DEEP PURPLE: THE VISUAL HISTORY

This month sees the publication of a new edition of my book Deep Purple: The Illustrated Biography, first published in 1983. It has a new title, Deep Purple 1968-1976: The Visual History, to indicate that it covers only the first eight years of a career that is ongoing. 

There are many changes and it’s taken a long time – since 2018 – to get to this point. Most importantly, the new edition has 486 pages, as opposed to the original 96, and has been completely redesigned with over 500 new pictures, many published for the first time, among them a series from the 1972 concerts in Tokyo and Osaka where their big-selling Live In Japan LP was recorded. Furthermore, the text had been re-edited by myself, with some additions, some subtle changes, and new Introduction and Aftermath chapters. 

There was an early discussion as to whether I could actually update my book to the present day but this was deemed unfeasible, not least because any update would need to cover over 40 years of additional Purple activity, and to do so in the same detail as the original book would be unrealistic. In the event, I limited myself to the new intro and 3,500-word postscript that briefly brings the DP story up to date. 

The book is available two cased formats, Standard and Deluxe, the latter (pictured above) limited to 500 copies with all sorts of goodies and signed by David Coverdale, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Glenn Hughes, Ian Paice and Nick Simper. A promotional video for the book can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_SfFs6LmdI&t=2s

    Here’s my new introduction: 

Introduction to 2023 Edition

In 1982 I was commissioned by Omnibus Press to write a biography of Deep Purple, a group with whom I’d become familiar during the early seventies as a staff writer on Melody Maker. I had seen them perform several times, both in the UK and France, and on tour in the US, and interviewed all the members of the ‘classic’ line-up. As a result, I got to know them and their management quite well, so I approached them for assistance, which was largely forthcoming. At that stage in Deep Purple’s story the group was defunct and there were no plans to reform, so my book covered only the years 1968-1976, which in the event turned out to be the first phase of a career that endures to this day. 

        The first edition of the book was illustrated throughout with photographs of the group’s four line-ups and reproductions of documents pertaining to their career. It was published in 1983 with a Japanese edition following two years later and, though I say it myself, Deep Purple – The Illustrated Biography became the standard narrative on the band’s formative years and ascent to fame. Much to my surprise, a year after the book’s publication the ‘classic’ line-up of the group did reform. This was the line-up that I referred to in my book as Deep Purple Mark II, the one that enjoyed the greatest success, comprising guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, keyboard player Jon Lord, drummer Ian Paice, bassist Roger Glover and singer Ian Gillan, but as in times past personality clashes created an instability that led to personnel changes and in the decades that followed other musicians came and went. 

        The sad death of co-founder Jon Lord in 2012 might have been expected to extinguish the Deep Purple flame but at the time of writing the group is still operating, with Paice, Glover and Gillan performing and recording with Don Airey on keyboards and, on guitar, Simon McBride who took over after Steve Morse left for personal reasons in 2022. Since 1997 Ritchie Blackmore has led Blackmore’s Night, a folk-rock group specialising in folk and Renaissance music that features his wife Candice Night on vocals. They dress in period costume and often appear at venues where Medieval Fayres are held, sometimes at ancient castles and stately homes. 

        Back in 1982, charged with the task of researching the book, my first port of call was the offices of HEC Enterprises at 25 Newman Street in London’s West End where John Coletta, the group’s original co-manager, looked after the affairs of Whitesnake, one of the many spin-off groups that Deep Purple would hatch. He agreed to help me and I also approached their second co-manager, Tony Edwards, who then ran Safari Records, and he too agreed to help. The two managers both gave me enlightening interviews while a third, who was purely an investor, left the partnership early in the game and was deemed by them to be irrelevant to the group’s story. John Coletta passed away in 2006 and Tony Edwards in 2010.

        Coletta’s new partner was Rob Cooksey, who had been Deep Purple’s tour manager, and both helped me contact Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover and his successor on bass Glenn Hughes, all of whom agreed to be interviewed, the latter two answering written questions into a tape recorder and mailing me recorded cassettes. For reasons known only to himself Ritchie Blackmore declined to cooperate which disappointed me because during the period when I followed the group avidly he and I always seemed to get along quite well. A planned interview with David Coverdale never happened because his disagreeable tour manager wanted to set conditions that I found unacceptable. As well as Coletta and Edwards, I spoke to DP record producers Derek Lawrence and Martin Birch, and three members of the group’s road crew, Cooksey, Ian Hansford and Mick Angus. David ‘Screaming Lord’ Sutch, who died in 1999, gave me the low down on Blackmore’s early career, and I spoke with a few others who’d observed them closely. Original singer Rod Evans proved untraceable, latter day guitarist Tommy Bolin had passed away, and I was indebted to Simon Robinson of the Deep Purple Appreciation Society for allowing me to quote at will from a long and wide-ranging interview with original bassist Nick Simper.

        No one vetted my final manuscript and, thanks largely to Jon Lord’s sincerity and willingness to tell it like it was, the book was and remains remarkably candid, far more so than most ‘authorised’ biographies of the era, perhaps because at the time no one thought Deep Purple had an afterlife beyond the split in 1976 and there was therefore nothing to lose by holding back information that at one time might have been deemed confidential. (Among the book’s more startling revelations was a complete gig list which, because it was supplied to me by the group’s meticulous accountant, also included the fees paid to the group for almost every show they performed.) As it happened there was an afterlife to Deep Purple that has lasted until the present day. Many fans of the group as they are configured today might be unfamiliar with their illustrious beginnings and I hope this new edition of my book will enlighten them.

        For the record, this edition has been re-edited by myself, reworked here and there and benefits from new information culled from documents pertaining to the business affairs of HEC Enterprises. Such documents confirm that just because a musician no longer records or performs with a group doesn’t mean they’ve left in the ‘legal’ sense, so the comings and goings within the ranks of Deep Purple in 1973 and 1975 caused endless behind the scenes business problems for the directors of HEC, and that as a result some members of the band benefitted from their success far more than others. 

        For their help with this edition, which includes an extensively re-written aftermath at the end, I would like to thank Roger Glover, Mark Smith, Drew Thompson, Simon Robinson and Joel McIver. 

        Deep Purple 1968-1976: The Visual History is dedicated to the memory of my late friend Jon Lord, a fine musician and true gentleman whose graciousness towards me during my research for this book made it what it was and, I hope, still is. 

Chris Charlesworth, October, 2022