Funky Junction

Lore & Background

Funky Junction were brought together by German producer and manager Leo Muller. Muller contacted Irish group Thin Lizzy to record the album, but the Thin Lizzy members were not enthusiastic, as they were trying to forge their own style and identity, though they needed the money. Thin Lizzy's vocalist Phil Lynott decided he could not sing like Deep Purple's Ian Gillan, so he restricted himself to playing bass guitar and singing backing vocals. The band brought in Benny White, singer with the Dublin group Elmer Fudd, because they generally performed Deep Purple covers during gigs. Thin Lizzy drummer Brian Downey referred to White as 'really an Ian Gillan clone.' Thin Lizzy did not have a keyboard player, so Elmer Fudd's keyboardist Dave 'Mojo' Lennox was also asked to participate. Guitarist Eric Bell stated that White and Lennox were each paid 'around £60' to travel to De Lane Lea Studios in London to record the album. The recording session took place over two days, not one as is often claimed.

Reader's Guide

The makeshift band rehearsed for 'two or three hours,' according to Downey, before recording the whole album in one day. Nine tracks were recorded, with five being Deep Purple covers. Three others were loosely improvised instrumentals: 'Dan' – a version of 'Londonderry Air' or 'Danny Boy' by Bell in a Jimi Hendrix style; 'Rising Sun' – a cover of 'The House of the Rising Sun'; and the original composition 'Palamatoon.' The last track was 'Corina,' credited to Leo Muller, as were the other non-Deep Purple songs. The album was released in the UK and the USA on the Stereo Gold Award label, and on the Sonic Records label in Germany, where the band's name was changed to 'The Rock Machine' and the album title to 'The Rock Machine Play the Best of Deep Purple.' Thin Lizzy were paid £1000 for the recording but their name was entirely omitted from the album, and a photo of a different band, Hard Stuff, was featured on the cover. Another album was released by Muller in 1973 using the Funky Junction name, titled Especially for You..., credited to Gladys Knight & the Pips featuring Funky Junction, but Gladys Knight & the Pips did not perform on it, and the two Funky Junction tracks were recorded by an entirely different band.

Did You Know?

• The band was formed specifically to record a single album of Deep Purple covers.
• All three members of the early 1970s incarnation of Thin Lizzy played on the album, but their name was omitted from the release.
• A photo of the band Hard Stuff, not Funky Junction, appeared on the album cover.

Origins & The Deal

Funky Junction was never a band in any traditional sense. Formed in 1972, it existed for exactly one purpose: to record a single tribute album to Deep Purple. The project was hatched by a German businessman called Leo Muller, who was actually the alias of Dave Miller, a record producer running several budget music labels. Miller reached out to the Irish group Thin Lizzy, whose early-1970s lineup included Phil Lynott on bass, Eric Bell on guitar, and Brian Downey on drums. The three were far from thrilled. They were in the middle of carving out their own identity and sound, and the idea of covering someone else's catalogue sat poorly with them. But the financial need was real, and the offer was on the table. Lynott, recognizing he could not replicate Ian Gillan's vocal style, stepped back from lead vocals and confined himself to bass and backing harmonies. The group needed a frontman who could channel that particular Purple energy, and they found one in Benny White, the singer from Dublin's Elmer Fudd, a band that routinely performed Deep Purple material live.

The One-Day Session

What followed was a recording process of remarkable brevity. According to Downey, the assembled group spent only two or three hours rehearsing before they tracked the entire album in a single day at De Lane Lea Studios in London. The lineup was essentially Thin Lizzy's core trio augmented by two borrowed musicians: Benny White on lead vocals and Dave "Mojo" Lennox on keyboards, both pulled from Elmer Fudd. Bell later recalled that White and Lennox were each paid around sixty pounds to make the trip to London. The resulting nine-track set included five straight Deep Purple covers—Fireball, Black Night, Strange Kind of Woman, Hush, and Speed King—alongside three loosely improvised instrumentals. "Dan" was Bell's Hendrix-flavoured take on the Irish melody "Londonderry Air" (or "Danny Boy"), "Rising Sun" was a version of The Animals' "The House of the Rising Sun," and "Palamatoon" was an original composition. The final track, "Corina," was credited to Leo Muller, as were the other non-Purple songs.

Release & Erasure

The finished record, titled Funky Junction Play a Tribute to Deep Purple, hit shelves in January 1973 on the Stereo Gold Award label in the UK and USA, and on Sonic Records in Germany. In its original UK edition it was sold at Woolworths for fifty pence, a price point that underscored its budget-market positioning. The German release took a different approach entirely: the band name was swapped for "The Rock Machine" and the title became The Rock Machine Play the Best of Deep Purple. Most stinging for the musicians involved was the complete omission of Thin Lizzy's name from the album. Despite the fact that Lynott, Bell, and Downey had performed on every track, their identity was erased. In their place, the cover featured a photograph of Hard Stuff, a group signed to Deep Purple's own label. The three Thin Lizzy members were paid a flat fee of one thousand pounds for their work—a sum that, by any measure, paled in comparison to the creative and reputational cost of having their names stripped from a record they had helped make.

The "Especially for You..." Aftermath

The Funky Junction name did not disappear after the Deep Purple tribute. In 1973, Muller issued a second album under the same banner, titled Especially for You..., also on Stereo Gold Award. This release carried the credit "Gladys Knight & the Pips featuring Funky Junction," a pairing that was entirely fabricated. Neither Gladys Knight nor any member of the Pips actually performed on the record. The two tracks attributed to Funky Junction—"Talking Trash" and "Road's End"—were recorded by a completely different group of musicians. None of the original contributors—Lynott, Bell, Downey, White, or Lennox—had any involvement whatsoever. What the episode reveals is the extent to which the Funky Junction project was less a musical collaboration and more a commercial vehicle for a budget-label operator. The name, the credits, the cover art, even the band itself were all malleable props in Muller's catalogue, disposable once the recording session was over.

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