"Smoke on the Water" - Deep Purple

EdisonLite wrote: In the "Top Pop Singles" book for "Smoke on the Water", it just says "Smoke on the Water" for the A-Side, and "Smoke on the Water (longer version)" for the B-side. No mention of either side being live.

Gordon, you must be looking at an older edition. The current edition (1955-2018) says (live version) for
the B-side.

FWIW, in the Minneapolis/St. Paul market, I mostly heard the studio version in 1973.

EdisonLite wrote: Making matters even more confusing, growing up on radio in Boston, I heard both the studio and live versions on the radio, both pretty equally. So what version was considered the radio single exactly?

The studio version is noted as the plug side on promo
copies, but as you noted both sides got airplay. We
played them interchangeably at the small market station
I was at in the summer of '73.

AndrewChouffi wrote: Does anyone out there know when the edits first appeared, anywhere, in stereo? I ask because I was wondering if the stereo edits were created later (say by a Bill Inglot) or if they existed on a promo vinyl or an import 45 back in the day... Any info or hypotheses are apreciated! Andy

The edits were done in stereo when the songs were
released in their respective years. All commercial
copies were stereo.
Possibly the first label for Deep Purple,
Tetragrammaton Records might have released the band's
singles in mono, but have no way confirming that.

Is it possible that import 45's were stereo? The reason I
ask is that I had an import 45 of Highway Star that was
stereo yet everything released in the U.S. around that
time on 45 for Deep Purple was mono.

garye wrote: The edits were done in stereo when the songs were released in their respective years. All commercial copies were stereo.

This is not correct. All U.S. stock 45s of "Smoke On The Water" were identical to the U.S. promo 45: in mono on both the studio and live sides. I have both Santa Maria vinyl and Terre Haute styrene stock 45s and they are all mono. The same song pairing remained in mono throughout SOTW's entire run in the WB Back To Back reissue 45 series.

eriejwg wrote: Is it possible that import 45's were stereo? The reason I ask is that I had an import 45 of Highway Star that was stereo yet everything released in the U.S. around that time on 45 for Deep Purple was mono.

John, I can't speak for SOTW import 45s, but oddly enough, the U.S. WB stock 45s of "Highway Star" actually were stereo. "Lazy" had also been issued earlier in stereo on U.S. stock 45s.

Hykker wrote: Were commercial copies of "Woman From Tokyo" stereo? Scans on Discogs show a V1S suffix on the matrix # for it. The short version on my promo (which is mono) has a V1 suffix.

Yes, they were in stereo, at least as far as the original Warner Brothers 7672 release. I don't have the second issue (WB 7737) from later on in 1973, but the stock 7737 labels on 45cat do carry the the same stereo V1S suffix.

garye wrote: Possibly the first label for Deep Purple, Tetragrammaton Records might have released the band's singles in mono, but have no way confirming that.

DJ and stock copies of the five U.S. Deep Purple 45s released by Tetragrammaton mirrored each other:

"Hush": mono
"Kentucky Woman": mono
"River Deep-Mountain High": stereo
"Emmaretta": mono
"Hallelujah (I Am The Preacher)": stereo