Ian in 1973, whilst Ritchie quit in 1974, and went on forming Rainbow. Ian released several albums, as the frontman of the Ian Gillan Band, as well as the frontman of a band called “Gillan” — these could also be regarded as solo albums.
In 1983 a reunion of Deep Purple was planned and Ian had spare time to kill, so he joined Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, under the name of Black Sabbath, and released the underrated, yet badly mixed, “Born Again”.
Geezer maintains that he insisted the band would not be called Black Sabbath, but Ian argues that the deal from the start was that he would become the singer of Black Sabbath solely for one album and tour, since it had already been arranged that he would be joining the reformed Deep Purple afterwards. Truly, after the completion of the tour (bar Bill Ward, who had left the band after the recording of the album), Ian returned to Deep Purple, who recorded and released “Perfect Strangers” in 1984.
