A file picture dated 04 March 2009 shows British musician Jon Lord, a former member of Deep Purple and Whitesnake, playing his Hammond organ, accompanied by the Danubia Symphonic Orchestra, during his concert at the Arts Palace in Budapest, Hungary. According to media reports on 16 July 2012, Lord has died at the age of 71 at a hospital in London, Britain, on 16 July 2012, after suffering from pancreatic cancer.
Glenn Hughes claimed that a potential reunion of Deep Purple Mark 3 failed due to Ritchie Blackmore.
In a recent interview with That Rocks! Glenn Hughes explained that he, David Coverdale, and Jon Lord had plans for a reunion of Deep Purple Mark III failed due to the unreachability of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. He said:
“So, you know, about 15 years ago, David and Jon and myself – before Jon passed – had a three-week conversation about, wouldn’t it be great, maybe we could get Blackmore, we could do some kind of a reunion.
“Who’s gonna call him? [imitates his former bandmates] ‘I’ll call him. No, I’ll call him. No, I’ll call him.’ And we couldn’t get him on the phone, you can imagine.”
Further, Hughes was asked if all three musicians tried reaching Blackmore. He responded:
“Well, I think we all tried when we got through to [Blackmore’s manager] Carole, you know, and I don’t think he ever got the message, but we tried. Look, I would love to do this with David. We gotta be with [Ian] Paice for it, but it’s not to be, so I am the last one standing, so I’m gonna honor this material.”
The fourth Deep Purple single, “Emmaretta” featured the group’s original lineup, with Rod Evans on lead vocals and Nick Simper on bass. This non-LP single reached the lower rungs of charts in Austria and Canada. It would be included on the remastered CD edition of Deep Purple; that release also featured a BBC Top Gear performance of the song from January 1969. “Emmaretta” would be one of the group’s last recordings before changing from a progressive sound to a harder rock style.
A non-album track, “Hallelujah” was the sixth single from Deep Purple, and the first to feature Gillan (lead vocals) and Glover (bass). It failed to chart anywhere except Austria, where it reached No. 16 on that country’s singles chart. A cover of a tune first cut by obscure group The Derek Lawrence Statement, Deep Purple’s “Hallelujah” was finally released on an LP in 1978 as part of The Deep Purple Singles A’s and B’s; that album was released everywhere but the U.S. An expanded CD-era version of the compilation would be released worldwide in 1993.
This non-album single represented a breakthrough for Deep Purple, reaching the Top 10 in six countries; it soared all the way to the No. 1 spot in the band’s home United Kingdom. With songwriting credited to the whole band, “Black Night” bears a striking resemblance to “We Ain’t Got Nothin’ Yet” a hit for American psychedelic band Blues Magoos three years earlier. “Black Night” would be featured as a bonus track on the 25th Anniversary Edition release of In Rock, along with a longer, unedited remix.
