3SP: Plum Puzzled

Can you musically connect Tin Pan Alley (New York City) to Montreux, Switzerland to the San Fernando Valley in California? How about connecting piano and big band to heavy metal to art rock?

Here’s my answer:
In 1933 pianist Peter DeRose published a composition called Deep Purple. He worked in Tin Pan Alley and broadcast on NBC. It became a popular big band hit for Paul Whiteman. Lyricist Mitchell Parrish [also lyricist on Star Dust, Stars Fell on Alabama, Moonlight Serenade, and many others] added lyrics in 1938:

When the deep purple falls over sleepy garden walls
And the stars begin to twinkle in the sky—
In the mist of a memory you wander back to me
Breathing my name with a sigh…

The song was recorded by several artists over the years. The version I know best was by brother-and-sister act Nino Tempo & April Stevens in 1963.

The song [I don't know which version] was a favorite of the grandmother of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. After she kept asking if his band would play the song he named his band Deep Purple. One of that band’s biggest hits is Smoke on the Water. The lyrics in that song refer to a fire that burned down a casino in Montreux during a concert by Frank Zappa and the Mothers. [Someone in the audience fired a flair gun at the ceiling!] Deep Purple was in Montreux at the time for a recording session on Machine Head, their best-selling album.

Frank Zappa was an eclectic artist that wrote rock, jazz, electronic, and orchestral music. One of his best-known songs [about which, he apparently was not happy] is Valley Girl. In that song his daughter, Moon Unit, provided “Valspeak” from California’s San Fernando Valley and made the slang more popular and wide-spread than ever.