A rare official archive recording from Deep Purple Mk 1’s USA debut in 1968.

Hip new American label Tetragrammaton (who signed John and Yoko, Tiny Tim and Deep Purple within months of setting up shop) pulled out all the stops to secure Deep Purple a prestigious U.S. live debut in October 1968, opening for Cream on their farewell tour of America at the Forum in Inglewood, Los Angeles, California. Amazingly, many years later, a reel of tape, thrown out when the label closed, was spotted and rescued by a fan. So little evidence of Mk 1’s live act remains that this tape - the only surviving recording of the first incarnation of Deep Purple on stage - is of great interest, with the band exhibiting a brash confidence in front of 16,000 Cream fans.

As a support act, Deep Purple’s set was a little shorter than normal but despite the passing of over forty years, it’s still an exciting experience. Hush is taken much as the album and gives the audience something familiar to latch on to. The band run straight into Kentucky Woman - their second U.S. single - before hammering into the heavy opening section of Mandrake Root as Lord and Paice settle down for a lengthy instrumental passage. Their cover of The Beatles’ Help makes a good contrast, with some gentle picking from Blackmore, before a lively version of Mandrake Root. Blackmore does indeed seem to be more at home here, with some jazzy work as he attempts to play a different run on almost every bar. Singer Rod Evans returns to introduce the next number, with the 2001 film theme grafted on to River Deep, Mountain High (come on, this was the sixties!), much heavier than the edited version they later issued as a single.

The one hour set ends with their take on Hey Joe. After these first few shows Deep Purple lost the Cream support gig, nobody is quite sure why. Were Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker worried by the competition?

The sound - taken from an original Sony 1” open reel - isn’t too bad at all once you get used to the ambience, with just a little distortion in the second number and someone in the audience heard near the microphone at one or two quiet moments. The label had direct access to the original tape, so needless to say it has been remastered and restored as much as is possible, so this CD is far superior to any bootleg version but the cover does carry a warning about the quality. It was first released officially in 2002 by Sonic Zoom (PUR 205 digipak) but has been long out of print. Due to many requests it has now been added to the immensely popular Official Archive Collection, with a new cover, and a 12 page booklet.

"I think by now most avid Deep Purple fans will be aware of the existence of this tape, many too will have picked up the bootleg cd 'Inglewood 10.18.68' to see exactly what Mk I sounded like and how well (or otherwise) Simper and Evans fitted in.

Hush heralds the entry of the band, very close to the album version but performed with some vigour and energy, the sound really benefiting from the clean-up afforded to the release. Kentucky Woman is vocally overloaded, Rod Evans struggling to hit the chorus at the end, though the song is well received by the audience. The applause is cut short as the band plow headlong into a slightly discordant Mandrake Root. Rod certainly sounds well out of place with his crooning voice. Definitely odd after years of living with Gillan's powerful assault. It's extended from the studio cut, though still nowhere near the lengthy excesses of the MkII versions. The track in itself forms an interesting work in progress document, with some close similarities already there with the sections which eventually found their way into Space Truckin'.

Help is musically tight and energetic though it does again suffer vocally. This is more than counterbalanced by the instrumental assault, Jon letting fly in the middle followed by a pretty truly awful solo by Blackers. The track sounds less tentative than on 'Shades.....', taken faster it is again well received by the crowd who are again cut short in their appreciation by an initially somewhat perfunctory run through of Wring That Neck. Blackers really begins to let fly here, bending the strings all over the place and keeping everything just the right side of total chaos. Paicey is, as ever, the stalwart. This guy has been so consistantly blowing away every other drummer for aeons, and his physical abuse of the drum kit in `68 is still no less restrained these days. Here, though, he drives everything along, holding together the tentative approaches of Ritchie, Jon and Nicky to draw things tighter.

River Deep, Mountain High musically sticks fairly closely to the original. It includes the 2001 theme, though with a distinctly harder edge, lending more weight and leaning further away from the poppier sound of the Book Of Taliesyn original . Rounding the set off is Hey Joe, again it's all there musically, though the sound is a bit thin. Rod really seems out of place here, his chicken in a basket style not gelling at all with the rest of the band.

Historically, then, a great artefact and a crucial piece of the live jigsaw. Not a classic Purple performance by any stretch of the imagination, but a unique insight (so far) into the abilities of the band at this stage of it's development."

review: Martin Ashberry

This title is available to order from the dpas online store

purple records / sonic zoom catalogue