Rod Evans (2,038 views)

[EddieCheivz]

Voice Type: Kentucky Baritone 
Vocal Range: D2-E5
Associated Acts: Deep Purple, Captain Beyond
Years Active: 1966-1973, after that just concerts in 1980
Nationality: English

Rod was the first singer in the original formation of Deep Purple, he recorded the first three albums before Ian Gillan's arrival in 1969.
His voice has classical baritone's tone in rock/pop music from that time, and this blend good with the style the band was experimenting in the first years: a combination of differents psychedelic elements, hard guitar riffs, long organ solos, and other characteristics of musical style in the rock at late 60's just after the psychedelia started to arise thanks to bands as Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Strawberry Alarm Clock, etc.
The fact the music change in Deep Purple career for the next years, was very important to take decision to expulse Rod from the band. The band was taking heavier sound and style and Rod Evans' voice wasn't too appropiate to accompany that music. Then Gillan arrived to the band.
After other few albums with Captain Beyond, he disappeared from the musical scene since 1980, when performed some concerts with a fake alienation of Deep Purple (my father was at that concet in Mexico City lol).
Currently it's very difficult to know something about his life. In a 2015 interview, Captain Beyond drummer Bobby Caldwell mentioned that he was in touch with Evans and that Evans is "just doing fine these days" and had worked in the medical profession for a long time.

Significant High Notes:

E5 (“I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 2)”, "River Deep Mountain High" Inglewood 1968, "Smoke On The Water" Mexico City 1980)
D5 (“Raging River of Fear”)
C♯5 (“Hey Joe" Inglewood 1968, "Oh No No No”, "River Deep Mountain High" studio version & live Inglewood 1968)
C5 (“As the Moon Speaks (Return)”, "Hush" live CBS 1969)
B4 (“Bird Has Flown”, “Hey Joe”, “Hush" live, "Kentucky Woman”, "River Deep, Mountain High")
B♭4 (“Hey Joe" Inglewood 1968, "Hush”, "Kentucky Woman")
A4 (“Anthem”, “Bird Has Flown", "Emmaretta”, "Icarus" demo version, "Oh No No No", "Uranus Highway")
G♯4 (“Bird Has Flown", "Hey Bop a Re Bop” BBC Top 1969, “It’s All Over” BBC Top Year Session, “Smoke On The Water" Mexico City 1980, "The Painter” BBC Radio Session 1969)
G4 (“Bright Blue Tango”, “Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air)”, “Distant Sun”, “Everything's a Circle”, “Evil Men”, “Frozen Over”, “Hard To Be With You”, “Help", "Hey Joe”, “I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1)”, “Icarus" Demo Version, "Kentucky Woman”, “Mandrake Root”, “Mesmerization Eclipse”, “Myopic Void", "River Deep Mountain High", "Raging River of Fear”,  “Starglow Energy”, “Why Didn’t Rosemary”, “We Can Work It Out”)
F♯4 (“Blind”, “Drifting in Space”, “Emmaretta”, “Frozen Over”, “I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 2)”, “Kentucky Woman”, “Oh No No No”, “The Painter”, “Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Time Since Come and Gone)”, “You'll Never Stop Me Loving You”)
F4 (“Anthem”, “April”, “Dancing Madly Backwards (On A Sea Of Air)”, “Distant Sun”, “Hard To Be Without You”, “Help”, “Hey Bop a Re Bop” BBC Top 1969, “I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1)”, “It’s All Over” BBC Top Year Session, “Mesmerization Eclipse”, “One More Rainy Day”, “Only Time Will Tell”, “Smoke On The Water” live, “Starglow Energy”, "Uranus Highway", “Why Didn’t Rosemary”)
E4 (“Anthem”, “Armworth”, “As the Moon Speaks (Return)”, “Bird Has Flown”, “Blind”, “Bright Blue Tango”, “Chasing Shadows”, “Drifting in Space”, “Everything's a Circle”, “Evil Men”, “Lalena”, “River Deep, Mountain High”, “Help, Love Help Me”, “Mesmerization Eclipse”, “Myopic Void”, “One More Rainy Day”, “Prelude: Happiness/I'm So Glad”, “Shadows”, “Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Time Since Come and Gone)”, “We Can Work It Out”, “You'll Never Stop Me Loving You”)

Significant Low Notes:

D3 (“April”, “Blind", "Hard To Be With You”, “Hey Joe”, “I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1)”, “Kentucky Woman”, “Lalena”, “Listen, Learn, Read On”, “Only Time Will Tell”, “Shadows”, “Starglow Energy”, “Sufficiently Breathless”, “You'll Never Stop Me Loving You”)
C♯3 (“It’s All Over” BBC Top Year Session, “Prelude: Happiness/I'm So Glad”, “The Shield”)
C3 (“Bright Blue Tango”, “Hard To Be With You”, “I Can't Feel Nothin' (Part 1)”, "Kentucky Woman", “Smoke On The Water" Mexico City 1980, "Thousand Days of Yesterdays (Intro)”, "Uranus Highway")
B2 (“Bird Has Flown”, “Bright Blue Tango”, “Hey Joe" Inglewood 1968, "It’s All Over” BBC Top Year Session, “Lalena”, “Shadows”, “Sufficiently Breathless”, “We Can Work It Out”, “You'll Never Stop Me Loving You”)
B♭2 (“April”)
A2 (“Bird Has Flown”, “Lalena”, "Starglow Energy”)
G♯2 (“River Deep, Mountain High”)
G2 (“Lalena” BBC Radio Session 1969)
F♯2 ("Listen, Learn, Read On")
E2 (“As the Moon Speaks (Return)", "Listen, Learn, Read On”, “River Deep, Mountain High”, “We Can Work It Out”)
D2 (“As the Moon Speaks (Return)”, “As the Moon Speaks (to the Waves of the Sea)”)

SPOILER: Click to show

{QUESTIONABLE NOTES}
A4 ("Armworth" [2], "Myopic Void" [2])
D2 ("Lalena" [1])
[1] marks yelps and short trills in high range or anacrusis and short dips in low range.
[2] marks notes of questionable identity that cannot be confirmed to be the singer in question.
[3] marks non-melodic notes that don't have a significant enough pitch to warrant inclusion.
[4] marks notes that possess uncertain pitch or have been pitch-shifted.
[5] marks notes that do not fit the previous criteria but are not of a substantial enough quality to warrant counting towards the singer's range.

SPOILER: Click to show

{NOTE-WATCHED MATERIAL}
With Deep Purple:
(1968) Shades of Deep Purple: E2-B♭4
(1968) The Book of Taliesyn: E2-C♯5
(1969) Deep Purple: A2-B4

With Captain Beyond:
(1972) Captain Beyond: D2-E5
(1973) Sufficiently Breathless: A2-G4
(1972-1973) Lost & Found:

*Underlines marks notes sung in backing vocals/harmonies.
*Italics marks non-melodic notes.
*Blue marks soft falsetto notes.
*Boldface marks noteworthy singer's capabalities.

[Hennessy Macklemore III]

Very nice! Always liked his singing, though they were obviously much more restrained and less wild than his vocal successors in Deep Purple.

Couple pointers, though - for one, the singer who replaced Evans is named Ian Gillan; not Ian Gillian. Secondly, Evans never really "performed concerts with Deep Purple again in 1980". That was during the years that Deep Purple was broken up, and Evans got recruited by a group of random musicians unrelated to the band to perform under the name Deep Purple, who figured they could pass themselves off as a "reformed version of the group" as long as they had one former member in their lineup. The result of this was people seeing advertisements with that name, getting excited thinking it would be a Mk II or Mk III lineup of Deep Purple, and then getting outraged when they showed up and didn't recognize anybody in the lineup (poor Evans :)) ). From what I've read, apparently the few shows they played almost ended in riots, and the group was forced to stop using the name shortly after.