The Purple Records label was launched in late 1971 by Deep Purple's management. Not only were they coming across interesting artists to work with, but members of Deep Purple were also getting involved with writing and production for other people and needed an outlet for this work. A distribution deal was struck with EMI and Purple Records issued a wide variety of singles (including some quite eccentric material) and albums through until the demise of Deep Purple themselves in 1976 when the label was wound down. The last Deep Purple album on the label was the 1979 singles compilation and the last non-Deep Purple release for the label was David Coverdale's second solo album in 1978.

A full label discography of the original releases with notes appeared in the DPAS magazine Darker Than Blue issues 26 and 27. Deep Purple's own recordings for the label remained with EMI (and will continue to do so), the rest of the catalogue disappeared. A few of the better known Purple Records titles resurfaced from time to time on vinyl and CD, but there was no serious attempt to coordinate these reissues.

In 1997 Simon Robinson, who had co-founded the specialist CD reissue label RPM, approached the owners with the idea of putting out some of the Purple label titles on RPM. Instead the idea of relaunching the label was discussed and the following year Simon (who had worked for some time as Deep Purple's archive co-ordinator) left RPM to re-establish Purple Records, overseeing production and design. The idea was to reissue original albums and previously unheard recordings as well as bringing in rare or unreleased material, both old and new, which fitted into the original Purple Records label identity. The first releases appeared in 1999. All were identified by a new Purple Records logo (the old logo being retained for use on appropriate EMI Deep Purple reissues), with CDs distributed in the UK, Europe and further afield.