Deep Purple

Grabsplatter is an uptempo instrumental guitar / organwork-out with a very varied and confusing history.

A track known as John's Stew, which was 3:50 minutes long, wasrecorded on the 31st October 1969 for the Stuart Henry BBC radioshow broadcast on the 9th November 1969. John'sStew had some improvised vocals about "a mean-eyedwoman".

An instrumental song entitled Grabsplatter (4:32minutes long and sounding very similar to John's Stew) wasreleased as a track on the New,Live and Rare Volume 3 EP (extended play single) in October1980. It was stated as being a BBC recording from betweenSeptember 1969 and February 1970. Some references state: autumnor late 1969 (autumn in Europe is September / October). The excellent Deep Purple Diarywebsite by Nigel Young, has the recording date for this track as the 23rdSeptember 1970 which is the correct date. This same track was later released on TheAnthology album in 1985. When this album was re-issued on CDin 1990 the track listing was changed and all rare tracksincluding Grabsplatter were sadly omitted.

An instrumental track entitled Bullfrog (7:17) andcredited to the band GreenBullfrog was released as an album track in 1971. GreenBullfrog was a one-off jam session band consisting of RitchieBlackmore, Ian Paice, Albert Lee, Big Jim Sullivan,Chas Hodges, Rod Alexander, Earl Jordan, Tony Ashton, MatthewFisher and produced by Derek Lawrence. The liner notes fromRitchie's solo retrospective CD RockProfile Volume 2 state that this track is based on ariff originally entitled John or Jam Stew. It alsosounds very similar to Grabsplatter!

A track titled Jam Stew (2:30) was released on the 25thanniversary CD re-issue of In Rock. It was stated as being apreviously unreleased instrumental track. The sleeve notesindicate that this track was recorded in November 1969 and wasalso sometimes known as John's Stew. (Are you stillkeeping up?)

I'm Alone released as the b-side to Strange Kind OfWoman in 1971 owes it's basic song structure to Grabsplatter.I'm Alone was also released on the DeepPurple Singles A's and B's compilation album and as a bonustrack on the 25thanniversary edition of Fireball.

Slow Train released as a bonus track on the 25thanniversary edition of Fireball also owes a lot of it's basicsong structure to Grabsplatter.

Grabsplatter itself remained unavailable on any officialCD release until... the Listen Learn Read On 6CD Box Set from EMI Europe in 2002!

So there you have it, I'm surprised you managed to read thisfar - thanks!

I thought you may like to know that the track was also released on an EMI sampler entitled "Heavy Duty" here in New Zealand in the early 1980's, which also included the live "Bird Has Flown" that appeared on the "New Live & Rare Vol. 3" EP. "Heavy Duty" also included some (at that time) rare early Iron Maiden tracks & music from a few other bands that appeared briefly around the NWOBHM boom.
-- Euan McLeod, New Zealand, February 1999

References:

• The Highway Star - the official home of Deep Purple on the Net.
• Listen Learn Read On 6CD Box Set
• Radio & TV Broadcasts page
• Martin Ashberry from MASH's page
• The Deep Purple Diary by Nigel Young
• Booklet by Simon Robinson for the Compact Singles A's & B's CD, page 13.
• Liner notes by Simon Robinson for Ritchie Blackmore's solo retrospective CD Rock Profile Volume 2
• In Rock 25th anniversary CD booklet.
• Fireball 25th anniversary CD booklet, page 7.

Send comments and ideas to Brian Currin