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HALLELUJAH (I AM THE PREACHER) / APRIL (PART ONE)

Deep Purple

Proto-Prog


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Deep Purple Hallelujah (I am the preacher) / April (part one) album cover
3.34 | 20 ratings | 4 reviews | 20% 5 stars

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Singles/EPs/Fan Club/Promo, released in 1969

Songs / Tracks Listing

Side A:
1. Hallelujah

Side-B:
2. April part one

Line-up / Musicians

- Ritchie Blackmore / lead guitar
- Ian Gillan / lead vocals
- Jon Lord / organ, keyboards, backing vocals
- Ian Paice / drums, percussions
- Roger Glover / bass, backing vocals

Releases information

UK July 1969 Harvest HAR 5006 [7" single]
US July 1969 Tetragrammoton T-1537 [7" single]

Thanks to Eetu Pellonpää for the addition
and to easy livin for the last updates
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DEEP PURPLE Hallelujah (I am the preacher) / April (part one) ratings distribution


3.34
(20 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of rock music(20%)
20%
Excellent addition to any rock music collection(35%)
35%
Good, but non-essential (40%)
40%
Collectors/fans only (5%)
5%
Poor. Only for completionists (0%)
0%

DEEP PURPLE Hallelujah (I am the preacher) / April (part one) reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Eetu Pellonpaa
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars A really neat vinyl single as an collectible anecdote for the fans of early Deep Purple. You can find the tracks from some compilations too, so the musical enjoyment doesn't require expensive hunting from the record vendors though. The A-side featured the new singer Ian Gillan on dramatic gospel themed rock ballad, one of the most singular minor key compositions of the band in my opinion. The B-side is an instrumental cut from three part long suite "April" from their self-titled third album, having quite medieval feeling rising from the keyboard melodies, guitar chords, choral singing and the steady beat of bass drum. That record had yet Rod Evans as a singer, but is not heard on this particular moment, making the music on this single sound more compact and also being a signpost of dramatic change on the band's course.
Review by Easy Livin
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin
3 stars Gillan and Glover enter the melting pot

After the release of Deep Purple's third (self titled) album, Ritchie Blackmore and Jon Lord decided that the time had come to replace Nick Simper on bass and Rod Evans on vocals. They secured the support of Ian Paice, and set about their search for people who would be sympathetic to their desire to move in a more overtly rock direction. The situation was kept secret from Evans and Simper, who continued to tour with the band.

After watching a performance by the band "Episode 6", Blackmore, Paice and Lord invited Ian Gillan to join them for a recording session. Gillan brought along his band mate Roger Glover, and the five recorded the song "Hallelujah". This all happened before the "Deep Purple" album had even been released, Evans and Simper being sacked after they had become aware through rumours of what was going on.

"Hallelujah" was released as a single in July 1969, backed by an edit of the instrumental section of "April", the last track on the "Deep Purple" album. The B side thus featured Evans and Simper, not Gillan and Glover although vocalist Evans does not actually appear on this edit.

The A side is a highly credible, and certainly brave first effort by the new line up. The band were clearly intent on securing an early hit single, bringing in songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway for the composition. Cook and Greenaway were both members of the pop group Blue Mink ("Melting pot") around this time, and strange as it may seem to say it, the song could easily have been picked up by that combo.

Initially a big sounding ballad, "Hallelujah" features some fine guitar work by Blackmore and the occasional scream by Gillan. The centre section suddenly picks up the pace as Gillan sings the cynical lyrics "Oh tell it to the man who's power is the sermon on the wall, Tell it to the man who says you can misjudge them all Tell it 'till it can be heard above the wailing of the crowd Tell it on the field of war and hope you'll soon be justified."

The prog structuring of the song was unlikely to bring with it the success the band craved. Apart from a slot on the "Beat club" TV series which has been preserved for posterity, the single did little to further the Deep Purple cause. Despite the myriad of Deep Purple compilations now available, recordings of the song are still relatively hard to find.

This is however an important part of the Deep Purple history. Not simply because it is the first recording by the band to feature Gillan and Glover, not because it is a non-album single, but simply because it is a fine song by any standard.

Review by Einsetumadur
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars This Hallelujah single is one of those records which you should necessarily take when you see them at a flea market for one or two euros, unless you already have the song on one of the several Deep Purple collections.

The A-side Hallelujah is a great song by the early Mk2 of Deep Purple, recorded in the summer of 1969 with Ian Gillan (voc) and Roger Glover (bass), though the Mk1 members Nick Simper (bass) and Rod Evans (voc) were still in the band at that time. The other band members Jon Lord (org), Richie Blackmore (git) and Ian Paice (dr) weren't entirely comfortable about Simper's retroverted bass playing style and Evans' voice which, as they thought, fit perfectly into balladesque music, but not into the hard rock that Deep Purple wanted to do.

So the three remaining musicians kept looking for new musicians, who they found in the pop group Episode 6 - and with whom they recorded this song; Evans and Simper were fired a few weeks later (!). Of course the band did their most influential stuff in the early 70s, but I think that Gillan had totally wrecked his voice after one year of playing with the band. I'm just thinking about his vocal part in the Concerto for Group and Orchestra and the recordings for In Rock, compared with how he pushed himself to the limits on Made in Japan. Hallelujah is the first recording session with Gillan, and he absolutely rules in this song. Originally the song was a slow pop number by the popular songwriter duo Greenaway/Cook which has now turned to a great late 60s rock tune with a very nice guitar solo bei Ritchie Blackmore. I actually prefer this song to most of the numbers on Machine Head; anyway it can well be regarded as an interesting halfway between Mk1 and Mk2, and as a predecessor to the innovative and outstanding In Rock album of Deep Purple, whose best songs were already recorded in the autumn of 1969.

A b-side was now hard to find for the band because it would have been irritating to take a number sung by Rod Evans on the other side of the single. So Deep Purple cut out the entirely instrumental symphonic first part of their 1969 epic April and put it on the B-side. Of course, the whole track is better than a part of it, but for the means of a single it is a great solution.

If you own a LP player and this small adapter for to play singles this is an unusually rewarding single to get, because of the historic value and the great music on it. The single isn't essential, but really good. A fine listen and highly recommendable, given that none of the reissued Deep Purple studio albums features this recording as a bonus track.

Review by Guillermo
PROG REVIEWER
3 stars It is a bit strange for me that the new line-up of DEEP PURPLE ("Mark Two": Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord and Paice) decided to record a song which was not composed by them for the A-side of this single. "Hallelujah" was in fact the first song that this line-up recorded in mid 1969, and in fact it was even recorded before Glover was officially invited to be a full member of the band. Blackmore and Lord wanted Gillan in the band, but were not sure about including Glover. So, Gillan was the new official lead singer and Glover was then invited to play as a session musician to record "Hallelujah". It seems that after this song was recorded with good results and after Paice supported Glover as being the new official bass player that finally Blackmore and Lord agreed to include Glover in the band. Gillan and Glover previously played togehter and wrote some songs together in a band called "Episode Six", a band that both left to join DEEP PURPLE, with some legal problems with the "Episode Six" management which were resolved with some money!

"Hallelujah" sounds to me more like a "religious rock hippie song" similar to some of the songs from the "Jesus Christ Superstar" Rock Opera album. I don`t know why the band recorded "Hallelujah", but it is curious that Gillan was going to be the main lead singer in the original album from that Rock Opera which was going to be released in 1970. It is a good song, but not very typical in musical style from the band. It still sounds to me like it could have been recorded by the original line-up of the band.

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