Group 1850 Purple Sky

After satisfying all of their classical music kinks with keyboard player Jon Lord's overblown Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Deep Purple's soon to be classic Mark II version made its proper debut and established the sonic blueprint that would immortalize this lineup of the band on 1970's awesome In Rock…

One of Deep Purple's four indispensable albums (the others being In Rock, Machine Head, and Burn), 1971's Fireball saw the band broadening out from the no-holds-barred hard rock direction of the previous year's cacophonous In Rock…

After five decades of records made chiefly of original material, Deep Purple’s 22nd studio album consists solely of songs written and previously recorded by other artists: a criminal offense commonly described by the rock police and purists Grand Jury as “doing covers.” Studio recordings of songs previously released by Love, Huey “Piano” Smith, Fleetwood Mac, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles & Quincy Jones, Little Feat, The Yardbirds, Lonnie Donegan/ Johnny Horton, Bob Seger System, Cream, plus the “Caught In The Act” medley feat. songs by Freddie King, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin and The Spencer Davis Group came to life with the band, for the first time in their career, recording them while not being in the same room. “Turning To Crime” is Deep Purple enjoying playing music without commercial plans nor losing their edge and drive. This is Deep Purple coming full circle. This is 100% Deep Purple.

Deep Purple were bombastic as hell, but as a template for the next wave of hard rock bands, the group did a pretty good job of showing how it’s done, picking just the right song to cover and also writing one or two rock classics like “Smoke on the Water” to give it all credence. This two-disc set collects all the band’s singles and EPs released between 1968 and 1980, and while it thins out considerably toward the end of that run, the quality here is revealing – this band clearly bridges the British Invasion era with the harder-edged commercial rock era that came later.