The Ritchie Blackmore Story

It all began here, at 33 Addicott Road, in Weston-super-Mare,

in 1945, when Ritchie Blackmore was born.

He would go on not only to write one of rock's most famous riffs,

but to explore a number of musical forms including Bach,

classical symphonic rock, hard rock, blues and medieval ballads.

Ritchie was interested in the guitar from an early age

but his father insisted he took proper lessons.

My father insisted I went to music lessons when I was eleven.

He said to me at the time,

"if you don't learn this properly, I'm gonna put it across your head."

I used to cycle about four miles to the guy who was teaching me.

And I'd often fall off my bike.

Throughout his life, Ritchie has been the object of much criticism,

adulation and speculation.

But until now, he has never given the world his take on his story.

A story with more than its fair share of tantrums, break-ups, rivalry and rouse.

He was such an advanced musician, way ahead of his time,

way, way ahead.

He's a fire ball, you know, he really is beyond belief.

His technique is incredible. Where did that come from? I have no idea.

And this is before Hendrix.

Ritchie really is a great originator and creator of the wild electric guitar.

The way he holds the guitar and everything, it's sort of ingrained in my mind

as that's what a cool guitar player is supposed to look like,

that's how they are supposed to behave.

In a lot of ways, ifs a little tragic that Ritchie didn't stand up

and shine the light on himself.

Which is why I'm happy to be here.

He needs the light right on him,

because unlike many people he actually deserves it.

It's like a sword' almost like a clean sharp sword,

that weighs a real lot, you know.

His precision when he plays was stunning.

A true pioneer as somebody who was truly unique and original.

To me he was like the Caucasian Hendrix.

It actually changed my life. It was my first gig ever.

We got right up against the stage, right in front of Ritchie.

He came out and Purple came out and he just blew me away.

It was way more than I expected, it was just a lot.

After that I was dazed,

I went home to my mum and dad and said, "I need a guitar, I have to have a guitar."

He is measured, he is thoughtful.

He knows the value of clear space, of daylight between the notes.

It's not all about...

It's about phrasing, it's about time. It's about...

The spaces are as important as the notes that they separate.

It's a mystery. I still find Ritchie Blackmore a complete mystery.

It's also a mystery that people don't talk about him that much.

It's odd because he's absolutely there as one of the pioneers.

The pioneering Ritchie was single-minded from an early age.

I won't do what I'm told to do.

That seemed to go back to when I was five.

I've seen pictures of me at five,

and I remember distinctively, my mother saying, "Smile for the cameraman."

And I'm going, "No",

and I felt resentment to the cameraman.

Why do you need...

And I used to say to my mother, "Why do you need a picture of me?"

She goes, "Because to remember you, you're five."

"Well, I'm here now." And I couldn't understand the principle.

There's something in there psychologically.

Why was I so uptight at the age of five?

But before he was in his teens,

Ritchie made a promise to himself to be the best there was, whatever it took.

I was such a poor pupil

and I was always near the bottom of the class, in my tests.

I thought, "You know what I'm gonna do?

"I'm going to excel in music, on the guitar."

So they go, "Well, he was a terrible pupil, but he was a really good guitar player."

And I had that thought in my head, ever since I was 12, onwards.

Well, he doesn't know anything, but he can really play the guitar.

And I always wanted the teachers to say that.

From the age of eighteen, Ritchie worked for producer Joe Meek,

as a sessions musician in London and toured with Screaming Lord Sutch.

And later with Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis

until the gigs dried up in 1968.

I was working in a dry cleaners,

I had about sixteen telegrams from Chris Curtis,

who was in the band The Searchers, who I had met in Hamburg.

And he really liked my playing,

and he said, "I have a backer, I want you to come to England,

"I'm gonna start a band, you're gonna play second guitar."

Okay, who's playing first guitar?

"I am", Chris Curtis.

Okay, good.

Who's playing drums then? 'Cause he's a drummer.

He said, "I'm playing drums."

Bass? He goes, "I'm bass player."

"Yeah, I kind of thought that was gonna happen."

I said, "ls there anybody else in this band?"

He said, "We have a keyboard player, Jon Lord.“

It was the start of a partnership that would last for 25 years.

We played together for a little bit, and I realised how good he was.

And it was mutual.

I said, "I can get a brilliant drummer."

Jon said, "I know a really good bass player." It was Nick Simper.

And so we just needed a singer.

They took on Rod Evans as vocalist.

And Chris Curtis soon dropped out to be replaced by Ian Paice on drums.

All they needed now was a name.

Jon put in Orpheus.

The drummer put in The Hill. And I put in Deep Purple.

Just 'cause of the song Deep Purple,

my grandmother used to play it on the piano.

And they seemed to like that.

In those days you have to have a double-barrel name.

Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple.

It was a name that would become synonymous with British hard rock,

and launched the career of Ritchie Blackmore.

We did the usual, going away to a cottage in the country.

Which was the in thing to do at the time.

Proverbial cottage, we were practising.

Thief's hole, I think it was called. And it was haunted. It had to be haunted.

And we made that record, the first one in 24 hours.

We did it in two days. The whole thing.

And while it wasn't an amazing record in its own right,

you do get struck by the fact that there are times on the record

when Ritchie Blackmore's guitar performances

were different to anything else.

They weren't a copy of Hendrix.

Even though you could hear little bits of notations

that maybe led towards Hendrix.

They weren't a copy of anybody else.

They were influenced by, yet taking its own direction.

He had a classical feel, the rock feel and a rock and roll feel.

Some tracks also had a distinctly pop feel.

And it was a cover of a Joe South song, Hush,

which launched the band in the U.S.A.

Back in England, Ritchie heard Robert Plant singing.

There was a place called Mothers in Birmingham,

Robert started singing and I'm going, "My God, who's this? This amazing singer."

He had the range, the voice and the look.

That's when I decided we have to get someone

who can belt it out and project

That when we got Ian Gillan.

As soon as I heard him scream, I went, "That's the guy for us.“

He looked like Jim Morrison, which I knew that would go down well.

So we have someone who looks like Jim Morrison

and who can scream like Arthur Brown and Edgar Winter.

That scream was his identity.

In came Ian Gillan and his scream and new bassist Roger Glover.

And out went Evans and Simper.

Ritchie was now lead guitar

in what was to become the classic Deep Purple line-up.

It became, I suppose,

obvious to all of us that they were not just another flash-in-the-pan

pop rock band, but there was something more of substance.

And Ritchie was a figure of mystery and wonder already, you know.

Ritchie Blackmore was something incredible.

I mean, nobody could play like that in those days.

No, it's not just speed, you know,

there are a lot of people who can play fast, you know, now.

But they can't be Ritchie Blackmore.

He plays right on the money

and leaves enough space to allow the music to breathe

and the listener to become enveloped in

the whole atmosphere of what's being performed and created and generated.

I went through a period of shredding

and thinking that everything revolved around speed.

And now I go, "That really doesn't mean anything."

It's good to be fast now and again, but you have to say something thoughtful.

You can't just go, look at me...

Am I not great?

Ritchie will lake you on a couple of hours' journey of guitar playing,

which will cover a lot more ground.

It's not just like tipping a pot of multi-coloured paint over somebody,

this is about drawing people into your dark mysterious web.

But while Ritchie was keen to develop Deep Purple as a rock band,

his co-founder Jon Lord had other ambitions.

Jon Lord was inspired to write a concerto for group and orchestra,

and it was a big challenging venture.

The band Nice had previously recorded with orchestras

and had classical aspirations.

But Jon Lord wanted to write a really sort of important piece that would

include the group with an orchestra in a kind of artistic way,

a way that would work effectively.

And they tried it out at the Royal Albert Hall.

And it was a big success, a big challenge.

You can see Ritchie in the video for the Albert Hall concert,

and he plays great, but you could feel he's very constrained.

He's sort of itching to break out somewhere.

He has this edge to him,

which is indefinable and not quite tameable.

The first record we did, I thought was not bad.

The two after that

were lacking in direction.

We were going in the studio with, really, no ideas,

'cause we were on the road all the time.

It wasn't until we did the concerto with Jon and the orchestra,

and I said to them, "I really don't want to play with orchestras any more.

"Let's do a rock and roll record."

I said, "Jon, we'll do the whole thing as a rock and roll record,

"and if it doesn't work, we'll play with orchestras for the rest of our lives."

So he said, "Yeah, that's sounds fair."

We had Zeppelin starting Black Sabbath.

Everybody was hitting with hard rock.

Gave me an idea to play the hard rock stuff.

I was going through kind of a angry, uptight,

"Come on, let's get on with it."

I'd had enough of playing with orchestras and everything being wishy-washy.