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Blackmore interview on The Quietus.
Ritchie Blackmore speaks to Michael Hann about the inspirational nature of Tommy Steele, playing badly on purpose and why he prefers the sackbut, the crumhorn, the shawm, the hurdy gurdy & mandola to the lute….
some snippets include
Do you have a favourite era of Rainbow?
RB: I liked right in the beginning, with Ronnie Dio and myself for the first year. I also liked the American era [in the 1980s] of songs like ‘Stone Cold’ and ‘Street of Dreams’. Around the Long Live Rock ’n’ Roll era [in 1978], it was getting very tense. We were in a French chateau, all living together, and everybody was beginning to hate each other. You go through these periods of being with the same people for so long that their idiosyncrasies get magnified, including my own. It’s a bit like being married – it’s hard to keep it all together. And I’ve noticed that a lot of bands, even the people I look up to, can only take so long before they change and go somewhere else.
Do you still feel as good a rock guitarist after the years not doing rock music?
RB: That’s a good point, because I’d adopted a different style with the renaissance thing. I play finger style, for probably four hours sometimes, and with rock & roll, I play with a plectrum, and my right-hand technique seems to have suffered a bit. I notice that I’ll go to play something and I’m not as fluid as I should be, until I’ve had a few drinks, of course. But it does interfere with the rigid plectrum style: if you’re playing with all your fingers on the right hand, that particular plectrum style is totally different, it’s just a thumb and finger. And so I’ve noticed that it takes me sometimes 15, 20 minutes to get into the flow of playing with a plectrum again.
Do you think of yourself as a bandleader or a writer or a player, principally?
RB: Obviously I’ve become a so-called bandleader now, but I did like the days when I could just hide behind the leader of the band and say it was all his fault. Now, of course, it’s all my fault. I think all three, really. It depends what kind of frame of mind I’m in at the time, because I’ve never quite figured out what the hell I am doing. One of the reasons I took up the guitar was I didn’t want to speak to anybody. I really felt uncomfortable speaking to people, so I took the guitar up so I could hide behind it. I’m not comfortable explaining things, because my brain doesn’t work that way;.
Get the whole interview over at http://thequietus.com/articles/22586-ritchie-blackmore-rainbow-deep-purple-interview
Thanks to Yvonne Osthausen for the heads up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Aaaahhh…. & that was nice! A man of many talents… Ritchie gets my vote!. Be happy…
July 4th, 2017 at 01:06Intellectual dwarf like Ian Gillan said but I think it autism he is defiantly autistic. He can’t communicate well with people. Poor guy everyone is having a bash at him about his character but it’s not his fault.
July 4th, 2017 at 05:45Splendid interview. Nice to see this posted at last. I did put the link in the Guardian article a couple of weeks ago.
July 5th, 2017 at 00:15@2 Adel, if it were true, then it would be a form of Asperger’s Syndrome… That’s a kind of higher functioning Autism…
July 5th, 2017 at 00:39An autistic person would never be able to express such emotional dephts displayed in self-composed music as does Blackmore.
– No composer was ever an autist!
July 5th, 2017 at 13:36A great Man & great songwritter !
Finest guitarplayer !
the best ever !
July 5th, 2017 at 21:45Honorable, incomparable, guitar virtuoso, Ritchie Blackmore:
Please go, reach out and rescue your prodigal son (Deep Purple) back home while there’s still time left.
July 6th, 2017 at 14:24@5 henrik h, as it happens…. Mozart had autism. So there. Smiles to ya!.
July 6th, 2017 at 23:41@5, Also… there is a band of autistic musicians that you can check out on youtube called “The AutistiX”.
July 6th, 2017 at 23:52@6 & 7,
Steve MAESTRO Morse!!!!
Peace,
July 7th, 2017 at 14:31Ted :>
Mozart had autism?
July 12th, 2017 at 19:40Lol.
Read his letters
@7 Rescue?
Sadly he would totally destroy them. The bad blood would surface again very quickly.
Whilst I prefer Richie’s guitar playing to Steve’s (and let’s be honest Steve is a phenomenal player in his own right), Purple are a much happier stable unit now than they have ever been. Let sleeping dogs lie.
July 13th, 2017 at 03:09@11 henrik h, Mozart’s letters indicate the presence of echolalia, which is considered a form of communication between autistics…. Mozart was also reported to have displayed certain behaviours associated with autistic spectrum disorders…
July 13th, 2017 at 15:36To fall within the autistic spectrum does not mean an automatic diagnosis of low intelligence, idiocy, etc.. Many successful people suffer symptoms of autism, many without knowing it.
I have been diagnosed as having, or more correctly, displaying some symptoms of Aspergers Syndrome, a higher functioning autism… Although this does not necessarily mean that I have the disorder proper… Anyhow, I’m certainly no ‘Rain Man’… & neither was Mozart… While it’s certainly possible that R.B. has symptoms that fall within the autistic spectrum… I don’t believe that he has the disorder.
Be happy!.
Since Mozart was “discovered” beginning of the 18th century he has been labelled whatever caught the imagination of the zeitgeist.
He has at least been labelled:
– Bipolar
– Alcoholic
– Violent
– Absent father and husband
– Divine avatar
Poor Leopold, Mozart’s father, was in the 70’s with its zeitgeist encompassing a laissez-faire approach to the upbringing of kids, subjected to much ridicule because of his sternness towards Wolfgang. A total reversal from the beginning of the 20th century, where he was praised as a great father developing Mozart’s musicality from an early age.
Everyone these days proudly spouts some kind of diagnosis.
July 21st, 2017 at 16:08Latest I heard was fear of talking on the phone.
@14 Henrik, so was all of that your own personal conjecture, based upon a considered study of a lot of facts based evidence & opinions available to you… or are you just regurgitating something written by someone else as a hasty means of promoting your position in the conversation?… Well… I’d call you to further discuss this matter… but I have a fear of talking on the phone!!! Lol. Huge smiles to ya!.
July 24th, 2017 at 10:32Also… as this post is supposed to be about an R.B. interview, I just thought I’d mention him now…
See ya round like a rissole buddy! Be happy…
@ 2
Glenn once said Ritchie was unable to maintain a healthy relationship with a male.
I m not sure if I heard him say that though 🙂
July 24th, 2017 at 22:29@ 16 Rock Voorne, I could just imagine R.B. with his band, on stage performing, when all of a sudden…. The band turn as one towards R.B. & then start singing Elvis Presley’s “We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds… & we can’t build our dreams, on suspicious minds…”. Lol.
July 28th, 2017 at 13:50Henrik h, you obviously don’t know a thing about autism.
October 28th, 2018 at 17:57From what I have read, I do think RB does have some traits in common with autism.
Only a clinical psychologist can really diagnose a person and it’s a very in depth process.
I’m autistic. Emotionally I can be an absolute powerhouse. Autism is diverse and so are autistic people.
It would be cool to know if RB was part of the autistic tribe but he’s from a generation where high functioning people were/are not assessed/diagnosed.
April 22nd, 2019 at 23:07My son has Asperger’s syndrome and I have spent years reading about it, I have also spent years listening to the work of Blackmore who for me is the best guitarist in the history of this plant and do you know something? I agree with those who think that Blackmore has Asperger Syndrome, as do other great artists such as Leonardo Davinci
December 9th, 2021 at 05:21