Burn is the eighth studio album by English rock band Deep Purple, released on 15 February 1974, by Purple Records internationally, and Warner Bros. Records in North America. The album first features then-unknown lead singer David Coverdale. 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 favorable reviews and accolades but others gave 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.
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. 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 the band's refusal to consider his ideas for songs. Blackmore insisted that Glover go at the same time Gillan departed. Glover recalled his talk with the band's manager shortly about his departure, writing:
“My relationship with the band was changing. I was doing my work properly, playing well, yet I got this coldness, I finally confronted the manager about it and he denied everything. I wanted to know why I was unpopular. When we came offstage in those days the decision to do an encore wasn't just Ritchie's, it was everyone's. All of a sudden I wasn't involved anymore. The manager finally told me that Ritchie had said he would stay in Deep Purple if I left and I said, "What have I done?" He said it was nothing personal but Ritchie feels the band has become stagnant and he wants new blood in the band. I was really hurt by it and thought it was totally unfair. I said, "I'm not going to get pushed out. I'll leave."
Glover's 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.
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. 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.
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).
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 single 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. 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:
"You could say a Beatles-feel with a hard rock backing is the basic thing. We expect a vocalist to take on the part of a lead instrument and that's why we're quite knocked out with matey (Coverdale) there. Who knows? After the LP, I might be saying he's a shitty vocalist as well. I'm not going to say he's the best vocalist in the world but when we heard him, we thought, "Christ he's good". There are now two other guys involved, so it makes it more or less a new band to me. It's not Deep Purple anymore, although it's still the same name. Really, it's a completely different band".
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."
When the recording for the album concluded, the band flew back to London to have Birch mix the record at Gillan's studio, Kingsway Recorders. Birch made certain Paice's drums levels were normalized, while Blackmore made sure his own guitar was audible in the mix while being aided by assistant engineer Tapani Tapanainen. However, during the mixing of "Mistreated", Coverdale and Hughes recorded a dozen vocal tracks for the final chorus towards the end of the song. In Blackmore's view, the backing vocals overlapped the guitar solo, so the vocal stems were muted throughout the process. Coverdale was upset about the change and felt that the drama created by overlapping vocal tracks had been almost completely lost.
After the album had been mixed and was ready to be mastered, the band started to perform as a warm-up set in Europe. They set out rehearsals in early December 1973 to start doing a six-show setlist their debut originally being planned in Aarhus, Denmark. However, when the plane carrying the group and some of their equipment unknowingly arrived late in Denmark, the Aarhus show was cancelled; around 4,000 were in attendance. Their next gig, at K.B. Hallen arena in Copenhagen on 9 December 1973, marked the actual first Mark III live debut. Coverdale recalled the event, describing it as "nervous" and challenging for the new line-up, given that the band had not toured for six months.
After their first gig concluded, the band celebrated at a local club until 4 in the morning. They were booked to Rosenberg Studios but arrived late as Coverdale stayed back at his hotel room sleeping from the previous night. Lord reportedly led the session to lay out the tracks, while Coverdale prepared a set of lyrics. The sessions got off to a slow start, according to Lord, there was nonsense among with the previous night the band had attended a local club. On the contrary, Coverdale was still exhausted from the other night, so he preferred not to sing on that track except doing chorus lines with Glenn. There, the sessions resulted in a composition that was later named, "Coronarias Redig". The band later left the studio by 6:30 in the evening as it had already been booked for someone else.
At that following day, the group went en-route to Sweden, where they received a gold certification disc from EMI. On that same day, they played at the Scandinavium. After the concert, they returned to Copenhagen to sign records and autographs.
On 13 December 1973, a press conference was held to announce the final shows of the promotional warm-up tour. The latter went on to Brussels (Belgium), Festhalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt (Germany), then concluded with the show on 17 December at Innsbruck (Austria). Later that month, the band toured only five concerts across France and Germany. The second promotional tour was abruptly cut short when Lord was hospitalized with acute appendicitis. He later recovered within three weeks from the surgery he received. The tour was originally planned to begin in the United States in February but was pushed back until March.
Purple's hard-rock sound incorporated elements of soul and funk, which would become much more prominent on the follow-up album, Stormbringer. There was a huge influence of boogie-oriented rock sound which is made in the same way it follows suit with soul and funk. For the first time, it features a more mainstream blues tone approach to their albums since Coverdale's introduction, although Blackmore wanted to give a new sound with different methods of genres. Lord said that the biggest difference between Burn and the previous albums is in the vocal parts, which the band did "in a completely different way". According to Lord, the song sounds much more liberated on the album than before:
”It had been rehearsed and thought about in advance, unlike those albums where we just jammed in the studio until the song was born. Now the only song like that was the instrumental ("'A' 200"), and that was only because I wanted to use a synthesizer.”
In previous albums, all members of the band were automatically entered in the composer information of the songs, but now the practice was changed under Blackmore's initiative. He was tired of dividing the royalties into five parts, even if the others had little involvement in the composition. "Everyone should get what they do," Blackmore stated. However, the new practice was followed only in the songs "Sail Away", "Mistreated" (credited to Blackmore and Coverdale) and "'A' 200" (credited to Blackmore, Lord, and Paice). Hughes participated in songwriting but was cheated out of his credits due to unexpired contractual obligations from Blackmore. However, the 30th-anniversary edition of the album included Hughes in the credits for all the tracks except "Sail Away", "Mistreated", "'A' 200" and bonus track "Coronarias Redig".
The opening "Burn" is one of the highlights of the album. Allmusic's Eduardo Rivadavia cites it as one of the band's best opening tracks, along with “Highway Star” from Machine Head. Paice's drumming is strongly featured. The riff is borrowed from George Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm", and there are influences from classical music. Lord took the solos on the Hammond organ, closing in with more classical-influenced synthesizers. David Coverdale wrote four different lyrics for the song, as he sometimes had trouble writing lyrics that pleased Blackmore. Blackmore wanted the songs to deal with things like demonology and mythology, and to avoid rock clichés such as bands, hotels, and touring life. He equated his opinion to the fact that no one is interested in listening to plumbers' stories about installation work or bankers talking about the financial world. According to Coverdale, during recording in Montreux, he spent all night writing four to six different lyrics, and Blackmore chose which ended up on the recording. Coverdale viewed them as "science fiction" poems.
"As we were discussing the arrangement, I remember that Glenn Hughes was crawling around behind the drum kit. It was a very bizarre situation. Somebody had sent him a package in the mail, and he'd taken the contents without even checking to find out what they were. He kept asking me over and over whether his head was expanding. Ian (Paice) eventually had to take him for a walk in the garden." – Ritchie Blackmore
Paul Stanley of KISS was inspired by "Burn" to write "I Stole Your Love" (the opening track of Love Gun).
"Might Just Take Your Life" starts as a mid-paced song with a funky blues tone, with an organ chord progression by Lord, inserted as a solo intro. Coverdale explained that the track was influenced by The Band's "Chest Fever" based on a blues-oriented sound. From its lyrical context, according to Coverdale, it was meant for a group of people who have laughed at him and Hughes at their backs when they first thought of joining the group in 1973. The arrangement sets off without a guitar solo, alongside a key change, and a tambourine was added to the percussion mix. Lord finishes it off with the Hammond organ solo arrangement nearly at the end of the track. Blackmore's guitar solo was in the mix but sounded inaudible due to an overlay of the organ solo and other instruments.
"Lay Down, Stay Down", the third track of the album, was the first to be finished in the studio. It contains influences from funk and rock and roll and features Paice's drums, cowbell, and tambourine in a prominent role. At first, the song had a slightly different arrangement and its working title was "That's Alright". Coverdale claimed that the composition had the alternate working title of "Shit Fuck Cack Wank"; according to him, "Glenn Hughes and I would wrap our golden tonsils around those swear-words throughout rehearsals until I came up with 'Lay Down, Stay Down' – wherever the fuck that came from. I suppose it was like all those Elvis lyrics, looking for trouble and stuff – that was a cracker." Paice affirmed that this was his favorite track on this album.
"Sail Away" is written with a funk-bluesier sound that is even compared with Led Zeppelin's "Trampled Under Foot" (released one year later). At first, Coverdale sang the parts so low that he wasn't satisfied with the results, but when the finished song was later listened to in the studio, with Coverdale's re-recorded vocal tracks, it sounded exceptional, getting what he wanted. It was first played on a tape of a cymbal played in reverse, in order to achieve an effect. Blackmore also uses the Synthi Hi-Fli guitar synthesizer in the song to play its "lyrical and haunting fade-out solo" with a slide guitar. Lord also plays the song with the synthesizer which is also replicated to the tone of Stevie Wonder, which the band was originally inspired on that track by its rhythm from Wonder's song, "Superstition".
"You Fool No One" was inspired by Paice's drumming pattern, initiating a compromised rhythm sequence. This is the only track Coverdale and Hughes sang together, to create an effect. After Paice took about four tries to create drumming stems in the studio, he dosed off entirely in sweat and angrily told the other members that they were apparently not able to keep up with the rhythm, threatening to walk out if this continued. According to Hughes, Paice's pattern was partially inspired by John Bonham from Led Zeppelin.
"What's Goin' On Here" starts off with a 28-bar verse, later 32-bar in the final verse, with Lord playing piano and Blackmore playing slide guitar in the chorus. Coverdale and Hughes again sang mostly in parts equally. According to Coverdale, he affirmed that the song was merely based from Jimi Hendrix's Highway Chile.
"Mistreated" is a slow-rolling blues that Coverdale sings alone, and the longest track on the album. According to the 30th-anniversary booklet, the song was written by Blackmore a few years previously and considered for the Who Do We Think We Are album, but was scrapped until Coverdale wrote lyrics for it.
During the studio recording for "Mistreated", most of the instrumental tracks were recorded from 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. When it was time for Coverdale to hear his own vocal parts after the first playback, he found it to be very mediocre which upset him, demanding it to be perfect for the next take. "It was so bad I just sat down and cried because I wanted it to be so good," Coverdale remembered the following night. The next night followed another session and Coverdale took a second try to attempt to get the perfect voice he wanted on the record. Coverdale admitted the pressure he was going through during the recording, although he was very timid at that time. Blackmore’s solo near the end of the song was at first layered heavily by Coverdale and Hughes’ chorus vocals, making it extremely hard to hear the solo. As a result, the stems that aided the vocals were deleted, which again upset Coverdale. Although Coverdale took the chorus vocals as nearly fantastic as it was, he admitted on Blackmore's argument that he can't have too many vocal recordings, otherwise it would disorient the guitar's sound.
"'A' 200" is an instrumental composition that was played to a 'Bolero' rhythm. Originally composed by Lord, Paice, and Blackmore, this was the only instrumental without vocals, with the exception of "Coronarias Redig", to be performed by the 'Mark III' line-up. The multi-tracked synthesizers were all performed by Lord as the lead keyboardist. Blackmore, feeling that he was not required to be on the track chimed in on a guitar solo right before the song ended with the synths works panned across the audio channels. It was not clear where the "'A'" on the track was conceived, but fans speculated it as a work of science fiction, which Coverdale denied. However, a lice treatment shampoo product that had the name "A-200" was conceived by Lord and used as a song title, according to the 30th-anniversary booklet notes.
"Coronarias Redig" previously appeared as the non-album single B-Side of "Burn". Originally recorded on 10 December 1973 at Rosenborg Studios in Copenhagen, right after their first 'Mark III' line-up touring appearance had been concluded, it was the only track to be left out of the album. It follows as another instrumental track incorporating Lord’s organ whereabouts and vibrancy of its similar funk-tone approach. Coverdale fell asleep in the studio and lost his voice, forcing it to commend without a vocal track. So Blackmore played a long guitar solo over the melody line as the only highlight noted in its composition. Coverdale and Glenn Hughes only sang a few chorus lines that ended up as stems on the track. While in the studio, the band was unable to come up with a title, but engineer Freddy Hanssen gave them a working title, named "Skidefuld", meaning pissed (drunk), which was later re-worded to "Drunk At The Revolution". The song was remixed and featured on the 30th-anniversary edition of the album.
Burn was released on 15 February 1974 by EMIPurple in Europe and Warner Bros. in North America. It debuted at number seventeen on 2 March, then peaked at number three the following week on their UK native, holding its spot for twenty-three weeks, and by July 1974, it had been certified gold by the BPI for sales of over 100,000 copies in the UK. In the US, the album reached number three on the Billboard 200, marking its appearance for 30 weeks, and was eventually certified gold by the RIAA in 20 March for sales of 500,000 units in the country, later would be certified platinum. Overall, the album charted in 13 countries, cracking the top spot in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Norway, while receiving gold certification levels in France, Germany, and Sweden.
Some record pressings have the translated album title in some countries; in Argentina, it was named "Quemar", while in Uruguay, it was named "Arde".
Two singles were released, all of which charted. "Might Just Take Your Life" charted at number 95 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, number 84 in Canada, and number 55 in the UK. "Burn" did not reach the US singles chart but charted at number five on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 chart, and in 1978, charted at number 45 in the UK. In many interviews, the band wanted to put out the appropriate tracks as singles, but in this case, took word from the record label's advice. Coverdale explained that "Sail Away" was originally envisioned to be a single but Warner Bros. said that "Might Just Take Your Life" was more commercial.
The album cover features burning candles that resemble the faces of the band members photographed by Fin Costello. He took the photo quickly, as it was just to give the band an idea of his idea, but unbeknownst to him, it ended up being the album cover. Years later, Costello reshot the cover for Kerrang! for an article in the magazine.
On the back cover, the same candles are extinguished and partially melted, and the band members' faces are in the background. The tracklist and technical data of the disc are also marked on the cover.
The original candles have not been for sale, but another, unused set of candles has been up for auction. At the turn of the millennium, there were copies graded as low quality on the market, which were also advertised on the internet.
Tracklist:
- Burn 06:04
- Might Just Take Your Life 04:39
- Lay Down, Stay Down 04:19
- Sail Away 05:53
- You Fool No One 04:46
- What's Goin' On Here 05:00
- Mistreated 07:27
- 'A' 200 04:04
- Coronarias Redig (b-side, 2004 remix) 05:32
- Burn (2004 remix) 06:03
- Mistreated (2004 remix) 07:29
- You Fool No One (2004 remix) 04:58
- Sail Away (2004 remix) 05:36
Time: 01:11:50
30th Anniversary Edition. Comes in a cardboard slipcase containing a jewel case.
Remastered artwork and booklet design by easy on the eye.
Recording information:
Recorded using the Rolling Stones mobile unit in Montreux, Switzerland, November 1973.
Produced by Deep Purple.
Ritchie Blackmore – producer, mixing
David Coverdale – producer, mixing
Glenn Hughes – producer, mixing
Jon Lord – producer, mixing
Ian Paice – producer, mixing
Martin Birch – engineer, mixing
Tapani Tapanainen – assistant engineer
Bonus tracks mixed at Metropolis Studios, London, England, October 2003, March 2004-
Digital mastering and remastering at Abbey Road Studios, London.
