Day After Day #10: Hush

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Hush

This next song came out when I was a year old. Obviously, I wasn't hip to it back then, but it's been a staple of classic radio for 40+ years now. I'm much more well-versed in Deep Purple's Mark II lineup with Ian Gillan on vocals and Roger Glover on bass, teaming up with Ritchie Blackmore and crew to create such hard rock classics as "Smoke On the Water," "Space Truckin'" and "Highway Star." But the first version of Deep Purple hit it big with a cover of "Hush," written by Joe South for singer Billy Joe Royal in 1967. Royal's version only made it to #52 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But Deep Purple guitarist Blackmore heard the song and decided to do a psychedelic version for Deep Purple's debut album Shades of Deep Purple. Propelled by Jon Lord's Hammond organ and Ian Paice's powerful drumming (Paice is truly underrated), the song captures the late '60s vibe. Especially when you watch the clip below of Deep Purple playing on Hugh Hefner's Playboy After Dark show. Whatever your thoughts about Hefner, he had some pretty impressive guests on Playboy After Dark, which was taped at CBS and syndicated from 1969-1970 (the Purple appearance was recorded in October '68 but didn't air until over a year later). The conceit was Hefner was hosting a party at his house and guests were the likes of Tony Bennett, Bill Cosby, Steppenwolf, Buddy Rich, Canned Heat, Ike and Tina Turner, and many more, along with a bunch of Playboy Playmates of course. This was when Hefner and Playboy were cultivating a more mature image, as opposed to the debauchery of the '70s and '80s at the Playboy Mansion.

The Deep Purple appearance is pretty great. The band had only been together for nine months at the time. The clip contains one of the few examples of Blackmore smiling as he shows Hefner how to play his guitar, Lord tells a ghost story and then Hefner says "it would really groove the kids" if Purple played their hit "Hush." The band, featuring original singer Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper, launch into the song as party guests do their best psychedelic dance moves. It's pretty wild to think that all these folks in the video are now in their 70s, 80s or older, or dead. But here, the kids were just groovin'. 

Deep Purple followed the release of "Hush" with a cover of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman" that was less successful (#38 on the Hot 100) and a year later, Evans and Simper were replaced by Gillan and Glover and the band went on to bigger and better things. There were several lineup changes throughout the '70s, with David Coverdale replacing Gillan and then Blackmore leaving to form Rainbow. The Mark II lineup reunited in '84 to record the excellent Perfect Strangers and another album before giving way to other formations. Along the way, they re-recorded "Hush" in 1988 for their 20th anniversary.

"Hush" has been covered by many other artists ,including Kula Shaker, the Partridge Family and Milli Vanilli. But it saw another surge in popularity when the Deep Purple version from '68 was featured in a scene in Quentin Tarantino's 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which was set in 1969. The song is playing on the radio when Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate are driving from the home into the city and it again perfectly captures the vibe of the scene and the time. It really did groove the kids.

 

The original:

  

Milli Vanilli: