Here's the first in my promised series of Machine Head commentary, track-by-track.

Roger Glover described "Highway Star" as the ultimate Deep Purple track. Who am I to argue? While the backing track is fairly straightforward, it is nonetheless powerful for it. The lyrics speak to things every red blooded male can identify with (love of cars and love of women) and the solos are classics. It's also the perfect set opener, as evidenced by Made In Japan, amongst other live recordings.

But to get a bit more personal...

I did not spring forth from Zeus' brow a fully formed DP fanatic. Rather, my journey to Deep Purple fandom actually took several years. But it did start with "Highway Star."

As a lad, I'd certainly heard some DP tracks. I was familiar with staples like "Smoke on the Water" and "Woman From Tokyo", but I didn't have much knowledge of the band. As I began to become a rock enthusiast during my high school years, I began to slowly branch out from the American hard rock and metal bands into bands that had influenced them.

One day during my senior year, I was in my local record store and spotted the soundtrack to the film Dazed and Confused. It looked like a good collection. There was Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Ted Nugent... several 70's rockers I liked but had not, at that time, added to my nascent musical collection. (Incidentally, I still recommend that soundtrack.) There was also a song by another band I'd heard of - Deep Purple. I'd never heard that song though. It was "Highway Star."

Honestly, I didn't know what to make of it. The classical influences were very different from the types of things I was listening to at the time (I was a big Aerosmith fan in those days, for example) and I really wasn't sure what to make of it, other than I thought the solos were good. It took a while for me to really get into it, though, but it definitely planted a seed.

Over the years, I've found that the best way to experience "Highway Star", unsurprisingly, is while driving. I've remarked on more than one occasion that if you listen to the studio version at full blast while driving down the Interstate at speed, you can literally see testosterone ooze from your speakers at the beginning of the organ solo. I also recommend listening to it while in a car with a V8 engine. That way you can really feel it when you sing along with Gillan: "Eight cylinders all mine!"

Perhaps I've been a bit silly here, but it really is one of the great car songs of all time. Listen to it loud, and celebrate the astonishing musicianship of Messrs. Lord and Blackmore.

After a bit of a busy spell, I'm back with a new entry. I'm still planning on doing some track-by-track commentary on Machine Head, but in the meantime I thought I'd comment on a DP album that made it into my car's CD player a couple of weeks ago: Slaves and Masters.

If you're bothering to read this blog, you're probably a DP fan and you don't need me to tell you that Slaves and Masters was the only studio release by the Mark V lineup (Ritchie Blackmore, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Joe Lynn Turner) and is pretty much universally hailed as the band's weakest effort.

I won't disagree with that assessment. Compared to the rest of the band's catalog, I like every other album they did better than Slaves and Masters (although I don't think House of Blue Light is much better). Still, DP at its weakest is better than many other bands.

S&M does feature one bona fide classic in my opinion: "The Cut Runs Deep." Great riff, great keyboard intro, good solos, and the lyrics are good enough. This is a song that definitely deserves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of the Purple catalog.

There are some other tracks on the album that are quite good: "King of Dreams", "Fire in the Basement", "Truth Hurts", "Breakfast In Bed" (probably would have made a good Paul Rogers/Bad Company tune), "Fortuneteller" and "Wicked Ways." None of these songs may be classics, but they're all enjoyable enough to give a listen every now and again.

The other two tracks I don't particularly care for. "Too Much Is Not Enough" is often slagged by DP fandom. I don't care for the song but I don't think it's nearly as bad as it's made out to be. "Love Conquers All" is not my cup of tea. Frankly, if these two songs were left off the album and replaced by the other two studio tracks of the era, "Slow Down Sister" and "Fire, Ice and Dynamite" I think the album would be reasonably strong. Not a classic, but a solid listen nonetheless.

The bottom line: even though Slaves and Masters may not acheive the heights of DP's finest efforts (or even latter-day Rainbow, for that matter) it's still worth a couple of listens a year.