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The royal family
Martin Popoff has a new book out, titled The Deep Purple Royal Family: Chain Of Events Through ’79. Instead of trying to write something about the thing we have not seen, here is the complete press release straight from the author:
The Text:
280 stuffed pages offering an exhaustive and detailed timeline of Purple milestones, often to the day, including some similar bands, influences, cultural milieu, tour stuff, recording sessions, charts, singles, certification news, break-ups, personal stuff, trivia for miles, and lots and lots of artist quotes to add to the entries, turning the book into a quasi-oral history but loaded with factual matter. But as you’ve noticed, this is about FAMILY. So the text weaves, in and out of the story of Purple proper, the dastardly diaries of Rainbow, Whitesnake, Ian Gillan Band, Gillan, Paice Ashton Lord, all the solo projects, guest slots, even Captain Beyond, Warhorse, Jerusalem, Jesus Christ Superstar, Bedlam, Elf, Episode Six, Outlaws, and Pussy. And when I felt it mattered to the story, there’s touchdowns to the likes of Heep, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Nazareth, Moxy, Silverhead, Hard Stuff, Trapeze, Lord Sutch, Warpig, Vanilla Fudge, Brian Auger, Judas Priest, James Gang, Angel and Legs Diamond, always with contextual explanation plus the odd rare and very cool archival advertisement.
The Graphics:
A blazing 542 of them, usually rare, archival, historical shots of record ads, LP and 45 sleeves, tour posters and newspaper notices, ticket stubs, endorsement ads, tour program covers, foreign country releases, and again, contextual things like, say, an ancient Hammond or Marshall ad, studio ads, weird business stuff. Seriously, the crazy, creative old ’70s ads, and the hype copy on them – that’s why I wanted to do this book. It’s a gallery, flowed and framed by fully 41,000 words of beautifully displayed timeline, which brings us to.
The Design:
This book marks my first project with awesome Calgary-based designer Bill Harris, and what he’s created for the look of this thing is top-flight, eminently readable, a pleasure to flip through and touch down upon the trivia and the rare pictures from deep Deep history. You’ll love it – a huge step up for my books.
The books can be ordered straight from the source, although this one appears not to be listed yet. Email Martin for any further questions. The cost including shipping is:
- US orders: $35.00 US funds
- Int’l orders (surface mail): $39.00 US funds
- Int’l orders (air mail): $45.00 US funds
- Canadian orders: $38.00 Cdn. funds
Paypal, personal checks in US funds, cash, or international money orders accepted. Yes, as far as we know, he accepts payments in Canadian dollars as well.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Martin knows his subject, I can think of no other author who works harder, but he probably enjoys it like crazy. I just read his latest book on Sabbath “Q&A” and it was a good read. If this one is anything like it, we´re in for another nice addition to our libraries. MIKE
June 30th, 2011 at 07:48A MUST have! Thanks Martin for ALL your efforts. At least when you say a DP tome will see the light of day……..IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS! Cheers,Drdp
June 30th, 2011 at 10:06The ability to to continue the story will always exist, so he who waits the longest just might be the one who takes home the award.
June 30th, 2011 at 18:05martin always has a refreshing take on things. none of the ” this book is in the pipeline” nonsense either. before you know about it, another book is out!
June 30th, 2011 at 23:33When will people really learn that what we all crave at the end of the day are anecdotes that give an insight to the relationships, circumstances, events & dreams that put all that creativity = musical output, into context.
Having said all that – this book seems a good travelling companion for anyone who has memory issues!
July 1st, 2011 at 09:47And a good cover at last!!!
I saw the last DP books, Ian and Roger on one cover, and Bolin on the 2nd.
July 1st, 2011 at 23:54Thats weird.
Dang, thanks guys for the nice words. Just a quick comment… “refreshing take on things” thanks, but in a way, the refreshing takes isn’t so much commentary from me this time, as in the connections between things revealed by the timeline, and the graphics picked. As well, I like the “revealed” bits with respect to like, what was Rainbow doing the month or week Gillan was doing this and Coverdale was doing THAT! Working on the second part of this right now, bringing it all up to date. Glad someone cares! This is all self-published and to a pretty small audience, but I love that it feels like a comminuty.
July 2nd, 2011 at 13:24Martin
Hey guys,
July 7th, 2011 at 13:09Sorry, a lot of people don’t think these things are “real” yet until they are at my site. Well, this book went up overnight.
And by the way, also there, you’ll notice, the Gettin’ Tighter and Castle Full Of Rascals books are now available as eBooks for $8.88 each.
Beavering away on the second one today some more. My designer sez he’s up to 1993.
Thanks again fer caring.
Martin
@ 7 & 8 Imposter “Alert” ,this is not Martin Popoff.
July 11th, 2011 at 12:26Martin Popoff returns with his 3rd Purple volume.
This time, he’s put aside his tried and true “album-by-album” method to try out a “chain of events” approach to the text and treat us to a massive amount of images.His new modus operandi succeeds greatly as this book is informative,entertaining and visually exciting.
The layout has the text running down the side of the page while the graphics occupy the rest.I confess,when I first looked through the book,I feared the text might be a tad sparse.I need not have worried. There’s lots to read here,with virtually no overlap with the author’s previous 2 DP books.
It’s a timeline of all things Deep Purple through 1979,including band member’s pre-Purple groups ( The 21’s Coffee Bar Junior Skiffle Group….Honest !! ) and the much better known post-1976 alumni outfits.It also shows how Purple’s arc intersected with many other musicians and bands over the years ( Uriah Heep,Elf,Nazareth )
What were Gillan & Glover doing while Marks III and IV kept on movin’ ?? What guitarist did Ritchie Blackmore admit intimidated him….to the guitarist himself !?!?!? It’s all here.
The text is primarily drawn from contemporary music publications of the time; interviews,album & concert reviews,news articles,etc. Easily enough facts and minutae to feed your thirst for Purple knowledge.Martin’s voice is largely missing in this book,but,as he says in the introduction,he’s had 2 other books to have his say.
The obvious and undeniable stars of this show,however,are the images.Album covers,single sleeves,concert announcements,record label promo pics.There’s even an ad for a brand of strings Blackmore used back in the day !! Wicked cool stuff !! This book looks great !!
Having finished the book,I’m gonna leave it on the coffee table for a while.It just begs to be picked up and flipped through again and again !!
I can’t wait for the second installment.
July 15th, 2011 at 22:09@6, HolyPriestInThePurpleChair: Interesting news, that you consider all other members but the one, unworthy of the band name…. I didn’t realize that was your view of the world;-) (yes, I meant to be sarcastic, but in a half-friendly way, but am utterly unable to express that through this medium. We just disagree about the guitar players, that’s all:-)
September 7th, 2011 at 19:27Now boys, play nice. Re: that cover… I think I’m repeating myself, but I just wanted to step off the beaten path. Heh heh, probably even worse… and I’ve said this too – fave albums from the whole catalogue… toss-up between Purpendicular and Abandon with maybe Perfect Strangers and House next, and then the old stuff, ha, probably Burn. Namely because not a lot of songs and then a couple of clankers per. All of a sudden, you’re not, really, really entusiastic about a third of the album. rarely the case in the Morse era. Hey, check out my long Roger Glover interview at bravewords.com. Just use the search, although it might be still near the top somewhere.
September 9th, 2011 at 17:47