“Deep Purple” is a song and the biggest hit written by pianist Peter De Rose, who broadcast between 1923 and 1939 with May Singhi as “The Sweethearts of the Air” on the NBC radio network. “Deep Purple” was published in 1933 as a piano composition. The following year, Paul Whiteman had it scored for his suave “big band” orchestra that was “making a lady out of jazz” in Whiteman’s phrase. “Deep Purple” became so popular in sheet music sales that Mitchell Parish added lyrics in 1938.
The second-most popular version, which hit number one on the U.S. pop charts (the 100th song to do so) in November 1963 and also won that year’s Grammy Award for Best Rock & Roll Record, was recorded by brother-sister act Nino Tempo & April Stevens. It remained in the Top 40 for twelve weeks and was number one on the Hot 100 in November 1963. This version of the song is notable for its second half, in which April Stevens speaks the lyrics in a low and sweet voice while Nino Tempo sings. According to the Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson, when the duo first recorded the song as a demo, Tempo forgot the words, and Stevens spoke the lyrics to the song to remind him. The record’s producers thought Stevens’ spoken interludes were “cute” and should be included on the finished product, but according to Stevens, Tempo “didn’t want anyone talking while he was singing!”
The Tempo/Stevens version was intended as the B-side of a song called “I’ve Been Carrying a Torch for You So Long That It Burned a Great Big Hole in My Heart”. However, radio stations preferred “Deep Purple”. “I’ve Been Carrying a Torch…” held the distinction of having the longest title, at 67 letters, of a flipside of a Billboard number-one record. The B-side of Prince’s 1984 number-one hit “When Doves Cry”, titled “17 Days (the rain will come down, then U will have 2 choose, if U believe, look 2 the dawn and U shall never lose)”, is now the longest such flipside title, with 85 letters and numbers.
Another brother-and-sister team, Donny and Marie Osmond, revived “Deep Purple” with a note for note cover version of Tempo and Stevens’s recording in 1975 and took it into the Top 20 on the U.S. and Canadian pop charts. It peaked at number 14 in March 1976 on the Billboard, with Marie Osmond speaking the lyrics as Stevens had done in the version with Tempo. The song that succeeded the Tempo/Stevens version of “Deep Purple” at number one on the Billboard chart, “I’m Leaving It Up to You” by Dale & Grace, had also been a hit over a decade later in a cover version by Donny & Marie in 1974.
The British rock band Deep Purple took their name from Pete De Rose’s hit, as it was the favourite song of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s grandmother; she would also play the song on piano. However, the band has never recorded or performed the song.
