Deep Purple

Biography Part 2

Tommy Bolin was chosen to replace him, he played on the band's tenth studio-album, "Come Taste The Band", which was released in October 1975 to poor reviews and sales.

During the following year the Hard-Rock icon broke-up, Bolin died of a drug overdose and Coverdale set out to forge his new band, Whitesnake.

Deep Purple's '80s reunion shook the world again with a fresh look and with the classic line-up of Gillan, Blackmore, Glover, Lord and Paice; after signing a deal with Mercury in America and Polydor in Europe, they released "Perfect Strangers" in October 1984, the record shot to #5 in their native England and peaked at #17 on the American Billboard Top 200 Albums chart, it included the single "Knocking At Your Back Door" which rose to #7 on The Mainstream Rock chart and the subsequent two Active Rock top 20 hit singles, "Nobody's Home" and the title-track, helped catapult the album to platinum status.

In January 1987 the quintet put out "The House Of Blue Light", that failed to replicate its predecessor's success as the tour to promote it flagged; the album peaked at #10 in the U.K. and reached the #34 on The Billboard Top 200 chart, however it generated a couple of Mainstream Rock top 20 hit with Bad Attitude" and "Call Of The Wild".

Two years later Gillan left the band again, his replacement was singer Joe Lynn Turner; the fifth line-up of Deep Purple delivered a disappointingly received LP entitled "Slaves & Masters", though it produced "King Of Dreams", which peaked at #6 on The Mainstream Rock Tracks list and the second single cut, "Fire In The Basement", hit the top 20 in the same chart.

Ian Gillan returned to the fold for 1993's "The Battle Rages On"; the album was well-received in Britain falling just one position short of the top 20 of the U.K. Pop chart but scraped the bottom of The Billboard 200 and the title-track reached a modest #22 on the Active Rock chart.

The band has planned numerous concerts that year but tensions between Gillan and Blackmore began to escalate again pushing the latter out of the band, Deep Purple invited Joe Satriani to join the band on guitar, he spent nearly a year on the road with the newly revitalized band and in 1994 Steve Morse was finally hired as full-time guitarist.

In February 1996 the quintet released its fifteenth studio
album,"Purpendicular", which was followed, two years later by "Abandon", both failed to penetrate the top 50 in the U.K. and never charted in the States.

In the late '90s numerous live-albums, collections, box-set were
released; the production continued in the new millenium with 2003's "Bananas", the band lost their founder keyboardist Jon Lord, his replacement was Don Airey; formerly of Ozzy Osbourne and Rainbow.

The band released "Rapture Of The Deep", in October 2005. The Album was recorded after John Lord left the band and Don Airey was on keyboards playing with Ian Gillan, Steve Morse, Roger Glover and Ian Paice. In this album the spirit of old is gone;Rapture Of The Deep is going more in art rock than hard rock music. It seams the band is tired or too old to play something stronger.

Deep Purple Biography Part 1