COME TASTE THE BAND

For this album, Tommy Bolin replaced Ritchie Blackmore. Bolin was a very good guitar player and he also composed most of this songs in this album with other members of the band, particularly with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes. There is a mixture of musical styles in this album. By one part, the band played songs with some Heavy Metal / Hard Rock inlfuences but with a Funky taste, and by the other part there are some songs which are more influenced by Funky and Soul ("Getting Tighter", "I Need Love", "This Time Around / Owed to G"). The bands sounds very well, but it is not easy to say that this is an album from a band called DEEP PURPLE. The remaining original members of the band (Jon Lord and Ian Paice) really sound like they acted more like background musicians, leaving to Bolin, Coverdale and Hughes to do most of the songwriting and arrangements . Even if there are some Hard Rock / Heavy Metal influences, this album sounds even more far than their "Stormbringer" album from their original musical stye. Even Coverdale sounds a bit like Sammy Haggar in some parts, which is not bad but it is not very related to DEEP PURPLE as a band. Unfortunately, Bolin had substance abuse problems which increasingly affected his guitar playing on tour, and the band finally split in March 1976 after the tour for this album. This album looks and sounds more like a last attempt to keep the band alive. But even if Lord and Paice gave the band that opportunity to survive for more some months after Ritchie Blackmore left the band, the band was a tired band, maybe working more to satisfy contractual obligations and management demands than to be really happy to work together. Bolin died in late 1976. The "Classic line-up" of the band (Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord and Paice) reformed in April 1984 and lasted for several years playing together, with some problems which finally made it split again, first in 1989, and later in late 1993.