The Deep Purple Royal Family by Martin Popoff Power Chord Press / ISBN 978-0-9811057-3-4 & ISBN 978-0-9811057-4-1 Martin Popoff is known as the writer of many great hardrock books. Especially for us Rainbow fans there was ofcourse the fine "English Castle Magic". The book takes the Rainbow history in an album by album, song by song form. Every song has it's own story and many ex-Rainbow members let there light shine over them and give away many not known stories behind the songs. Martin also wrote books on bands close to Rainbow like Dio and Deep Purple but also other heavy metal icons like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Blue Oyster Cult, UFO and many more. Since Popoff has done many interviews with all kinda members of heavy metal bands he has a great archive. This year he has released The Deep Purple Royal Family in two parts. "Chain of Events Through '79" is volume one and "Chain of Events '80 - '11" is the second volume. Many Deep Purple fans love most if not all of the split groups and if you're one of those you're in for a treat. Beside a summing up of tours and events there are many interview snippets and loads of pictures that include album artwork, single sleeves, concert tickets & adverts, promo stuff and much more. There's some nice ancient stuff. Fans who go back a long time will remember some (or more) of them, like those well known (at the time) Picato strings ads by Ritchie Blackmore. For Rainbow fans there's enough coverage in both books. There are interview snippets that include Tony Carey, Jimmy Bain, Craig Gruber, Graham Bonnet and Don Airey. Some interesting stuff like Marc Storace, most known as singer for Swiss hardrock act Krokus, who tells about his audition in Rainbow & Randy Hansen who supported Rainbow and tells an interesting story too. Especially in the 70's but also in the 80's adverts were an excellent way to get attention. Those days there was not yet something like the internet so much more effort was spent on ads in magazines. In these books you get a wagon load of them. They are not all top quality but sure enjoyable. So besides a good written chronology diary you get enough with plenty of visual memorabilia. Both books can be ordered direct from the writer himself. Just click on the banner below to go to Martin Popoff's website! Some more details about the books: The Deep Purple Royal Family "Chain of Events Through '79" The Text: 280 stuffed pages offering an exhaustive and detailed time line of Purple milestones, often to the day, including some similar bands, influences, cultural milieu, tour stuff, recording sessions, charts, singles, certification news, break-ups, personal stuff, trivia for miles, and lots and lots of artist quotes to add to the entries, turning the book into a quasi-oral history but loaded with factual matter. But as you've noticed, this is about FAMILY. So the text weaves, in and out of the story of Purple proper, the dastardly diaries of Rainbow, Whitesnake, Ian Gillan Band, Gillan, Paice Ashton Lord, all the solo projects, guest slots, even Captain Beyond, Warhorse, Jerusalem, Jesus Christ Superstar, Bedlam, Elf, Episode Six, Outlaws, and Pussy. And when I felt it mattered to the story, there's touchdowns to the likes of Heep, Sabbath, Zeppelin, Nazareth, Moxy, Silverhead, Hard Stuff, Trapeze, Lord Sutch, Warpig, Vanilla Fudge, Brian Auger, Judas Priest, James Gang, Angel and Legs Diamond, always with contextual explanation plus the odd rare and very cool archival advertisement. The Graphics: A blazing 542 of them, usually rare, archival, historical shots of record ads, LP and 45 sleeves, tour posters and newspaper notices, ticket stubs, endorsement ads, tour program covers, foreign country releases, and again, contextual things like, say, an ancient Hammond or Marshall ad, studio ads, weird business stuff… Seriously, the crazy, creative old '70s ads, and the hype copy on them - that's why I wanted to do this book. It's a gallery, flowed and framed by fully 41,000 words of beautifully displayed timeline. The Deep Purple Royal Family "Chain of Events '80 - '11" The Text: 296 stuffed pages offering an exhaustive and detailed timeline of Purple milestones from 1980 until right now, often to the day, including some similar bands, influences, cultural milieu, tour stuff, recording sessions, charts, singles, certification news, break-ups, personal stuff, trivia for miles, and lots and lots of artist quotes to add to the entries, turning the book into a quasi-oral history but loaded with factual matter. But as you've noticed, this is about FAMILY. So the text weaves, in and out of the story of Purple proper, the dastardly diaries of Rainbow, Whitesnake, Gillan, Blackmore's Night, all the solo projects, guest slots, a li'l MSG, Gary Moore, Black Sabbath and Black Country Communion, always with contextual explanation plus rare and very cool archival advertisements of shows 'n' records 'n' singles. The Graphics: A hefty 513 of them, usually rare, archival, historical shots of record ads, LP and 45 sleeves, CD singles, Japanese issues, picture discs, tour posters and newspaper notices, ticket stubs, endorsement ads, tour program covers, other foreign country releases, and again, contextual things… It's a gallery, flowed and framed by fully 50,000 words of beautifully displayed timeline.