Critics and fans were pleased with new singer Ian Gillan's high pitched singing and screaming, and the album has since been considered a classic of the time, along with Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and Led Zeppelin's "Led Zeppelin II". The album itself had popular songs such as "Speed King" "Child in Time" and "Bloodsucker" (which was later re-recorded by the band in 1998). The famous album cover shows the band members' faces engraved into Mount Rushmore. The band eventually got back to their plans of playing hard rock, and released "Deep Purple in Rock" in 1970, which became a big success. Whilst the band did perform as an orchestra (with new singer Ian Gillan writing lyrics) gaining the band some publicity, Gillan and Blackmore were not happy about the band being associated with orchestras, and were firm about Deep Purple being a hard rock band, though Jon Lord would write another orchestral piece for the band. Jon Lord used to play in orchestras, and at this time, wanted to go back to them and base the Deep Purple sound around that. The band found a new singer called Ian Gillan and a new bass player called Roger Glover, forming Mark II. While Ian Paice agreed to the change, they decided Evans and Simper would not fit this new style, and were let go from the band. Eventually, Blackmore and Lord decided to change the style of music the band would play from soft progressive rock to hard rock. They released a fairly popular single called "Hush", thought to be radio friendly in America, but, apart from that, did not have any success. This band lineup, known as "Mark I", released three albums, called "Shades of Deep Purple" (1968), "The Book of Taliesyn" (1968) and a self-titled (1969). They renamed the band "Deep Purple" after a song Blackmore's mother liked, disliking the name "Roundabout".
![deep purple smoke on the water album cover deep purple smoke on the water album cover](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1L3XxUxEb6U/maxresdefault.jpg)
Blackmore and Lord wanted to continue, and so finished putting the band together themselves, with singer Rod Evans, bass player Nick Simper, and drummer Ian Paice. Curtis behaved in a disorderly way, and so was fired from his own project. The first musicians to be hired were guitar player Ritchie Blackmore and keyboard player Jon Lord. Because of this format, the band was called Roundabout. In 1967, a drummer called Chris Curtis was putting a new band together, where members would only be part of it when it suited them (or would "get on and off"). History Forming, and Mark I (1967 - 1969) 1.6 Revival with Steve Morse and Jon Lord's retirement (Marks VII and VIII) (1994 - present).1.5 Mark II reformations and Marks V and VI (1984 - 1994).