Getting tighter (Deep Purple) (LP 2341 - 2342)

Deep Purple Come Taste The Band (CD, Purple Records, 1975) ****  

Deep Purple Slaves And Masters (CD, RCA Records, 1990) *** 

Genre: Rock 

Places I remember: I bought Come Taste The Band in China of all places - in a bookstore in Wuxi that also had CDs. It's a 35th anniversary double CD with the original version and then a 2010 remixed version (with a couple of bonus tracks). The other CDs are from HMV.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Getting Tighter (Come Taste The Band)

Gear costume: You Keep On Moving (Come Taste The Band)

Active compensatory factors: After Ritchie Blackmore left the band in 1975 they decided to carry on with a new guitarist. American Tommy Bolin was the excellent choice.

Mark 4 Purple only recorded the one studio album before disbanding. Tragically, Tommy Bolin would die from a drug overdose shortly after that.

It's an extension of Stormbringer's more funkier direction. Bolin is a very different guitarist to Ritchie (isn't everybody!). His team player approach was taking the band in a slightly different direction, but then - Mark 4 broke up and was eventually replaced by a return of Mark 2 in the eighties. 

When the reformed Mark 2 also petered out, Mark 5 was the next version to record an album in 1990 with Slaves And Masters. Basically, Joe Lynn Turner had replaced Ian Gillan for Mark 5's only studio album.

It's not a bad album as such, it just doesn't sound very Deep Purplish to me - more an attempt to compete with of-the-time rock bands like Foreigner. Joe Lynn Turner's vocals are the main reason. He's a good singer - just not really a good match for Purple. 

And then it was onto another a Mark 2 reunion after Gillan was brought back to replace Turner for The Battle Rages On in 1993. This Mark 2 reunion also ended badly and Ritchie left for good soon after.

Where do they all belong? A deep breath as the interweb catches up on the machinations - who's in, who's out. I'll head to some other albums before launching into Mark 6 a.k.a. the Steve Morse version of the band.