We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…..
They had left England to record their next LP for tax reasons. They gathered in Montreaux Switzerland in December of 1971 with plans to record at the Montreaux Casino as it was closing for the winter. There was one last show at the venue…a matinee performance from Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention. You probably know the story from here…”some stupid with a flare gun, burned the place to the ground”.
The members of Deep Purple were ready to record their follow up to “Fireball” and had been playing some of the songs on their tour. When the Casino burned after a Zappa fan fired off a flare gun during that show, the band had to scramble to find a suitable location to record. They had the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio so they could be flexible in a choice of venues. They settled on the venerable Grand Hotel that was closed for the winter. The old lady was drafted and turned into a recording studio although it did have some limitations. Mattresses were hung on the walls…the trips from the recording rooms to the mobile truck were tedious, changing the way takes were recorded. The place was cold and drafty. It didn’t matter…the result was a stone cold rock classic…”Machine Head”. And the Montreaux Casino fire inspired the band to write and record one of the most iconic songs in the rock pantheon…”Smoke On The Water”.
It certainly helped that the band, at this point, had a group of musicians that melded so well and were masters of their instruments. Roger Glover on bass, Jon Lord on keyboards, Ritchie Blackmore on guitar and Ian Paice on drums. Add in one of the great rock vocalists in history, Ian Gillan, and you had the chance to turn out magic every time they turned on the reel-to-reels.
The songs were strong and the album was studded with classics bookended by “Highway Star”(written in a few minutes on a tour bus when the band was asked by a journalist how they wrote songs and Blackmore responded “like this”) and “Space Truckin” . “Smoke On The Water” leads off side 2 but even the more unfamiliar tracks are solid. Stuff like “Maybe I’m a Leo, “Pictures of Home” and “Never Before”and, especially “Lazy” are studded with solos and fills that soar. Blackmore and Lord are in top shape…and Glover holds down the bottom, while Paice, one of the best rock drummers of that or any time, gives us fill after fill that are inventive and tasty.
Most of the critics dug it and it went to #1 in England. It only hit #34 in America but did stay on the charts for two years. The band would have a big year in 1972 releasing Live In Japan later in the year.
As heavy metal goes this is melodic and almost charming. Creative musicians writing and recording inventive and infectious hooks, solos and fills. One of the best examples of 70’s hard rock you can find.
Rock on!
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