Hearing that legendary band name, really gives me goosebumps. It's not because their crazy performance on stage back in the 60s-90s, or their scary looks that usually came along with a rock band during that period. But it's just simply their 100% pure commitment to rock and roll music genre for almost 42 years.
At this present time, we find there are a lot of rock and roll bands which no longer exist for similar reasons; for example Nazareth, White Snake, Queen, etc. The main reason why those bands don't exist anymore is they were left by the band leader, or my favourite reason that suits for the present time is, today is not the era of rock and roll music! But those things don't seem to give any impact to Deep Purple's existence in rock and roll history.
Formed on March 1968, the 1st Deep Purple line-up was Rod Evans (Vocal), Ritchie Blackmore (Guitar), Ian Paice (Drums), Jon Lord (Keyboard), Nicky Simper (Bass). Deep Purple however, had concerns to Nicky Simper's style of playing and Rod Evans' vocal abilities that didn't come in line with the progressive rock band they had in mind. So on June 1969 they were replaced by none other than Ian Gillan (Vocal), and Roger Glover (Bass). This 2nd Deep Purple line-up (known as classic Deep Purple line-up) started their live debut at The Speakeasy Club In London on 10th July 1969.
For the next 4 years, the talents of Gillan, Blackmore, Roger, Lord, and Paice gave a solid foundation for Deep Purple's existence in the rock history. On July 1973, Glover and Gillan left the band and replaced by David Coverdale (Vocal), and Glenn Hughes (Bass) after Blackmore tried to be "the leader" for the band by putting himself as "the official song writer" for Deep Purple. This 3rd Deep Purple line-up lasted until April 1975. Since Blackmore couldn't create "Blackmorism" inside Deep Purple, the rest of the band member allowed Blackmore to leave the band. On April 1975 Tommy Bolin replaced Blackmore's empty seat in the band until March 1976, meanwhile Blackmore left the band and formed Rainbow, where he had a total control to the band. On April 1984 Blackmore Dismissed Rainbow and joined a reformed Classic Deep Purple line-up until October 1988. In this reunion, this band had recorded 2 fantastic albums, Perfect Strangers in 1984 and The House Of Blue Light in 1987. Blackmore hadn't changed his ambition to be the band leader, so Gillan was out of the band and replaced by Joe Lynn Turner (Vocal) on October 1990 until August 1992.
On 1993 the rest of the band members asked Blackmore to leave the band for good since they didn't feel like it was 5 people in 1 band, but it was more like 4 people and 1 person, and obviously they didn't want that to happen again. So Blackmore left the band forever and Joe Satriani Came to fill Blackmore's role as a "temporary player" during their tour only from December 1993 until August 1994, and Gillan also rejoined this band. After finishing their tour, on November 1994 they found Steve Morse that exactly matched Blackmore's position in Deep Purple. After Morse's arrival in the band, the whole writing and producing musics for the band come from all the band members, and the band turned into a more solid rock and roll band ever since. In 2003, Jon Lord announced his retirement as the band member and replaced by Don Airey up to now.
Deep Purple has taught us that being success as a band with rock and roll genre is not determined by a single person in the band, but togetherness plays more important roles within a band's existence and the consistency in creating music without losing the original genre.
