Shades of Deep Purple by Deep Purple

Shades of Deep Purple, the debut from a brand-new London band called Deep Purple, came out in July 1968 on Tetragrammaton in America and that September on Parlophone at home. The group started life as Roundabout, the brainchild of Chris Curtis, once the Searchers' drummer, who roped in organist Jon Lord and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and then bowed out. Singer Rod Evans, bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice filled out the ranks that March.

After a couple of months of rehearsal they cut the whole thing in three days in May with Derek Lawrence producing: four originals and four covers, all bent into psychedelic shapes and laced with classical interludes, Lord's organ swirling and Blackmore's guitar biting. Britain shrugged, but America bit hard, and their thundering go at Joe South's "Hush", first cut by Billy Joe Royal, rode the airwaves all the way to number 4 on the Hot 100.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.