Live at Inglewood (Deep Purple, 1968)

As fun as it is to talk about big-time stuff like Dark Side of the Moon, it's nice to hone in on some stuff from the dusty archives. Live at Inglewood was the result of a failed experiment, to capture a new band performing live with state-of-art black and white video. The video itself from all accounts (I have not seen it) was a disaster better appreciated as some kind of abstract art than a performance piece. Thankfully the sound survived almost entirely intact, and with a little help from the sonic magicians of the DPAS it received a proper release in 2002.

You can try watching it if you like though. :-)

Other than the semi-ridiculous performance at the Playboy Mansion, there is very little live material available from Deep Purple Mk. I. Compare that with the Gillan/Glover years, where live recording have been surfacing for years (in fact, Live in Montreux, featuring a vastly changed band in personnel and sound was recording just a year later). Traditionally, Deep Purple's first lineup has been regarded as old-fashioned and lightweight compared to all later lineups. Nevertheless, they must have been doing something right to score an opening spot on Cream's 1968 "farewell" American tour. Supposedly, Eric Clapton was a fan, but Baker and Bruce didn't like being showed up and ousted them halfway through the tour. Even though the set is all covers except for the instrumental "Wring That Neck" and the Foxy Lady styled "Mandrake Root", you can hear a dramatic power in their sound. Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore is turned way up over Jon Lord's organ, an unusual sound for the lineup better known for drenching organ on its studio recordings.

I don't think the band had any clue at this point that they would undergo a dramatic transformation in the following year. Their debut, Shades of Deep Purple, did very well in the United States and The Book of Taliesyn, album number two, just debuting here, promised more of the same. However, diminishing returns in the States, culminating in the failure of their U.S. label, combined with a lack of success at home, warranted a need for change. Within a year, half the songs featured in this set were dropped and the originals were expanded to over 20 minutes apiece. By the release of Made In Japan, none of these songs were performed, although "Mandrake Root" is essentially grafted on to the end of "Space Trucking". The band has enjoyed a true love/hate relationship with their original hit, "Hush", banishing it from the setlist by 1970 (replaced by "Speed King"), yet re-recording it in 1988. In 1996 they restored it to their live set over Ian Gillan's objections. Steve Morse was probably saying "how can I join this band and NOT play that song!" Now it enjoys a fairly permanent spot in their setlist, an undeniable part of their nearly 50 year heritage.