What is the only Deep Purple song to feature a female vocalist?
Most of the biggest rock outfits of the 1970s usually revolved around an all-star frontman. There might have been ways for the guitarists to hog the spotlight every now and again, but when you have a singer who doesn’t play an instrument holding the audience in the palm of their hand, there’s hardly any reason to get in their way. But for all of the hard rock tunes that Deep Purple had in their arsenal, even they knew when a song could benefit from having a female touch to it.
Then again, it’s about time that we dispel the double standard that seemed to happen during the 1970s in terms of female rock stars. While there is a common pigheaded belief that women couldn’t play rock and roll from musicians that shouldn’t be given the time of day, to begin with, everyone from Janis Joplin to Heart to Blondie could put any of their colleagues to shame any day of the week, even outshining some of them on their own tracks.
One need only look at the recorded version of ‘Gimme Shelter’. The Rolling Stones may have lived the lives of rock and roll badasses, but it might as well be Merry Clayton’s song from the minute she comes in, especially towards the end where she sounds like she’s about to cry out in pain when playing off of Mick Jagger.
Compared to every other act in England, though, Deep Purple was a different beast. While they had gone through more lineup changes than most, they had always made their living off of improvising, usually spending their time onstage stretching their songs out or going on extended solos that were never quite thought out but always managed to have a solid foundation behind it, whether that was from Jon Lord’s immortal Hammond organ or Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar licks.
But by the end of the 1970s, that reputation had taken a sizable dent. The band had left their traditional hard rock sound behind, and while David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes were far from bad choices as co-frontmen, the difference between Machine Head and Stormbringer is like night and day. And once Blackmore decided he had enough, Come Taste the Band was a much different album than people were expecting.
And nowhere is that more apparent than listening to ‘You Keep On Moving’. While it’s far from being the worst song they ever made, Hughes’s idea to bring in female backup singers for the tune was the first sign that they were moving out of traditional hard rock, almost sounding closer to funk and soul territory in some spots.
Even though it might have been labelled as their big sellout moment, this move suited them quite well for the time. Hughes was always a far better soulful singer, and getting someone who could offset his energy alongside Coverdale was a breath of fresh air. And now, since they didn’t have to cower to what Blackmore wanted, Tommy Bolin also gave them a better sonic edge than what they had, even if he had to dodge a few middle fingers from the crowds they played to.
But adding female backup singers to the song was far from the kind of cheesy move that it seemed like on the surface. Deep Purple had obviously grown beyond their roots at this point, and this was their opportunity to show us what it would sound like if a rock band had the same kind of groove you’d find out of a Stevie Wonder record.
