Martin Popoff's review of Burn
Deep Purple - Burn
(Purple '74, TPS3505)
What to do, what to do? Well, after losing their star vocalist and a man who was much more useful than just a bass player, Deep Purple do the unimaginable and hire a young hopeful who had sent in a demo tape to replace the former, and a proven soul singer from Trapeze to replace the latter. The result was a daring dark funk metal album that easily eclipsed its by-rote predecessor, Burn succeeding by raising the ante, offering two new highly stylized vocalists instead of one not so stylish old one, Ritchie taking a backseat to the grooves, Lord stepping forth, the songs stealing the show.
Burn, save for 'Burn' and maybe 'Lay Down, Stay Down', is heavy only in off-handed, oblique ways. It is a series of surprises, not the least of which is the astonishing vocal showcasework track after track, the crawling king snake of Coverdale dovetailing nicely with the springtime hummingbird verve of Hughes. It was a recipe for trouble, and trouble it proved to be, the band turning in one comfortable happenstance and two contentious follow-ups before imploding.
Vocalist David Coverdale figures his favourite of the trinity would be Burn, pretty much matching the sentiment of every Purple fan to a man. "Yes, probably Burn, because it's the first record I ever made," explains David. "I remember being so keen. I knew Deep Purple was big in England, but I had no idea of the global aspect of it, so it was mind-blowing when I got that job. And the band was very supportive and still, to this day, I applaud their courage in taking a risk. No question, I was completely unknown. Obviously they thought I had something, God bless them. But the circumstance is, what a brave thing to do for a band of that size. But Ritchie and I did most of the writing on there. In those days they split everything five ways which was their agreement, which Ricthie changed after the Burn record. There's a certain laziness. If you don't have to work, you don't contribute as much, and there was evidence of that. So he changed that dynamic on Stormbringer and Purple weren't very happy about that at all, the old guard. But anyway, what Ritchie said went. I wrote at least six versions of the song Burn, I was so fucking keen."
Glenn Hughes couldn't help notice the risk as well. "When David and I came in, the band started to become more, and I'm going to say, soulful. Because we grew up in the north of England, we grew up listening to American r+b. Rather than try replacing Gillan and Glover with two look and soundalikes, they replaced them with two totally different commodities."
"It was interesting. Ritchie and I... obviously I was in awe, my whole inspiration was Hendrix, that style of guitar playing," continues Coverdale on his impressions of the match-up. "And Blackmore was a phenomenal musician. I'd always worked with good players but these guys were something else, and of course they had the ego and the sound and equipment to put their money where their mouth was. So working with Ritchie was a marriage made in heaven. And I was learning as I was going. I'm a good sponge and I was soaking it all in. And the more comfortable I felt, the more comfortable I felt providing musical ideas, because I had been writing for a few years, just with local bands. And we connected very well. Both of us were fans of medieval music, which was a modal concept, similar to Bach, and we both enjoyed similar acts or whatever, then I would feel more comfortable putting in chord ideas and melodies. We did all the rehearsals at a place called Clearwell Castle in Gloucester, which was basically our second home. We rehearsed in a crypt and I'd tape a cassette because they had just been developed and I would fashion lyrics out of those things. Ritchie had said to me... you know, the Burn album was really successful, it reestablished them in '74, '75. We were the most successful selling act in the world, and then there was a collective sigh of relief that we maintained it by making the change from Mark II to Mark III, that they had maintained the success level, and so they could put their feet up. Which wasn't Blackmore's vibe and it certainly wasn't mine. So a bit of laziness crept in there in terms of the input into songs towards the end."
The album positively exploded with the legendary title track. 'Burn' is a progressive metal showcase, a power metal classic, a vocal tour de force, a percussive workshop, and from the get-go, a corker of a riff. "'Burn' was, for that line-up of Deep Purple, what 'Highway Star' was for the previous line-up," remembers Glenn fondly. "When we wrote the song, I realized that this song was going to become a trademark intro on tour and on the record. I knew it directly when we started to write the song. We just knew it was the one. There was no doubt that 'Burn' was going to be the opening track as well as the opening track on the live show, which it was. To me it was a major song to be involved with. I had parts to sing as well and it was a really cool thing for me to get up there and sing to millions of people. So it was the opening of a big door for me."
After 'Burn' the band eased the seat back for some deep greys and blues. 'Might Just Take Your Life' flopped as a single and dropped out of the setlist after the tour, but it provides a clue of things to come. Of note was Ian Paice's snare-bass interplay, even if the track is ultimately a drone tone poem for Jon Lord. "That song was a great opportunity for Jon," notes Coverdale. "A lot of people don't realize that. They either look at Purple as a collective or particularly Ritchie. But a huge part of Deep Purple's sound was Jon Lord's left hand on that customized Hammond organ. My God, it would shake your hemorrhoids when he would hit the bottom end of that Hammond. And John and I were talking about a favorite song of ours from the American band, The Band called 'Chest Fever', and that was the influence on that one."
"'Lay Down, Stay Down' was one of the first lyrics I wrote," explains Coverdale on another heavy track, one of the more joyous songs of Purple's back half, perhaps indicative of Whitesnake's future style, once more a workout for Paicey. 'Lay Down, Stay Down' is like the happy dumb cousin to 'Burn', equally punchy but less ambitious, but definitely more gleeful with amazing vocal trade-offs, again, the true conceptual treasure of this album.
Closing side one is 'Sail Away', a true dark horse of a Purple track, both Glenn and David trying to keep it low and sinister over a driving funky blues that reminds one of Zeppelin's 'Trampled Under Foot' slowed down, with perhaps a little 'Boogie With Stu', 'Four Sticks' and 'Custard Pie' thrown in for good measure. Blackmore is wayward, Lord, leaden and insistent.
Side two really funks it up with the hyperactive 'You Fool No One', a track I always considered a close relation to 'Still I'm Sad', given the strong, slow 'n' uneasy vocal melodies. "The whole influence on the vocals there were the early Cream songs, those wonderful Jack Bruce/Eric Clapton harmonies," explains David. "My favorite part on that is Blackmore's phenomenal guitar playing and of course Paicey's dominant drum pattern which Tommy Lee stole for his drum solo. I remember we were recording in Montreaux, in Switzerland, with the Rolling Stone truck in the basement and we were like three or four floors up in this big convention center; I don't even know if it's still there. Anyway, Paicey is doing this phenomenal drum pattern and we fell about laughing over something and he just got so fucking angry and stood up and stormed out and said 'look mate (sweat dripping off him), this ain't the easiest fucking drum pattern I've ever come up with! So get it right!' And that was it, the next take, zap, done, five egomaniacs, it was great."
Side two begins to melt a bit after this, rendering Burn at least a mortal record in the book of thud. 'What's Goin' On Here' is a casual honky tonk boogie again saved by wondrous vocal acrobatics, soul for miles, this new band quite dashing, thanks. "Oh yeah, that should have been either Glenn or I singing," notes Coverdale with regret, eye on the train approaching full-speed. "One of the ridiculous things was that Glenn was such a talented singer, but Ritchie wasn't such a big fan of Glenn's voice. He liked my voice. He said you have a great 'man's' voice, which was a pretty nice compliment. And he didn't exactly get the same vibe from Glenn. There's no question that Glenn is extraordinary. Technically he can sing me into the ground but I can connect deeper emotionally. But what happened is that prior to me getting the job, he really felt that he was going to be the lead singer and bass player and that really is not what Ritchie was after. So once they got the man's voice in, and Glenn and I have talked about this... I spoke to Glenn about it. It was ridiculous that I would sing a line, he would sing a line, I would sing a line, he would sing a line, I would sing a chorus, he would sing a chorus. It was just all over the place. One of the perfect examples was the song you mentioned, 'You Fool No One', where we sing it together. But for anybody wanting to get their hooks into a song, to have this confusion of different voices coming in left, right and center is more a distraction than a hook."
Closing out we get the innocently abbreviated version of 'Mistreated', a song that would spell hotdog break at many a future Deep Purple, Rainbow and Dio show. Still, at this size, it is at least salvageable, Ritchie doing some innovatively classical things with the blues. Finally, there's a mess of an instrumental called '"A" 200' which is a dated synth showcase set to a Spinal Tap rhythm which would be nicked for Maiden's 'The Ides Of March' intro seven years hence.
The happy circumstance of having such an embarrassing wealth of vocal riches was sure to cause disaster eventually and that is exactly what happened, although as Dave explains, it was more the strong blues and soul musical tastes of both Glenn and himself that would drive Ritchie over the rainbow.
"Initially, Glenn and I got on very well and then it tended to go south somewhat the more peripheral indulgence that went on. It was actually a very, very tough time. I left Deep Purple which was pretty much a well-kept secret out of respect for Jon Lord and Ian Paice, but he was really degenerating very badly in terms of the shows and attitude. A lot of drugs and alcohol were rearing their ugly heads. And there was a great deal of disrespect for the legacy of Deep Purple, which I still maintain. Ritchie and I always got on well and I think what alienated Ritchie from me is that I didn't do Rainbow. He came up with all his songs, which at that time, the whole climate was that you had to progress and I just thought his songs were Machine Head songs. And one of the things that I wanted to bring to Purple was blues. And Glenn of course was a huge soul fan and I loved soul music as well. The year that I joined Deep Purple, my most-played records were Sly And The Family Stone - There's A Riot Going On, Stevie Wonder - Music For My Mind, and Donnie Hathaway - Live. I mean, nothing to do with rock, but I loved rock, in the sense of the early Allman Brothers, original Fleetwood Mac, Jeff Beck Group. So I thought it would be entirely appropriate, without compromising the identity of Purple, to inject more of a blues element, more of an emotional element instead of motorbikes and whatever and planets and 'we had a lot of fun on Venus'. I can only write about what I know. But of course the great soul element started to creep in. And that was not really where Ritchie was at at all. The essence is always songs, with me utilizing the three elements that I feel are very appropriate to my expression which is rock, soul and blues."
After the frothy chemistry of Burn, things did indeed deteriorate until the end was well on nigh. "Well, you know, Glenn and I would stand together, that's when I first came up with the expression The Unrighteous Brothers. When I actually left the band, Glenn wasn't told. I'd flown over to England for Ian Paice's wedding, and he was going, 'oh Dave, I've got all these great ideas, we've got to use our voices more and all of this,' and I go, 'Glenn, hasn't anybody told you? I'm out.' And he was utterly shocked. And I was like, we blew it. It could have been incredible, but we blew it. Which is one of the reasons now, if I feel that kind of negative energy creeping into any scenario, even private ones let alone professionally, I change it. If I can't see the light, I change it because there's too much compromise. It really is a difficult pill to swallow."
