Deep Purple "Bananas"

Bananas is the 17th studio album by English rock band Deep Purple, released on 9 September 2003 via EMI Records and on 7 October 2003 via Sanctuary Records in the US.

This is the first Deep Purple album to feature Don Airey on the keyboards, replacing founding member Jon Lord. The album was recorded in Los Angeles during January and February 2003. It is also notable as being the first Ian Gillan-fronted Deep Purple album to makes use of backing vocals other than Gillan's own (since the 1972 sessions for the song Woman from Tokyo in Germany which featured Jon Lord and Roger Glover singing backup), with the song "Haunted" featuring Beth Hart. The album includes "Contact Lost", a short, slow instrumental about the Space Shuttle Columbia astronauts, written by guitarist Steve Morse when he heard the news of the crash.


Bananas charted well, despite lack of media exposure, especially in Europe and South America (notably at Germany and Argentina, where it peaked in the top 10).

Since the Abandon album, Deep Purple performed three new songs onstage. "Long Time Gone" was debuted in the summer of 2000 but not included on Bananas. Another new song, "Up The Wall" was played on the 2002 UK tour, and reworked into "I've Got Your Number". The instrumental "Well Dressed Guitar" remained unreleased until the next album, 2005's Rapture of the Deep.