Slaves and Masters

Slaves and Masters is the thirteenth Deep Purple album, released in 1990. Before the recording process started, tensions within the band grew, as Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore coudn’t work together any more. This led to the firing of Ian Gillan at the insistence of Blackmore. He also brought in a new singer, Joe Lynn Turner, whom he worked with some years before in later reincarnation of his band, Rainbow.

The album was not a success and is considered by many fans to be the worst Deep Purple studio album. The band was criticised for radio friendly compositions and sound. “King of Dreams” reached #6 on Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks and “Fire in the Basement” climbed to #20, however, the album only went to #87 in The Billboard 200.

A tour followed and it was generally praised by the fans, although Turner had trouble singing songs performed originally by Gillan. But it was noticed that he did a good job live with new songs and the setlists were varied throughout the show, with Mark III’s “Burn” back in the live set after 14 years.

However, the album’s commercial failure and Turner’s problems with voice led to yet another line-up change. Preparing to celebrate the band’s 25th anniversary, the rest of Deep Purple asked Turner to leave and again brought in Ian Gillan to reunite the classic line-up one more time.