If you'd asked my teenage self in 1972 what music I was into I'd have responded without hesitation Hawkwind and Deep Purple. The early seventies, was now very very post the Utopian whimsical excesses of the late sixties hippy. The seventies, almost from the start announced itself as a different more dour era, with oil crises, debilitating strikes, wars were going very badly wrong, the world economy tanking, and with it any progressive idealism was quickly withering away.
What became referred to as Progressive Rock' emerged from a distinct lineage of sixties bands such as the seminal Yardbirds, then The Who, Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was hard rock, and hard rock was for hard men. Though a hard young man was very far from what I actually felt myself to be, at the time. My deep love for Deep Purple was a denim moment, of dressing up as a 'real man'. It was all a quite innocent and naive view of what true masculinity was. And though this might seem like a far cry from teenagers today, going to the gym, idolising Andrew Tate and having far right sympathies. I suspect these slightly more concerning tendencies, will have a similar exploratory motivation behind them, of trying out a particular image and way of being masculine for size. Its quite a narrow definition and a reductive one, but you don't know that when you are fourteen. The dawn of my later struggles to break free of that tightly drawn convention of masculinity, was only in its infancy.
What became referred to as Progressive Rock' emerged from a distinct lineage of sixties bands such as the seminal Yardbirds, then The Who, Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was hard rock, and hard rock was for hard men. Though a hard young man was very far from what I actually felt myself to be, at the time. My deep love for Deep Purple was a denim moment, of dressing up as a 'real man'. It was all a quite innocent and naive view of what true masculinity was. And though this might seem like a far cry from teenagers today, going to the gym, idolising Andrew Tate and having far right sympathies. I suspect these slightly more concerning tendencies, will have a similar exploratory motivation behind them, of trying out a particular image and way of being masculine for size. Its quite a narrow definition and a reductive one, but you don't know that when you are fourteen. The dawn of my later struggles to break free of that tightly drawn convention of masculinity, was only in its infancy.
Deep Purple, like their contemporaries Led Zeppelin, bore all the musical style, flourishes and visual appearance of what would later come to define a new musical genre - Heavy Metal. Long hair, bare chested singer ( hairy was optional), and one demon of an axe player. But it had not yet become the formulaic pose of manhood rampant in leathers, aggressively screaming at you through mega amplification, we now know, somewhat deride and lampoon. At this time, it still bore some of the leftover gentler trappings of 'The Age of Aquarius' that preceded it.
If you listen to what they are actually doing, Deep Purple are emerging from a strongly blues orientated corner. Just take a listen to Lazy from Machine Head. With the added flourish of keyboard interludes with their pseudo classical finesse, Progressive Rock bands of this era, sure they needed a forceful singer, a brilliant guitar player, but they also required a flamboyant keyboard player with some seriously flashy technical skill. This was a moment when the keyboard player was briefly considered sexy. ELP had Keth Emerson, Yes had Rick Wakeman, and Deep Purple had Jon Lord.
If you listen to what they are actually doing, Deep Purple are emerging from a strongly blues orientated corner. Just take a listen to Lazy from Machine Head. With the added flourish of keyboard interludes with their pseudo classical finesse, Progressive Rock bands of this era, sure they needed a forceful singer, a brilliant guitar player, but they also required a flamboyant keyboard player with some seriously flashy technical skill. This was a moment when the keyboard player was briefly considered sexy. ELP had Keth Emerson, Yes had Rick Wakeman, and Deep Purple had Jon Lord.
As a matter of course Deep Purple always made the opening track of an album a real rockin belter. Usually some sort of ode to fast livin -drivin- rockin lifestyle, type a thing. It was the track Fireball on the album Fireball, Speed King on the album In Rock. On Machine Head, Highway Star takes this up a further knotch of intensity as it motors on and on with unrelenting vigour for near on seven minutes. The classic formula for such a Deep Purple song, would always open with a strong vocal wail from Ian Gillan, a verse, a chorus, repeat, then each band member would have a segment for their own moment in the spotlight. Highway Star peaks, as they often did, with a truly blistering guitar solo by Ritchie Blackmore. This one still blows your socks off with its speed and technical finesse. Finishing on a lengthy crescendo of rapid fire arpeggios sliding upward then downwards, to a verse, chorus, repeat, the end. I think I would treasure Machine Head purely on the basis of this one track alone. It is so quintessentially them.
Blackmore at his best is the band's central and key expressive force. Even if he's a grumpy conceited sod the rest of the time. He was often the reason why the band split or members left. I have lost count quite how many iterations of Deep Purple Plc they are currently on. However, despite all that, Blakmore's guitar riffs are what Deep Purple Mark 2's entire sound and reputation is constructed around. The recording of Machine Head has indeed become legendary, mainly because they recount that legend in song form. The classic Purple track - Smoke on the Water. The band recorded the album in a sweet of rooms in a hotel. Once holding off the police, who'd come to tell them to stop making that row late into the night, long enough to complete a drum track that was coming together well.
And there is a cohesive quality to Machine Head, that they were rarely to achieve subsequently ( their album Burn maybe another example). For me, its the undoubted pinnacle of their early career. The strange and straightened circumstances of its making being far from insignificant. Though many albums of that Progressive Rock era came to define it and hence have dated badly. Consigned to that most significant limitation of being considered nostalgic. Deep Purple's Machine Head manages to still transcend its period, because its musically grounded, and always punched above its weight. No overbearing conceptual structures or poncy pretensions, its just straight forward uncomplicated hard rock music.
Deep Purple accompanied and became the soundtrack of my early pre-pubescent years. Everyone in my street knew I adored the band, because I'd open my bedroom window wide and broadcast it to them and to the world. Because they bloody well needed to know about it.
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