THE MOST ICONIC GUITAR RIFF
March 13, 2023 11:06AM CDT
courtesy j terry
Deep Purple’s “Smoke On The Water” might be the most iconic guitar riff of all time – but the song was nearly lost before it ever made it onto an album.
The band shared the story in the most recent issue of Classic Rock magazine – they were recording the Machine Head album in Montreux, Switzerland in 1971.
Unfortunately, the band blew past the local 10pm noise curfew and was making “a hell of a racket” at two in the morning – leading to a police raid just as they were finishing “Smoke On The Water”.
Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore said they managed to get the track down “before the police broke in and chucked us out”.
