Burn is the eighth studio album by English rock band Deep Purple, released on 15 February 1974, through Purple Records internationally, and Warner Bros. Records in North America. This album was the recording debut of David Coverdale, the band's new vocalist. The group's Mark III line-up for their recording debut included Coverdale, Glenn Hughes (joining from Trapeze) on bass and vocals, Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Jon Lord on keyboards, and Ian Paice on drums.
Burn mostly consists of hard rock and blues in a similar vein to that of the group's preceding albums, particularly Machine Head, but there was an additional element of funk rock, which would become more prominent in the later albums of the Mark III–IV era. The album has received favourable reviews and accolades but there were mixed reactions shortly after its release. Burn charted in 13 countries, including reaching number three in the UK and number nine in the US. Followed by a successful tour, internal tensions would start to erupt during the recording of their follow-up album, resulting in Blackmore's departure in early 1975. Burn received a reissue in 2004, featuring remastered and remixed versions along with a previously unreleased track.
Background In the early 1970s, Deep Purple was the best-selling group in the world, particularly in North America. Their 1973 album Who Do We Think We Are was commercially successful, though the tour supporting it was cut short.Smoke on the Water: The Deep Purple Story, p. 154. Tensions between then-lead singer Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore escalated, resulting in Gillan leaving the group on 29 June 1973 in Osaka, Japan, after their tour had concluded. Gillan described the Who Do We Think We Are recording sessions as elusive, prompting him to announce he was leaving the band. At the time, they were able to dissuade him from quitting. However, in early December 1972, he wrote management a letter declaring that he wanted to leave on 30 June 1973; the decision was made "not impulsive[ly] but [after] at least six months of thought". Gillan also predicted in his letter that the group would eventually disband after his departure. Bassist Roger Glover had also planned to leave the band due to his song ideas being rejected.Peter Buckley (2003). The Rough Guide to Rock p. 279. Rough Guides. Retrieved 1 March 2012Mike Clifford, Pete Frame (1992). The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock, p. 41. Harmony Books. Retrieved 1 March 2012Whitburn, Joel (2008). Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955–2006, p. 227. Record Research Eventually, Blackmore decided to stay with the group on the condition that Glover was replaced, as he thought the band had become stagnant. Glover felt this was underserved and hurtful, and decided to quit at the same time as Gillan. His departure was announced the second week of July. Later, he took over as head of A&R at Purple Records and focused mostly on production.
Jon Lord had called the end of Mark II while the band was at their peak: "the biggest shame in rock and roll; God knows what we would have done over the next three or four years. We were writing so well." With Gillan and Glover out of the group, the rest of the members took a five-month hiatus to start searching for a new vocalist.Ekblad: p. 39, 43. A misleading headlining article came up into the picture about their split, which was confirmed false when Hughes replaced Glover at that time. Blackmore took the lead in instructing the personnel line-up during the search.Bloom: p. 205
Hughes and Coverdale introduction: Mark III line-up According to Paice, Glover told him and Lord a few months before his official termination that he wanted to leave the band, so they had started to drop in on Trapeze shows. During their promotional tour in April 1973, Blackmore, Lord, and Paice went on to see Trapeze at the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles. There, they complimented then-bassist, Glenn Hughes about his style. Hughes, mistakenly, thought the Deep Purple musicians were expressing their admiration for Trapeze but not for Hughes himself. Hughes was offered the job but declined at first. By the end of the following month, Paice was frustrated at the instability due to Glover's upcoming departure, so he approached Hughes in New York and persuaded Hughes to join the band as vocalist and bassist. He was introduced as a new bassist and vocalist at the same time Gillan and Glover departed.
It was decided that Hughes would sing on the upcoming album. However, Blackmore wanted a vocal soloist in the band with a more masculine voice, and Lord and Paice also agreed to Blackmore's proposal to add more two-part vocal elements to the band's music. Eventually, an agreement was made that Hughes would sing more on later tracks, gradually increasing on following albums (Stormbringer and Come Taste the Band).Bloom: p. 207.
However, despite disagreement about Hughes' exact singing role, they considered themselves working as a four-piece group but settled on the idea of having a solo lead singer. They needed a new lead vocalist with a more mature tone, to replace Gillan. Lord affirmed that they had a "golden" opportunity to have two singers in the band. However, as time continued, there was no official word on the replacement, except Paul Rodgers, from Free, who was the only person approached for the job. Although having good relations with the band, Paice affirmed that Rodgers would sometimes turn down offers from "people he respects and admires". At that same time, Rodgers had just formed Bad Company, so he declined the offer. "They did ask", Rodgers recalled, "and I spoke to all of them at length about the possibility. Purple had toured Australia with Free's final lineup. I didn't do it because I was very much into the idea of forming Bad Company." Blackmore was disappointed as he wanted to take the band's music in a blues direction. John Lawton (who would later become the singer of Uriah Heep) was also a candidate but refused, due to a press leak that talked about getting the job offer from the band.
With no upcoming candidates for a lead singer role, the band was desperate to find Gillan's successor. Promotional audition posters for a replacement singer were produced and the band found themselves buried in demo tapes from aspiring singers at the band's management offices in London. Some singers who auditioned included Jess Roden, Graham Bell, Gary Pickford-Hopkins, and Steve Parsons (Snips).
Twenty-one-year-old David Coverdale from Saltburn saw an advert in Melody Maker that said the band was holding auditions for a lead singer, and was considering unknowns. Coverdale, who fronted his band The Government, had opened up for Deep Purple in 1969 at Bradford University after Gillan and Glover had just joined. Coverdale and Lord met together on the road and became good friends but hadn't had any recent contact until Gillan's departure. Coverdale was asked to send a demo and a photo of himself. During the recording of the demo tapes, Coverdale said that he was "very drunk" at that time while singing tunes from Harry Nilsson and Bill Withers ("Everybody's Talkin'" and "Lonely Town, Lonely Street") and Joe Cocker; he later referenced it as the worst demo tape he had recorded. (The demo tape could be heard decades later on the 2023 reissue of Whitesnake's The Purple Album.) For the photo, Coverdale obtained a younger version of himself as a Boy Scout.
Paice received Coverdale's demo tape from the management office and was impressed with his vocal technique and told Lord and Blackmore he found the lead singer the band had envisioned. In mid-August 1973, Coverdale auditioned for the band at Scorpio Sound Studios. He then received a call a week later from Tony Edwards that he was welcomed into the band. On 23 September, a day after his 22nd birthday, the band held a press conference to announce Coverdale's recruitment as the next official lead singer of Deep Purple.
Before the new line-up was announced, however, the band's management, John Coletta told Coverdale to correct his strabismus, resulting in him wearing contact lenses instead of glasses. He was then also prescribed a course of amphetamine-based weight-loss drugs that exhausted him while recording sessions of Burn. Coverdale was also asked to shave his mustache and groom his Edgar Broughton hairstyle to a certain length. Lastly, Coletta insisted that Coverdale change his name, but he gently refused.Ekblad: p. 41–42. Coverdale told Classic Rock that from his experience, he looked just fine as a rockstar. He referred to Coletta's demands that he change his appearance as Coletta's "paranoid" opinion.
Blackmore was very excited about the new line-up, taking it as a "blues-commercial pop" approach. On the way that he envisioned the 'Mark III' Deep Purple sound, he commented:
Production and composition At the beginning of 9 September 1973, the yet-incomplete 'Mark III' line-up commenced two weeks of writing material and rehearsal in Clearwell Castle at Gloucestershire. Blackmore was very satisfied with the rehearsals and found most of the songs playable live. "Smoke On The Water" was also rehearsed as the band's "national anthem", which Lord recalled, found "a new way of doing it". At the end of the two-week period, around half an hour's worth of new music was ready to be recorded. At that same time, Coverdale's introduction was made to the press.
Blackmore and Paice flew to Europe to search for a new recording location for the upcoming album but were unsuccessful. Ultimately, they settled on recording entirely at the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio in Montreux, Switzerland, where the group previously recorded Machine Head.
On 3 November 1973, the Mark III line-up flew to Montreux to commence the official recording. The band worked with producer and engineer Martin Birch, who had worked with the group since the recording of Deep Purple in Rock four years earlier. Burn features performances from Blackmore, Coverdale, Hughes, Paice and Lord. However, this time they were recording on the top floor of the new Convention Centre, giving them the advantage of recording in a soundproof room. Recordings began on 8 November. Despite Coverdale's limited experience in the studio, the recording went on smoothly, laying down the tracks at about one song per day. Five of the multi-track versions of the song "Lay Down, Stay Down", "Sail Away", "Might Just Take Your Life", and "A' 200" (collectively titled "Racing Cloth") were dated 8 November, then proceeded with two multi-tracks, "Mistreated" and "What's Going On Here", recorded on 12 November, and the final two tracks, "You Fool No One" and "Burn", recorded on 14 November.
The band members agreed that Coverdale was very confident despite the lack of experience in the studio. "We had a good time recording that album," Lord claimed, "David had always been a very self-confident man and if he was overawed to be working with us, it only showed when we were talking between ourselves over a beer later, never during the actual recording." Birch agreed, saying "It was a much happier recording session than Who Do We Think We Are, everybody wanted to get down and work together. David was very nervous because he'd never recorded before."