Ritchie Blackmore

Richard Hugh Blackmore, (born April 14, 1945) is a noted British guitarist. Born in Weston-super-Mare, He is famous for being the guitarist in the revolutionary band Deep Purple and the highly successful band Rainbow

The First Rainbow Years, 1975-1984

After Deep Purple, Blackmore formed well-known progressive-metal/hard rock band Rainbow from 1975 through 1983. The band originally consisted of former Elf lead singer Ronnie James Dio, guitarist Blackmore, bassist Craig Guber, drummer Gary Driscoll, and keyboardist Mickey Lee Soule. The band's debut album, "Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow", was released in 1975 and featured the minor hit "Man on the Silver Mountain".

Related Topics:
Rainbow - Elf - Ronnie James Dio - Craig Guber - Gary Driscoll - Mickey Lee Soule - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - 1975

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The album's music was different than Deep Purple's: the riffs were more directly inspired by medieval music, and Ronnie James Dio wrote lyrics about castles, kings, swords, and damsels in distress. Dio possessed a powerful voice, good range, and the capacity to sing rough-hewn hard rock or lighter ballads. It is also interesting to note that 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.

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Blackmore fired everybody except Dio shortly after the album was recorded and recruited Cozy Powell, formerly of the Jeff Beck Group, to play drums, as well as two unknowns: a bassist named Jimmy Bain and a keyboard player named Tony Carey. This lineup went on to record the album Rainbow Rising, probably the most popular Rainbow album among hard rock devotees.

Related Topics:
Cozy Powell - Jeff Beck Group - Jimmy Bain - Tony Carey - Rainbow Rising

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Blackmore kept Powell and Dio, but replaced the rest of the band before recording the next album "Long Live Rock 'N' Roll." Blackmore had difficulty finding a bass player for this record and he even played bass on all but three songs on this album (Gates of Babylon, Kill the King, and Sensitive To Light). To the astonishment and chagrin of many Rainbow fans, Dio was fired after the tour for this album, but he managed to land on his feet by replacing Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer in Black Sabbath in 1980. Later, in 1983, he formed his own band DIO with ex-Rainbow member Jimmy Bain on bass.

Related Topics:
Long Live Rock 'N' Roll - Ozzy Osbourne - DIO

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Blackmore continued with Rainbow. Powell stayed and was joined by former Purple bassist Roger Glover, keyboard player Don Airey & ex- Marbles vocalist Graham Bonnet. The resulting (Glover produced) album 'Down To Earth' featured the bands first major chart successes 'All Night Long' & 'Since You Been Gone' but the live showed that Bonnet - although a powerhouse - struggled with the bands quieter numbers & lacked Dio's range. The band headlined a hugely successful inaugeral Monsters Of Rock festival at Castle Donnington in England, supported by Judas Priest & the Scorpions but this proved to be Powell's last show as he left for the likes of the Michael Schenker Group, Whitesnake & ELP.

Related Topics:
Don Airey - Graham Bonnet - Down To Earth - Judas Priest - The Scorpions

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The next album saw yet another line-up as Bonnet was replaced by American Joe Lynn Turner, while Powell was replaced by Bobby Rondinelli. The album 'Difficult to Cure' featured the huge single 'I Surrender,' a blockbuster version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and the extraordinary guitar piece "Maybe Next Time." The tour showed that Turner had the chops for the gig, equally at home on the rockier & slower tunes. The "Difficult to Cure" tour was the first tour in which Rainbow headlined in the U.S.

Related Topics:
Bobby Rondinelli - Difficult to Cure - Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

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Rainbow's next studio album was 'Straight Between the Eyes.' Featuring new keyboard player David Rosenthal, it was more cohesive than Difficult to Cure and even more successful in the United States. The band, however, was alienating some of its earlier fans. The single 'Stone Cold' was pure radio rock and the tour skipped the UK completely. The show - featuring huge robotic eyes in the lighting rig - was a great success: Blackmore finally seemed to be gaining the success he had so eagerly sought.

Related Topics:
Straight Between the Eyes - David Rosenthal

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'Bent Out of Shape' saw drummer Rondinelli ousted in favor of Chuck Burgi. Hugely underrated, the album was a fine piece of commercial rock featuring the single 'Street Of Dreams,' a song banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip. The resulting tour saw Rainbow return to UK theatres and finally to Japan where a full orchestra performed in conjunction with the band.

Related Topics:
Bent Out of Shape - Chuck Burgi - MTV

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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.

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