Rod Evans

Rod Evans (born January 19 1947 in Slough, Berkshire) is a British singer and a founding member of Deep Purple in 1968. He was replaced as their vocalist by Ian Gillan in 1969, after three seminal albums. After his departure, Deep Purple became a heavier outfit, when with Rod it had a more progressive and pop drive.

Before Deep Purple, Evans played together with Ian Paice in The Maze (formerly MI5) (1966) Line-Up:

Ian Paice - drums
Rod Evans - vocals
Roger Lewis - guitar
Chris Banham - keyboard
Eric Keene - bass

More Rod Evans-Bands:

The Horizons.

After leaving Deep Purple, Rod went to form Captain Beyond, along with former Johnny Winter drummer Bobby Caldwell, former Iron Butterfly bassman Lee Dorman and guitarist Rhino (Larry Reinhardt), who also was part of the last incarnation of the Butterfly. This band proved to be very influential, but sales never reflected their musical achievements. Someone also called them sci-fi rock, but anyway their first self-titled album became a rarity, because it was only distributed by Capricorn records, a small label from Macon, Georgia, who also held the Allman Brothers Band at the time. Lack of commercial success ended the group.

After Captain Beyond disbanded, Evans left the music business and became a director of respiratory therapy at some West American hospital until 1980 when he was approached by a management company which specialized in rip-off reformed bands with big names, and began to tour under the Deep Purple name with a bunch of unknown session musicians.

After several shows ended in near riots, Evans was sued by the management of the real Deep Purple and they were awarded damages of $672,000. As a result of the lawsuit, Evans no longer receives royalties from the band's first three albums.

Following the incident, Evans left the music business again, and has remained out of the spotlight since.

External links

[link] Information on the "Bogus Deep Purple" controversy
[link] Information on Rod Evans and his involvement in Deep Purple and Captain Beyond

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