English legends, Deep Purple, formed in 1968 and quickly gained a following on the merits of their debut, Shades of Deep Purple, and its hit single, a cover of the Joe South song "Hush". Back then, they were a psych-infused pop rock band in sound, but with a bold classical music references. Their obvious chops and musical self-indulgence along with the psych and eventual hard rock leaning of their sound in that first incarnation are reminiscent of a band they toured with early on: Cream. Purple really began to hit their stride when they recruited replacement bassist Roger Glover and vocalist Ian Gillan from the band Episode Six in 1969, and took a turn toward the heavy. The "Mark II" lineup released four fantastic studio albums, one of the best live albums of all time, and the fascinating Concerto for Group and Orchestra over the four years that followed, cementing themselves as one of the greatest hard rock bands of their fertile time. In the years after Gillan and Glover split again in 1973, Purple has produced some interesting music here and there, introducing vocalist David Coverdale to the world, reuniting the Mark II lineup in the mid 80's for a couple of decent prog/hard rock albums, and recruiting the amazing Steve Morse on lead guitar for the past 20 years, but their output during those four years in the early 70's was something special.
As I've been doing lately, I'm going to include two examples of their work below. First is a live TV performance from 1970 of the progressive and heavy "Child in Time". It illustrates the afore-mentioned self-indulgence, classical music influence, the cutting edge chops of keyboardist Jon Lord and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and the inimitable vocal stylings of the great Ian Gillan.
And a classic from their biggest record:
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