Following my discussions with John Coletta I felt more optimistic as our tour rumbled on. Audience reaction was certainly growing and our show was becoming wilder, although at the same time getting slicker and more polished. One problem occasionally discussed between the four musicians was our concern that Rod’s performance was losing its edge, and he did not appear to have the same enthusiasm as before. He had met a lovely American girl and was already planning his wedding, so I figured that maybe he was temporarily distracted by his future plans.
In early May we arrived in Melbourne – no, not Australia, but Florida! We were staying at the Holiday Inn and enjoying the sunshine as we lounged around the pool. Following our evening meal, we retired to the bar for a beer or two. Hotel rules dictated that the bar closed at 10 p.m., by which time Deep Purple were ready for a few more drinks! The bartender said that a roadhouse called “Fifi’s” was only about 15 minutes’ walk away, but advised us against going as it was a “bit rough”!
Ritchie Blackmore was up for going and when Rod, Ian and Jon declined he suggested that I keep him company. What was to follow has remained one of my most enduring memories to this day! Together Richie and I jauntily strolled the short distance to the roadhouse and walked through the front entrance. Now, readers should remember my previous descriptions of the American attitude to long hair! In today’s climate where “anything goes”, it can be difficult to comprehend the dangers of looking different back in the late 1960’s!
As we walked to “Fifi’s” we both felt that a decent nightcap would be worth the risk, but as we entered, we soon realised that we had made a huge mistake. The place was packed with the roughest, toughest and meanest looking people that you would never wish to meet – mainly large, shaven-headed, tattooed, and to two extremely long-haired musicians, your worst nightmare!
Now we should have left immediately but were both too stubborn to do so. We quickly made our way to an empty table which wasn’t too close to the crowd, but we were soon spotted and subjected to a barrage of cat-calls, whistles and insults. A grinning bartender approached saying “what are you girls having?”. Too stunned to give a suitable reply, I meekly asked for two scotch and cokes which we quickly guzzled down, as our previous bravado rapidly evaporated! As the cat-calls continued above the noise of the rather mundane country house-band, we both wondered if we could get out alive! Suddenly, as panic began to set in, I had a brainwave. I suggested to Ritchie that he sat in with the band and showed the place what real playing was, to which he (very reluctantly) agreed. I put this suggestion to the bartender who relayed it to the group. Judging by their faces they thought it was hilarious as Richie nervously approached the stage and took the guitar offered to him.
As they launched into an up-tempo number everything was about to change. For the next 20 minutes or so, Richie gave the most dazzling display of country picking that the crowd had ever witnessed and, without a doubt, got us both out of trouble. The response was amazing! the barman came over to me and said “whatever you guys want, it’s on the house!”. Richie came off stage to thunderous applause, and for the next hour we had the time of our lives. Long hair or not, the crowds now loved us, and we departed happily for the Holiday Inn, full of free drinks and the good wishes of the crowd. What a night!!
The following gig at Melbourne was particularly wild, especially during Mandrake Root, where the use of a strobe light during the instrumental parts led to some extremely lewd behaviour by a couple who seemed to be very excited by the pulsing light. Subsequent gigs took us to various places including New York, where I met up again with John Entwistle for a catch-up, then back to Florida, a gig in Illinois, before arriving at the twin towns of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota. At the airport I left the others to find the toilet when I heard someone call out. Turning around I saw the figure of Jimmy Page approaching. “Hello”, he said, “you must be in Ritchie’s band”. I couldn’t help replying, “No, Richie’s in my band!”. He laughed and said his band Led Zeppelin were also appearing that night. When I relayed this information to the others, there was concern that it might affect the size of our audience, but our gig was sold out and went extremely well. I was struck by the calibre of the support band and asked for their name. “Santana” was the reply. I made a mental note of the name.
The realisation that we had no say at all over our recordings put quite a dampener on the rest of the tour, and no one felt inclined to even discuss such a bad record, let alone promote it! What we didn’t know at the time whilst that Tetragrammaton were struggling to keep afloat, hence this dire attempt to find another single release. However, the last few concerts sold out and went down extremely well and I felt that on that level it had been a successful tour, with excellent sales of all our recordings to date.
Just before we left America to fly home Jon asked if I had heard the news about my friend Mick? He then told me that he had joined the Rolling Stones, which was a huge surprise but I felt was welcome recognition for a nice man and a great musician! Soon after arriving home, without Rod Evans, who stayed behind to finalise his wedding plans, it was announced that we were to begin recording the next single. When I questioned starting without Rod, Jon assured me that he knew the key for the song, called “Hallelujah”, and vocals would be added on Rod’s return. A date was soon set for the studio with a morning session plus a night session as the studio was apparently unavailable during the afternoon. A half decent backtrack was almost completed during the morning and we arranged to meet again at 6:00 that evening. At five o’clock, as I was preparing to leave for the studio the telephone rang. It was Jon Lord saying that there were problems at the studio, and so the session had to be cancelled. I decided to spend the evening with my girlfriend Janet, at the cinema instead.
During the following week the group, minus Rod, met at our London headquarters in Newman Street. During the meeting I asked when we would be returning to the studio to complete the music for “Hallelujah”. John Coletta swiftly answered, saying that the others were unhappy with the studio and we should find somewhere else. He then suggested that I should contact my friend Mitch Mitchell to find out where Jimi Hendrix was recording. I replied that it may take time as the Experience were always touring. “No rush”, was Coletta’s reply. I was soon to realize what a good liar he was!
Soon Rod returned from America and on June 10th we returned to one-nighters by playing at Cambridge University, a gig attended by Brian Connolly and Mick Tucker of The Sweet. it was good to see them and they were pleased to see us perform again after being in the US. The day before had been Jon Lord’s birthday and so I presented him with a gift of a bottle of whisky, which strangely seemed to embarrass him quite a lot. During the following week I met up with my old pal Roddy Freeman at London’s Speakeasy Club. We had a lot of catching up to do and during the evening he told me that he had heard a rumour that I was leaving Deep Purple. Of course, I dismissed the idea without asking where he had heard it.
Apart from one gig, the band was free for seven days, so I enjoyed having some time off. Strangely, I had several calls from Rod asking where the rehearsals were, or what time? I naturally replied that we were not rehearsing, but he obviously thought that perhaps we were. Thinking back to those days it seems crazy that I didn’t connect the dots!!
June 19th saw me drive the group to Belgium for a big TV show. At the rehearsals we met up with the other acts which happily included our old mates Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich, and Don Partridge who had come to fame as a busker and had written and recorded several hit songs recently. Don was hilarious fun to be around and I was pleased to discover that he lived near me. The day of the transmission (which was live) went well, except for Don, who had taken advantage of the free refreshments and was obviously slightly unsteady on his feet. It was decided that it would be far safer for Don to mime to his new record, which was a wise decision.
The next day saw us play a club in Brussels before heading for the ferry and home. On June 23rd we played a big college in Oxford which went very well. On the 27th we set off for the Top Rank Club in Swansea. Wales was quite difficult to get to in those days, as the new M4 motorway consisted of only a few miles at the London end and the Wales end. The distance in between was a slow tedious drive and this was when Richie Blackmore brought along a powerful catapult and a bag of unripe gooseberries as ammunition to amuse himself with. Readers familiar with the 1983 so-called Deep Purple Biography will find this story listed during 1971, but it actually happened in 1969. Richie proceeded to pick targets along the route with great success until he shot a bare-chested navvy in the back who was digging a deep hole in the road. The navvy roared with pain and was about to punch his nearest mate, when our car stopped at a red traffic light. Realising where the attack came from this massive man launched himself out of the hole and charged towards our car. Luckily the light changed and I floored the gas pedal thus averting possible disaster! Several days later I was routinely stopped by police in West London who seemed quite interested in the catapult on the rear seat. I explained it away as a child’s toy as one policeman tried it out on the nearest lamp-post!
June ended with a show at London’s prestigious Revolution Club, followed by a BBC recording session for the David Symonds radio show. On July 1st I again met Rod Freeman, who was now manager of Jim Marshall’s music shop, and we went for a drink at the old favourite Cromwellian Club. Rod was quite subdued and once again broached the subject of my leaving the group. I explained that this type of rumour often followed successful bands. He then hit me with the bombshell. “It’s true”, he said, and then proceeded to tell me how they had been witnessed rehearsing with Ian Gillan and Roger Glover. With all respect to Glover, I found this very hard to believe. This, of course, was like a bolt from the blue, and I resolved to find out more. The next day I telephoned Tetragrammaton in the US to find out what they knew. I was told that they already had the new single, and had been told that Rod and myself had been “paid off”. They told me that it was obviously not Rod and me on the record, and the official story was that the record was completed by Ron Wood on bass and the singer from Spooky Tooth on vocals, both in the capacity of session men.
Before the show I had been given various reasons why Rod would be my only passenger on the return journey. Apparently, Jon was traveling to his parent’s home, and Richie and Ian were being given a lift somewhere by the road crew. Obviously, they had a plan, but by now I was not interested. As soon as we left the venue, I told Rod what I knew. Understandably he exploded, calling the others various unprintable names, but saving most of his venom for Paice, who, without doubt, owed his place in the group to Rod. He then suggested that we should dump the car in a canal until I pointed out that it was our car, as well!
After a couple of hours travel, he calmed down and we resolved to meet up the next day. We decided to drive to Brighton and confront John Coletta. On the way through Rod insisted on calling at Tony Edward’s home where Ian Paice was staying. I guess that he intended physical retribution for Paice, but in the event, no-one was at home and so we pushed on for Brighton. Upon seeing us at his door Coletta nearly fell through the floor! He had no choice but to ask us in and we spent the next few hours discussing the situation and the reasoning behind it. The best that he could come up with was to tell me that Blackmore had never liked me! He then asked us to see him at Newman Street the following day, where a “financial settlement” would be discussed.
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