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Borrowed Tunes: Deep Purple does the Blues Magoos doing Ricky Nelson

Say what you want about Deep Purple – they had solid source material.  “Black Night” hit #2 in the UK in 1970 (and #66 in the US), while the Blues Magoos’ “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” was a US Top 5 hit in 1966.

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The Blues Magoos – “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” (1966) (excerpt)

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Deep Purple – “Black Night” (1970) (excerpt)

Update: And thanks to Brule who’s prompted a title change to this post and who’s confirmed that this riff’s roots go back at least as far as Ricky Nelson’s early sixties version of “Summertime.” We all know Ricky was top notch, but this just confirms it. And while we’re on it, James Burton’s guitar sounds to me like it also inspired Johnny Rivers’ hit version of “Memphis.”

This entry was posted on Friday, May 7th, 2010 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Borrowed Tunes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Borrowed Tunes: Deep Purple does the Blues Magoos doing Ricky Nelson”

  1. Brule Says:
    December 2nd, 2010 at 4:35 am

    Just a note to link this back further. The basis of the Blues Magoos piece was a 1964 (I think) Rick Nelson version of Summertime. One assumes the riff was written by James Burton who played lead in the Rick Nelson trio back then.

    Listen to that old Nelson cut and you will directly hear the origins of these two other songs.

  2. Kim Says:
    December 2nd, 2010 at 7:42 pm

    Thanks for this – love it! You’ve inspired a full update.

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