for some reason he steadfastly refuses for Purple to downtune (even though bands like Kiss, Judas Priest, Led Zep do it and I think there is nothing wrong with it if it helps the singer) and that shows achingly on longer tours (and Purple are a touring behemoth, it's how they earn their money), he is no spring chicken and the Child in Time days are long gone,

- I like the production, Purple never had producers, only engineers, Ezrin is my favorite producer,

- Airey and Morse are technically so good there is always a danger they overplay, they don't do that here, especially the keyboards are simplistic for Airey standards, he plays in Jon Lord fashion here,

- I love Ian Paice's drumming, both his feel and his technique, he's very laid back on this track, but it still swings,

- but of course you're right, I have a soft spot for the Purps and unflinching loyalty, I'm one of three people who even liked Slaves and Masters (the other two are Joelene and Ritchie!  ). Deep Purple will never again record something as era- and sound-defining as In Rock or as elegantly at the top of their game as Machine Head, as frantic yet almost perfect as Made in Japan or as hungry as Burn. But even past their heyday they have recorded albums that are worth listening to again and again: the wonderful Come Taste the Band (Tommy Bolin's most consistent recorded work, Martin Birch put him to task), the underrated House of Blue Light, the interesting Slaves and Master and their last really great album Purpendicular where an uninhibited Steve Morse liberated the band from Blackmore's chains (and I'm eternally thankful to Morse for that, never mind how bad a dresser he is).

And I'm happy that they still bring out new material to dwindling CD sales and an audience that is generally happy for them to play most of Machine Head at every gig and then maybe also Perfect Strangers and Black Night. I've suffered through enough Purple gigs in the last years where they basically only played Mk II material written between 1970 and 1972, and while Morse and Airey do that well, I already know how Highway Star sounds when Purple plays it, I don't have to really hear it ever again from them (even though Machine Head is still my favorite DP album and one of my favorite albums of all time). I crave for new material.

Ok, I've withdrawn the Fallschirmjägers ... except the ones headed for Rotterdam, did they already turn their radio signal off?  

[westen44]

Although I'm quite a Hendrix fan (fanatic?) the Deep Purple version really is better in this case. 

[Dave W]

The original. IMHO the way it was meant to be done, not dreary and plodding.

[uwe]

I take the liberty to disagree with both of my cherished pre-posters! The Hendrix version is the ultimate one. Because he slowed it down and made it sound dreary and depressive and anguished because that is how the song's theme should be presented. That The Leaves version sounds like a bunch of white college boys (which they probably were) - utterly uncredible, Dave.

The Purps' version did not stray far from the original except for the artsy Spanish harmonies intro. Blackmore was impressed as hell with Hendrix and it showed in his playing, his eventual choice of a Strat and some of his stage moves.

Basically that whole Deep Purple debut is a limey poor man's version of what Vanilla Fudge had done previously (and designed to be just that). Shades of Deep Purle was recorded in a day and on a four track on a mini-budget - for that the music with all its period piece idiosyncracies has held up reasonably, but Led Zeppelin I or II it ain't. Led Zep II was the album that made Blackmore think hard about DP's then in his opinion already dated sound and inspired In Rock and the whole brutal sonic change from well-behaved Mark I to in-your-face Mark II. They went from this here



to this in the course of half a year:

[westen44]

I'm not sure if Hendrix ever liked "Hey Joe" in the first place, or if he got tired of it.  But calling it rubbish in this video seems to be the way he genuinely felt.  It has always been my least favorite Hendrix cover.  Nevertheless, Chas Chandler was the one who had the insight to know that the song would be a hit, like the song or not. 

As for Deep Purple, their transformation was impressive.  But I'd still rather hear that version of "Hey Joe" than Hendrix doing it.  It may not be too polished, but I don't mind the Vanilla Fudge influence at all, dated as it may be in 2013.  

[uwe]

I liked the Mk 1 line up too, but in 1968 - by today's standards that first line up was basically a "manufactured" group of sessioneers/club circuit guys backed by the money of three businessmen with no previous music experience - both their sound and their look was not perceived as current in the UK anymore which has a fashion-conscious eye for such things. Deep Purple Mark 1, while feasting in the US with "Hush", couldn't get arrested in the UK and were laughed off. They had a bubblegum and one-hit-wonder image there, "the kind of band that can only be successful in the former colonies (= US)". They were (in-)famously booed off at an English festival together with an English singer/songwriter who went by the weird name of David Bowie (the fortunes of both would turn with a soon to be image and music change, Deep Purple heard the Led Zep debut and Led Zep II, David Bowie laid eyes on Marc Bolan!)

Ian Gillan found Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore plain weird- and fallen-out-of-time-looking when he saw them first in 69 with their frilly shirts and teased/backcombed hair. Only their musical prowess and that they seemed single-mindedly dedicated won him over. Ok, that, and a weekly wage!  

The visual change went with the musical one:

DP Mk 1 promo shot 1968/9



DP Mk 2 promo shot 1969, out go the Department S velvet suits, in comes the Jim Morrison leather jacket and severely sight-impaired Ian Paice at least holds his glasses in hand, he would eventually wear them on promo pics too!

[westen44]

It's hard to believe this song wasn't on the LP because it had the F word on it.  Aren't there a few other things of a more serious nature that people can get upset about? 

[uwe]

And it wasn't a bad track either. There were weaker songs on Perfect Strangers.

[westen44]

I'm not advocating profanity in lyrics, but do think sometimes it's much ado about nothing when a song is left off an album just because of one word.  It's not like the Golden Earring song "It's Bad News to Fall in Love With A Mean MF" where he sings that about ten times.  Someone might have some justification for complaining about that; I agree.  Of course, why Golden Earring even wanted to do that in the first place is beyond me.  I think it helped keep one of their best albums "Paradise in Distress" from getting better known. 

[uwe]

If it's not inane, it's ok by me, profane language is part of life. Ian Gillan likes dirty puns (who doesn't?!), so I find something like "so we put her on a hit list of a cunning linguist, a master of many tongues" (from Knocking on your Back Door" which is not about room entry either) highly amusing. On some (c)rap records, all the damned cursing can get f***ing dreary. When Prince sings "You sexy Motherf***er" over and over otoh, I think it befits the James Brown'esque nature of that particular song.



And of course there is Ian Gillan's lyrical masterpiece Mitzi Dupree, even though that should probably go into the "athletic vagina" thread, here at 39:00:



Good marks(wo)menship is a lovely trait.


Flying to Salt Lake City
Seats 3a and b
I was down and needed a window
But in 3a sat Mitzi Dupree
She said hi I am Mitzi
The queen of the ping pong
Where you going boy
I said nowhere
She said I'm moving on
I thought what is this
I cannot resist
Here she is
And I've always wanted a girl
With a name
A name like Mitzi Dupree

She said what do you do
I said I'm a singer in a band
She said I'm an entertainer
Reached out and took my hand
She was going to a mining town
Way up north to do her show
I said it must be cold up there
She said it depends on who you know
Oh that look in her eye
I can tell you no lies
I'm just a man
She made me feel like a king in my mind
I love you Mitzi Dupree

I said what is this queen of the ping pong business
She smiled what do you think
It has no connection with China
I said ooh have another drink
Well I knew right away
That I'd seen her act before
In a room behind a kitchen in Bangkok
And three or four times more in Singapore
She may not be the first
But I know she ain't the worst
She was mine but I ran out of time
I miss you I love you Mitzi Dupree
My darling Mitzi Dupree