Search - Deep Purple :: Days May Come & Days May Go

Nice MK IV Companion Piece

V. G. Wilson | Pittsburgh, PA | 12/22/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Semi-official 1975 bootleg recording of loose studio rehearsal jams from Deep Purple Mk IV (i.e. Tommy Bolin on lead guitar rather than Ritchie Blackmore). I hadn't known of these recordings, but the liner notes indicate this 2 disc set was released as 2 separate CD's back in 2000 and, again from the liner notes, it contains the same tracks.



The notes also indicate no sound improvement techniques were employed, but that's not an issue, as the sound quality is quite good. The only caveat is some nasty tape skips/fades/garbles here and there, which, while irritating, are few in number.



These tracks date from the earliest days of this line-up, before the recording sessions for their only studio album, Come Taste the Band. I won't go through a track-by-track review here, but suffice to say there's some tasty playing on a number of these tracks, particularly on Disc I beginning with "Dance to the Rock & Roll", a particularly intense number. Tommy plays good to great on these tracks, and David Coveradale's vocals come across with an immediacy that rarely made it to record in the DP days, particularly on the "Drifter" takes. John Lord throws in a nice Spanish classical motif on "The Orange Juice Song" (the same used by Miles Davis on Sketches of Spain, "Concerto de Aranjuez", thus the "Orange" play on names, very cool).



This is the least documented line-up of DP (with the exception of the Joe Lynn Turner line-up in the late 80's), with only (to my knowledge) one studio and 2 live recordings, so, while a little pricey, it's worth getting if you're a hard core Purple and/or Bolin fan (you know you want it)! Not likely to see any more recordings from this line up.

"

Good mixture of songs...nice quality too

K. Hons | 02/02/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was surprised how good the quality is on some of these songs for rehearsal tapes. recorded in rehearsals in California 1975 with Tommy Bolin, Glenn Hughes & David Coverdale. Must have for Deep Purple collectors!"