If you thought Purple couldn’t come up with a more bananas title for an album than, er, Bananas, ladies and gentlemen, let us present: Whoosh! When quizzed about said moniker, Ian Gillan muttered something about it being an onomatopoeic representation of the transcience of mankind. The album closes with a perfunctory cover of Roadhouse Blues, but Infinite works best when Purple do what they do best: extrapolate and alchemise the blues, and take it to new progressive heights. It’s colourful and inadvertently comical stuff, but there’s no denying that the music is worth taking seriously, from the rampaging opener Time For Bedlam and exotically textured The Surprising to the Zep-ish Hip Boots and Birds Of Prey. Elsewhere, he’s ‘three sheets to the wind’ in One Night In Vegas, while On Top Of The World finds him variously lying ‘beside the most beautiful girl in the universe’ and ‘ collapsed between the eyes of Morpheus’. Gillan, meanwhile, is in grand over-the-top form, trying a little too hard, perhaps, to keep up with the heavy metal kids, effing and blinding throughout. It’s a feast of wanton organ and quasi-classical keyboard curlicues, bolstering bass from Glover and percussive surges courtesy of Paice. Infinite definitely won’t disappoint fans of classic Purple. There follows a look back at an often stellar, sometimes stuttering, but always highly intriguing album career.

Purple are patently Gillan’s band these days, no matter how much he might claim democratic immunity. (As has Ritchie himself, to be fair.) As recently as this past September Ian Gillan poured cold water on the notion, saying that reuniting with the legendary former guitarist would be “no fun at all” for all concerned. Over the years Purple have always resisted the clamouring from a small but vociferous hard-core of fans to get the Man In Black back in the band for one final fandango. Blackmore was a notable absence on the night, David Coverdale branding Ritchie’s no-show “an obscenity”. Also in 2016 the band were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. They had another taste of mortality in 2016 when Ian Paice suffered a mini-stroke while on tour in Sweden, missing Purple gigs for the first time since 1968. They’ve reeled from the deaths of US guitarist Tommy Bolin, who some claim was badly suited (well, he did wear kaftans and geisha boots), and, more recently, Jon Lord. Over time, Purple have survived an ill-fated ‘funky period’ spearheaded by one-time bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes. Fearsome tracks such as Mandrake Root and the cover of Hush promised much, but something was amiss in truth, they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be Iron Butterfly or the Moody Blues, plus singer Rod Evans’ style was grounded in the hip-swinging 60s.Īll that festering resentment seems – indeed, is – a long time ago now, with the current DP line-up – Gillan, Glover, Paice, guitarist Steve Morse and keyboard player Don Airey – having enjoyed many years of stability. Briefly called Roundabout (a remnant of Curtis’ plan to form a band around a small core of players they would be joined by a revolving guest-cast who’d jump on and off a musical ‘roundabout’), Purple debuted in 1968 with their Shades Of… album. In cahoots with partner John Coletta, and along with a hot young keyboard player called Jon Lord, he began recruiting musicians to realise Curtis’ somewhat frazzled vision. (Boy, were people’s tax returns fucked up that year.) Curtis had the foresight, but he also had a penchant for LSD and unpredictable behaviour – as evinced by his decision in ’69 to quit the music business and join the Inland Revenue. (No wonder they decided to put Fairy Liquid bubbles on the cover of 1973 album Who Do We Think We Are.) The band’s roots can be traced back to 1968 (some say 1967) when Searchers drummer Chris Curtis contacted London businessman Tony Edwards to pitch the idea of creating a British rock supergroup. The story of Deep Purple is truly one of rock’s great soap operas.

(Actually it’s the toaster that’s raising toast I won’t be quaffing a brandy until noon at the earliest.) And FYI, I still own that original copy of Fireball… As an increasingly decrepit 60-something-year-old, this writer is perched on a stool in the kitchen on a Sunday morning, raising a toast to Deep Purple’s epic career. Fast-forward 50 years to the present day.

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