As I said – Deep Purple was without question my first favorite band.  Blackmore’s guitar work was superb as was Jon Lord’s keyboards – but the stabilizing force was the driving percussion and bass.  Roger Glover and Ian Paice kept everything moving forward and let Blackmore, Lord and Ian Gillian go off and do their own thing.  However, as the band’s line up changed with David Coverdale on vocals for the Burn album, my interest in Deep Purple started to wane.  Then one day, I heard a song that I swore was a new Deep Purple song – until I heard the vocals.  The song was Man on the Silver Mountain… The group was Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow… and the singer was Ronnie James Dio – who, in my opinion, is by far the best hard rock vocalist of all time.  Yes – even better than Robert Plant.  With the demise of the Deep Purple line up that I preferred, I ventured in a new direction – and found Pink Floyd.  Actually, “Wish You Were Here” was my first “album” purchase.  Up until then, I had an 8-track tape player.  HA!  What a great piece of engineering that was!  Listening to Pink Floyd was truly a life changing experience.  I will always regret that I’ve never seen them in concert.  David Gilmour is an amazing guitarist – and probably a very under-rated guitar player.  His songs and leads are the epitome of understatement.  He can convey more feeling in one note than most guitarists can in an entire song.  Pink Floyd took over first place in my personal favorite band competition.  I’ve selected some Pink Floyd music that you might enjoy from our music partners at Amazon.com.