Deep Purple The Very Best

When Deep Purple's The Battle Rages On Tour reached Birmingham, England on November 9, 1993, it had already taken in most of Europe. Starting off in Italy and moving around Germany, France and Benelux, it reached the band's home country for a triumphant four sold out shows, one of which would be filmed for the "Come Hell Or High Water" DVD and video. Rumours of Deep Purple not entirely being best pals were floating around within the fan community, but the fact that Deep Purple was in fact on the verge of a break-up only became obvious at the band's final explosive British show in Birmingham.

"Knocking at Your Back Door: The Best of Deep Purple in the 80's" is a compilation album by the British hard rock band Deep Purple. It is a compilation of tracks from three albums, Perfect Strangers (1984), The House of Blue Light (1987), and the live album Nobody's Perfect (1988). This best-of of eighties Deep Purple marks the return of the Mark II line-up, and what a return! Although purists will disagree with compilations such as this, it has to be said that weeding out the dross makes this a stunning disc. From the sheer exuberance of the title track, to the monumental re-working of 'Hush,' there is very little to dislike here.

Gemini Suite Live is a recording of Jon Lord's classical/rock piece Gemini Suite featuring the original Mark II band lineup of Deep Purple, recorded live during this one and only live performance in 1970. A follow up to their "Concerto" Project, it featured five movements for the individual members of the band, including a guitar piece from Blackmore.

earMUSIC and Deep Purple have worked on a Limited Edition Series, made of very rare live recordings from the band's archive. 20,000 numbered CDs and 2,000 numbered Red LPs will be available worldwide for each release, until sold out. The series will concentrate on the last three decades of concerts around the world, starting with an explosive show in Newcastle, Australia recorded in 2001. Some of the shows have been previously available as very rare fan club editions, others will be released for the very first time. All recordings are being remastered for the best audio quality possible. About the first chapter of the series Roger Glover commented: “After touring Australia in the early 70s, we returned in 1999 with Steve Morse on guitar. Australia had given us a great welcome back and for this night in 2001, we felt like doing something different, so we added singers and a horn section. A rare night and a special gig.”

Funky Junction were a kind of lrish 'supergroup' formed in 1972 specifically to record a single album of Deep Purple songs. The band itself consisted of all three members of early Thin Lizzy (Lynott, Bell & Downey) and 2 musicians from less-known band Elmer Fudd. This happened because Lizzy didn't have a keyboard player and Phil Lynott was unable to sing like Ian Gillan, so he ended up playing the bass. Nine tracks (including 3 instrumentals and one original song) were recorded in one day and released in January 1973 in two versions: in UK and USA as ‘Funky Junction Play a Tribute to Deep Purple‘ (on Stereo Gold Award label) and in Germany under the name ‘The Rock Machine Play the Best of Deep Purple‘ (Sonic Records). Front cover of UK edition featured the photo of heavy rock band Hard Stuff (at the time signed to Purple Records)! This very fine and underrated album is recommended to the all fans of hard rock!