RITCHIE BLACKMORE
Ritchie Blackmore was born on April 14, 1945 in Weston-Super-Mare, a small town on the coast of Britian. His father wanted him to play the guitar. When Ritchie was eleven, his father gave him a guitar and made him take classical guitar lessons. At first, Ritchie wasn't too interested, but by age thirteen he started coming around. He began listening to Hank Marvin and the Shadows, Duane Eddy, and Buddy Holly. He also liked American fingerpickers—guys like Chet Atkins and Speedy West.
Ritchie left school at age fifteen. He and his friend Mick Underwood formed a band called the Dominators. Then they both quit and joined the Satellites. Eventually he become a member of the theatrical rock band Screaming Lord Sutch's Savages. He also slept with his guitar. He said, "I didn't know whether it was safer to keep the guitar in the bed or underneath it."
His exceptional skill resulted in a lot of session work. He played for artists like Tom Jones, Burr Bailey, Davy Kaye, and many others. Eventually he got tired of the session scene and moved to Hamburg, Germany. He played with a few bands until he was contacted by manager Tony Edwards in the U.K. with news about a new band that was looking for a guitarist. So Ritchie moved back to the U.K. and became a member of Deep Purple. The group also featured Rod Evans (vocals), Nick Simper (bass), Jon Lord (keyboards),and Ian Paice (drums). In fact, Blackmore had already met Jon Lord and Ian Paice while living in Germany.
The band's first album, Shades of Deep Purple (1968), scored a #5 hit in the U.S. with Hush. Then they released The Book of Taliesyn (1968), which gave them another hit with Kentucky Woman (#38, 1968), a song written by Neil Diamond. Their third album was called Deep Purple (1969). The band decided to get a new singer. Blackmore supposedly stated he wanted a guy more on par with Robert Plant.
They replaced Rod Evans with Ian Gillan and replaced bassist Nicky Simper with Roger Glover. Gillan had sung in Jesus Christ Superstar. After Concerto for Group and Orchestra (1970) didn't sell too well, Blackmore started taking over. The sound got heavier and more guitar-oriented. They released Deep Purple in Rock in 1970 and Fireball in 1971. These albums were more successful. In 1972 they put out the classic album Machine Head (#7). They also released Purple Passages and Made in Japan.
Personality clashes started to cause problems. In 1973 Gillan and Glover left the band and were replaced by singer David Coverdale and singer/bassist Glenn Hughes. The band released Who Do We Think We Are? (1973). They starting getting funkier and less heavy. They showed this new sound on Burn (1974) and Stormbringer (1974).
Blackmore hated Stormbringer, and he hated the direction the band was taking. So he quit and formed Rainbow. Rainbow featured Ronnie Dio's mystical lyrics and Ritchie's neoclassical guitar artistry. In 1975 they released Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. The band was successful, and went on to release quite a few albums with quite a few different band members.
Deep Purple formed again in 1983 with Gillan, Glover, Paice, Lord, and Blackmore, and released the highly succesful Perfect Strangers. They made a few more records, during which time Gillan quit and then returned, and then Ritchie quit. He reformed Rainbow. He played with Rainbow for a few years and quit.
In 1996 Ritchie Blackmore teamed up with vocalist Candice Night to form a band called Blackmore's Night. They released an album of acoustic Renaissance music titled Shadow of the Moon. They followed it up with Under A Violet Moon (1999) and Fires At Midnight (2001). Supposedly this stuff is pretty popular in Japan.
By most accounts, Ritchie Blackmore is a hard guy to get along with. Of course, most of these accounts come from ex-band members. But he's had a few thousand ex-band members. Still, Ritchie Blackmore is one of the greatest guitarists ever. He was a founding force in the creation of hard rock and metal. His extreme technical prowess and fusion of classical guitar with screaming amplifiers was a great inspiration to a lot of guitarists, including Yngwie Malmsteen.
Ritchie Blackmore played a Gibson ES-335 until 1970, when he switched to a Fender Strat. He never uses the middle pickup. He often puts his pick in his mouth and plays with his fingers.
Blackmore uses custom-built 200-watt Marshall stacks. His string guages are: .01, .011, .014, .026, .036, .042.