"Hush" is a song written by American composer and musician Joe South, for recording artist Billy Joe Royal. The song was later covered by Somebody's Image (an Australian band fronted by Russell Morris) in 1967. Their version reached #14 in Australia. It was also covered by Deep Purple in 1968 and by Kula Shaker in 1997. Each artist had a Top 5 hit with their version.
Billy Joe Royal version
Billy Joe Royal recorded "Hush" on 12 July 1967 in Nashville with Barry Bailey, future lead guitarist for the Atlanta Rhythm Section, on guitar. Joe South, Royal's regular songwriter/producer, was travelling to Nashville with Royal and writing "Rose Garden" in the car. Royal didn't like it, so South wrote "Hush" for him while leaning on the dashboard.[2] Royal did record "Rose Garden" for his album Billy Joe Royal featuring Hush, though didn't release it as a single. In 1971, "Rose Garden" become an international hit for Lynn Anderson, and was South's most successful composition. Royal later regretted not liking the song.[3]
Although more successful than Royal's last six single releases, only two of which had ranked even low on the Billboard Hot 100, "Hush" would not afford Royal a Top 40 comeback: managing only one "top-tier" market breakout in Chicago - whose prime Top 40 station WLS would rank "Hush" as high as #5 tying the WLS hit parade peak for both Royal's 1965 career record "Down in the Boondocks" and also Deep Purple's 1968 "Hush" cover[4] - "Hush" would rise no higher on the Hot 100 than #52,[5] with a Canadian pop chart peak of #45.[6] The qualified success of "Hush" was sufficient to allow for the release of Royal's second album Billy Joe Royal featuring Hush.
"Hush" did afford Billy Joe Royal a one-off hit on the European continent, reaching #12 on the German singles chart and becoming a Top Ten hit in Belgium (#1), the Netherlands (#5) and Switzerland (#2).[7]
A promo clip for Billy Joe Royal's release of the song was filmed at the boardwalk amusement park and outskirts of an unidentified Southern beach town.
The song was subsequently recorded by English hard rock band Deep Purple, at that time fronted by lead singer Rod Evans, for their 1968 debut album Shades of Deep Purple. Group member Ritchie Blackmore having heard the Billy Joe Royal original while living in Hamburg: (Ritchie Blackmore quote:) "It was a great song [which] would be a good song [for] our act, if we could come up with a different arrangement...We [recorded] the whole song in two takes."[15] The track became the group's first hit single, peaking at number 4 on the Hot 100 on 21–28 September 1968,[16] number 16 in Italy in late 1968, and number 2 in Canada, while going largely unnoticed in the United Kingdom. Cash Box called it a "psychedelicized reversion of the time-back Billy Joe Royal song," saying that the instrumental work and tailoring of the rock song all point to sheer force".[17]Record World described it as "a rollicking, contemporary ditty."[18]
In 1968, Deep Purple performed live on Hugh Hefner's Playboy After Dark TV series. The band opened the episode playing the instrumental "And the Address". After Hefner heard a ghost story from Jon Lord and had a guitar lesson from Ritchie Blackmore, Deep Purple performed "Hush" which is available in the Playboy After Dark -2nd Collection 2007 DVD release and the 2000 CD-reissue of the Shades of Deep Purple album.
In celebration of the band's 20th anniversary, Deep Purple re-recorded the song in 1988 for their album Nobody's Perfect. The track was released as a single and reached number 62 on the UK singles chart and number 44 on the US Hot Mainstream Rock chart. Ian Gillan, who had replaced Rod Evans as lead singer of Deep Purple in 1969, admitted being "uneasy" about having recorded the song, saying that the only person he wanted to hear perform the song was Evans (who at that point was no longer involved in music).[19]
"Hush" is one of four songs originally recorded with the band's original vocalist Rod Evans and bassist Nick Simper that Deep Purple have performed with their replacements Ian Gillan and Roger Glover later on. Others are "Mandrake Root", also from Shades of Deep Purple, "Kentucky Woman", from the album The Book of Taliesyn from 1968 and "Bird Has Flown", from the album Deep Purple from 1969. The instrumental "Wring That Neck" from The Book of Taliesyn was also a regular part of the band's setlist into the early 1970s.
^Breihan, Tom (November 15, 2022). "Bon Jovi - "You Give Love a Bad Name". The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music. New York: Hachette Book Group. p. 175.
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