Here’s a bit of history… the first time Deep Purple ever appeared on TV. It was 1968, they chose a Beatles song, and they seem to be on a roof top. Dunno where that idea came from.

Although I’m not much of a fan of either group, I rather like this. It avoids the irritating jauntiness of the Beatles version (which Lennon apparently hated too) – it’s the yin to The Damned’s two-minute yang of Help!

For the most part it avoids the pompous heaviosity with which Purple would come to be associated. Because it is pre-metal. Most pleasingly of all, it avoids the screeching howls of Ian Gillan, because he hadn’t yet joined the group.

The bluesy singer is Rod Evans, the bass guitarist is Nick Simper (soon to be replaced by Roger Glover) and the other three are the ones who took the group to fame and fortune, selling more than 100 million albums.

Ian Paice plays the solemn, funereal drums, Jon Lord chimes in with church organ (actually a Hammond C3) and Ritchie Blackmore strums his guitar like a drummer leading a funeral cortege to the graveside… at least until he gets there and unveils a gorgeous and, by his later standards, restrained solo.

It’s got a slow-burning bluesy vibe tinged with psychedelia, which is pretty much how the band sounded on the debut album from which this is taken, the covers-heavy Shades Of Deep Purple.

It’s interesting to learn that the British public remained stubbornly resistant to US hits like Hush (a Joe South cover) and Kentucky Woman (a Neil Diamond cover), embracing them only when Gillan and Glover came in two years later.