1974 · Behind the Songs
Two new singers, one incendiary riff, and a band reborn from its own ashes.
By the end of 1973, Deep Purple was coming apart. Ian Gillan and Roger Glover — the voice and bass of the classic Mark II lineup — had departed, and many assumed the band was finished. Instead, Deep Purple rebuilt. The new Mark III lineup paired an unknown blues singer, David Coverdale, with bassist Glenn Hughes, whose soaring soul voice gave the band, for the first time, two lead singers.
The title track of Burn (1974), the first album by the new lineup, was the statement of intent. It opens with one of Ritchie Blackmore’s most aggressive riffs — a churning, almost menacing figure — before Coverdale’s blues growl enters, answered by Hughes’ stratospheric harmonies. The song is a masterclass in vocal interplay: two very different singers pushing each other higher over a rhythm section playing at full tilt.
Recorded in Montreux in late 1973, Burn showed a band refusing to imitate its past. The funk and soul influences Hughes brought from his Trapeze days loosened Deep Purple’s attack, while Coverdale’s blues grounding kept it heavy. The album restored the band’s commercial momentum on both sides of the Atlantic and proved the Purple name could survive the loss of its most famous voice.
“Burn” itself became the Mark III era’s signature — a concert staple that Coverdale would carry into his later career with Whitesnake. It remains the definitive document of Deep Purple’s most underrated lineup: a band that, given up for dead, chose to burn brighter instead.
What to listen for: the two voices. Notice how Coverdale’s earthy verses set up Hughes’ explosive high harmonies, and how the band leaves space for both. Listen for Jon Lord’s organ, darker and more menacing here than on the Mark II records, and for the riff itself — Blackmore at his most elemental, all muscle and menace.