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“Smoke on the Water” – Single by Deep Purple from the album Machine Head
B-side “Smoke on the Water” (live)
Released: May 1973
Recorded: December 1971
Songwriters: Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice

Video on the top, is the Deep Purple Mk 3 version, with Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice, Jon Lord, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes. Recorded during the California Jam festival from April 1974. They have the band’s biggest ever crowd, estimated at over 200,000.

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Deep Purple Mk3
Deep Purple Mk3 – Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice, Jon Lord, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes

The second video, has Deep Purple Mk2 playing “Smoke On The Water” with Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Roger Glover. You can watch the Mk2 video, right here:

Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water (1972)
Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water

This song took inspiration from a fire in the Casino at Montreux, Switzerland on December 4, 1971. The band was going to start recording their Machine Head album there right after a Frank Zappa concert, but someone fired a flare gun at the ceiling during Zappa’s show, which set the place on fire.

Deep Purple was in the audience for the show, and lead singer Ian Gillan recalls two flares being shot by someone sitting behind him that landed in the top corner of the building and quickly set it ablaze. Zappa stopped the show and helped ensure an orderly exit.

Deep Purple watched the blaze from a nearby restaurant, and when the fire died down, a layer of smoke had covered Lake Geneva, which the casino overlooked. This image gave bass player Roger Glover the idea for a song title: “Smoke On The Water,” and Gillan wrote the lyric about their saga recording the Machine Head album.

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The band was relocated to the Grand Hotel in Montreux, where they recorded the album using the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio. They needed one more song, so they put together “Smoke On The Water” using Gillan’s lyric and the riff guitarist Ritchie Blackmore came up with. The result was a song telling the story of these strange events just days after they happened – the recording sessions took place from December 6-21.

Frank Zappa, who is mentioned in the lyrics, lost all his equipment in the fire. He then broke his leg a few days later when a fan pulled him into the crowd at a show in England. This prompted Ian Gillan to say “Break a leg, Frank,” into the microphone after recording this for a BBC special in 1972.

The band did not think this would be a hit and rarely played it live. When they did, though, it got a huge reaction. They included a live version from a show in Osaka on their 1972 live album Made In Japan, which was a huge seller. The album was released in America in April 1973, over a year after Machine Head was released there. This earned the song a lot more exposure and convinced Deep Purple’s people to release it as a single in America in May. The song didn’t peak at #4 in the US until July 28, 1973; by this time, Deep Purple had another album out (Who Do We Think We Are) and the Mark II lineup that recorded the song had broken apart, with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover leaving the band.

Deep Purple mk2
Mk2: Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Roger Glover

 

Deep Purple Mk2:
  • Ritchie Blackmore – guitar
  • Ian Gillan – vocals, harmonica
  • Roger Glover – bass
  • Jon Lord – keyboards
  • Ian Paice – drums, percussion
Production
  • Martin Birch – engineering, mixing with Deep Purple
  • Jeremy “Bear” Gee – assistant engineer
  • Nick Watterton – Rolling Stones Mobile Studio operator
  • Ian Hansford, Rob Cooksey, Colin Hart – equipment technicians
  • Shephard Sherbell – photography
  • Roger Glover and John Coletta – cover design
  • Peter Denenberg and Roger Glover – remixing (1997)
  • Peter Mew – remastering at Abbey Road Studios, London (1997)

 

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