Roderic Evans (born 19 January 1947) is a retired British singer known as the original vocalist of the rock bands Deep Purple and Captain Beyond.

Evans began his professional career in The Maze before becoming a founding member of Deep Purple in 1968, with whom he recorded their first three studio albums.

Deep Purple had one other US Top 40 hit with Evans on vocals, a cover of Neil Diamond's "Kentucky Woman", which appeared on the band's second album and peaked at No.

[3] It had been decided by Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice that Evans' pop vocal style would not be suitable for the heavier hard rock sound the band wanted to achieve moving forward.

[8][1] In 1980, Evans was approached by a management company that specialized in the unscrupulous and frequently legally actionable practice of reforming groups with a minimum of original members, often in violation of trademark and contractual law.

Evans himself claimed in September 1980 that his former Deep Purple bandmates Jon Lord and Ian Paice had also been contacted to participate, but both were uninterested.

The band had also talked of releasing an album of new material under the "Deep Purple" name, with 6 tracks being recorded in Los Angeles; this angered Jon Lord, who described such a possibility as "the worst lie".

Members of the management team for the then-disbanded genuine Deep Purple, John Coletta and Tony Edwards, successfully sued and were awarded $672,000 in damages.

[9][1] Evans has not appeared publicly since the 1980 court case and his current whereabouts have been of considerable interest to fans of early Deep Purple online since at least the late 1990s.