“Vanilla Fudge had covered a Supremes hit and turned it into something else. That’s what the band tried to do – put their own spin on it”: The iconic cover version that launched a legendary hard rock band – but nearly turned them into one-hit-wonders

Deep Purple posing for a photograph in the late 1960s.

1968 can legitimately lay claim to being the year hard rock was born. Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were both formed, the former coming together from the ashes of The Yardbirds, the latter initially under the name Earth.

In the US, Iron Butterfly scored a hit with their single In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and fellow proto-heavy rockers Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge released landmark records.