10 Rock Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers

At the start of their career, Deep Purple weren't really all that concerned with writing hits of their own. Being brought up in the Vanilla Fudge school of rock and roll, most of their material in the early days was about taking the songs of other artists and adding their own unique spin to them. Though something like covering Help may have been a bit ill-advised, you haven't lived until you've heard this version of Hush.

Originally a Joe South song, the hard-edged rock and roll energy from Purple first starts to rear its head on this track, as Ritchie Blackmore lets his guitar wail while trading musical phrases with Jon Lord. While the sound of Rod Evans' voice doesn't really fit in all that well with the rest of the group, it's just the right kind of weird in this case to make people stand up and pay attention.

As the track plods along, the focus stops being about the composition and more about the musicians at play here, as everyone begins to play circles around each other under the same riff. This would be a sign of things to come, with Purple soon ditching Evans and bassist Nick Simper for Ian Gillan and Roger Glover for their Zeppelin-infused sound. Regardless of who's up at the mic nowadays, this is still an all-time classic rock song that deserves to be a part of Purple's pantheon.