Ritchie Blackmore
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| Ritchie Blackmore | |
|---|---|
| Born | 14 April 1945 (age 61) Weston-super-Mare, England |
| Genre(s) | Hard rock Heavy metal Rock Folk Rock |
| Affiliation(s) | Deep Purple Rainbow Blackmore's Night |
| Notable guitars | Fender Stratocaster Gibson ES-335 |
| Years active | 1960 - Present |
| Official site | www.blackmoresnight.com |
Richard Hugh Blackmore, (born 14 April 1945) is an English guitarist. He has been a founding member of both Deep Purple and Rainbow and is currently a member of the band Blackmore's Night.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Blackmore was born in Weston-super-Mare, England, but moved to Heston, Middlesex at the age of two.
He was 11 when he got his first guitar. His father bought it for him on certain conditions: "He said if I was going to play this thing, he was either going to have someone teach it to me properly, or he was going to smash me across the head with it. So I actually took the lessons for a year – classical lessons - and it got me on to the right footing, using all the fingers and the right strokes of the plectrum and the nonsense that goes with it."[1]
Influenced in his youth by early rockers like Hank Marvin and Gene Vincent, and later, country pickers like Chet Atkins. His playing improved and in the early 1960s he started out as a session player for Joe Meek's music productions and performed in several bands. He was member of instrumental combo The Outlaws and backed Heinz (playing on his top ten hit "Just Like Eddie"), Screaming Lord Sutch, Glenda Collins and Boz among others. Whilst working for Joe Meek, he got to know engineer Derek Lawrence, who would later produce Deep Purple's first three albums. With organist Jon Lord he co-founded hard rock group Deep Purple in 1968, and continued to be a member of Deep Purple from 1968-1975 and again from 1984-1993.
[edit] The first Deep Purple years, 1968-1975
Blackmore co-founded the hard rock group Deep Purple in 1968 with Rod Evans (vocals), Nick Simper (bass), Jon Lord (keyboards), and Ian Paice (drums). The band had a hit US single with its remake of the Joe South song "Hush" after three albums Evans and Simper were replaced by Ian Gillan (vocals) and Roger Glover (bass).
The second line-up's first studio album, In Rock, changed the band's style, turning it in a hard rock direction. Blackmore's guitar riffs, Jon Lord's distorted Hammond organ, and Ian Paice's jazz-influenced drums were enhanced by the vocals of Ian Gillan, who Blackmore has described as being "a screamer with depth and a blues feel."
The next release was titled Fireball and continued in the same Hard rock style established on the previous release with Blackmore's guitar remaining a prominent feature of the band's style.
Deep Purple's next album was titled Machine Head. The band originally intended to record the album at a casino in Montreux, but the night before recording was to begin the casino hosted a Frank Zappa concert (with members of Deep Purple in attendance) at which an audience member fired a flare gun which ignited a fire inside the building and the casino burned down. The entire tragedy is documented in the lyrics of what was to become Deep Purple's historic anthem "Smoke On The Water". The song opens with a simple Blackmore riff that many consider to be one of the most recognisable hard rock riffs ever recorded.[citation needed]
In 1973, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left Deep Purple. Gillan was roommates with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, and in a 2006 interview Gillan said Blackmore "turned into a weird guy and the day he walked out of the tour was the day the clouds disappeared and the day the sunshine came out and we haven't looked back since." [2] He added that "there are certain personal issues that I have with Ritchie, which means that I will never speak to him again. Nothing I'm going to discuss publicly, but deeply personal stuff.[2]
They were replaced by former Trapeze bassist Glenn Hughes and an unknown singer named David Coverdale. The album recorded by the new line-up was entitled Burn. Deep Purple continued to perform concerts worldwide, including an appearance at the 1974 California Jam, a televised concert festival that also included many other prominent bands. At the moment Deep Purple were due to appear, Blackmore locked himself in his dressing room and refused to go onstage. Previous performers had finished early, and it was still not sundown, the time at which the band had originally been scheduled to start. Blackmore felt this would dull the effect of the band's light show. After ABC brought in a Sheriff to arrest him, Blackmore agreed to perform. At the culmination of the performance he destroyed one of his guitars and threw several amplifiers off the edge of the stage. He also struck one of the ABC cameras with a guitar, and in recorded footage can be seen arranging for his road crew to set off a pyrotechnic device in one of his amplifiers, creating a brief but large fireball.
Deep Purple's next album, Stormbringer, was publicly denounced by Blackmore himself, claiming "Stormbringer was crap"[citation needed], who disliked the funky soul influences that Hughes and Coverdale injected into the band. Following its release, he departed Deep Purple to front a new group, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, which was originally thought to be a one-off solo album by Blackmore but was later revealed to be a new band project. He said in a US press interview that he "couldn't stand to do another LP with Deep Purple".[citation needed]
[edit] The first Rainbow years, 1975-1984
After Deep Purple, Blackmore formed the Hard rock band Rainbow. The name of the band Rainbow was inspired by a Hollywood Bar and Grill called the Rainbow that catered to rock stars, groupies and rock enthusiasts. It was here that Blackmore spent his off time from Deep Purple and met vocalist Ronnie James Dio, whose band Elf had toured regularly as an opening act for Deep Purple.
The band's debut album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released in 1975. The band's musical style differed from Blackmore's previous band and much of Blackmore's inspiration came from his love of Classical music to pair up with Dio's lyrics about medieval themes.
Blackmore fired every original band member, minus Dio, shortly after the album was recorded and recruited a new lineup to record the album Rainbow Rising.
For the next album, Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Blackmore kept drummer Cozy Powell and Dio and replaced the rest of the band. Blackmore had difficulty finding a bass player for this record so he handled bass duties himself on three songs: Gates of Babylon, Kill the King, and Sensitive To Light. After the albums release and supporting tour, Ronnie James Dio left Rainbow due to "creative differences" with Blackmore.
Blackmore continued with Rainbow and the band released a new album entitled Down To Earth The album contained Blackmore's first chart successes since leaving Deep Purple. In 1980 Blackmore's Rainbow headlined the inaugural Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England.
The title track from the band's next album, Difficult to Cure, was an arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a personal favourite of Blackmores. The album also contained the guitar piece, "Maybe Next Time" and another charting single, "I Surrender".
Rainbow's next studio album was Straight Between the Eyes and included the hit single "Stone Cold". It would be followed by the album Bent Out of Shape. The album featured the single "Street Of Dreams". The song's video was banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip.[3] The resulting tour saw Rainbow return to UK and also to Japan where the band performed with a full orchestra.
By the mid-1980s, Blackmore and his former Deep Purple bandmates had reconciled past differences and a reunion of the successful "Mark II" lineup took place. A final Rainbow album, Finyl Vinyl, was patched together from live tracks and "b" sides of singles. The album also included a Blackmore instrumental titled "Weiss Heim".
[edit] The second Deep Purple years, 1984-1994
In April 1984, it was announced on BBC radio's Friday Rock Show that the "Mark Two" line-up of Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord, and Paice was reforming and recording new material. The band signed a deal with Polydor in Europe and Mercury in North America. The album Perfect Strangers was released in October 1984. A tour followed, starting in Perth, Australia and winding its way across the world into Europe by the following summer. It was the highest grossing group tour of the year. The UK homecoming proved mixed as they elected to play just a one festival show. Despite poor weather conditions, an audience of 80,000 attended the single performance.
In 1987, the line-up recorded and toured in support of the album, The House of Blue Light. A live album, Nobody's Perfect was released in 1988. A new version of "Hush" was also released to mark the band's twenty year anniversary. In 1989, Ian Gillan was fired from the band because of a poor working relationship with Blackmore. His replacement was former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. The new lineup recorded one album titled Slaves & Masters (1990). Slaves & Masters met with mixed opinions among fans and band alike.[citation needed] Blackmore's and his bandmates were disappointed with the efforts of the album and tours.[2]
Neither the album nor the tour were critically or commercially successful. Following its conclusion, Turner was fired from the band. Both Jon Lord and Ian Paice argued that Deep Purple needed Ian Gillan as the band's frontman. Blackmore relented and Gillan returned prior to recording The Battle Rages On in 1993. During the support tour in late 1993, tensions between Gillan and Blackmore reached a climax and Blackmore left the band permanently, his last show with the band was in Helsinki, Finland on 17 November 1993.
Gillan said: "Joe Satriani came in at the last minute. Blackmore walked out and the tour was taking off to Japan...it was all very dramatic. He said: 'Alright, that's the end of the band', and assumed because he left that we were going to fold up." [2] Satriani was asked to join full time but had to decline as he was tied into a long recording contract. A permanent replacement for Blackmore was eventually found in another guitar legend, Steve Morse of Dixie Dregs, who joined the band in 1994. Gillan noted that after Blackmore "walked out and things picked up and recovered unbelievably, remarkably well and the band's in great shape now". [2]
[edit] The second Rainbow years, 1994-1997
Ritchie Blackmore reformed Rainbow after leaving Deep Purple a second time in 1993. This Rainbow line up with Doogie White lasted until 1997 and produced the Stranger in Us All CD.
[edit] The Blackmore's Night years, 1997-present
In 1997, Blackmore teamed up with Candice Night to create the Renaissance-style group Blackmore's Night.
[edit] Musical style
With Deep Purple and Rainbow, Blackmore almost exclusively played a Fender Stratocaster. He is also one of the first guitarists to use a "scalloped" fretboard where the wood is shaved down between the frets. It requires the player to play with a lighter touch as pressing hard will cause the note to sound sharp. The result is increased control of vibrato and bending at the cost of making chordal playing more difficult. Other scalloped neck users include John McLaughlin, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, Uli Jon Roth, and also Steve Vai, whose signature Ibanez is scalloped above the 20th fret.
One of Blackmore's best-known guitar riffs is from the song Smoke on the Water. He plays the riff without a pick, using two fingers to pluck two adjacent strings held in a IV interval.
In his soloing, Blackmore combines blues scales and phrases with minor scales and ideas from European classical music. His resulting style has been referred to as "neo-classical" and has been emulated by many modern heavy metal guitarists.
Blackmore ranked #55 on Rolling Stone Magazine's "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
He also has two guitar solos ranked on Guitar World magazine's "Top 100 Greatest Guitar Solos" (Highway Star at #19 and Lazy at #74, both from the album Machine Head). [1]
[edit] Gear set up
During the 1960s Blackmore played a Gibson ES-335 but switched to a Fender Stratocaster after seeing Jimi Hendrix playing one in concert. He bought a second hand model from Eric Clapton's roadie. Since then and right up until his Blackmore's Night project Blackmore has used Stratocasters almost exclusively. The middle pickup is screwed down and not used, with only the bass and treble pickup selector set. Blackmore has also occasionally used a Fender Telecaster Thinline during recording sessions.
His amplifers were originally 200W Marshall Major stacks which were modified by Marshall with an additional output stage (generated approximately 278W) to make them sound more like Blackmore's favourite Vox AC-30 amp, cranked to full volume.
Blackmore's early Marshall Majors were modded by Marshall, but since 1974 they were modded by Dawk Dawk Sound.
Since 1996 he has used Engl valve amps. He has cited that one of his reasons was that his Marshall heads did not sound as good as the Engls at low volume. A likely reason for this is that the amps he was using were not equipped with master volume, and therefore needed to be at high volume to overdrive the power amp valves. Another reason is simply that valve amps are said to work best at higher volumes.
Blackmore did not use effects very often during his time with Deep Purple or Rainbow. He would sometimes use a wah-wah pedal and a variable control treble-booster for sustain. Taurus bass pedals were used during solo parts of concerts. He also had a modified Aiwa tape machine built to supply echo and delay effects. While playing he would often put the pick in his mouth to play with his fingers.
His strings used during his tenure's with Deep Purple and Rainbow were Picato brand (.010, .011, .014, .026, .036, .042)
Blackmore's gear was modified by John "Dawk" Stillwell of Dawk Sound Limited Dawk SoundDawk modified his Marshall Majors as well as his Fender Stratocasters. Dawk designed the Master Tone Circuit that was installed in all the guitarist's guitars. Dawk worked for Elf with Ronnie James Dio when Elf toured with Deep Purple. Blackmore used a modified tape deck for delay and as a preamp to overdrive his amp. He also used a Hornby Skewes treble booster.
[edit] See also
[edit] Further reading
- Davies, Roy (2002). Rainbow Rising. The Story of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. Helter Skelter.
- Popoff, Martin (2005). Rainbow - English Castle Magic. Metal Blade.
- Bloom, Jerry (2006). Black Knight - The Ritchie Blackmore Story. Omnibus Press.
[edit] References
- ^ Interview with Ritchie Blackmore by Alexis Korner for the BBC Radio One Guitar Greats series, first broadcast on 6 March 1983.
- ^ a b c d e Steffens, Charlie. "Child In Time: An Interview With Ian Gillan", KNAC, Dec. 25, 2006. Retrieved on November 4, 2006.
- ^ Blackmore's Night - Ritchie Blackmore Bio
[edit] External links
- The Official Ritchie Blackmore and Blackmore's Night website
- Interview with Ritchie Blackmore
- Interview with Ritchie Blackmore about acoustic renaissance work
- Photos Ritchie Blackmore and Blackmore's Night: Amsterdam 2005, Nijmegen 2006
- Ritchie Blackmore and The Outlaws performing in the movie "Live It Up!"
- Blackmore's son, the guitar player and song writer Jürgen Ritchie Blackmore
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | All articles with unsourced statements | 1945 births | Living people | English heavy metal guitarists | English songwriters | Deep Purple members | Rainbow members | Blackmore's Night members | People from Somerset | People from Weston-super-Mare
