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Richard Hugh Blackmore (born in Weston-super-Mare , April 14 , 1945 ) is regarded as one of the most influential and respected English Guitarist s of all time. He has been a founding member of both Deep Purple and Rainbow and is currently a member of the band Blackmore's Night . BIOGRAPHY Early life After being born in Weston-Super-Mare, Blackmore moved to Heston , Middlesex at the age of two. His father bought him his first Guitar when he was about 10 in 1955 and he then took some Classical Guitar lessons. Blackmore initially was a slow learner on the guitar, and at one point when he was 13 his exasperated father threatened to smash his guitar over young Ritchie's head unless his playing improved. His playing eventually 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. With organist Jon Lord he co-founded Hard Rock group Deep Purple in 1968, and continued to be a member, and the main creative anchor, of Deep Purple from 1968-1975 and again from 1984-1993. 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 quickly scored a hit US single with its remake of the Joe South song "Hush". Nonetheless, after only three albums Evans and Simper were replaced by Ian Gillan (vocals) and Roger Glover (bass), both recruited from Episode Six . 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 classically inspired, distorted Hammond Organ , and Ian Paice's jazz-influenced Drums were enhanced by the powerful vocals of Ian Gillan, who Blackmore has described as being "a screamer with depth and a blues feel." Songs on "In Rock" like "Speed King" and "Child In Time" would become constant mainstays in the bands live setlist. "Black Night" was a song recorded at the same time and released as a non-album single. It gave the band their first UK chart smash, reaching number 2. The next release was titled Fireball and continued in the same Hard rock style established on the previous release. Deep Purple recorded its landmark album Machine Head . The album was recorded by a mobile recording unit ( Rolling Stones Mobile) in Montreux , Switzerland . 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 into the facility's bamboo roof. A tremendous fire ensued 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 recognizable hard rock riff ever recorded. The ''Machine Head'' album also produced such notable Deep Purple classics as "Space Truckin'", "Highway Star", and "Lazy". The live album of the Machine Head tour - recorded in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan and entitled '' Made In Japan '' - cemented Deep Purple's reputation as a dynamic and intense live rock and roll act. In 1973 Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left Deep Purple. They were replaced by former Trapeze bassist Glenn Hughes and an unknown young singer named David Coverdale . The band recorded by the new line-up was titled, ''Burn''. Deep Purple continued to perform concerts worldwide, including an appearance at the 1974 California Jam, a televised concert festival that featured Eagles , Black Sabbath and many other rock luminaries. At the very moment Deep Purple was 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 appear. 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, but during the performance he destroyed an ABC TV camera in retaliation after the cameraman repeatedly edged too close to him. Shortly thereafter, the stage erupted in flames after Blackmore's amplifier stacks were deliberately set on fire. They exploded and blew him to the front of the stage. ABC was furious, but the band escaped its wrath by immediately departing via helicopter. Deep Purple's next album, '' Stormbringer '', not only disappointed critics and fans, but was publicly denounced by Blackmore himself, 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. The first Rainbow years, 1975-1984 After Deep Purple, Blackmore formed the Hard rock band Rainbow , which originally consisted of himself, former Elf lead singer Ronnie James Dio , bassist Craig Gruber , drummer Gary Driscoll , and keyboardist Mickey Lee Soule . 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 Ritchie spent his off time from Deep Purple and met 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 and featured the hit "Man on the Silver Mountain". Rainbow's music was different from Deep Purple's. The music was more directly inspired by Classical music and Ronnie James Dio wrote lyrics about medieval themes. Dio possessed a versatile vocal range capable to sing both hard rock or lighter ballads. Although Dio never played a musical instrument on any Rainbow album, he is credited with writing and arranging the music with Blackmore in addition to writing all the lyrics himself. Blackmore fired everybody except Dio shortly after the album was recorded and recruited drummer Cozy Powell (formerly of the Jeff Beck Group ), bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey . This lineup went on to record the album Rainbow Rising . For the next album, Long Live Rock 'N' Roll , Blackmore kept Powell and Dio and replaced the rest of the band. Blackmore had difficulty finding a bass player for this record so he played bass on all but three songs on this album (Gates of Babylon, Kill the King, and Sensitive To Light). After the release and supporting tour, Ronnie James Dio left Rainbow. He would go to replace Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer in Black Sabbath and later form his own band DIO . Blackmore continued with Rainbow, replacing Dio with ex-Marbles vocalist Graham Bonnet . Powell stayed and was joined by former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover and keyboardist Don Airey . The first album from the new lineup, '' Down To Earth '', featured the bands first chart successes,'All Night Long' and 'Since You Been Gone' On stage Bonnet possesed a powerful voice, but struggled with the band's quieter numbers & lacked Dio's range. In 1980, the band headlined the inaugural Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England. This would be Powell's final performance with Rainbow. He would go on to play for Michael Schenker , Whitesnake and Black Sabbath . The next album saw yet another line-up change as Bonnet and Powell were replaced Joe Lynn Turner , and Bobby Rondinelli respectively. The title track from the album, '' Difficult To Cure '', was a version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony . The album also contained the guitar piece, "Maybe Next Time". The "Difficult to Cure" tour was the first tour in which Rainbow headlined in the U.S. Rainbow's next studio album was '' Straight Between The Eyes ''. The band added a new keyboardist, David Rosenthal , The album was more cohesive than Difficult to Cure and had more success in the United States. The band, however, was alienating some of its earlier fans with its more AOR sound. The single, ''Stone Cold'', was a ballad and had some chart success. The succesful supporting tour skipped the UK completely and focused on the American market. '' Bent Out Of Shape '' saw drummer Rondinelli fired in favor of Chuck Burgi . The album featured the single ''Street Of Dreams'' The song's video was banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip. The resulting tour saw Rainbow return to UK and also to Japan where a the band performed with a full orchestra. By the mid-1980s, Deep Purple was poised to re-form and snatch Blackmore and Glover away. A final Rainbow album, ''Finyl Vinyl'', was patched together from live tracks and "b" sides of singles. Perhaps its greatest virtue was that it made Blackmore's haunting instrumental "Weiss Heim" widely available for the first time. Subsequent bootlegs showed the band might have been better served had it released instead a 'Live In Tokyo' album. 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 New Zealand 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 due to 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. Blackmore's bandmates humorously proclaimed it as "the finest Rainbow album Deep Purple ever made" In contrast, Blackmore insisted that it was the best effort of the reunion era. Neither the album nor the tour were critically or commercially successful. Following it's 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 mid-1994, tensions between Gillan and Blackmore reached a climax and Blackmore left the band permanently. Joe Satriani stepped in temporarily to help complete the band's live dates. He 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 Deep Purple in 1994. The second Rainbow years, 1994-1997 Ritchie Blackmore reformed Rainbow after leaving Deep Purple a second time in 1994. This Rainbow line up with Doogie White lasted until 1997 and produced the Stranger In Us All CD. The Blackmore's Night years, 1997-present In 1997, Blackmore teamed up with Candice Night , who is also his partner, to create the Renaissance -style group Blackmore's Night . MUSICAL STYLES With Deep Purple and Rainbow, Blackmore almost exclusively played a Fender Stratocaster , often with the middle of its three pickups ripped out or disconnected. 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 speed at the cost of making chordal playing more difficult. Other scalloped neck users include Yngwie J. Malmsteen and also Steve Vai , who's signature Ibanez is scalloped above the 12th 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 "neoclassical" 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." {Link without Title} SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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