Ritchie Blackmore

Biography

Richard Hugh Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English guitarist, who was a co-founding member of Deep Purple, Rainbow and Blackmore's Night. In the 1960s, he began his professional career in bands such as the Outlaws and Screaming Lord Sutch & the Savages, and worked as a session guitarist for singers such as Glenda Collins, Heinz, Neil Christian and others.
Blackmore has been known for playing both classically influenced and blues-based solos. He is cited by publications such as Guitar World and Rolling Stone as one of the greatest and most influential guitar players of all time. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Deep Purple in April 2016.

Early life

Blackmore was born at Allendale Nursing Home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, the second son of Lewis J. Blackmore and Violet (née Short). The family moved to Heston, Middlesex, when Blackmore was two. He was 11 when his father gave him a guitar on the condition that he learn to play properly, so he took classical guitar lessons for one year.
In an interview with Sounds magazine in 1979, Blackmore said that he started the guitar because he wanted to be like British musician Tommy Steele, who used to just jump around and play. Blackmore loathed school and hated his teachers. He said he would always get caned for speaking in class, which traumatized him to the point he had difficulty in talking to people in subsequent years. Blackmore became fed up with formal education, thinking that if he were to excel in his studies, he would end up being like his teachers.
Blackmore left school at age 15 and started work as an apprentice radio mechanic at nearby Heathrow Airport. He took electric guitar lessons from session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan.

1960s

In 1960, he began to work as a session player for Joe Meek's music productions and performed in several bands. He was initially a member of the instrumental band the Outlaws, who played in both studio recordings and live concerts and like many bands of the era, used other names (such as The Rally Rounders and The Chaps) to secure multiple repeat gigs. Otherwise, in mainly studio recordings, he backed singer Glenda Collins, German-born rock and roll singer Heinz (playing on his top ten hit "Just Like Eddie" and "Beating Of My Heart"), and others. Thereafter, in mainly live concerts, he backed horror-themed singer Screaming Lord Sutch, beat singer Neil Christian, and others.
Blackmore joined a band-to-be called Roundabout in late 1967 after receiving an invitation from Chris Curtis while living in Hamburg and arriving at the Curtis flat to be greeted by Curtis' flatmate, Jon Lord. Curtis originated the concept of the band, but was forced out before the band fully formed. After the line-up for Roundabout was complete in April 1968, Blackmore is credited with suggesting the new name Deep Purple, as it was his grandmother's favourite song. Deep Purple's early sound leaned on psychedelic and progressive rock, but also included cover versions of 1960s pop songs. This "Mark One" line-up featuring singer Rod Evans and bass player Nick Simper lasted until mid-1969 and produced three studio albums. During this period, organist Jon Lord appeared to be the leader of the band, and wrote much of their original material.

1970s

The first studio album from Purple's second line-up, In Rock (1970), signalled a transition in the band's sound from progressive rock to hard rock.
This "Mark Two" line-up featuring rock singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover lasted until mid-1973, producing four studio albums (two of which reached No. 1 in the UK), and one live double album. During this period, the band's songs primarily came out of their jam sessions, so songwriting credits were shared by the five members. Blackmore later stated, "I didn't give a damn about song construction. I just wanted to make as much noise and play as fast and as loud as possible."
Guitarist Steve Vai was more complimentary about Blackmore's role in developing song ideas: "He was able to bring blues to rock playing unlike anybody else."
The third Deep Purple line-up featured David Coverdale on vocals and Glenn Hughes on bass and vocals. Songwriting was now more fragmented, as opposed to the band compositions from the Mark Two era. This "Mark Three" line-up lasted until mid-1975 and produced two studio albums and one live album
. Blackmore left the band to front a new group, Rainbow. In 1974, Blackmore took cello lessons from Hugh McDowell (of ELO). Blackmore later stated that when playing a different musical instrument, he found it refreshing because there is a sense of adventure not knowing exactly what chord he's playing or what key he is in.
Blackmore originally planned to make a solo album, but instead in 1975 formed his own band, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, later shortened to Rainbow. Featuring vocalist Ronnie James Dio and his blues rock backing band Elf as studio musicians, this first line-up never performed live. The band's debut album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released in 1975. Rainbow's music was partly inspired by elements of medieval and baroque music since Blackmore started to play cello for musical composition. During this period, Blackmore wrote a crucial part of Dio's basic melodies, particularly on their debut album. Shortly after the first album was recorded, Blackmore recruited new backing musicians to record the second album Rising (1976), and the following live album, On Stage (1977). Rising was originally billed as "Blackmore's Rainbow" in the US. After the next studio album's release and supporting tour in 1978, Dio left Rainbow due to "creative differences" with Blackmore, who desired to move in a more commercial sounding direction.
Blackmore continued with Rainbow, and in 1979 the band released a new album titled Down To Earth, which featured R&B singer Graham Bonnet. During song composition, Bonnet says that he wrote his vocal melodies based upon the lyrics of bassist Roger Glover. The album contained the band's first top 10 UK hit singles "Since You Been Gone" (penned by Russ Ballard) and "All Night Long".

1980s

The next Rainbow album, Difficult to Cure (1981), introduced vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. The instrumental title track from this album was an arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with additional music. Blackmore once said, "I found the blues too limiting, and classical was too disciplined. I was always stuck in a musical no man's land." The album marked the further commercialisation of the band's sound with Blackmore describing at the time a liking for the AOR band, Foreigner. The music was consciously radio-targeted in a more AOR style, resulting in some degree of alienation with many of Rainbow's earlier fans. Rainbow's next studio album was Straight Between the Eyes (1982) and included the single "Stone Cold". It would be followed by the album Bent Out of Shape (1983), which featured the single "Street of Dreams". In 1983, Rainbow were also nominated for a Grammy Award for the Blackmore-penned instrumental ballad track "Anybody There". Rainbow disbanded in 1984. A then-final Rainbow album, Finyl Vinyl, was patched together from live tracks and the B-sides of various singles.
In 1984, Blackmore joined a reunion of the former Deep Purple "Mark Two" line-up and recorded new material. This reunion line-up recorded two studio albums, Perfect Strangers (1984) and The House of Blue Light (1987), and released the live album Nobody's Perfect (1988).

1990s

The next Deep Purple line-up recorded one album titled Slaves and Masters (1990), which featured former Rainbow vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. During song composition, Turner wrote his vocal melodies. Subsequently, the "Mark Two" line-up reunited for a second time in late 1992 and produced one studio album, The Battle Rages On.... During the follow-up promotional tour, Blackmore quit the band for good in November 1993. Guitarist Joe Satriani was brought in to complete the remaining tour dates.
Blackmore reformed Rainbow with new members in 1994. This Rainbow line-up, featuring singer Doogie White, lasted until 1997 and produced one album titled Stranger in Us All in 1995. It was originally intended to be a solo album but due to the record company pressures the record was billed as Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. This was Rainbow's eighth studio album, made after a gap of 12 years since Bent out of Shape. A world tour including South America followed. Rainbow was disbanded once again after playing its final concert in 1997. Blackmore later said, "I didn't want to tour very much."
Over the years Rainbow had gone through many personnel changes with no two studio albums featuring the same line-up: Blackmore was the sole constant band member. Rainbow achieved moderate success; the band's worldwide sales are estimated at more than 28 million album copies, including 4 million copies sold in the US.
In 1995, Blackmore, with his girlfriend Candice Night as vocalist, began working on a folk rock project, which later became the debut album Shadow of the Moon (1997) for their duo Blackmore's Night. Blackmore once portrayed their artistic characteristics as "Mike Oldfield plus Enya". Blackmore mostly used acoustic guitar, to back Night's delicate vocal melodies, which he often wrote. Night said, "When he sings, he sings only for me, in private". As a result, his musical approach shifted to vocalist-centred sounds, and their recorded output is a mixture of original and cover materials. The band's musical style is heavily inspired by medieval music blended with Night's lyrics, which often feature themes of love and medieval times. The second release, entitled Under a Violet Moon (1999) continued in the same folk-rock style, with Night's vocals remaining a prominent feature of the band's style. The title track's lyrics were partly written by Blackmore. "Violet" was his mother's first name and "Moon" was his grandmother's surname.

2000s–present

In subsequent albums, particularly Fires at Midnight (2001), which featured the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are a Changin'", there was occasionally an increased incorporation of electric guitar into the music, whilst maintaining a folk rock direction. A live album, Past Times with Good Company was released in 2002. After the next studio album's release, an official compilation album Beyond the Sunset: The Romantic Collection was released in 2004, featuring music from the four studio albums. A Christmas-themed holiday album, Winter Carols was released in 2006. Through numerous personnel changes, the duo has utilized over 26 backing musicians on their releases. Blackmore sometimes played drums in recording studio. They choose to avoid typical rock concert tours, instead limiting their appearances to small intimate venues. In 2011, Night said, "We have actually turned down a lot of (touring) opportunities."
A re-formed Rainbow begun performed European concerts from June 2016, lasted to 2019. The band featured metal singer Ronnie Romero, with Blackmore's Night band members such as keyboardist Jens Johansson and bassist Bob Nouveau.
Blackmore's Night has released eleven studio albums to date, with the latest one being Nature's Light in 2021.
On the 12 August 2026, Blackmore joined Deep Purple in performing "Smoke on the Water". The one-off reunion, which occurred following Blackmore's request, marked his first performance with the band since 1993.

Influences and tastes

In the first issue of International Musician and Recording World, Blackmore named Jeff Beck his favourite guitar player. He also sang praises for Jimi Hendrix, Yes guitarist Steve Howe, Bob Dylan sideman Mike Bloomfield and Tommy Bolin, who would soon take his place on Deep Purple.
In 1979, Blackmore said: "I like popular music. I like ABBA very much. But there's so much stigma like, 'you can't do this because you're a heavy band', and I think that's rubbish. You should do what you want ... I think classical music is very good for the soul. A lot of people go 'ah well, classical music is for old fogies' but I was exactly the same. At 16 I didn't want to know about classical music: I'd had it rammed down my throat. But now I feel an obligation to tell the kids 'look, just give classical music a chance' ... the guitar frustrates me a lot because I'm not good enough to play it sometimes so I get mad and throw a moody. Sometimes I feel that what I'm doing is not right, in the sense that the whole rock and roll business has become a farce, like Billy Smart, Jr. Circus, and the only music that ever moves me is very disciplined classical music, which I can't play. But there's a reason I've made money. It's because I believe in what I'm doing, in that I do it my way—I play for myself first, then secondly the audience—I try to put as much as I can in it for them. Lastly I play for musicians and the band, and for critics not at all."

Blues origins

In his soloing, Blackmore combines blues scales and phrasing with dominant minor scales and ideas from European classical music. While playing he would often put the pick in his mouth, playing with his fingers.

Classical influence

Blackmore is noted for having played a pioneering role in bringing influences of classical music to rock 'n' roll. He is particularly fond of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. For instance, he revealed to Guitar World that he used a Bachian chord progression – Dm, Gm, C, A7, – behind the "Highway Star" guitar solo.
Ritchie Blackmore was also keen in using the cycle of 4ths chord progressions, by the way of triad arpeggios. This was standard practice in Baroque music, especially by Bach. A notable example is the second half of the "Burn" solo.

Rhythm guitar

One of Ritchie Blackmore hallmarks is the ability to writing memorable riffs using 4ths. His most iconic riff - the intro to Deep Purple's "Smoke On the Water" - is an example of such. Other Deep Purple songs that used the same idea were "Mandrake Root" and "Burn", along with Rainbow's "Man On A Silver Mountain", "All Night Long" and "Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll". Riffs in 4ths became a mainstay in hard rock and heavy metal, post-Blackmore. Notable examples include Judas Priest's "Hell Bent for Leather", Ozzy Osbourne's "Suicide Solution", Mötley Crüe's "Shout at the Devil" and Iron Maiden's "Two Minutes to Midnight".
Blackmore frequently does sparse verse arrangements, using single-note riffs or playing octaves. Such accompaniments give room to keyboard players. "Smoke On the Water" is a prime example of this technique.
Blackmore is known for unapologetically borrowing musical ideas from other artist's music. "I get inspired by other people's songs and write something vaguely similar", said he on a 1978 Guitar Player interview. Here's a brief list:

Although penned as a Deep Purple original, Ritchie Blackmore actually learnt "Mandrake Root"'s melody and chord progression through Carlos Little, his Screaming Lord Sutch & the Savages bandmate. It was written by previous Savages guitarist Bill Parkinson and originally called "Lost Soul".
The "Black Night" intro riff is partially borrowed from the verse of Ricky Nelson's 1962 version of "Summertime", originally written by George and Ira Gershwin.
In Rock opener "Speed King" was based on two Hendrix singles, "Stone Free" (1966) and "Fire" (1967).
The "Lazy" track from Machine Head was inspired by Cream's "Steppin' Out".
"Burn"'s main riff is similar to George Gershwin's 1924 song "Fascinating Rhythm".
Another track from the Burn album – "Mistreated" – was admittedly modelled on Free's "Heartbreaker", from the band's 1973 album.

Lead guitar

Introduced by jazz musicians Les Paul, Barney Kessel and Tal Farlow in the 1950s, sweep picking was arguably first used in a rock context by Ritchie Blackmore. It can be heard in the tail end of "April", the final track from Deep Purple's homonymous album. Blackmore used the technique again on Rainbow's "Kill the King".

Feud

Throughout his career, Blackmore has built a reputation for being difficult to work with. Beginning with Deep Purple, he sought to assume control of the band, which often led to conflict with the band members, especially vocalist Ian Gillan, who left the band twice, first in 1973 and again in 1989, due to creative differences. He clashed with his band members in Rainbow, making him the band's only constant member. Former member Glenn Hughes spoke about Blackmore in 2024, about him being "difficult but very intelligent, smart, but a difficult person to know and play with." Bob Daisley concurred but added that he got along well with Blackmore.
Blackmore is also known for two of his infamous stage antics. In 1974, he destroyed a camera on stage with his guitar and made his amplifier explode by lighting it on fire. In 1993, as recorded in the concert-documentary Come Hell or High Water, Blackmore threw a bottle of water against a cameraman for unknown reasons and did not play guitar during parts of several songs. A few days later, he quit Deep Purple.

“I have a bad reputation, but I don’t mind. My good friends, people who really know me, know what I am. [I have an image of] being very moody, being very sincere, telling people to fuck off when I shouldn’t have done. But I don’t care, not at all. I quite like it.”

Personal life

In May 1964, Blackmore married Margit Volkmar (b. 1945) from Germany. They lived in Hamburg during the late 1960s. Their son, Jürgen "J.R." Blackmore, is a professional guitarist who has released several solo albums as well as playing in the touring Rainbow tribute band Over the Rainbow. Following their divorce, Blackmore married Bärbel, a former dancer from Germany, in September 1969 until their divorce in the early 1970s. As a result, he is a fluent German speaker.
For tax reasons, Blackmore moved to the US in 1974. Initially he lived in Oxnard, California, with opera singer Shoshana Feinstein for one year. She provided backing vocals on two songs in Rainbow's first album. During this period, he listened to early European classical music and light music a lot, for about three-quarters of his private time. Blackmore once said, "It's hard to relate that to rock. I listen very carefully to the patterns that Bach plays. I like direct, dramatic music." After having an affair with another woman, Christine, Blackmore met Amy Rothman in 1978, and moved to Connecticut. He married Rothman in 1981, but they divorced in 1983. Following the marriage's conclusion, he began a relationship with Tammi Williams. In early 1984 Blackmore met Williams in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she was working as a hotel employee. In the same year, he purchased his first car, having learned to drive at age 39.
Blackmore and then-fashion model Candice Night began living together in 1991. They moved to her native Long Island in 1993. Having been engaged for nearly 15 years, the couple married in 2008. Night said, "he's making me younger and I'm aging him rapidly." Their daughter Autumn Esmeralda was born in 2010, and their son in 2012. Blackmore is a heavy drinker and watches German-language television via his satellite dish when he is at home. He has several German friends and a collection of about 2,000 CDs of Renaissance music.
In April 2025, Night revealed that Blackmore had suffered a heart attack about eighteen months previously that, along with other health issues, had left him struggling to even pick up a guitar.
Blackmore said in an interview that he is spiritual but not religious, adding that "religion usually involves money".
In a 2006 biography, Blackmore alleged that he was sexually assaulted by Freddie Starr at age 17 while recording in Joe Meek’s studio.

Legacy

Readers of Guitar World voted two of Blackmore's guitar solos (both recorded with Deep Purple) among the 100 Greatest Guitar Solos of all time – "Highway Star" ranked 19th, and "Lazy" ranked 74th. His solo on "Child in Time" was ranked no. 16 in a 1998 Guitarist magazine readers poll of Top 100 Guitar Solos of All-Time. On 8 April 2016, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of original members of Deep Purple; he did not attend the ceremony.
On their Special Collection's Edition "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", Mojo magazine placed Ritchie Blackmore on #100, saying:

Ritchie Blackmore provided the bridge between Hendrix-inspired blues-rock and the virtuoso metal chopsmanship of Eddie Van Halen and Yngwie Malmsteen. Though his style echoed the American rockabilly and country giants he was weaned on, [...] Blackmore’s classical phrasing, harmony, string-skipping, and violin-like tone ushered in the age of precision histrionics. Furthermore, Blackmore’s economical rhythm guitar style, embodied in the classic double-stop main riff to Smoke On The Water, helped define a new breed of streamlined heavy rock. A master showman [...], Blackmore took Hendrix’s auto-destruction cue to new heights, hurling and bashing his stock Stratocasters to bits and tearing grille cloth off his Marshalls in awesome displays of bravado.
In 1993, musicologist Robert Walser defined Blackmore as "the most important musician of the emerging metal/classical fusion". He is credited as a precursor of the so-called "guitar shredders" that emerged in the mid-1980s.
Blackmore has been an influence on several 1980s guitarists such as Akira Takasaki, Fredrik Åkesson, Brett Garsed, Jeff Loomis, Janick Gers, Paul Gilbert, Craig Goldy, Scott Henderson, Dave Meniketti, Randy Rhoads, Michael Romeo, Wolf Hoffmann, Billy Corgan, Lita Ford, Brian May, Phil Collen and Yngwie Malmsteen. For his part Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, who praised Blackmore on numerous occasions, highlighted that his "wild stage presence" led him to buy Deep Purple's Fireball, his first album ever. The drummer also claimed that the guitarist's riffs from his time with Rainbow had a significant impact on Metallica. Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen acknowledged having been influenced early on by Blackmore; during his childhood he learned to play Fireball in its entirety. He even dressed like him onstage. Malmsteen also hired three Rainbow vocalists for his band; Joe Lynn Turner, Graham Bonnet and Doogie White.
He was portrayed by Mathew Baynton in the 2009 film Telstar.