The Live Album Section 1972
Deep Purple Made in Japan 1972 (Purple Records)
Hard Rock
Extended workouts and mesmerizing solos!
One of the most revered live albums of the 1970s and certainly one of the best. It was only a matter of time before one of the ‘really big boys’ would release a live album par excellence! The material to be found on this double album, comes from the three albums since Ian Gillan and Roger Glover’s inception into the band
In Rock,
Fireball and
Machine Head. By now the band thanks to
Machine Head were at the zenith of their power and so this live album came at just the right time, it’s so good it ranks right up there with the Who’s
Live at Leeds which came out two years earlier. The length of the original album comes in at about 76 minutes and contains just seven songs, so how did the band fill out this mammoth amount of time? Quite simply the band gave us the perfect exercise in precision jamming, which was highlighted by amazing solos from Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord, that helped to extend these tracks well beyond their initial run times, hell “Space Truckin’” clocks in at around almost 20 minutes!!! and songs like “Child in Time” seem almost like different songs at times. Tracks like “The Mule” and “Lazy” are basically like jamming tracks anyway with the uniqueness of their extended jamming, and of course let's not forget "Smoke on the Water" the band's most famous track.
Made in Japan contains some of Ian Gillan’s most amazing screaming sessions to date as well and the song selection on this album, were carefully chosen tracks to highlight the individual talents of the three pivotal members of the band Gillan, Blackmore and Lord but of course the rhythm section of Glover and Paice also had their moments as well. The album was recorded over a period of three nights at the Festival Hall in Osaka and the famed Budokan in Tokyo. A 1998 remastered edition of the album, features an extra three songs known as the ‘Encores’ which were from the original concert recordings.
Ian Gillan- Vocals
Ritchie Blackmore- Guitar
Roger Glover- Bass
Jon Lord- Keyboards
Ian Paice- Drums
Production- Deep Purple
Festival Hall, Osaka 1972
Budokan, Tokyo 1972