There simply aren’t enough superlatives to properly acknowledge the
contribution Deep Purple has made to rock music. Having sold more than 100 million albums
and filled global arenas for decades, there’s little wonder that the respected British radio
station Planet Rock named the group the ‘5th Most Influential Band Ever’, whilst VH1 ranked
them #22 on its ‘Greatest Artists of Hard Rock’ list. Additionally, Deep Purple was given the
‘Legend Award’ at the 2008 World Music Awards and, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
of Fame in 2016. These guys truly are ‘rock royalty’.
The Marshall Tucker Band came together as a young, hungry, and quite driven six-piece outfit
in Spartanburg, South Carolina in 1972, having duly baptized themselves with the name of a
blind piano tuner after they found it inscribed on a key to their original rehearsal space — and
they’ve been in tune with tearing it up on live stages both big and small all across the globe
ever since. Plus, the band’s mighty music catalog, consisting of more than 20 studio albums
and a score of live releases, has racked up multi-platinum album sales many times over. A
typically rich MTB setlist is bubbling over with a healthy dose of hits like the heartfelt singalong
“Heard It in a Love Song,” the insistent pleading of “Can’t You See” (the signature tune of
MTB’s late co-founding lead guitarist and then-principal songwriter Toy Caldwell), the
testifying “Fire on the Mountain,” the wanderlust gallop of “Long Hard Ride,” and the explosive
testimony of “Ramblin,’” to name but a few.