Charades of Deep Purple: Smoke on the Water

For our third installment of “Charades of Deep Purple,” here’s a really different version of “Smoke on the Water.” While I think most every teenage rock band has learned this song, none do it quite the way that Surath Godfrey and Victor Chen have recorded this song. This is a brilliant blues tinged version that features the slide guitar and backup vocals of Chen and the lead vocals and percussive guitar by Godfrey.

I don’t know much about these artists, but they make their home in Singapore. While this is not a studio quality recording, that isn’t important – the arrangement is. There is one notable mistake in the lyrics – Godfrey sings “Montfort” instead of “Montreaux.” I can forgive that. This is a nice change of pace for this rock classic that originally appeared on Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” LP.