Some days I just wake up singing.
And so to the Peter DeRose song ‘Deep Purple’. That’s today.
But don’t be ridiculous it is nothing to do musically with the ‘Smoke on the Water’ rockers who brought the world Purpendicular beyond inspiring their name. I only elide the two writing as a reformed teenage Rainbow fan. Bless me father. For I have sinned.
Instead I am prostrate at the altar that is the clarinet break found in Artie Shaw’s version decades before “the other” Deep Purple were formed that to be frank I waited for after Helen Forrest’s very lovely vocal.
When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls,
And the stars begin to flicker in the sky.
Through the mist of a memory, you wander back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh.
The tune, which sounds in this Paul Whiteman treatment like something George Gershwin might have been proud to have written, was introduced in quasi-classical fashion by Whiteman as an instrumental in 1934. Words came later.
I’m not keen on Earl Bostic’s version from the 50s although as knockabout get the party started fare why not, buster? Christ: Makes Dave Koz seem like he’s Charlie Parker. Nuff said. But nevertheless one for the Leo Green Experience fans among us. (Ah, live at the QT, what a Vantabulous night for a moondance that gig was.) Also: let’s draw a discreet veil over Donny and Marie Osmond‘s put out in the 1970s. Yuk.
I much prefer Bea Wain’s vocal on Larry Clinton’s hit 1939 version from further back. Wain made her debut on radio as a 6 year old and lived to be 100. She passed away in 2017.
The song is as much a clarinet player’s dream record as a song you come to for the vocal. So go hear Buddy DeFranco’s version and perhaps you will agree.
