Family Favourites, Breaking the Rules and Learning to Love the Acoustic Guitar
An original Now Spinning Magazine interview with Ritchie Blackmore, recorded exclusively for our 13-part In His Own Words series.
For this instalment of Ritchie Blackmore: In His Own Words, I have brought together three connected conversations with Ritchie.
We begin with something very personal: how his family responds to the enormous catalogue of music he has created with Deep Purple, Rainbow and Blackmore’s Night.
From there, the conversation moves directly into Ritchie’s approach to improvisation and the harmonic minor sound that has become such a recognisable element of his guitar playing.
Finally, we talk about perhaps one of the biggest changes in his career as a guitarist: moving from the volume, sustain and distortion of the electric guitar into the much more exposed world of acoustic and fingerstyle playing with Blackmore’s Night.
Across the three answers there is a common thread.
Ritchie Blackmore has never been particularly interested in following rules.
Part Six: What Does Ritchie Blackmore’s Family Think of His Music?
Phil Aston:
Has your family changed the way you listen to your own music?
Do Candice and the children have favourite Deep Purple albums or tracks, favourite Rainbow albums or Blackmore’s Night songs that are different from your own?
When you have been involved in creating the music yourself, you might naturally have albums where you think, “That was a good one.”
But does someone in the family ever say, “Dad — or Ritchie — I actually think this is one of the best things you ever did”?
Ritchie Blackmore:
No.
Autumn Esmeralda has a four-octave range. She’s an opera singer, and all she does is play Taylor Swift.
And Rory, who’s incredibly athletic — he plays basketball and American football, which I’ve come to understand a little bit — tends to play, unfortunately, hip-hop music, which I can’t stand.
But he loves “Burn”, actually.
He likes “Burn” by Deep Purple, which I agree — “Burn” was a great song.
It came out really well.
And “Perfect Strangers” — I like that.
And I like it all.
Well, not all of it.
Most of it.
A lot of it.
“Burn Was a Great Song”
It is a wonderfully Blackmore answer.
His children clearly have their own musical worlds, and Ritchie makes no attempt to suggest that the Blackmore household spends its evenings listening reverentially to Deep Purple and Rainbow.
Autumn listens to Taylor Swift.
Rory listens to hip-hop.
But there is one important exception.
“Burn.”
The title track of Deep Purple’s 1974 album introduced the Mark III line-up of Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes. The album reached No.3 in the UK, while the song itself remains one of the defining pieces of Blackmore’s catalogue.
Ritchie’s verdict more than five decades later is wonderfully understated:
“Burn was a great song. It came out really well.”
He also mentions “Perfect Strangers”, the title track from the 1984 album that reunited Deep Purple’s Mark II line-up of Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice. The album reached No.5 in the UK.
There is something rather appealing about hearing Ritchie assess such monumental pieces of rock history almost as if he were remembering something that turned out reasonably well in the studio.
Part Seven: Ritchie Blackmore and the Harmonic Minor Scale
One of the most identifiable elements of Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar vocabulary is his use of classically influenced scales and melodic phrasing.
Generations of guitarists have subsequently analysed his solos, identified the scales involved and attempted to understand the theory behind them.
So I wanted to know whether Ritchie himself thinks that way when he plays.
Phil Aston:
You’re particularly associated with the harmonic minor scale.
Not every guitarist naturally goes towards it, and today people can watch a YouTube lesson and be told, “This is the scale you need to use.”
But following your career, I wondered whether you subconsciously moved towards that sound because it gave you greater freedom to express yourself.
Does that particular scale give you a way of conveying emotion through your solos?
Or was it simply something you naturally found yourself moving towards through the music you were listening to?
Ritchie Blackmore:
I personally never look at things as harmonic minor scales or anything like that.
I have absorbed and learned those scales.
But whenever I improvise, I try to almost play with myself, as I don’t quite know where I’m going.
I certainly wouldn’t say to myself, “I’m going to play a harmonic scale now.”
Or, “I’m going to play a major so-and-so.”
I just improvise with the hope that I hit some notes that are relative to the song that I’m playing.
And that’s always been my way of looking at guitar playing.
I’ve never followed any rules.
“I’ve Never Followed Any Rules”
That final sentence could almost serve as a summary of Ritchie Blackmore’s entire musical career.
What is particularly interesting here is the distinction he makes between knowledge and application.
Ritchie knows the scales.
He has absorbed them.
But when he improvises, he does not consciously select one.
Instead, he deliberately leaves an element of uncertainty in his playing.
He does not quite know where he is going.
That element of risk is important.
The objective is not to demonstrate a particular scale but to find notes that belong emotionally and melodically to the music underneath them.
For guitar players who have spent years analysing Blackmore’s solos in theoretical terms, his answer is perhaps wonderfully frustrating.
The theory exists.
But when Ritchie actually plays, he stops thinking about it.
Part Eight: From Electric Guitar to Acoustic Guitar
For my third question, I wanted to explore a transformation in Ritchie’s playing that I have always found fascinating.
For much of his career, we knew him primarily as an electric guitarist.
There had certainly been glimpses of another side.
Deep Purple’s “Soldier of Fortune”, from Stormbringer in 1974, featured a much more restrained Blackmore, while Rainbow’s “The Temple of the King”, from Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow in 1975, revealed the acoustic and melodic sensibility that would become increasingly important later.
But Blackmore’s Night opened that world completely.
Instrumental pieces such as “Beyond the Sunset”, originally released on Under a Violet Moon in 1999, allowed listeners to hear the delicacy and emotion in Ritchie’s acoustic playing in a completely different setting.
So how difficult was that transition?
Phil Aston:
Electric guitar gives you sustain, volume and distortion.
You can pause and the sound continues around you.
With an acoustic or classical guitar, the note begins to decay almost as soon as you play it.
Before Blackmore’s Night, we had heard glimpses of your acoustic playing on things such as “Soldier of Fortune” and “The Temple of the King”, but Blackmore’s Night opened up a completely different side of your playing.
I’m thinking particularly of something like “Beyond the Sunset”, where your playing is so beautiful and emotive.
Was that style always sitting there waiting for an outlet?
How did you find moving from the electric guitar into the acoustic and classical world?
Ritchie Blackmore:
When I first started with Blackmore’s Night, I was pretty uncomfortable being on stage just playing the acoustic with no distortion, no elongated notes and bending of notes.
And it took me about 20 years to feel comfortable.
Now I feel more comfortable with the acoustic guitar playing that music than I do playing electric guitar, bending notes, sustain and playing loudly.
They’re very different styles of playing.
But I’m up for the challenge.
I like the fact that when I went for the acoustic, I had no distortion or sustain.
You have to play much more exactly.
You can’t just guess and run up and down the fingerboard and stamp on the guitar and throw it around your head.
That doesn’t really work with the acoustic.
But I enjoy both.
When I’m at home, I usually sit playing fingerstyle acoustic.
But if I go on stage, I quickly relate to playing the electric.
When I’m playing acoustic, I play with all my fingers and long fingernails.
If I’m playing electric guitar, it’s short fingernails and a plectrum.
So when I did my last tour with Rainbow, I had to play on stage with a plectrum.
Then, within one week, I had to try to grow my nails so that I could play fingerstyle with the Blackmore’s Night band.
But it was a challenge.
I like the challenge.
Especially if it gives me an excuse to have a beer.
“It Took Me About 20 Years to Feel Comfortable”
This may be one of the most revealing observations Ritchie has made so far in the series.
From the audience, the move into Blackmore’s Night can appear completely natural.
The Renaissance influence had already existed within Ritchie’s music for decades.
The melodies were there.
The interest in acoustic instruments was there.
But technically, performing that music was another matter entirely.
Ritchie says it took him around 20 years to become truly comfortable playing acoustic guitar on stage.
That is an extraordinary admission from somebody already regarded as one of the great guitar players.
Rather than regarding his reputation as something fixed, he effectively became a student again.
No Distortion. No Sustain. Nowhere to Hide.
Ritchie also identifies exactly why acoustic guitar presented such a different challenge.
On electric guitar, sustain and distortion can become part of the performance.
A bent note can hang in the air.
Feedback and amplification extend the life of a phrase.
Acoustic guitar offers much less protection.
As Ritchie says:
“You have to play much more exactly.”
His humour immediately follows:
“You can’t just guess and run up and down the fingerboard and stamp on the guitar and throw it around your head.”
But behind the joke is a serious point.
Blackmore’s Night demanded a different kind of precision from him.
And after decades of working in both worlds, Ritchie now says something remarkable:
He feels more comfortable playing acoustic guitar in that setting than playing electric guitar loudly.
Two Completely Different Guitarists?
There is also the physical side of switching between the instruments.
For acoustic fingerstyle playing, Ritchie uses his fingers and keeps his fingernails long.
For electric guitar, he uses a plectrum and keeps the nails short.
That meant moving between Rainbow and Blackmore’s Night was not simply a matter of changing guitars.
The physical preparation of his picking hand had to change as well.
It is a tiny detail, but exactly the kind of thing that reveals how fundamentally different the two disciplines are.
Family, Instinct and Challenge
Placed together, these three answers tell us quite a lot about Ritchie Blackmore today.
His children have their own musical tastes and are not living in the shadow of his catalogue.
When he improvises, he is not consciously thinking about scales or theoretical rules.
And after decades as one of rock’s most recognisable electric guitarists, he still found himself taking on an instrument that made him uncomfortable enough that mastering it became a twenty-year process.
There is a common thread through all three stories.
Curiosity.
Ritchie may have absorbed an enormous amount of musical knowledge, but instinct still appears to come first.
And even after a lifetime of playing guitar, he still seems attracted to the challenge of doing something that does not feel easy.
As he puts it:
“I’ve never followed any rules.”
Perhaps that is the real connection between Deep Purple, Rainbow and Blackmore’s Night.
Ritchie Blackmore: In His Own Words is an original 13-part Now Spinning Magazine interview series.
In this combined YouTube instalment, Parts Six, Seven and Eight explore Ritchie’s family and their musical tastes, his approach to improvisation and music theory, and the very different disciplines of electric and acoustic guitar.
Interview: Phil Aston / Now Spinning Magazine
Editor’s note: The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability while preserving Ritchie Blackmore’s wording, humour and intended meaning. Additional recording information has been independently checked.
