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The Royal Family, pt. 2
Martin Popoff has a follow up to his Purple family book. The new book is called The Deep Purple Royal Family: Chain Of Events ’80-’11.
This picks up where that book left off, offering a few modest milestones within its pages, namely:
- the most comprehensive information on the Gillan band ever stuffed in a book
- the largest amount of detail as pertains the Whitesnake story ever presented
- a fair bit of Blackmore’s Night as well as Joe Lynn Turner and Glenn Hughes solo
- all the play-by-play from Perfect Strangers up to Purple happenings this summer
Also, as with the first one, I’ve made sure that the content was all 100% fresh over and above my first two Purple books, Gettin’ Tighter: Deep Purple ’68 – ’76 and A Castle Full Of Rascals: Deep Purple ’83 – ’09, all 296 pages, including all-new interview footage, all-new quotes from archival press, all text, all. 513 pictures.
The Text:
296 stuffed pages offering an exhaustive and detailed timeline of Purple milestones from 1980 until right now, 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, Gillan, Blackmore’s Night, all the solo projects, guest slots, a li’l MSG, Gary Moore, Black Sabbath and Black Country Communion, always with contextual explanation plus rare and very cool archival advertisements of shows ‘n’ records ‘n’ singles.
The Graphics:
A hefty 513 of them, usually rare, archival, historical shots of record ads, LP and 45 sleeves, CD singles, Japanese issues, picture discs, tour posters and newspaper notices, ticket stubs, endorsement ads, tour program covers, other foreign country releases, and again, contextual things. It’s a gallery, flowed and framed by fully 50,000 words of beautifully displayed timeline, which brings us to.
The Design:
This book marks my second project with awesome Calgary-based designer Bill Harris, and what he’s created for the look of this thing is a triumphant reprise of the first one, same breezy, readable mix of yummy graphics, pull quotes, classy typestyles. a pleasure to flip through and touch down upon the trivia and the rare pictures from deep Deep history. You’ll love it – a killer, comprehensive companion piece to the first edition.
Price including shipping:
US orders: $35.00 US funds
International orders (air mail only): $45.00 Cdn. funds
Canadian orders: $38.00 Cdn. funds
The book is not up on the Martin’s website yet, so wait a couple of days or email him for ordering info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
how much for the 3 books?
September 4th, 2011 at 22:14Already have mine on order. Pt 1 was a great read,look see and I expect nothing less for Pt 2. Martin ALWAYS puts out quality stuff. A MUST HAVE I’m sure. Cheers,Drdp
September 5th, 2011 at 08:55@ Roberto: Contact Martin via his website, and I’m sure you can make a deal with him about the 3 books. Normally he’s always willing to combine orders and give you a better price (particularly when it comes to shipping costs) for them.
September 8th, 2011 at 04:39Yeah, I’m around, guys/Roberto – just stuck a comment on the other Family book page. Long story… I’ll explain if you email me, but overseas TWO books is really reasonable due to this mailer thing…
September 9th, 2011 at 17:49Mere months later,Martin Popoff has completed Deep Purple’s Chain of Events,beginning in 1980 and bringing it to a close in Fall,2011. ( Current enough for ya ??)
There is a lot more of the Purple Royal Family,here.since Purple itself was missing in action from ’76-’84. In their absence,Gillan-the man and his band-,Rainbow and Whitesnake filled the void.As well,since the dawn of the Morse era,Gillan,Glover,Lord,Airey,& Steve himself have all put out at least a coupla solo projects each.Add to that Coverdale’s Whitesnake reboot,Blackmore’s Night. and the astonishingly prolific (20 odd solo albums plus BCC ) Glenn Hughes and that’s a lot of ground to cover.
Of course,the Deep Purple tale re-emerges at Perfect Strangers and is covered through Rapture of the Deep…and beyond.
The format and approach are the same as in the first book…if it’s not broke,don’t fix it !!
Textually,the magazine and print media interviews and articles used to tell the story are joined by …and you might have heard of it….the Internet.The down-side of this is that I’d read most of this info before on various music and DP websites,(including The Highway Star,naturally).
I,however,like the printed page version of something.I will rarely read something on the ‘Net a second time,but I’ll return to a book or a magazine again and again over the years.So,having all this website info gathered in a book is great for me.
Image-wise,Book 2 lacks the impact of it’s predecessor.The author adresses this in the introduction by explaining that,with shrinking promotional budgets since the 80s,the best record companys can muster for posters,flyers,etc.is some adaptation of the album cover art. There are some very cool European concert announcements,ticket stubs and backstage passes,though.
Chain Of Events ’80-’11 closes a 4 book cycle that began with Gettin’ Tighter and continued through A Castle Full of Rascals and Chain of Events Through ’79.
All of these books are must reads for Deep Purple fans.
If there’s anything left to tell in the Purple saga,I can’t imagine what it might be.
September 10th, 2011 at 23:18