From rick155@aol.com Tue Dec 30 09:44:35 2003
Subject:Re: Ghost Playing (was: Jerry Corbetta rumor)/Vanilla Fudge

In a message dated 12/30/2003 11:24:51 AM Eastern Standard Time, djacques@csulb.edu writes:

> plus during that time Deep Purple were performing and rearranging covers too... It wasn't until they hired Gillan that wrote decent originals...

I'm gonna have to disagree! For many DP fans, their third (pre-Gillan) album (with the Hieronymous Bosch cover art) -- with Chasing Shadows, The Painter, April, Why Didn't Rosemary -- represents a creative peak, with a big shift in style accompanying the personnel change that followed. The 3rd album had only one cover tune IIRC, "Lalena", which I still like to play for people who remember Deep Purple for only one style of music. It's hard to believe that "April", for example, was performed by the same band that later did the awful "Smoke on the Water". There's no question (in my mind at least) which lineup displayed greater creativity and musicality.

Whew. I haven't had a good Deep Purple rant in a while! :-p

Rick