Deep Purple - The Image That Made Me Weep

  by Dastardly

published: 21 / 6 / 2022

intro

In our column 'The Image That Made Me Weep', in which our writers write about the impact of a particular photo or image on them, Dastardly writes about how the sleeve of a Deep Purple 'Greatest Hits' album made him fall in love with the Fender Stratocaster guitar.

Back in 1980 in Chelmsford, Essex, and more accurately in Parrot Records on Duke Street, I came across this picture on the cover of Deep Purple’s new greatest hits compilation. Looking back now, this image summed up the overwhelming adrenalin rush of falling in love with this thing we call ROCK and in particular the quintessential instrument involved in its creation, the Fender Stratocaster. Around the same time I’d bought a Jimi Hendrix singles six-pack and as an inquisitive and impressionable teenager one day thought ‘I know.. I’ll put on ‘Purple Haze’, turn it up really loud and turn all the lights off.’ DRUNG DANG, DRUNG DANG.. ‘Yikes! Kerpowww!! What the...’ As the discordant clanging intro cut through the air at ear-shattering volume, I leapt up out of my chair and headed for the light switch by the door, turning it back on just as the main riff snaked in. I was terrified out of my skin and imagined I’d narrowly escaped an encounter with some particularly hairy and venomous beast. Yes, maybe even Ritchie Blackmore himself! From that day on I was hooked into something and a cream Hohner Strat copy was soon in my possession – and soon after that in someone else’s, unfortunately. No matter, Jimi Hendrix’s playing had showed me exactly what an electric guitar could do, and this picture with the sparks and smoke still takes me back to that day in my room and that feeling of discovery.

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