In attempting to put together the follow up to Deep Purple in Rock, the band themselves between that rock and a hard place. The management had put together a furious touring schedule to cope with the new success of the band, but also wanted a new album out to keep them in the public’s eye and ears. The trouble was, as Blackmore was quoted in several interviews, the management didn’t want them to stop touring, so they didn’t have time to sit down and write and compose the new album – soon to be titled Fireball - and instead were forced to throw things together on off-touring days and try and piece together the new album in that way. Ritchie felt that he didn’t have his best creative moments on this album as a result. The production was haphazard, the recording the same, and the writing of songs didn’t progress as the band would have liked. Blackmore said that rather than being able to creatively come up with ideas in the studio, he instead had to come up with ideas on the run, and just throw them at the other band members on the spur of the moment. Not the ideal way of putting together an album. It also meant that keeping a balance among the tracks was also difficult, given that there was little time together to put tracks together, instead it was all done on the run at different times when they had break in the schedule, thus providing a haphazard approach to the writing and recording.
The mood on Fireball is not as fierce or genuinely heavy as the previous album, slipping back into a tempo between what the Mark I line up had regularly produced on the first three albums, and what was produced on Deep Purple in Rock and albums to come. One wonders if this was more of a source of irritation for Ritchie Blackmore than Ian Gillan at the time it was recorded. Blackmore has felt that the success of Deep Purple in Rock was due to Deep Purple increasing the pace and heaviness of their music from what they had produced up until that time and was interested in furthering that, whereas Ian Gillan was apparently less inclined to move in that direction and was looking to sit more in the middle ground. Certainly the result of Fireball is less hard core and more laid back.
The album opens with the fastest song of the collection, the title track “Fireball”, and the star of the show here is definitely the drumming of Ian Paice which is just brilliant. “No No No” follows this on, a song with a great groove and terrific vocal from Gillan. Then there is the classic Purple song “Demon’s Eye”, one where each band member has their moment but is beautifully crafted around Ritchie’s guitar riff and complementing organ of Jon Lord. Somehow, on the US version of this album, this song is replaced by another, and it seems like a crazy oversight that this could happen. Don’t get me wrong, the song that replaces it is a ripper, but the question I still ask is, why couldn’t BOTH be on the album? The song that appears instead on the US release is “Strange Kind of Woman”, which was only released as a single in the UK and didn’t appear on this version of the album at all. As a single it reached number 8 in the UK... I just don’t understand it... and why?... well... because... “Anyone’s Daughter” is a peculiarity. For an English hard rock group, hearing them do what is essentially a country and western song is slightly off putting. This is more like an early Eagles song without Bernie Leadon’s banjo being interspersed. We even have tambourine involved. If you are looking for a song that is completely out of place on a band’s album, then look no further than this one. How is it possible that the band and management decided that they would put this song on the album proper, but for the UK edition decide to leave off “Strange Kind of Woman”? What a travesty, a complete brain fade of a decision.
The second side of the album has three tracks that are much like the style of the time where band would free form on stage for 20 minutes at a time, reneging on the boundaries of the song and just playing onwards forever. “The Mule” is a shortened version of tis kind of track here, but was played and extended much longer in a live setting. “Fools” stretches even longer, while “No One Came” draws the album to a close with its own sensibilities.
I have to say that Fireball is an album that I have always regarded as being ‘that album between Deep Purple in Rock and Machine Head’, and that’s not to make it sound like a bad album, but it is just that the other two albums are really quite legendary, and Fireball, to be fair, is not. Fireball is an excellent album, and as you have heard has some great songs on it. But it doesn’t blow your house down like Deep Purple in Rock or Machine Head. It gives it a good shake, but it doesn’t live on the same plane as those two albums. And the reality is that somehow Ritchie’s guitar doesn’t get the same opportunities to take centre stage here as it does elsewhere. It comes as no surprise that Ritchie has never really rated this album, even from the time they were writing and recording it, whereas Ian Gillan is a big fan of this album. It shows the stark differences between the two of them in regards to their music, and is no doubt just one of the many factors in why they both found reasons at different times to leave the band.
Once again from Deep Purple, the good is out of this world, and the other songs are still good but without the extra oomph those great songs have to keep them at that high standard this era of the band had. Removing one of those less excellent tracks and inserting “Strange Kind of Woman” into the mix would probably have lifted this album to the highest echelons that other Deep purple albums have attained – I think that’s how close this goes. But the summary remains the same as it always has for Fireball – we want more of Ritchie’s guitar and we want some extra pace and fire in those tracks. And we want less of “Anyone’s Daughter”. Please.
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