what ever happened to Richy Blackmore from the band Rainbow?

Answer 1

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Ritchie Blackmore
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Ritchie Blackmore

Early days
Born April 14, 1945 (age 61)
Weston-super-Mare, England
Genre(s) Rock
Affiliation(s) Deep Purple
Rainbow
Blackmore's Night
Notable guitars Fender Stratocaster
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 [hide]
1 Biography
1.1 Early life
1.2 The first Deep Purple years, 1968-1975
1.3 The first Rainbow years, 1975-1984
1.4 The second Deep Purple years, 1984-1994
1.5 The second Rainbow years, 1994-1997
1.6 The Blackmore's Night years, 1997-present
2 Musical style
3 Gear set up
4 See also
5 Further reading
6 References
7 External links



[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 Cliff Gallup, and later, country pickers like Chet Atkins, Blackmore began as a studio guitarist in England at a young age.

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.


[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 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's most famous album was Machine Head. The album was recorded by a mobile recording unit, the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio 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 riffs ever recorded.

Machine Head 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.


The California Jam explosion.In 1973, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover left Deep Purple. Gillan was roommates with Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, and in a 2006 interview Gillian 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 young 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 featured the 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, claiming "Stormbringer was crap", 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. This was not strange as at the time Glenn Hughes had set out on a solo project of his own. Whether or not Blackmore originally intended to leave the band is unknown, but little doubt remained after he said in a US press interview that he "couldn't stand to do another LP with Deep Purple" .


[edit] The first Rainbow years, 1975-1984
After Deep Purple, Blackmore formed the Hard rock band Rainbow, which originally consisted of himself and former Elf lead singer Ronnie James Dio, and the rest of Elf, bassist Craig Gruber, drummer Gary Driscoll, and keyboardist Micky 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.[citation needed] 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 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 due to "creative differences". Blackmore wanted a bit more commercial success and Dio, not into singing love songs, would have none of that. Dio would go on 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 band's first chart successes,"All Night Long" and the old Russ Ballard tune "Since You Been Gone". On stage Bonnet possessed a powerful voice, but struggled with the band's quieter numbers & lacked Dio's range.[citation needed] 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 as he was also unhappy with the poppier stuff. He would go on to play for Michael Schenker Group, 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 an arrangement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The album also contained the guitar piece, "Maybe Next Time" and another Russ Ballard single, "I Surrender".

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.[citation needed] The single "Stone Cold" was a ballad and had some chart success. The successful 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.[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, 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.


[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 November 17th, 1993.

Gillan said, "Joe Satriani came in at the last minute. Ritchie 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."[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.

Ritchie'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 in the Deep Purple days in the 1970s were Picato brand (.010, .011, .014, .026, .036, .042)

Ritchie used Picato RB77's in Rainbow too.

Ritchie's gear was modified by John "Dawk" Stillwell of Dawk Sound Limited Dawk SoundDawk modified Ritchie's Marshall Majors as well as Ritchie's Fender Strats. Dawk designed the Master Tone Circuit that was installed in all Ritchie's guitars. Dawk worked for Elf with Ronnie James Dio when Elf toured with Deep Purple. Ritchie used a modified tape deck for delay and as a preamp to overdrive his amp. Ritchie also used a Hornby Skewes treble booster.

Answer 2

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.

GO TO:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richie_Blackmore

Answer 3

Rainbow Rock Group

Answer 4

Wow, Richie Left Deep Purple.. lol. I haven't listened to him in yrs. he was a great guitarist.. Another underrated guitarist.. just like Jeff Beck.. Both were monsters.

Answer 5

1

Answer 6

Nothing, he kept on reforming Deep Purple over and over, and boring everyone to death. I think they had another reunion even last year, only no one really cares.
http://www.blackmoresnight.com/index2.htm