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:''For the Middle Welsh manuscript, see Book of Taliesin.'' ''The Book of Taliesyn'' is the second studio album by English rock band Deep Purple, recorded only three months after ''Shades of Deep Purple'' and released by Tetragrammaton Records in October 1968, just before their first US tour. The name for the album was taken from the 14th-century Book of Taliesin. The structure of the album is similar to that of their debut, with four original songs and three rearranged covers, although the tracks are longer, the arrangements more complex and the sound more polished than on ''Shades of Deep Purple''. The music style is a mix of psychedelic rock, progressive rock and hard rock, with several inserts of classical music arranged by the band's keyboard player Jon Lord. Deep Purple's American record label aimed at a hippie audience, which was very influential in the US at the time, but the chart results of album and singles were not as high as expected. This setback did not hinder the success of the three months long US tour, when the band played in many important venues and festivals and received positive feedback from audience and press. On the contrary, Deep Purple were still an underground band which played in small clubs and colleges in the United Kingdom, largely ignored by media and public. The British record company EMI released ''The Book of Taliesyn'' only in June 1969 on the new underground prog rock sub-label Harvest Records, but the album did not chart. Even the release of the new single "Emmaretta" and new dates in their home country in the summer of 1969 did not increase the album sales or the popularity of Deep Purple in the UK. Perception of the album changed in modern times, when it received more favourable reviews. ==Background== Deep Purple were booked for a long tour in the United States, starting in October 1968, as a result of the unexpected success gathered in North America by their debut album ''Shades of Deep Purple'', fronted by the hit single "Hush".〔Thompson: p.44〕〔 CD Booklet: p.4〕 The single, released in June, had reached No. 4 in the US Singles Chart and No. 2 in Canada and was the main reason of their sudden popularity overseas.〔 〕 The situation was quite the opposite at home, where the band had been heavily criticized by media and audience.〔Thompson: pp. 44-47〕〔 〕 In July, band and crew relocated from West Sussex to London.〔Bloom: p. 114〕 Their management rented a house at 13 Second Avenue, Acton Vale, which was used as living quarters and for preparing the upcoming US tour when not away for gigs or promotion.〔 Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore went to live there with his German fiancée Babs Hardie.〔 Executives at Tetragrammaton Records, Deep Purple's American label, thought that it would have been more profitable to have a new album to promote during the US tour, besides the already successful ''Shades of Deep Purple''.〔Thompson: p. 47〕 Moreover, the eight tracks recorded in May for Deep Purple's debut album and performed live in the British gigs of July and August〔 were deemed insufficient for their shows as headliners in the US.〔 〕 For these reasons, they were pushed back into the studio just a couple of months before the tour began, even though their debut album had not been released in the United Kingdom yet.〔 == Composition and recording == The request of the record label to record a new album only three months after their debut found the band unprepared, because the intense activity after the release of ''Shades of Deep Purple'' had left very little time for writing and rehearsing new songs.〔Thompson: p. 47-48〕〔 Under pressure, the musicians eventually came up with four lengthy original compositions, but to fill up the new album they reworked and expanded three cover songs, following again the example of the American band Vanilla Fudge,〔 which many band members admired. The first was "Kentucky Woman", a hit single for Neil Diamond in 1967 which Deep Purple performed live at a BBC session in August.〔 Thompson: p. 48〕 Though written by Diamond, Deep Purple's version musically leans toward the style of Mitch Ryder's "Devil with a Blue Dress On". The second cover was "River Deep – Mountain High", a single released by Ike & Tina Turner in 1966. Finally, the 1965 Beatles song "We Can Work It Out" was chosen after Paul McCartney himself had reportedly expressed appreciation for Deep Purple's version of "Help!".〔〔 On the first of August 1968, Deep Purple entered De Lane Lea Studios in Kingsway, London,〔 with producer Derek Lawrence and sound engineer Brian Aintsworth, who had both worked on their previous album. Tetragrammaton's advance of $250,000 had been used to book two weeks in the studio, a time which covered songwriting, rehearsals and recording sessions.〔Bloom: p. 115〕 Time was granted in larger amount than for the making of ''Shades of Deep Purple'' in May, feeding the band’s ambition of coming up with better original material than their previous effort.〔〔 Deep Purple recorded "Shield" and "Anthem" on the first day.〔 On the first song Ian Paice plays a complex drum pattern〔 〕 which sounds like a repeated clash of glass objects, while the second one required a string quartet for the baroque style interlude in the middle.〔Bloom: p. 116〕 The following days they proceeded with the composition and recording of "Exposition/We Can Work It Out" and of the original track "Listen, Learn, Read On".〔 On 19 August, they concluded these sessions with the recording of "Kentucky Woman" and of the heavy and up-tempo instrumental "Wring That Neck", which came out from a tight collaboration between Blackmore and bass player Nick Simper.〔 The name "Wring That Neck" comes from a phrase the band used when they were playing live, describing the bassist or guitarist really bursting at their instruments to create a hard noise (i.e., squeezing, or "wringing", the neck of the guitar).〔 Another instrumental called "Playground" was written and recorded on 18 August, but the lyrics were never completed and it was eventually discarded.〔 "River Deep - Mountain High" was always intended as the final track, so its recording was postponed until the other tracks were finished. The musicians’ perfectionism required extra time to complete the track and it was taped only on 10 October, a long time after the planned deadline for studio recording.〔 The mixing was supposed to be overseen by the band members, but their schedule in October was so tight that Lawrence did it without them.〔 CD Booklet: p. 6〕 This dismayed the band at first, but the sound turned out cleaner, heavier and more polished than on their debut.〔 The tapes were mixed in both mono and stereo, but the mono tapes were trashed, as neither Tetragrammaton nor EMI, Deep Purple's British label, had any use for them.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Book of Taliesyn」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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