Deep Purple ( B10 )

The band hired Midlands bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, formerly of Trapeze. According to Paice, Glover told him and Lord a few months before his official resignation that he wanted to leave the band, so they had started to drop in on Trapeze shows. After acquiring Hughes, they debated continuing as a four-piece, with Hughes as bassist and lead vocalist. According to Hughes, he was persuaded because the band would be bringing in Paul Rodgers of Free as a co-lead vocalist, but by that time Rodgers had just started Bad Company. "They did ask," Rodgers recalled, "and I spoke to all of them at length about the possibility. Purple had toured Australia with Free's final lineup. I didn't do it because I was very much into the idea of forming Bad Company." Instead, auditions were held for lead vocal replacements. They settled on David Coverdale, an unknown singer from Saltburn in Northeast England, primarily because Blackmore liked his masculine, blues-tinged voice.

This new lineup continued into 1974, and their spring tour included shows at Madison Square Garden, New York on 13 March, and Nassau Coliseum four days later. The band coheadlined the famous California Jam festival with Emerson, Lake & Palmer at Ontario Motor Speedway located in Southern California on 6 April 1974. Attracting over 250,000 fans, the festival also included 1970s rock giants Black Sabbath, Eagles, Earth, Wind & Fire, Seals and Crofts, Rare Earth, and also Black Oak Arkansas. Portions of the show were telecast on ABC Television in the US, exposing the band to a wider audience. This lineup's first album, titled Burn, was highly successful, reaching No. 3 in the UK and No. 9 in the US, and was followed by another world tour. The title track, which opens the album and would open most concerts during the Mark III era, was a conscious effort by the band to embrace the progressive rock movement that was popularised at the time by bands such as Yes, ELP, Genesis, Gentle Giant, etc. "Burn" was a complex arrangement that showcased all the members' virtuosity and particularly Blackmore's classically influenced guitar prowess, while Hughes and Coverdale provided vocal harmonies and elements of funk and blues, respectively, to the music, a sound that was even more apparent on the late 1974 release Stormbringer. Besides the title track, the Stormbringer album had a number of songs that received much radio play, such as "Lady Double Dealer", "The Gypsy" and "Soldier of Fortune", and the album reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 20 on the US Billboard charts. However, Blackmore publicly disliked the album and the funky soul elements, even calling it "shoeshine music". As a result, he left the band on 21 June 1975 to form his own band with Ronnie James Dio of Elf, called Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, later shortened to Rainbow after one album.

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