Come Taste the Band

Come Taste The Band is the tenth studio album by the English rock band Deep Purple, originally released in October 1975. It was co-produced and engineered by the band and longtime associate Martin Birch. It was the final Deep Purple studio record prior to the band's initial disbandment in 1976, therefore making it the only album to feature Tommy Bolin, who replaced Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, and the final of three albums to feature David Coverdale on lead vocals and Glenn Hughes on bass, as none of the three would be involved with the reactivated Deep Purple in 1984.

History
When Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple in 1975, there was uncertainty over whether the band would continue, as they did when Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left in 1973. It was David Coverdale who asked Jon Lord to keep the band together, and Coverdale was also a major factor in recruiting Tommy Bolin to take the guitar slot after hearing Bolin's work on the Billy Cobham solo album Spectrum.

Development and Recording
Rehearsals for the album were recorded by Robert Simon, who was originally engineering the album. But after a dispute with the band over scheduling, the band left Simon's Pirate Sound Studios in favour of Martin Birch.

According to Glenn Hughes and Lord, at least two songs were written well in advance of the album's recording. "You Keep on Moving" had been written in 1973 by Hughes and Coverdale, but was rejected for inclusion on the Burn album by Blackmore. "Lady Luck" was written by Bolin's friend and songwriting partner Jeff Cook around the same time, but Bolin couldn't remember all the lyrics when the band hit the studio and the group couldn't get hold of Cook. So Coverdale rewrote much of the lyrics, and the song was included with Cook's blessing.

The remainder of the album was mostly written in Los Angeles, then recorded in Munich, with the exception of "Comin' Home" which was written in the studio. Hughes went back to England before the completion of the record so he could deal with his then-rampant cocaine addiction, and he cites this as the reason for Bolin playing the bass and singing the lower-register backing vocals on "Comin' Home". The album shows the strong funk influence from Hughes at this point, now working with the equally funk and jazz influenced Bolin, but the direction tended to be more like 1974's Burn, with a heavier focus on rock guitar. The recording with Bolin also allowed the band to take many creative liberties, as Blackmore had been somewhat difficult to work with on the band's two previous albums due to creative differences with Hughes and Coverdale.

Release and reception
Generally the record is considered one of Deep Purple's lesser efforts, although it did sell reasonably well on release (#19 in the UK charts, and #43 in the US ) and received a rave review in the leading British music paper New Musical Express. The album was certified Silver on 1 November 1975 by the BPI, selling 60,000 copies in the UK.

In recent years the album has received some critical reassessment "on its own merits", in part due to Bolin's contributions to the album. Gillan (who left the band just over two years prior), on the other hand, has stated that he does not view the album as a real Deep Purple album. Lord praised the quality of the album years later in interviews, stating that "listening to it now, it's a surprisingly good album," while acknowledging, "the worst thing you can say about it is that, in most people's opinion, it's not a Deep Purple album."

Reissues
In 1990, the album was remastered and re-released in the US by Metal Blade Records and distributed by Warner Bros. It was re-released again on the Friday Music label on 31 July 2007, along with Made in Europe and Stormbringer. While the label's website claims that the album has been digitally remastered, it is unclear which tapes were used as a source for this remastering, but it is unlikely the original master tapes were used, as EMI had repeatedly claimed over the years that the master tapes of this album were missing.

In December 2009, the Deep Purple Appreciation Society (DPAS) reported the original multi-track masters had recently surfaced and that an official remastered version with bonus tracks (including remixes by Glenn Hughes and Kevin Shirley) would see a release in 2010.
 * 35th Anniversary Edition

Released on 25 October 2010, the 2-CD Deluxe 35th Anniversary edition includes the original album in remastered form plus a rare US single edit of "You Keep On Moving" on the first disc, and a full album remix and two unissued tracks on the second disc: "Same in LA" a three-minute out-take from the final release in 1975, and "Bolin/Paice Jam" a five-minute instrumental jam with Bolin and Ian Paice.

Tour
The tour to support this album started strong, according to Lord in the documentary video Deep Purple – Getting Tighter, The Story of MK-IV (2011), in Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. However, according to Lord and Hughes on the same documentary, in Jakarta, Indonesia, the band was 'set up' for murder. Specifically the two affirmed that Hughes and two others were "framed" for the death of the band's highly trained security worker, Patsy Collins, who died under 'suspicious circumstances'. Hughes and the two others were placed in jail. The promoter also sold a second night's show, and forced the band to play for only the original fee for one night. Hughes was taken from jail at gunpoint to the second show, and returned to jail promptly afterwards. During this time, Bolin was given morphine by the promoter, which caused problems on the band's next stop in Japan. In order for the band to be allowed out of the country with the "charges", Deep Purple's management had to forfeit their entire fee as well as pay thousands more out of their pocket to the Army and Airport Security to fly out of the airport in Jakarta.

Their next stop was Japan, immediately afterwards. Bolin had taken the drugs given to him and fell asleep for an excess of 8 hours on his arm, causing a pinched nerve that rendered his left (fretting) hand virtually useless. According to Hughes, many of Bolin's guitar parts were covered by Lord on his organ and other keyboards. Lord (and in other interviews, Ian Paice) stated that to carry on with the concert, Bolin had several guitars tuned to open keys, minor and major, depending upon the song being played. He would make "a bar position" with his fingers, and play a basic rhythm while Lord played the melodies. Unfortunately, the show was filmed. In the opening song, "Burn", it's Lord's organ playing the opening riff that should have been played on Bolin's guitar (as was done by Blackmore in the original recording). The later dates on the Japan tour, with Bolin having recovered, and some of the American shows were much better received.

On touring with Bolin, Paice stated: "Tommy could be an absolute genius, but that happened one show in twenty. If Tommy got his hit and it was good, and he slept well, and the sound was right, and his equipment didn't break, and the audience was nice, and the sun shone between 1 pm and 2 pm, then yeah, he could be great. But chances of that happening on a regular basis were very remote. It could go from the sublime to the absolute worst end of ridiculous."

After tours for this album concluded in March 1976, Deep Purple broke up for eight years. Tommy Bolin formed his own band that toured in support of Peter Frampton and Jeff Beck, but it was short-lived as he died of multiple drug intoxication in December, 1976. Morphine, cocaine, lidocaine and alcohol were all found in his system.

Personnel

 * Deep Purple
 * David Coverdale – lead vocals (tracks 1-2, 4-7, 9), acoustic guitar
 * Tommy Bolin – electric guitar, bass guitar and backing vocals (track 1), lead vocals (track 4)
 * Jon Lord – keyboards, piano, synthesiser
 * Glenn Hughes – bass guitar (all but track 1), lead vocals (tracks 3, 8, 9), backing vocals
 * Ian Paice – drums, percussion


 * Production
 * Produced by Martin "The Wasp" Birch and Deep Purple
 * Engineered by Martin Birch
 * Final mix by Martin Birch and Ian Paice
 * Cover photography by Peter Williams
 * Remastered by Dave Schultz and Bill Inglot at Digiprep, Los Angeles
 * 2010 remix by Kevin Shirley at The Cave, Malibu, California
 * Mastered by Bob Ludwig

Charts

 * Album