![\"BTC-Issue-No28\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/BTC-Issue-No28.jpg\")
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WRITTEN BY: <\/b>RITCHIE BLACKMORE, IAN GILLAN,
\nROGER GLOVER, JON LORD, IAN PAICE <\/b><\/p>\n
RECORDED: <\/b>THE PAVILION AND GRAND HOTEL, MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND<\/p>\n
PRODUCED BY: <\/b>DEEP PURPLE<\/p>\n
IAN GILLAN: <\/b>VOCALS<\/p>\n
ROGER GLOVER: <\/b>BASS<\/p>\n
IAN PAICE:\u00a0 <\/b>DRUMS<\/p>\n
RITCHIE BLACKMORE: <\/b>ELECTRIC GUITAR <\/b><\/p>\n
JON LORD: <\/b>ORGAN\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
FROM THE ALBUM: <\/b>MACHINE HEAD (1972)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s the riff that will not die. It\u2019s the heavy metal version of \u201cChopsticks.\u201d Metallica\u2019s Lars Ulrich dubbed it \u201cthe riff of life.\u201d Some kid somewhere at this very moment is plonking out those opening notes: \u201cDun-dun-duuun \u2026\u201d It\u2019s a riff so ubiquitous it\u2019s easy to forget there\u2019s an actual song attached to it\u2014one that took Deep Purple into the Top 5 in 1973.<\/p>\n
Before there was smoke, there was fire. On December 4, 1971, the five members of Deep Purple were in the ballroom of Switzerland\u2019s Montreux Casino watching a concert by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. During the encore, a fan shot a flare gun at the ceiling. Sparks ignited a canopy hanging from the balcony, and the flames spread quickly. The audience of 3,000 panicked. There were only two ways out\u2014through the front door or through a plate glass window at the side of the stage. As Zappa urged calm, the balcony collapsed. The band smashed the window and helped fans to safety. Amazingly, there were no fatalities\u2014though the ballroom burned to the ground.<\/p>\n
Deep Purple fled to their nearby hotel. They\u2019d escaped the fire, but lost their recording studio\u2014the ballroom had been rented for a month to cut their new album. Singer Ian Gillan recalled, \u201cWe sat in the restaurant of the hotel and watched the flames racing into the sky, fed by the wind from the mountains. Later, as the inferno waned, we looked out across Lake Geneva and saw that it was covered with a layer of smoke. Roger [Glover] came up with the title \u2018Smoke on the Water.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Two days later, Montreux Jazz Festival director Claude Nobs (\u201cfunky Claude\u201d in the lyric) loaded the band into another recording space\u2014a local theater called Le Pavillon. As neighbors complained about the noisy rehearsals, the band managed to cut one track, dubbed \u201cTitle #1,\u201d based on a caveman-simple riff, sliced out on Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s Stratocaster. \u201cThe police were outside with a whole fleet of cars,\u201d Blackmore recalled, \u201cand they kept hammering on the door. But we didn\u2019t want to open up until we knew we had gotten the right take. Finally, we got it with no mistakes\u2014and they kicked us out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resettled at a nearly empty Montreux Grand Hotel, the band set up amps and mics in hallways and stairwells. Glover and Gillan finished the lyrics to Blackmore\u2019s tune and \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d was born. Slotted in as track five on their Machine Head<\/i> album, the group hadn\u2019t a clue they were sitting on a smash. They hardly even played the song during their tour the following year. \u201cLazy\u201d was released as the first single, but failed to chart. Finally, in a half-hearted attempt to revive the album\u2019s sales, an edit of \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d was sent to radio in early 1973. By summer, it was in heavy rotation on FM, eventually climbing to No. 4 on the charts.<\/p>\n
Since then \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d has taken on a life of its own. A staple at sporting events, on ringtones and on PlayStation games, it\u2019s also been featured in TV commercials, two episodes of The Simpsons<\/i> and numerous movies, including School of Rock<\/i>. But most important, it\u2019s been passed down among guitarists as rock\u2019s most essential lick. Even nonguitar players can fake it\u2014or try.<\/p>\n
In Montreux, a monument was erected along Lake Geneva honoring Deep Purple, their signature song and its opening notes. Of the song\u2019s enduring appeal, Blackmore has said, \u201cIt\u2019s lasted so long because it\u2019s very simple, very catchy, basically incorporating four notes. It\u2019s got tons of personality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013Bill DeMain<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WRITTEN BY: RITCHIE BLACKMORE, IAN GILLAN, ROGER GLOVER, JON LORD, IAN PAICE RECORDED: THE PAVILION AND GRAND HOTEL, MONTREUX, SWITZERLAND PRODUCED BY: DEEP PURPLE IAN GILLAN: VOCALS ROGER GLOVER: BASS IAN PAICE:\u00a0 DRUMS RITCHIE BLACKMORE: ELECTRIC GUITAR JON LORD: ORGAN\u00a0 FROM THE ALBUM: MACHINE HEAD (1972) \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d DEEP PURPLE \u00a0 It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5264],"tags":[2530,7200,7203,7202,7205,5287,7199,7201,7198,5288,7204],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10966"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10966"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10971,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10966\/revisions\/10971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}