Comments for Deep Purple, Purple Passages

When this album was released in 1972, it made the MkI material available for the first time since Tetragrammaton went bankrupt. It is a great introduction to the early Purple and has excellent liner notes (other than the part that says Emmeretta is on the 3rd album, which it isn''t). The material chosen is certainly the best off the 1st 3 (except for the exclusion of Faultline/The Painter) and sums up the MkI era quite well. A better collection than 1980''s Deepest Purple or When We Rock We Rock, it is more focused and does a better job of capturing an era than the other collections. While not an essential, it is a very good album. Jim C.

Japanese - CDThis compilation is from the first three Deep Purple albums. The lineup for these albums was refered to as MARK I, which consisted of Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Nick Simper and Rod Evans.