 | oscargamblesfro (76)
03/26/2008 |  Out of all of the name guitarists of the 60's and early 70's, perhaps only Ritchie Blackmore is a name I can think of off the top of my head who started out playing classical guitar, instead of beginning with blues, jazz, country, early rock, or folk like most of the guitarists of that era. Early Deep Purple were more of a blend of proto progressive rock, psychedelia and pop, with plenty of covers, and influenced by Vanilla Fudge and The Beatles. Deep Purple were unusual in that they started out relatively popular in America, but weren't successful nor highly regarded in their native England until a few years later. The band was comprised of well known session men and members of various long forgotten acts. This track comes from their third, eponymous album in 1969, the best of the three early records with the original lineup, though one of their worst sellers in their long career. It's a quite long three part track. The first part is an almost mystical sounding, rolling instrumental with some grand organ blasts at the beginning followed by an eerie melody and some beautiful acoustic and electric guitar. The second is a fairly decent piece of classical music. The last part is a quintessential hard pop song in a style that I guess you could say is quite typical for the time, the melody of the rock part of the tune would give you a good example of the type of rock music I tend to really like- with some hard hitting drums from Ian Paice, their gifted drummer, and fine bass work from original bassist Nick Simper, to go with some good singing from original vocalist Rod Evans and some great electric guitar. The song is one of my favorites by them, though some may find it dated or simply too long. It's about spring, but in a dark, gloomy, depressing, heartbroken, breaking up with a woman you've loved way- more like the famous opening lines by T.S. Eliot about April being the cruelest month than a happy spring song. It's very different from louder, later music by them though they did go on to record an entire album with an orchestra later that year. This, for me, is one of those private favorite songs you might have, one where others may not get it but you do.
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