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Deep Purple - Fireball  The seventies might have been the decade of Disco, but it also brought us Hard Rock, as musicians cranked up their Marshall amps, grew their hair long, and shook off their blues roots. By the time the decade closed, Hard Rock had splintered into many different forms, becoming Punk (which reacted against the grandeur and pomp of Hard Rock), AOR (Album- or Adult Orientated Rock, such as Foreigner and REO Speedwagon), Progressive Rock and the seeds of Heavy Metal. But to dewy-eyed sentimentalists, the golden age occurred in the early seventies when the likes of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple ruled the Earth.
While Black Sabbath's early albums explored the darker edges of rock as a precursor to the occult-inspired Metal bands of the 80s and 90s and Led Zeppelin betrayed traces hippiedom in Robert Plant's lyrics, Deep Purple occupied the middle ground with a more accessible rock sound.
Deep Purple arose from the ashes of a band called Roundabout in 1968. From that band guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and Hammond organist John Lord were supplemented by vocalist Chris Curtis, bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice. They released a couple of albums that were generally well received, but when Curtis and Simper were replaced by Ian Gillan on vocals and Roger Glover on bass, the quintessential Deep Purple was created. It was this second line-up that produced the band's best known track, containing one of the most recognised riffs in rock, Smoke on the Water, which appeared on their 1971 album Machine Head and their 1972 live album Made in Japan. Machine Head is often cited by fans as the best Deep Purple album, but a pretty good argument can be made for their other album from 1971, Fireball.
I first heard Fireball when I inherited the album from my older cousin at some point in the early 80s, when I was a long-haired Heavy Metal fan, listening to bands like Saxon and Iron Maiden. It was an original pressing from the 70s with nice thick vinyl, a gatefold sleeve with images of the band playing live and that photomontage on the front of the band members' heads fused together flying through space.
Dropping the needle on the first track sent shivers down my spine: songs don't come much heavier than Fireball. After the strange swoosh of an air conditioning unit being switched on, Ian Paice literally pummelled the crap out of his drum kit creating a powerful, speaker shredding rhythm that has to be heard to be believed. After a couple of bars the rest of the band join in, Ian Gillan starts singing "The golden light above you shows me where you're from / The magic in your eye bewitches all you gaze upon" and Deep Purple steamroller any listeners still standing.
No No No is a more laid-back affair, which drops down to a satisfying head-nodding rhythm to showcase some great bluesy solos from both Blackmore and Lord.
Depending on whether you own the American release or the UK release, the next track is either Strange Kind of Woman or Demon's Eye. Although Strange Kind of Woman is a great Purple track (and was a hit single for the band in 1971, reaching number eight in the UK charts) I prefer Demon's Eye in the context of the Fireball album. Perhaps this is because I grew up with the UK release, but whatever the reason, it feels right.
Anyone's Daughter sees Deep Purple coming over all Country, with a ribald toe-tapper that would do Dolly Parton proud. It contains some of Ian Gillan's funniest lyrics: "I stood under your bedroom window / Throwing up a brick / No one came I threw one more / That really did the trick..." It's an odd, fun anomaly, but also a great catchy little track in its own way.
Many people have described The Mule as one of Deep Purple's greatest instrumentals, forgetting that Gillan actually sings on it! What people do remember is Ian Paice's incredible energetic drum pattern that forms the backbone of the track, Jon Lord's haunting organ and Ritchie Blackmore's guitar hooks.
Fools is another spectacular track, that verges on the edge of being an instrumental. It lulls the listener into a false sense of security with a quiet, melodic organ intro by Jon Lord, accompanied by Blackmore's gentle fingering and Gillan's almost whispered vocal refrain. Then, without it warning, the track crashes into a wall of hard rock as the band go crazy before going quiet again with a simple bass drum, snare and shaker loop. This forms the backdrop for an incredible solo from Blackmore that sounds like it was played on a cello. It is, in actual fact, played on a guitar using vibrating strings and the volume control.
Album closer, No One Came is one of Deep Purple's finest tracks, the essence of what's great about early 70s Hard Rock distilled into six minutes and twenty five seconds of pumping sonic brilliance. Gillan mixes funky humour with telling truths in his lyrics about the vagaries of fame: "I believe that I must tell the truth / And say things as they really are / But if I told the truth and nothing but the truth / Could I ever be a star?" The track closes with extended solos by Blackmore and Lord, followed by a musical coda that plays the solos backwards as the track fades out.
The beauty of this album, and Deep Purple in general, is that each band member is an extremely gifted musician and is given sufficient space to experiment and show off without becoming self-indulgent. The solos are extremely soulful and musical, containing hummable riffs, tunes and counterpoints to the main melody. It's always substance over style.
With Jon Lord's overdriven organ sound, the guitar and keyboards fuse together in a way that was unique to Deep Purple. Even with the extreme stereo effects that characterised late 60s and early 70s recordings, the band's production still manages to sound fresh and modern, and even the longer songs never extend their welcome. Clocking in at around 40 minutes long, Fireball is an absolute corker of an album.
Recent CD releases have bundled additional versions, remixes and outtakes with the base tracks, which may appeal to completists, but the purist in me feels that they are an unnecessary distraction, diluting the effect of an otherwise perfectly formed album.
Deep Purple went on to give birth to many other classic Rock bands such as Gillan, Rainbow and Whitesnake before reforming in 1984 (with and without Ritchie Blackmore) and creating critically acclaimed albums like Purpendicular in 1996 and Bananas in 2003. Although Jon Lord retired in 2002, most of the "Mark II" line-up found on Fireball is still touring and recording with addition of Don Airey on Keyboards (who began his professional rock life playing with Cozy Powell's Hammer in 1974) and Steve Morse, who has been Deep Purple's guitarist since 1994.
In their lifetime, Deep Purple have recorded nearly thirty albums, and many of them are genuine rock classics. But to my mind, no album brings together all the elements so completely and perfectly as Fireball.
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