In Rainbow’s eight-album catalog, “Stargazer” stands as the band’s masterpiece — an eight-and-a-half-minute epic from 1976’s Rising. Ritchie Blackmore certainly thinks so. When Guitar Player asked him earlier this year to name Rainbow’s defining songs, he singled it out alongside “Man on the Silver Mountain” and “Long Live Rock and Roll.”

But Blackmore remembers “Stargazer” as much for what didn’t make it into the final mix. The guitarist says two musicians who helped shape the song ultimately saw their finest contributions disappear from the finished recording — one because it was deemed too elaborate, the other simply because the tape ran out.

Rainbow cut Rising at Munich’s Musicland Studios shortly after Led Zeppelin completed Presence there. As the group settled into the sessions, an engineer played the band “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” from Zeppelin’s then-unreleased album. Blackmore says he recognized the challenge posed by Jimmy Page’s stunning electric guitar work and Robert Plant’s vocal performance. It immediately raised the stakes for Rainbow.

“It was a threat for us, as that song was overwhelmingly good,” he exclaims. “It was hard to follow that. I really thought it was incredible. It was a brilliant riff by Pagey. A very weird riff. Of course Planty sang brilliantly, and I thought, ‘We have to follow this?! We better write something that good.’”

Blackmore believes Rainbow answered the challenge with “Stargazer,” the fantasy epic he and Ronnie James Dio wrote together during rehearsals. The song tells the story of a wizard who enslaves thousands to build a towering stone monument from which he hopes to fly to the stars.

“Ronnie and I wrote that together; I came up with the riff at home and the progressions. Ronnie sang it brilliantly, within a couple of takes,” Blackmore says.

Dio also contributed one of the song’s defining musical moments. “He came up with going up to the key of B riff — that little part there,” Blackmore says, referring to the refrain “Where is your star?”

“It was so nice to have someone else do some of the writing. I was overjoyed. I was so used to doing it all myself for so long.”

Clocking in at nearly eight and a half minutes, “Stargazer” builds to one of Blackmore’s most blistering solos before riding out over a hypnotic vamp backed by an orchestra. To create the dramatic finale, Rainbow hired 28 members of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of conductor Rainer Pietsch. Blackmore’s instructions were simple.

“I said, ‘Look, there’s a song we have written, basically two chords, A minor and G, and I want you to improvise and play this particular riff.’ I showed him the riff. I said, ‘If you would like to, do some ad libbing yourself, as we will be ending the song with a long, two-minute fade out.’”

Pietsch spent the weekend preparing his arrangement. But when Blackmore and Dio heard the results, they felt the orchestra overwhelmed the song rather than strengthened it.

“Ronnie and I thought it was too busy. We wanted to hit home the main riff of the song. And the conductor was so pleased with what he had written, but it was too much. It didn’t work.

“So we brought him into the control room. Ronnie said, ‘You tell him it’s too busy.’ I said, ‘No, you tell him.’ We were both apprehensive to break the news.

“In the end Ronnie told him it was too busy. So we asked him to rewrite it again, with the main riff being prominent, not flowery and busy. He played it again, but it was still too flowery.

“So we had to talk with him again, saying that the main riff — the simple riff — had to be with power, directness and simplicity. Rainer was so demoralized at this point that all we left in was the 28-piece orchestra playing the riff, which is what you hear now.”

Pietsch wasn’t the only musician to leave the session disappointed. Blackmore had also hired what he describes as “a brilliant gypsy violinist” to improvise over the song’s extended fade. The performance was everything he’d hoped for — until the tape machine reached the end of the reel.

“As the song was fading out, the violinist was playing his heart out, and it sounded fantastic,” Blackmore recalls. “Unfortunately the reel came to an end. And we wanted so badly to have him playing this gypsy part at the end.

“The man came into the control room to hear his playing, which was brilliant, and we had to embarrassingly say to him that everything he had just played wasn’t recorded because the stupid tape ran out. He was not amused.”

Deep Purple guitarist Simon McBride says he was given complete freedom to be himself when he joined the band. Even so, there are certain parts of the group's iconic catalog he daren't change.

The Irishman — who had previously worked with Purple vocalist Ian Gillan, keyboardist Don Airey and drummer Ian Paice on various side projects — was handpicked as Steve Morse's successor in 2022. He initially joined as a stand-in while Morse took a leave of absence to care for his ill wife, before eventually becoming the band's full-time guitarist.

McBride's transition into Deep Purple has been notably smooth. His blues-based style has made him an immediate fit within the group's sound.

"We had a fantastic 20-odd years with Steve Morse, who is a magnificent player," Gillan told Planet Rock last month. "Steve's roots are in southern rock, and that's a bit more languid than our style. So when Simon came in, [we were] back in business. It's like 1970s Purple with modern touches."

Speaking to Guitar Interactive as the band prepares to release SPLAT!, their second album with McBride, the guitarist says he was handed the keys to the Deep Purple Lamborghini with "zero pressure" to emulate any of the players who came before him.

"The only pressure came from me," he says with a laugh. "When I first started, I was only stepping in for Steve. I was just a session dude. When I became part of the band, they didn't want another Ritchie Blackmore, they didn't want another Steve Morse or Tommy Bolin.

"They said, 'You're here because of you. We don't want you to sound like Steve, we don't want you to sound like Ritchie. We've done that.' It was great to hear."

Even so, McBride says joining a band with more than five decades of history requires a certain amount of restraint.

"Obviously, when you join a band like Deep Purple with such a history of songs and great guitarists, you have to be respectful," he says. "There's certain things I can't change, like 'Highway Star' — I think if I changed the solo on that I would probably get shot."

He learned just how attached audiences are to some of those classic guitar parts while performing in South America.

"I remember playing in South America, there were 65,000 people, and the first song was 'Highway Star,'" he recalls. "I go for the solo, and 65,000 people sang that solo back to me, so I was like, 'Thank God I didn't change that fucking thing!'

"You have to appreciate that certain solos are little constructed pieces of music within a song. There are other songs where you can change and improvise; there are parts of the 'Smoke on the Water' solo I love, and there are parts where I mix it up a bit."

McBride appreciates that there are more than five decades of history behind Deep Purple. While he is mindful of preserving some of the band's most celebrated moments, he also knows he can't lose himself in the process.

"If you try to play like somebody else, you'll never ever truly be yourself as a player — you'll end up just being a clone," he says. "It's one of the reasons I don't play a Strat. As soon as I pick up a Strat, I instantly want to play Stevie Ray Vaughan or Jimi Hendrix."

Instead, McBride typically plays a PRS 408, a guitar that helps distinguish him from the players who came before him.

Elsewhere, Blackmore recently reflected on the night Christopher Cross filled in for him in Deep Purple, while David Coverdale has spoken about the "uncomfortable spiral downward" that marked Tommy Bolin's brief tenure in the band.

As Deep Purple began their first U.S. tour in August 1970, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was miserable. Stricken by a mysterious illness — one that doctors said had afflicted another rock guitar hero just weeks earlier — and desperately homesick, he spent the night of one Texas show confined to a hospital bed. And he was almost relieved.

The band had crossed the Atlantic to support their thunderous fourth album, Deep Purple in Rock. But when Blackmore fell ill, a young local guitarist named Christopher Cross briefly entered Deep Purple folklore by stepping in for a single night at the Jam Factory in San Antonio, Texas.

“I had a canker sore in my mouth under my tongue; I couldn't eat, I couldn't speak,” Blackmore recalled of the episode (via Ultimate Classic Rock). “I was miserable about that, and I wasn't happy about being on tour in America. The places we played were so far apart. I had no idea where I was. I wasn't in my comfort zone, and I kind of missed England.”

Cross later suggested the illness may have been a reaction to flu shots the band had been advised to take before their first American tour. Perhaps — though whatever was ailing Blackmore left doctors baffled.

“I remember being very miserable, and I was walking down the corridor with Jon Lord to go to the show, and then I felt very dizzy,” Blackmore recalled. “I grabbed hold of Jon, and he kept me walking. Then I fell down, and they took me to the hospital. They didn't know what it was. I think it was just pure misery. They kept giving me shots.

“The doctors would say, ‘Where's the pain? What do you feel?’” he continued. “I'd go, ‘I don't know. I'm just so miserable.’ It was interesting — they said the week before they'd had Keith Richards in for a similar kind of experience, which I wondered about.”

Fortunately, San Antonio had a capable stand-in. At the time, Cross — still performing under his birth name, Chris Geppert — played in the local covers band Flash and idolized Blackmore.

As Guitar Player has previously reported, concert promoter Joe Miller knew of the young guitarist’s abilities. With his familiarity with Deep Purple’s material, Cross became the logical emergency replacement.

“Joe — who was kind of managing me at the time — said, ‘You know, there's this guitarist in town who's a big fan of Ritchie's, and he could probably step in,’” Cross recalled.

According to Cross, Ian Gillan — whose first stint with Deep Purple later ended as his relationship with Blackmore deteriorated — was the only band member reluctant about the idea. Curiously, however, Lord would later claim the episode never happened.

“I came down, and I had a Flying V and long hair, and I'm this big Ritchie fan,” Cross said. “We played the songs that I knew, and then we jammed some blues. It was a great moment for me. And when they left town, I went to the airport and got to meet Ritchie, and he thanked me for covering for him.”

According to Setlist.fm, the show included newly released songs such as “Speed King,” “Child in Time,” and “Mandrake Root,” along with covers of the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” and Little Richard’s “Lucille” — a song the band would perform with George Harrison 14 years later.

“I just stayed in the hotel being miserable and Deep Purple went on and did the show with Christopher Cross,” Blackmore said. “Luckily they played, because it's a terrible feeling when you're sick on the road and you let everybody down — the audience, the crew, the band. Nobody wants to be sick on the road.

“I can get quite depressed,” added the guitarist, who has been recovering at home following recent health scares. “And I was very depressed at the time, being in America and knowing I'd be there for three months before I got back to England.”

Elsewhere, Blackmore has reflected on rebuilding his friendship with Lord before the keyboardist’s death in 2012, while former Deep Purple singer David Coverdale has discussed the “downward spiral” surrounding the band’s decision to replace Blackmore in the mid-’70s.

Ritchie Blackmore recently grabbed headlines with a surprise livestream Q&A in which he shared a notably pessimistic view of guitar players.

What received considerably less attention were his thoughtful reflections on the late virtuoso Eddie Van Halen, whom he remembers as both extraordinarily gifted and strikingly modest.

“[He was] very humble, almost too humble,” Blackmore says. “He would often come backstage at our shows and go, ‘You don’t want to talk to me, because I’m nobody,’ and I could never understand why he would say that. He always used to underestimate himself. He basically reinvented the guitar with his hammer-on technique.”

Blackmore says he particularly admired Van Halen’s intuitive approach to the instrument. While he described Joe Satriani and Steve Morse — who joined Deep Purple following Blackmore’s 1993 departure — as “fantastic players,” he suggested that technical perfection does not necessarily equate to the highest level of musical expression.

“If you’re always playing the correct notes, there’s something wrong,” he says. “You’re not searching, you’re not reaching for anything.”

Van Halen, he adds, does not fall into that category.

Blackmore believes Eddie’s sensitive nature sometimes made it difficult for him to find common ground with the older guard of guitar greats, including himself and Eric Clapton. Van Halen was heavily inspired by Clapton and was hurt when he was rejected by him.

“Unfortunately for Eddie, he was too sensitive,” Blackmore says. “And of course the business brought him down. He started drinking because he needed to drink to socialize. He was very sensitive, and I can relate to that.”

Blackmore says much the same about Randy Rhoads, the late guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne. Although many pitted Rhoads against Van Halen for the title of world’s greatest guitar player, their rivalry was largely fictional. As Blackmore sees it, both guitarists were cut from the same cloth.

“He was almost like Eddie Van Halen; very similar attitude, very humble, which I always appreciate when I talk to people,” Blackmore says. “There’s no reason to be conceited about music.”

Blackmore has been in a particularly chatty mood lately. In addition to his online Q&A, the guitarist recently gave Guitar Player an extensive interview about his time in Rainbow to promote the new box set Rainbow — The Temple of the King 1975–1976, a nine-disc collection of recordings from his post–Deep Purple group.

During the conversation, he also reflected on his relationship with Jon Lord, describing the late keyboardist as “my best friend in the band.”

Last week, Ritchie Blackmore ruffled a few feathers in the guitar-playing community when he claimed that “most guitarists aren’t nice people.” He may have also listed an exception to the rule, but there is one other player you’ll never hear the former Deep Purple man bad-mouthing.

Of course, Blackmore’s offhand comment quickly became headline news. In that moment, memories of him taking digs at his Deep Purple successors Joe Satriani and Steve Morse, and his claims that he was “not too struck” by Jimmy Page and that he “never saw what was in Eric Clapton at all” came flooding back. He has a track record for not always waxing lyrical about his peers.

But there was one player whom the guitarist — who has, in turn, been called a “dick” by Billy Corgan — has only kind words for.

“I was in Hamburg, Germany, when I first heard ‘Shapes of Things,’ with Jeff Beck playing,” Blackmore once said. “And I thought, ‘My God, who the hell is this?’ This shouldn’t be allowed. It’s too good. I’ve been a fan of theirs ever since. They were way ahead of all the other bands.”

Yet the pair had already crossed paths when Blackmore and Beck were playing on a track being produced by Jimmy Page, long before they all became guitar heroes in their own right. And though Blackmore accepts that Page’s Led Zeppelin and, to an extent, his own Deep Purple were the front-runners of the heavy blues-rock sound of the early ’70s, it was Beck who “got the ball rolling” during his time in the Yardbirds.

When the band disbanded, Beck and Page would team up for a short-lived project that yielded the first-ever metal guitar riff — and the pair argued over who wrote it for decades afterward. It was what came next — Beck’s sonically tumultuous 1968 solo debut, Truth — that set the scene for the next decade of blues-rock evolution.

“Jeff cheats on the guitar because he has notes that I don’t have on my guitar,” Blackmore jokes. “But he knows how to ring a note. His soul comes through his tone as well as his notes. And a great player — my favorite guitar player. Ever since ‘Shapes of Things,’ we’ve kind of just followed that style.”

It’s easy to hear the song’s hammering intro in a score of Deep Purple cuts like “Speed King” and “Stormbringer,” while his off-kilter lead lines rip through both Purple and Zeppelin’s discographies and beyond. Musically, he was punishing.

But aside from his constant praise for Beck’s natural talents over the years, Blackmore has remained consistent on one other matter concerning the late great. Beck, it seems, was perpetually unable to take a compliment when it came to his playing.

“He was always reaching for something he couldn’t find,” Blackmore said late last year.

It’s for that exact reason that the last known recording of Beck, who passed away in January 2023 at age 78, is likely to never see the light of day.

Former Manfred Mann’s Earth Band guitarist Mick Rogers, who owns the recording, wasn’t the only one whose plans to record together were dashed by Beck’s passing, with Mark Knopfler revealing he was lining up a project with the maverick six-stringer.

“Jeff was just something other, y’know?” he told Guitar Player in 2024. “I’m really sorry we didn’t get to work together.”

Elsewhere, Blackmore has reflected on losing the musician he was closest to, and what caused them to fall out. This same musician was also Steve Morse’s saving grace during their time in Deep Purple.

Last week, Ritchie Blackmore ruffled a few feathers in the guitar-playing community when he claimed that “most guitarists aren’t nice people.” He may have also listed an exception to the rule, but there is one other player you’ll never hear the former Deep Purple man bad-mouthing.

Of course, Blackmore’s offhand comment quickly became headline news. In that moment, memories of him taking digs at his Deep Purple successors Joe Satriani and Steve Morse, and his claims that he was “not too struck” by Jimmy Page and that he “never saw what was in Eric Clapton at all” came flooding back. He has a track record for not always waxing lyrical about his peers.

But there was one player whom the guitarist — who has, in turn, been called a “dick” by Billy Corgan — has only kind words for.

“I was in Hamburg, Germany, when I first heard ‘Shapes of Things,’ with Jeff Beck playing,” Blackmore once said. “And I thought, ‘My God, who the hell is this?’ This shouldn’t be allowed. It’s too good. I’ve been a fan of theirs ever since. They were way ahead of all the other bands.”

Yet the pair had already crossed paths when Blackmore and Beck were playing on a track being produced by Jimmy Page, long before they all became guitar heroes in their own right. And though Blackmore accepts that Page’s Led Zeppelin and, to an extent, his own Deep Purple were the front-runners of the heavy blues-rock sound of the early ’70s, it was Beck who “got the ball rolling” during his time in the Yardbirds.

When the band disbanded, Beck and Page would team up for a short-lived project that yielded the first-ever metal guitar riff — and the pair argued over who wrote it for decades afterward. It was what came next — Beck’s sonically tumultuous 1968 solo debut, Truth — that set the scene for the next decade of blues-rock evolution.

“Jeff cheats on the guitar because he has notes that I don’t have on my guitar,” Blackmore jokes. “But he knows how to ring a note. His soul comes through his tone as well as his notes. And a great player — my favorite guitar player. Ever since ‘Shapes of Things,’ we’ve kind of just followed that style.”

It’s easy to hear the song’s hammering intro in a score of Deep Purple cuts like “Speed King” and “Stormbringer,” while his off-kilter lead lines rip through both Purple and Zeppelin’s discographies and beyond. Musically, he was punishing.

But aside from his constant praise for Beck’s natural talents over the years, Blackmore has remained consistent on one other matter concerning the late great. Beck, it seems, was perpetually unable to take a compliment when it came to his playing.

“He was always reaching for something he couldn’t find,” Blackmore said late last year.

It’s for that exact reason that the last known recording of Beck, who passed away in January 2023 at age 78, is likely to never see the light of day.

Former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore has surprised his fans by going live on Instagram for an impromptu Q&A session, during which he recalled an amusing anecdote about his friendship with Tommy Bolin.

Bolin became the successor to Blackmore’s Deep Purple throne in 1975. David Coverdale, a fan of his work with Billy Cobham, was instrumental in his hiring, and he struck up a friendship with bassist Glenn Hughes as the band segued into a more funk-driven sound on Come Taste the Band.

Blackmore hasn’t always spoken kindly of Deep Purple’s other lead guitar players. Yet in this new Q&A, filmed as he recovers from a health scare that saw Blackmore’s Night’s recent tour postponed, he bucks the trend.

“He was such a nice guy that I couldn't believe he was a guitar player,” he says of Bolin, “because most guitar players aren't nice people.

“I would go around his house, and we'd often have fun just talking to each other. There was never ever any envy, no competition whatsoever.”

Like most, Blackmore is said to have first heard Bolin's playing on Billy Cobham's Spectrum album, while keyboardist Jon Lord is said to have been “entranced” by his playing. He had the looks to boot, too. Hughes, who was driven to his Deep Purple audition by David Bowie, picked up on that immediately.

“I saw this guy with green and purple hair,” he recalls (via Guitar Interactive Magazine). “I whispered in his ear, ‘If you don't get the gig, you're coming back to my house tonight.’”

Bolin had his admirers. But one thing did strike Ritchie Blackmore about his fellow virtuoso and friend.

“I said to Tommy once, ‘When did you last change your strings?’ ‘cause they were so caked in dirt and grit. And he looked at me, like, ‘I should change them?’” he recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, yeah.’ And he said, ‘Well, probably about five years ago.’ He was a brilliant player, a great player, but he never changed his guitar strings!”

Blackmore, speaking to Guitar Player recently, said he became disillusioned with life in the band because the rest of the group had priorities elsewhere. He would go on to form Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio. Billy Corgan once said that Blackmore was one of the best soloists in history, but was destined not to get the credit he deserves because “he's such a dick.”

The rock pantheon is full of talented but notoriously difficult musicians — Axl Rose, Pete Townshend, Lou Reed, Gene Simmons, and the Gallagher brothers among them.

And then there’s Ritchie Blackmore. He was the driving force behind Ian Gillan and Roger Glover’s departure from Deep Purple and famously dismissed everyone from Rainbow’s original lineup except Ronnie James Dio.

As Blackmore once told Guitar Player about his string of firings. “I’ve never fired anyone from Rainbow who was doing a really good job. Let’s keep it at that.”

Yet one bandmate managed to earn and keep Blackmore’s respect: Jon Lord, Deep Purple’s founding keyboardist.

Blackmore first met Lord through Chris Curtis, drummer for the British band The Searchers. Curtis was assembling a group that would later become Deep Purple — although his eccentricities were immediately apparent.

“He said, ‘We have Jon Lord,’ and I asked, ‘Who’s on bass?’ He said, ‘I am.’ So I said, ‘Who’s on drums?’ and he said again, ‘I am.’ Then he added, ‘I’m also playing first guitar — you’re second guitar.’

“That’s how Deep Purple started,” Blackmore recalled with a laugh.

“I said to Jon, ‘This Chris Curtis… he’s a bit of a strange guy, right?’ and Jon just said, ‘Yes.’ From then on, Jon was probably my best friend in the band.”

Blackmore admired Lord’s warmth and charm.

“He was a very affable man. He had a talent for getting along with everybody. If someone asked, ‘Jon, how are you today?,’ he’d always answer, ‘Absolutely fabulous, old chap!’ Whereas my answer would be, ‘I’m in various stages of deterioration.’ So we clicked — black and white.”

During the early ’70s, Deep Purple lived at Deeves Hall, a supposedly haunted house in Hertfordshire, and later stayed at Clearwell Castle while recording Burn (1973–74). Blackmore remembered those long nights vividly.

“We stayed up quite late because we were both too scared to go to bed — the place was haunted, supposedly — so we’d stay up writing songs.”

He also admired Lord’s deep musical knowledge and gift for orchestration — though that, ironically, is what caused tension between them.

“I felt he was giving too much effort to his orchestrated pieces, which I didn’t particularly like playing,” Blackmore said. “We had a big row. I told him if he didn’t spend so much time writing for the orchestra, we’d have more songs to play together for the band.”

Their falling out lasted six months before they reconciled.

“Toward the end of his life, we were very close,” Blackmore said. “We would often go out to dinner — my wife Candice, Jon, and me.”

When Jon Lord died in 2012, Blackmore was deeply affected.

“It hit me more than I thought it would,” he admitted. He went on to write ‘Carry On… Jon’ in tribute.

“It was very difficult to play that particular tune on stage without becoming emotional,” Blackmore said. “This is for Jon.”

The last time we heard from Ritchie Blackmore, in November 2025, he was headed out for a brief tour with his band, Blackmore’s Night. The road show ended abruptly after two nights “due to medical reasons,” and Blackmore returned home to Long Island.

Which is where Guitar Player found him recently.

“At the moment I’m taking a bit of a rest and seeing a lot of doctors about various ailments,” the 80-year-old guitarist tells us. “I had a nasty vertigo attack on our last small tour that we did, and I had to cancel.”

Blackmore does, however, have something new to discuss: Rainbow — The Temple of the King 1975–1976, a nine-disc collection of music from his post–Deep Purple group, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. The set features the band’s debut and its follow-up, Rising, along with alternative mixes and edits and recordings of three September 1976 concerts in Germany that capture the fan-favorite Rainbow Mk. II at its peak.

More than 65 years after he became a session player for Joe Meek and joined the band the Outlaws in England, Ritchie Blackmore exists in a kind of demilitarized zone between legend and enigma.

There’s no question he is one of rock’s great electric guitarists, part of the ’60s British corps that included the likes of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and others who were part of the wave. Blackmore — now 80 — made his name with Deep Purple, then in his own Rainbow and back and forth between the two.

And he’s exercised his passion for Renaissance sounds with his wife Candice Night in their band Blackmore’s Night.

For all that accomplishment, however, he’s been largely inaccessible, a man in black who’s never shied away from expressing an opinion or maintaining a feud, or — as at the California Jam in 1974 — attacking an ABC camera with his Stratocaster.

“I have a bad reputation, but I don’t mind,” Blackmore told The Guardian in 1978.

He acknowledged “being very moody, being very sincere, telling people to fuck off when I shouldn’t have done. But I don’t care, not at all. I quite like it.”

That may, of course, be part of why we like Blackmore so much — in addition to the playing, of course. It’s fluid, dynamic and inventive, blending the jazz that first captured him with the blues and rock he discovered subsequently.

In that way he created a wealth of rock classics. Among them are “Black Night,” “Speed King,” “Strange Kind of Woman,” “Smoke on the Water,” “Highway Star,” “Burn,” “Man on the Silver Mountain,” and “Stargazer.”

He’s had a few actual hits — “Hush” with Deep Purple, “Since You’ve Been Gone,” “Stone Cold” and “Street of Dreams” with Rainbow — but he is more than anything a player’s player, iconic or under-celebrated, which has seemed to be his preference.

No point of Blackmore’s career was more dramatic than his 1974 decision to leave Deep Purple, then in its third lineup, and start a new band, Rainbow.

With a pre-fame Ronnie James Dio and his band Elf alongside, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow was the first step of a band that the guitarist would maintain, intermittently, through 2019.

Over that time, Rainbow released eight studio albums and an assortment of live sets and compilations, with more than 30 musicians passing through its ranks.

Blackmore has kept a low profile recently due to health issues, including a heart attack during 2024. But for The Temple of the King he surfaced to talk with us about that pivotal point in his career and life, and shed a bit of light on some of the legends and myths he’s accumulated along the way.

At what point did you start thinking about leaving Deep Purple and starting a new band, and why?

The first time was when I thought about doing a song and a band member said, “If we didn’t write it there’s no point in doing it because we won’t get writing credits.” I was really disappointed in that statement.

It was also a time when our management was starting to put together a tour and everybody in the band was busy doing something else — a holiday, producing something, getting married. In my mind this showed that it wasn’t a band anymore. It was just a group of people with high-finance interests, business ventures and personal bookings taking place instead of the band touring.

That’s when I started thinking about leaving. Then, when I did a session with Ronnie Dio in the studio, I started seeing things in a different light. I started having fun again and music started being important again.

John Cleese once said of Monty Python that there were far too many committee meetings about nothing. We had the same in Purple.

Ronnie and Elf were, of course, key to the first album. Talk about what led you to them and into the way you and Ronnie collaborated?

We both lived near each other in Los Angeles. He would come over the house I was staying at and we would run through a few ideas.

Ironically, the ideas we came up with were extremely Renaissance-sounding. Ronnie Dio had two types of vocal: He could sing heavy rock, but he could also sing the way they did in the 1500s.

So our first few ideas, which have been lost somewhere, were based on Renaissance tunes, because he could adapt to that way of thinking and singing, as well as the heavy rock voice he could do. He knew his harmonies for Renaissance songs so well.

You introduced those baroque and medieval elements on that first album and afterward. Where did those fit for you at the time, and what was the allure for mixing those with the heavy rock you were playing?

I was inspired by Dio’s other voice — the very unique high voice that sounded like he was singing back in the 1500s, and the harmonies from that time that he was singing. But we never really followed up on that side of it; we got caught up in the band side — the heavy interpretations of the songs.

There are covers of Yardbirds and Quartermass songs on that first album [“Still I’m Sad” and “Black Sheep of the Family,” respectively]. Why did you decide to do those songs?

I loved the song “Still I’m Sad” by the Yardbirds, and I was always a fan of Jeff Beck.

And Mick Underwood, the Quartermass songwriter, was a friend of mine. I more or less went to school with Mick, and he lived around the corner from me. And, incidentally, he was in a group with Ian Gillan. When I asked Mick if he knew any good singers he said, “Yes. Our singer.” I said, “But surely you need him?” Mick said, “No, we’re breaking up.”

So I went to see Gillan and he was great. That’s how Ian Gillan joined Deep Purple.

Things changed between Rainbow’s first two albums, of course. Was the collaboration with Ronnie different on Rising than on the first album?

There was a bit more continuity, as by then we knew how we clicked as musicians and we knew each other’s good and bad points. Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow was like me dipping my foot in to see how the water was. By Rising we jumped in. Cozy [Powell] was a heavy player, one of John Bonham’s favorite drummers, so the sound of the band was very heavy.

I kept Cozy in the band because he would bring stacks and stacks of English chocolates; we were both chocoholics with Mars Bars, Maltesers, Flakes and Crunchies. If we were getting along he would allow me in his room to see his display of chocolates. He literally would have a wardrobe full of chocolates, and different drawers would be full of different chocolates.

Dio said in a 1981 interview, “Ritchie was the boss of the band… His opinions and his judgment had to be respected. I did respect Ritchie’s opinions and judgment, but it was not a very democratic situation at all.” Do you feel that’s a fair assessment?

Yes, that is a fair assessment. When I have an idea I can’t help but be very pushy about who should play what and how it should be played. Whereas, conversely, when I used to play on certain people’s sessions in the studio, because it was someone else’s music I didn’t have a clue how to play. I have a problem with interpreting other people’s music.

Rainbow has been through a lot of lineups and players, of course, right up to 2019. Why was that?

I’ve never fired anyone from Rainbow who was doing a really good job. Let’s keep it at that.

You were spending more time in America at the time you formed the band. Did that make any impact on the music, or your creative vision?

Yes and no. I was not happy being away from England, and I never took to being in L.A. I thought it was a bit phony — always 72 degrees. I felt a bit out of place. I like rain, snow, fog. I would often reminisce about being in England, but because of tax reasons I had to be in America.

Since I moved to the East Coast, met Candice and got married, this is more like home now. We’ve built our own Stonehenge in the garden. I do miss Somerset, where I was born, and York and Glastonbury were my favorite places. I hear rumors about London which aren’t too good, but I was never a big fan of London, anyway — too busy, too many people.

Some of the concerts included in this box set are legendary within the Blackmore/Rainbow fan camp. What makes them so special?

We were all excited to play those songs. Everything was new. Everyone was excited to play. Cozy was always a great motivator to kick our butts onstage. Ronnie would never lose his voice or sing out of tune, though sometimes he was paranoid about it. He once said to me, “It’s all right for you — when you wake up every day you just pick up the guitar, but I never know if I’ve lost my voice or not,” which I thought was a peculiar thing to say.

Strangely enough our music was never played on the radio, but when we played a show we would always pack the people in. So we were a grassroots, on-the-ground popular band.

If we were to ask for the definitive Rainbow song, or solo, what would you choose, and why?

I’ve forgotten most of what I’ve written and played, to be quite honest. I do like “Stargazer” and “Man on the Silver Mountain” and “Long Live Rock and Roll.” They’re the three that come to mind straight away.

“Long Live Rock and Roll” — I remember when I wrote the backing track, it was rehearsed before we had words to it or anything, and Dio came up to me and said, “What are you hearing me sing on this? What kind of melody or approach are you hearing for me to sing?”

I hummed in his ear as we were playing and said, “This main part could be something like, ‘Long live rock and roll,’ but that might be a bit too corny. That’s what I sing in my head, but if you want to change that, it’s okay.” I thought it would be too ordinary for him, but Dio said, “No, that sounds right.”

So that’s how I wrote my first hook line in lyrics. I didn’t think it was anything he would want to sing, and I was surprised when he liked it. He did it in about two takes, as usual; he was not one for making mistakes. He sang it brilliantly.

What do you enjoy about Rainbow’s music that made you want to play it again in 2016?

I’d been away from it long enough to appreciate it again.

What plans do you have for music ahead, if any, with Blackmore’s Night, Rainbow or anything else?

Despite having heart and back problems, I have never had such a horrible experience as that vertigo attack on our tour. I don’t wish that on my worst enemy. It started off with a virus which apparently went to my ears and upset the balance of the small crystals in the ear canals.

After this I have come to the conclusion I hate traveling. I’ve hated it ever since I was a child and I used to travel with my mother when we went to Bristol and Bath, where my relatives were. Every time we would leave in the coach I would throw up over the passenger in front of us. For some strange reason they didn’t like that. I have hated traveling ever since. I now seem to have a phobia about being confined in a car or a van or anything that travels.

Since we live on Long Island, I’m hoping we can put some shows together in small theaters where people can come and see us. That way, I wouldn’t have to travel more than an hour.

“It's interesting to note that Jim Marshall didn't know much about amplifiers,” Ritchie Blackmore says. “And yet he knew how to design something that caught on like crazy. This is a similar situation with Leo Fender, who never played a guitar.”

Blackmore knows something about the gear created by Marshall and Fender. After all, he played Marshall amps throughout his tenures with Deep Purple and Rainbow, and he’s used Fender Stratocaster guitars for nearly his entire career, including today with Blackmore’s Night.

But he never thought either man built the perfect gear.

Consider Fender. Blackmore doesn’t like the standard fretboard, preferring scalloped frets. It all goes back to a teenage experience.

“I was playing an old classical guitar back when I was 15, and I liked the feel of the scalloped neck — the concave wood,” he says. “When I was about 19 or 20, I started sandpapering down the fretboard in between the frets, and it felt better.

“It’s three days of scalloping with tape over the frets. Then I take the tape off the frets and have it re-lacquered.

“I think it’s an obvious thing to do,” he adds. “I’m surprised all electric guitars don't have naturally concave wood in between the frets.”

And then there’s Marshall, whose amplifiers never pleased Blackmore in their stock form.

“I didn't like the sound of the regular Marshall — it was too mellow and too muted,” he says. “Jimi Hendrix always had trouble with the transformers blowing up if you pushed the amp too hard.”

So Blackmore set about fixing the problem. If Marshall didn’t know much about amplifiers, he would talk to the people who did.

“I used to go to the factory in Bletchley to speak to Ken Flegg and Ken Bran, and I'd try to get them to give me more distorted treble on the output side,” he explains. “I’d go into a soundproofed room to test the amps — which still didn't stop the women who worked in the factory from saying they couldn't work or concentrate with me playing so loud.

“They ended up building an extra output stage on the 200-watt Marshall, which took the wattage up to 280 watts. At that point, I basically had the loudest amp ever made by Marshall. They said if I told anyone, they would deny it, because they didn't want to have to make any more like that. I think I caused them a bit of grief.”

Blackmore got the amp he asked for: the loudest Marshall ever made. Flegg and Bran added an extra output stage to a Marshall Major — a 200-watt monster designed around four KT88 output tubes — raising the wattage to 280.

It may have been powerful, but it still wasn’t quite enough in the tone department. Blackmore wanted more bottom end without additional dirt. Where a guitarist today might use a compression pedal to add girth without distortion, Blackmore achieved the same effect by using an Akai tape deck as a preamp.

“I liked the fact that it fattened up the sound without distorting it too much. It was really just an old tape deck that was lying around the house. I thought it would be a waste not to use it.”

When asked to describe the perfect guitar tone, the typically loquacious guitarist was illustrative and to the point.

“The combination of an owl meeting a bumblebee in mid-flight.”

In other words, the perfect blend of warm midrange and biting edge. Blackmore’s classic electric tone was always heavy but not heavily distorted — the result of a simple sonic formula.

“Just a bit of overdrive. Then, I turn all the treble off, have a bit of middle, and turn the bass off.”

Blackmore, now 80, was recently honored with the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Guitar Museum. The award, announced February 23, 2026, recognizes his 60-year career as a founding member of Deep Purple and Rainbow, as well as his work with Blackmore’s Night.

Ritchie Blackmore’s ruthlessness is the stuff of rock lore. After forcing out Ian Gillan and dismissing bass guitarist Roger Glover from Deep Purple, he blindsided the remaining members in 1975 by bolting to form Rainbow. One album into that venture, he fired everyone but singer Ronnie James Dio and continued to rotate musicians in and out as they failed to meet his unforgiving standards.

That relentless, almost surgical pursuit of perfection was felt far beyond his own ranks; it reverberated through the generation of electric guitar players raised on his records. As Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins told Guitar Player in 1995, “Pound for pound, he’s one of the best soloists in history, but he’s such a dick that he’ll probably never get the credit he deserves.”

No one understood the paradox better than Blackmore himself. Asked one year later about his reputation for being difficult, he didn’t deflect. He indicted the entire enterprise.

“I hate show biz. I hate people who confine themselves to the system,” he told Guitar Player. “Why does everyone have to do the right interview at the right time, be on the right program, be politically correct, say the right things and be at the right parties? That gets up my nose. Why can’t I just play the guitar? It’s all I want to do.”

He wanted to play guitar so badly that the social glue binding bands together often became collateral damage. An early encounter with Eric Clapton makes the point.

“He was the big thing in the area back in ’67,” Blackmore recalled. “He was God — it said so all through London, so I believed it.”

When he saw Clapton perform, however, he was unsettled by his patience.

“He played very slowly with vibrato, which no one I knew bothered with because they were too interested in playing as fast as they could,” Blackmore said. “My feeling was, if you play vibrato you’re wasting time. ‘C’mon, let’s get on to the next note and show off!’

“I said to him, ‘You play with all this vibrato. That’s very different.’

“That was very stupid to say in retrospect. Of course he plays with vibrato, and why not?

“But I felt that he was the strange person to put so much emphasis on the vibrato. It was very pleasurable to the ear, but I thought he could be playing other notes.”

Of course a wide, vocal-like vibrato would become one of Blackmore’s signatures, fused with the velocity — and inhuman stage volume and guitar thrashing — that defined his early style. In time, he recognized the lesson.

“That’s thanks to Eric Clapton in a way,” he admitted. “It’s only now that it dawns on me that the guy knew what he was playing way back then, and I was the idiot for saying, ‘Why are you playing with a vibrato? Why are you bothering?’ That’s embarrassing.

“He was into Freddie King, but that didn’t do it for me then. Those guys were too slow for me. I wanted to hear something fast. Let’s go here!

“I was always so nervously charged that I had to be fast. I learned in reverse. I learned to be fast and now I’m trying to slow down and say something. Playing a fast solo, I suppose, is a bit like having two-second sex.”

If the bravado was bracing, the insecurity beneath it was even more revealing. Blackmore has long suggested that his difficulty with bandmates stemmed less from arrogance than from self-doubt.

“I’d love to play with another guitarist, although I’m still insecure, so that guitarist couldn’t be better than me,” he said. “I still go through life being very unsure of what I’m doing, and I cover that by appearing confident, as if I know exactly what I’m doing.

“But I have no idea. There’s a constant searching. Some days I tell myself I can play. And other days I think, ‘I’ve been playing for 38 years and I’m still floundering. Why am I so miserable with my guitar playing? I can’t seem to get it down!’ I’ll hear my solos and think, ‘Why did I accept that? I know damn well I can play better than that.’”

The studio, he conceded, is the most unforgiving environment of all.

“My best stuff is live, because I don’t have time to think; I just get on with it. But in the studio, I very rarely feel at ease. If someone points to me and says, ‘Play — we’re going to test you to see how good you are,’ I get self-conscious and disintegrate.

“I need a psychiatrist with me when I’m in the studio, going, ‘It’s all right, Ritchie. Nobody hates you, nobody’s testing you, nobody’s watching you.’”

He laughed at the absurdity — but only to a point.

“Sometimes I’ll talk to the producer: ‘Does the engineer play the guitar?’ ‘Yes, I think he does a bit.’ ‘How much? What is he into?’ Then I’ll have to sit behind the engineer, because I don’t want him looking at what I’m playing, because I’ll interpret that as him thinking I’m not playing very well. I took up the guitar because I felt insecure at school, and that insecurity is still there — that strange introversion.”

Across his 28 years with Deep Purple, Steve Morse became the band’s longest-serving guitarist. However, the creative impact he had on the British rock giants wasn’t as big as many would believe.

The fusion ace joined the group in 1994 to replace founding riffer Ritchie Blackmore, who had returned to the band after leaving in 1975 to form Rainbow. Deep Purple had hired Joe Satriani for a year of touring before Morse was sworn in, and though his fretboard mastery made him a tour de force onstage, his role was diminished when it came to composing songs.

“My job with Purple became providing ideas for the writing sessions, and one out of 20 might get used,” he tells MusicRadar. “Ninety-five percent of the time I was hearing, ‘That’s not going to work.’”

When he joined, the band was fronted by vocalist Ian Gillan, who was serving a second spell with the group after a clash of egos with Blackmore forced him to depart in 1973. The group was rounded out by bass guitarist Roger Glover, drummer Ian Paice and keyboard maverick Jon Lord.

It was in Lord that Morse found a kindred spirit to make his ideas work with the band.

“Jon was the guy who listened to my ideas and thoughtfully added to them, rather than just saying, ‘That doesn’t sound like Purple,’” Morse says. “When Jon was around, he would hear something and say, ‘That’s a little bit left field, but what if we do this?’ And he would play it with a slight twist.”

He recalls a time writing 1996's Purpendicular, when the rest of the band had stopped to drink tea. As the band's only American, he kept on playing, and at one point, Lord placed his cup down, turned to Morse and said, “Ah, that’s something there.”

It sounds like the rest of the group were a little more conservative regarding the Deep Purple sound, doubling down on an identity forged by Morse's predecessor. Blackmore himself, speaking in a now-taken-down video on YouTube in 2018, didn't exactly give Satriani and Morse a glowing review, despite praising their talents.

“Joe Satriani is a brilliant player, but I never see him really searching for notes. I never hear him playing a wrong note,” Blackmore said. “Jimi Hendrix used to play lots of wrong notes because he was searching all the time… ‘Where the hell is that correct note?!’ And when he did find that right note, wow, that was incredible.

“But if you’re always playing the correct notes, there’s something wrong; you’re not searching, you’re not reaching for anything. That’s not to say that he isn’t a very brilliant player. It's the same thing with Steve Morse, a fantastic player.

“Certain people play from the heart, and other people play from the head,” he concluded. “I prefer a ‘heart’ player. If I hear someone really technical running up and down the fingerboard, I can hear that for a couple of minutes, then I start to get bored.”

In related news, Morse reveals that he broke his wrist on the eve of a tour with the band, forcing him to modify his guitar to aid his shredding.

And as he battles his arthritis issues with ingenuity, he's also given Guitar Player readers top tips for keeping your cool when the going gets tough, something he certainly had to do in that moment.

Ritchie Blackmore is widely credited as the man who intertwined the booming rock and roll movement of the late ‘60s with classical music flavors, but he’s moved to dismiss that. He said he got the idea from a gimmick band he saw as a teenager.

His iconic riff for “Smoke on the Water” — arguably the most famous guitar riff in all of rock — is proof of just how well he married the two. He says the riff, which is built off of finger-picked parallel fourths, draws closely from a masterpiece of the classical era: Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.

“I owe him a lot of money,” the guitarist once joked.

So while Blackmore’s work with Deep Purple — most successfully with the Mark II era of the band — popularized the fusion of styles and very much made it his own, he doesn’t want to take the credit for the idea.

“When I was 15, there was this incredible band that came to the South Wall Community Center,” he says in a newly uploaded YouTube video. “They were called Nero and the Gladiators, all dressed up as Romans in togas and what have you.”

Formed in 1960 by keyboard player Mike O'Neil, who assumed the role of Nero, the band scored minor hits with rocked-up versions of "Entrance of the Gladiators," composed by Julius Fučík in 1897, and Edvard Grieg's 1875 orchestral work "In the Hall of the Mountain King."

It was the latter that led Blackmore to his epiphany.

“That's where I got my inspiration from,” he explains. “Some people think that I kind of started that craze, but they were the first. I saw them, and I was just overwhelmed.

“They were great showmen,” he continues. “I'll never forget that experience. I was open-mouthed watching this rock playing of classical pieces, and to me, it made much more sense than Chuck Berry playing ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’. All of a sudden, it was, ‘Yeah, this is where I want to go.’

“I thought Tony Harvey’s guitar playing was incredible. He was a big influence on me.”

Talking to Guitar World in 1991, Blackmore went into more detail about how this revelation helped him find his identity as a guitarist, in particular on electric guitar. As a player, he was coming up in the thick of a huge blues movement in the U.K., but it didn’t quite resonate with him the same as it was for two other local guitarists who would rise to prominence alongside him: Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, from whom he bought his first Strat.

“I was never sure what I wanted to be,” he reflected. “I found the blues too limiting. Classical, on the other hand, was always too disciplined. I was always playing between the two, stuck in a musical no-man's land.

“I'm not good enough, technically, to be a classical musician,” he added, “I lack discipline,” hence why he has always seen his sound with Deep Purple as a simplified take on classical tonalities.

But his forays into classical guitar, he had told Guitar Player 18 years earlier, taught him things that playing the blues didn't.

“I learned how to use my little finger,” he explained. “A lot of blues guitarists play with only three fingers, so they can’t figure out certain runs that require the use of their little fingers.

“I would say that it shows up most in the music I write. For example, the chord progression in the ‘Highway Star’ solo is a Bach progression.”

But he wasn’t purely lifting from concertos and overtures. His own personality was embedded in what he coaxed out of his Stratocaster’s fretboard.

“The classical influence is always there, but I don’t intentionally use it that much,” he added. “I play a lot of single notes, and that’s not classical.”

Blackmore is currently at home recovering from a recent health scare that brought an abrupt end to his latest tour with Blackmore's Night, the renaissance-folk act he performs in with his wife, Candice Night.

Meanwhile, Queen guitarist Brian May has described Blackmore as a “fireball,” saying he affected him like no other player.

Concerns over Ritchie Blackmore’s health were raised after he canceled Blackmore’s Night’s fall tour on November 15 for medical concerns.

In a social media post on Sunday, November 23, Blackmore revealed that he’d been suffering from migraines.

"Very quick history, for those who have nothing better to do: I have a long history of lumbar and neck herniated discs. Consequently, I would have back injections before a tour to help me over the pain.

“Recently, I have acquired debilitating migraines. They come and go very quickly. When I see the visual disturbance of these ocular migraines, I know they are coming.

“When we did the long drive from Pennsylvania to Newton NJ we were booked into a hotel that had a wedding party going all night in the corridors. There was no heat in the room and the sheets were still damp. Which I assume culminated in me having a severe migraine attack. I couldn't stop vomiting. The room wouldn't stop spinning and I was extremely dizzy to the point of not being able to stand.

“Ambulance was called. I was taken to hospital and they gave me CAT scans and other tests.”

Blackmore says the “official diagnosis was severe vertigo. The results of this went on for days on end.”

He’s now following up with doctors to get back to health and says he hopes to return to the road.

Blackmore’s wife and bandmate, Candice Night, spoke up about the electric guitar icon’s health in August, citing three issues he’s had to deal with.

"He has a heart issue — he had a heart attack a couple of years ago, so we stay on top of that.

“He's got gout, so that's difficult,” she adds. “It's affecting his feet really badly. And it's starting in his forefinger, so it's hurting the mobility in that. He just had an injection for that. And his back, of course, which has always been an issue.”

Last year, Blackmore launched the video series Tales from the Tavern on YouTube, where he delivers anecdotes about his career with Deep Purple, Rainbow and Blackmore’s Night, his Renaissance folk-rock outfit They include his recollections of writing “Smoke on the Water,” Deep Purple’s 1972 hit, and why he and Ian Gillan couldn't remain together in that band.

Blackmore’s Night, the neo-medieval folk-rock outfit led by former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, has postponed its current tour due to medical reasons.

The band’s show at the Newton Theater in New Jersey on Saturday, November 15, was called off on the day of the performance. A scheduled date in Wilmington, Delaware, on Thursday, November 20, was postponed two days later. A third announcement followed yesterday, confirming that the entire tour had been put on hold, with five dates affected in total.

“All Blackmore’s Night shows postponed at this point due to medical reasons,” Blackmore’s wife and vocalist, Candice Night, wrote on Instagram. “We are sorry for any inconvenience.”

The details of those reasons are currently unspecified, but it sparks fresh concerns regarding Blackmore's health. Night had listed three issues that were keeping Blackmore off the road in August. In October, it was hoped that the most pressing problems were behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer as a string of tour dates was announced.

Although there’s no official confirmation that the medical issue involves Blackmore, fans have been quick to connect the dots, with a host of well-wishes left on Night’s post.

Earlier this year, Night had detailed how their touring abilities had been severely limited by Blackmore’s health. He suffered a heart attack approximately two years ago, which had initially left him struggling to pick up an electric guitar — or mandola, as he more often plays with Blackmore's Night. He has also had issues with back pain and gout.

“We don't have a tour bus, and we don't have private planes. If we go someplace, I'm driving,” the singer had explained. “It's like a mini road trip. You get to the venue, you go back, you get a good night's sleep that night.”

In a separate interview with Total Rock (via Ultimate Classic Rock), Night had revealed the impact his heart attack had on the guitarist.

“Ritchie has actually been told by his cardiologist not to get on a plane,” she said. “He had a heart attack. He’s got six stents.

“He doesn’t look 80, still doesn’t act it. But eventually medical things wind up catching up with you.”

Blackmore played on nine Deep Purple albums across his first run with the group, including four with Ian Gillan, before ego clashes with the vocalist meant one of them had to go for the band to survive.

He later joined forces with Ronnie James Dio to form Rainbow, but while they were billed as equals in the group, it quickly became evident that the Brit was in charge.

Speaking to Guitar Player in 1973, while at the height of Deep Purple's powers, Blackmore spoke candidly about Steve Howe, Jimi Hendrix and his classical influences.

There’s no denying Jimi Hendrix changed the electric guitar game. But long before he ventured from New York City to London — where he sent shockwaves through the blues scene and nearly ended Jeff Beck’s career — another player sparked a revolution in the mind of future Queen guitarist Brian May.

May was in his early 20s by the end of the 1960s. Although Rory Gallagher would have the greatest influence on his guitar tone — inspiring him to adopt two hugely important pieces of gear into his rig — it was another British blues rock great who showed him what was possible with his instrument.

“He was incredible, nobody could play like that in those days,” May says of Deep Purple linchpin Ritchie Blackmore.

For May — who made his comments in the 2015 documentary The Ritchie Blackmore Story — it was the “wild and untamed” way Blackmore played that affected him most.

“It's hard to imagine,” he says. “It’s like going back to the time before there were wheels. People did not play like that in those days; you were looking at people who played jazz and were very safe and rather mellow.”

Blackmore's weapon of choice throughout the '60s was a 1961 Gibson ES-335, a guitar thrust upon him by future amp maker Jim Marshall,. That was the instrument with which he launched Deep Purple, and May was there right at the start of the journey, falling in love with their 1968 debut album, Shades of Deep Purple, while attending college.

Even then, Blackmore's reputation preceded him.

“Ritchie Blackmore already was a legend,” May explains. “I was together with [future Queen drummer] Roger [Taylor] at that point, and Roger had worked alongside Ritchie in his previous groups down in Cornwall.

“And Ritchie was a figure of mystery and wonder. He was able to play very fast, very accurately, and very passionately. He’s wanging the guitar all over the place, he’s using the tremolo bar, and making the whole thing into a completely different instrument.

“Ritchie came along and he's a fireball,” May continues. “He was beyond belief. His technique was incredible. Where that came from, I have no idea. And this was before Hendrix. Ritchie is a great creator and originator of the wild electric guitar.”

And yet, even with Blackmore’s sizable reputation, Deep Purple’s first few records had only middling success. It was only with the second line-up and the 1970 album In Rock that their fortunes began to turn. Coincidentally, it was the first record on which Blackmore played a Fender Strat, having made the switch after striking a deal with Eric Clapton’s roadie for one of Slowhand’s unused models.

The Mark II line-up came to a head with Blackmore as egos clashed. Although Blackmore had stuck around for a few more albums, he'd join forces with Ronnie James Dio in Rainbow before deciding life in the band wasn't what he'd expected.

Blackmore is now back out on the road after a series of health scares cast doubt on his future earlier this year. His rock days may be long behind him, but the impact he's had on the guitar world is still being felt.

Ritchie Blackmore was very much on the scene in London in the years before he helped form Deep Purple. In addition to serving as a regular tour guitarist for Jerry Lee Lewis when the rock and roll pianist came to town, Blackmore did plenty of session work.

Which is how he came to meet Jeff Beck, where they were both hired to play in a session produced by Jimmy Page.

Blackmore rarely gives interviews, but in a new one on Rock of Nations With Dave Kinchen and Shane McEachern, the legendary electric guitar shredder pays tribute to Beck and recalls the pain he felt upon hearing about the virtuoso’s death on January 10, 2023 after he contracted bacterial meningitis

“Jeff was a great guitar player. That was a big blow, him going,” Blackmore says. “I mean, he was vegetarian and he didn't take drugs particularly or anything. I was very shocked to hear about him dying that way. That was terrible."

Having witnessed Beck up close in performance, Blackmore had excellent insights into his style and technique.

“He had a very special way of playing. It was so different from anybody,” he notes. “I always used to go and see him play, because I found him very refreshing.”

He was also modest. Blackmore recalls Beck constantly referring to his recordings as “rubbish.”

“He would always put himself down,” Blackmore recalls. “I’d say, 'How is your latest record, Jeff?' And he'd go, 'Oh, it's a lot of rubbish.' And he would always say that about anything he put out. He was always reaching for something he couldn't find."

In a social media post made shortly after Beck’s death, Blackmore recalled meeting the guitarist and acknowledge his impact on him.

"First met Jeff Beck around 64-65 and it was a session where we were both playing guitars and Jimmy Page was producing. I couldn't believe how incredible he was, not only with his technique but his sound too. I became a fan of his ever since. He could reach up into the stars and make magic with his playing. His choice of notes were always absolutely perfect.

"This whole thing is a shock. We shall always remember Jeff as the best rock and roll player."

Beck launched his solo career after leaving the Yardbirds. His electric guitar playing in the group was both innovative and a key part of the group’s fame in the mid 1960s. But Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty recently told Guitar Player that Beck was difficult and unpredictable, and once smashed a guitar in frustration.

Although he regarded his albums at times as missed opportunities to create something great, there’s no argument that he recorded numerous classics in his lifetime, from “Beck’s Bolero” to the Jeff Beck Group album Truth to his solo masterpiece Blow by Blow, his first bona fide success. Years after recording the latter, he confessed that he frequently confounded Blow by Blow producer George Martin with his cacophonous soloing.

“Some of my favorite solos got trashed because he thought they were hideous — not musical,” Beck said. “He’d say, ‘That’s really the most dreadful noise I’ve ever heard.’ And I’d say, ‘That’s what I want!’

“But I’d usually come round to his way of thinking.”

Beck was similarly deferential when it came to “Beck’s Bolero.” Although he insisted he composed it, Jimmy Page ultimately took credit for it.

“No, I didn’t get a songwriting credit,” Beck conceded, “but you win some and lose some down the years.”

Even after achieving status as a living legend, Beck continued to be modest about his talents, noting that he chose working on his vintage car collection to practicing. His 1989 tour with Stevie Ray Vaughan proved an opportunity for Guitar Player to sit down with both guitarists. Jeff, as always, came off as humble, preferring to reflect glory on Vaughan, whom he said reminded him of his old friend Jimi Hendrix.

“I felt very amateurish alongside him, because he lived and breathed it. You’re very similar to Jimi in that way,” Beck told Vaughan. “I’m just a part-time employee.

“I’m not in love with the guitar as much as you are or Jimi is — was. I just pick it up and play it sometimes.”

Deep Purple were rendered speechless when, in a Munich hotel in March 1975, Ritchie Blackmore announced he was leaving the band he'd co-founded seven years earlier.

In retrospect, it made sense that the guitar virtuoso should want to move on. Having fought tooth and nail to emerge as the leader of the hard-rock act, he was ready to put together a new group of his own, where his authority would be established from the get-go.

Because if there was one thing Ritchie Blackmore wanted, it was control.

He'd grabbed it in Deep Purple by unseating Ian Gillan, their second singer, with whom they’d enjoyed breakthrough success with hits like "Highway Star" and “Smoke on the Water.”

“He was, as they say, an alpha guy. So was I,” Blackmore later recalled. “He wanted to control, I wanted to control. So we butted heads because of that.”

Once Gillan quit, Blackmore wasted no time dismissing bassist Roger Glover. To replace them, he chose: a then-unknown singer by the name of David Coverdale and bassist Glenn Hughes. But Blackmore's choices backfired on him. Coverdale and Hughes brought funk and soul influences to the group's music that, ultimately, drove the guitarist away.

He turned to Ronnie James Dio and his band, Elf, for his next endeavor, Rainbow. The band’s 1975 debut, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, received mixed response, however — Rolling Stone said Blackmore sounded “listless and bored” and highlighted the anonymity of his fellow bandmates.

Perhaps the criticism cut deep. Soon after its release, Blackmore took a tight grip on the band. He fired everyone except Dio, and hired drummer Cozy Powell, bass guitarist Jimmy Bain and keyboardist Tony Carey.

“Ritchie was the boss of the band,” Dio told Radio Trent in Nottingham in 1981 (via Ultimate Guitar). “I mean, there's just no two ways about it. I wouldn't delude myself into thinking that, even though he and I did form that band as an equal partnership. We were 50/50 members of that band. We wrote all the material together, 50/50. We shared in the profits and expenses, 50/50.”

Even so, Dio said, “His opinions and his judgment had to be respected. I did respect Ritchie's opinions and judgment, but it was not a very democratic situation at all.”

Of the new members, Powell had the biggest name, having already spent several years in Jeff Beck’s band and his own group Hammer, which featured the talents of future Whitesnake guitarist Bernie Marsden.

“When Cozy came in, there started to be a lot of jockeying for position,” Dio said. “We always knew who number one was, and I was number two, 'till Cozy came in and Cozy and I went, 'Who's going to be number two?’

“It was more what Ritchie wanted to do, and the rest of us kind of grumbled and moaned. But we did it.”

By 1979, as the band came off a performance at the Reading Festival and the release of their fourth album, Down to Earth, their carousel of member changes was garnering considerable attention.

By that point, Dio was out and Graham Bonnet was fronting the group, Don Airey was on keyboards, and Blackmore's former Deep Purple bandmate Roger Glover — the very bassist he had pushed out, along with Ian Gillan — was holding down the low end. Blackmore and Powell were the only mainstays.

After joking that none of the ex-members could make a proper cup of tea, Powell told one interviewer that “Ritchie and I have got certain standards. If musicians in the band don't give 110 percent, they're booted out rather sharply.

“It's a very competitive business,” he added. “You've got bands coming up all the time that are trying to blow you off.”

Blackmore was more blunt later that year when Sounds asked about the firings of his former bandmates.

“If they were good enough, they'd still be in the band,” he grumbled.

Blackmore wasn’t a figure to be trifled. Many players had to learn that the hard way.

In related news, Blackmore has put recent health issues behind him and is headed back out on the road.

Ritchie Blackmore has recovered from his recent health scares and is set to return to the road with Blackmore’s Night in November.

The British-American neomedieval folk-rock band, which he formed with his wife, Candice Night, will play six shows across November, starting in Alexandria, Virginia on November 9, and concluding in Tarrytown, New York 20 days later.

The news comes after Night had revealed the extent of the former Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist's health issues. The famed electric guitarist had been sidelined from touring in the wake of a heart attack suffered several years ago, while other problems further complicated touring plans.

“There are three main issues with him,” Night had explained to the Iron City Rocks podcast (via Rayo). “He had a heart attack a couple of years ago, so we stay on top of that. He's got gout, [which is] affecting his feet really badly, and it's starting in his forefinger, so it's hurting the mobility in that. He just had an injection for that. And his back, of course, which has always been an issue.”

She went on to detail how flying to gigs is now off the table, as jet lag is known to stress the heart. For that reason, the couple has booked shows within driving distance of their home on Long Island.

While they're touring possibilities are limited, it makes their quiet life happier. Blackmore turned 80 in April and needs a slower pace.

“We don't have a tour bus, and we don't have private planes. If we go someplace, I'm driving,” Night had said. “So it's like a mini road trip. You get to the venue, you go back, you get a good night's sleep that night.

“It's a very slowed-down way of doing it. But honestly, I'd much rather take something than nothing at all.”

As per an Instagram post from Blackmore, the guitarist had been in attendance, along with Night, at a recent private event held by Metallica. Put together to celebrate the band’s new channel on SiriusXM, Paul McCartney and Al Di Meola were on the guest list. The latter made the most of the evening, having gotten his hands on Kirk Hammett’s infamous Greeny Les Paul for a short while.

Hammett is the guitar's third famous owner, after Peter Green made his name in Fleetwood Mac with it, before handing it over to the late Gary Moore. Joe Bonamassa has since revealed he had the chance to buy it, but ultimately passed, believing Hammett to be its rightful adoptee.

Elsewhere, Blackmore has been in a retrospective mood. He's looked back on his first meeting with Jimmy Page and recording with Jeff Beck before either of them had become household names.

He's also revealed how he or vocalist Ian Gillan had to leave Deep Purple for the band to survive, with their two egos making their respective tenures in the British rock giants untenable.

Irish guitarist Simon McBride is the latest shredder to fill his sizable shoes in Deep Purple, and he's revealed the hardest Blackmore lick to master, while the band's two mainstays have reflected on writing the band's biggest hit and how it came together amid chaos.

It took a while for Ritchie Blackmore to get the right mix of musicians in Deep Purple. After releasing three albums in two years, the group evolved into its Mark II lineup, which yielded the band’s biggest successes.

But Blackmore knew the group’s classic line-up was doomed long before their personnel changed for a second time. It was either that or the band split.

Deep Purple originally formed as a heavy psychedelic group featuring Blackmore, vocalist Rod Evans, bassist Nick Simper, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice, the only founding member who remains today. Blackmore started out the band playing a Gibson ES-335 sold to him by amp builder Jim Marshall, who was just a humble store owner at the time. The guitarist eventually switched to Fender Stratocasters when he bought one of Eric Clapton’s for £60.

By then, Deep Purple was shifting into its Mark II version, featuring Blackmore, Lord and Paice alongside bassist Roger Glover and singer Ian Gillan. This brought about a harder rock sound heard on groundbreaking records like In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head.

But behind the band's success, the relationship between Blackmore and Gillan began to sour.

“He was, as they say, an alpha guy. So was I,” Blackmore recalled in the 2015 documentary, The Ritchie Blackmore Story. “He wanted to control, I wanted to control. So we buted heads because of that

“We still respected each other, but we never got on. We just couldn't be in the same room. That was the problem,” he explains. “We weren't speaking, and it was just not going anywhere. I wasn't speaking to him; he wasn't speaking to me. We weren't being creative.”

The pair knew that one of them had to go or the band would meet a less-than-amicable end. Ultimately, it was Gillan who fell on his sword. Blackmore says the singer agreed to leave 18 months in advance.

The writing of the line-up’s last record, Who Do We Think We Are, was born during this tumultuous period.

“In the last year of the band’s life, I don’t think Ritchie or Ian Gillan spoke one word to each other,” Glover once told the BBC. “They became two poles, because the more one would do it, the more the other would do it. And the more one got away with it, the more the other one was determined he was going to get away with it.”

The growing tension and silence between the two musicians, coupled with a string of band-wide illnesses and fatigue, plagued its creation. The album was recorded, like its predecessor, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio. Blackmore pushed for a return to their bluesy roots, having felt Machine Head was too commercial-sounding for his liking.

The record was a success, even with the dwindling harmony behind the scenes. It broke the top five in the U.K. charts, and peaked at 15 in the U.S.

Alhough the band had to shake up its personnel to survive, Lord was left to ponder what might have been.

“It was the biggest shame in rock and roll,” he said (via Ultimate Classic Rock). “God knows what we would have become over the next three or four years.”

Elsewhere, Blackmore has reflected on the chaos of writing “Smoke on the Water,” with the recording session inspired by a casino fire, and recording taking place while police tried to break into the studio after receiving noise complaints.

And his wife, Candice Night, has detailed the health issues that are currently preventing the guitarist from touring.

Deep Purple's 1973 hit "Smoke on the Water" is more than the band's biggest song — it's a guitar anthem that inspired countless budding musicians to pick up an electric guitar. Since its release, it's become one of the most iconic riffs in rock history, been forbidden from being played in numerous guitar shops, and grown into a cultural phenomenon.

Evidence of that last claim can be found in the very city where the song was recorded in 1971, two years prior to its release.

“The last time we were in Montreux, there were signs by the lake reading: 'No smoking on the water,'” Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover tells The Guardian. The band actually played a very literal version of the song during a recent visit to the Swiss city, which nestles at the foot of the Alps.

The song's creation has become part of rock and roll folklore. As has been documented many times, Deep Purple were set to record their 1972 album, Machine Head, at the Montreux casino's theater in December 1971 after it closed down for the winter. But at the last concert of the season, featuring Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, an audience member fired a flare gun that set the ceiling on fire and burned down the venue.

“It was pretty horrendous and frightening,” Blackmore recalls in an episode of Tales From the Tavern on his YouTube channel. “We were watching Frank, and we all had to get out of the building. Frank turned around and said, ‘I don't want people to panic,’ and with that, he jumped out of the window! The whole place burned down in 20 minutes.”

With nowhere to record, Deep Purple settled into a local Montreux theater, the Pavilion, which is where "Smoke on the Water" came into being with its famous guitar riff.

As Blackmore recalls, his goal was to keep things simple.

“I was always looking for a very simple riff to play,” he says. “I'd heard the Kinks play ‘You Really Got Me’, and the Stones were playing ‘Satisfaction,’ so I felt there was a commercial element of, if you want to be heard, you have to keep it simple.”

Although the riff is written in the blues scale and harmonized in parallel fourths, Blackmore claims he wrote it by tapping into his love of classical music. According to the guitarist, the famous passage is an interpretation of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. "I owe him a lot of money," the guitarist says. To perform it, he cast aside his guitar picks and opted to fingerpick instead.

Deep Purple were tracking the session using the Rolling Stones' Mobile Recording Unit — a storied piece of gear immortalized in the song's lyrics — when they had unexpected visitors.

“The police were banging on the door because we were making so much noise,” Blackmore says with a smile.

They completed the recording with assistance from their road crew. As Paice explains to The Guardian, “The roadies managed to hold the doors shut until we’d finished the take.”

“Luckily, we had a master take, and that was given to Ian Gillan to write the lyrics,” Blackmore continues.

“I didn't think it would be a hit, it was just something that Ian and I banged out on the spur of the moment. We were just having fun.”

However, the version of the track that made it onto the band’s sixth album, Machine Head, wasn’t the one they sent to the label.

“Warner Bros. in Los Angeles loved it but said it was too long for the radio, so unbeknownst to us, one of their engineers cut it down to four minutes,” Paice recalls. “The rest is history, as they say.”

Meanwhile, the band had begun playing the song on tour, as captured on the live album Made in Japan, and developed it even further.

“We’d been playing it for a year and had found all these little nooks and crannies to explore,” Paice explains. “The audience did the hand claps in time with the riff. Ian had trouble hearing through the monitors that night in Osaka, so at the end he says that wonderful line: ‘I want everything louder than everything else!’”

“Montreux has always been special to us because of what happened,” Glover concludes. “I never get tired of playing the song. Someone once said it’s like having a button that you press to make the audience go nuts.”

Meanwhile, Simon McBride, the band’s current lead guitarist, says many guitarists play the riff incorrectly and has revealed why Blackmore’s unique approach to the riff was so fundamental to its success.

And while we're on the subject of classic rock riffs, Dweezil Zappa has lamented the lack of riffs in modern music.

And in related news, Candice Night has also spoken about Blackmore’s ongoing health issues and when he can be expected to grace the stage again.

As questions swirl about Ritchie Blackmore’s health, his wife and bandmate, Candice Night, reveals “there's the three main issues with him” prevent the guitarist from going back out on the road with their group, Blackmore's Night.

Blackmore, who changed the face of rock guitar with his pioneering, baroque-laced playing in Deep Purple, formed the Blackmore's Night folk-rock project with Night in 1997, four years after he left Deep Purple for a third and final time. Steve Morse and Simon McBride have respectively taken his place in the band.

Blackmore’s Night has since become his main project. But since releasing its 11th album, Nature’s Light, in 2021, the band has been silent as Blackmore faces mounting health issues.

“There's three main issues with him that are going on," Night tells the Iron City Rocks podcast (via Rayo). "He has a heart issue — he had a heart attack a couple of years ago, so we stay on top of that.

“He's got gout, so that's difficult,” she adds. “It's affecting his feet really badly. And it's starting in his forefinger, so it's hurting the mobility in that. He just had an injection for that. And his back, of course, which has always been an issue.”

Among the first rock guitar players to incorporate sweep-picking techniques into his arsenal, Blackmore was one of the fastest and most melodic shredders in 1970s hard rock, first with Deep Purple and after with Rainbow. His decision to pursue medieval-inspired folk-rock with Blackmore's Night left fans of his earlier style wanting. He reunited with Rainbow in 2016 for a trio of European concerts, but has worked only with Blackmore's night since then.

Now 80, Blackmore faces challenges that make traveling difficult. Flying is problematic as “jet lag stresses your heart,” Night says. “It really does take a toll on a human — on a healthy human, so forget about someone who's 80 years old and going through these issues."

Still, Night believes some concert dates could be possible in the future,

“With Ritchie, if you try to pressure him to do something, he instantly says no. He's like a teenager,” she says. “So I wait for him to come to the realization, or I drop little seeds here and there and try to wait for him to be ready to talk about it.

“He did just say, ‘What about doing some Blackmore's Night dates in the fall?’ So, of course, I got greatly excited about that.”

But, as was the case when news of a new King Crimson album broke last month, it helps to curtail expectations of immediacy. She says Blackmore, who is believed to live in Long Island currently, “would rather [play] places that he can drive to.

“We don't have a tour bus, and we don't have private planes. If we go someplace, I'm driving. So it's like a mini road trip. You get to the venue, you go back, you get a good night's sleep that night.”

“It's a very slowed-down way of doing it. But honestly, I'd much rather take something than nothing at all.”

Blackmore launched the video series Tales from the Tavern on YouTube in lieu of an official autobiography last year. His short-but-sweet anecdotes saw him reminiscing about instances from across his career.

There was the story of the time he protested hotel construction by cranking his amps at 3 a.m., only to discover that Eric Clapton was in the room next door. He's also shared origin stories for classic Deep Purple tracks, but the frequency of his videos has slowed to a stop, hinting at Blackmore’s currently limited capacity.

Speaking to Guitar World last year, Blackmore revealed that he bought his first Stratocaster for Eric Clapton at a bargain price, and he's since recalled the time he was pranked by Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Ian Anderson. The guitarist’s colorful career may not be over just yet, but a little patience is needed before he can hit the road once more.

As he proved once more at Back to the Beginning, where he performed a double shift by shredding with Ozzy and Pantera, Zakk Wylde is a versatile musician with a deep-rooted appreciation of the classics.

Having already shared his personal riff rundown with Guitar Player, Zakk Wylde sat down with Metal Hammer to discuss the greatest songs ever written, and locked in on a collection of riffs that underpin the history of rock guitar.

His first pick goes right back to the start of most players’ electric guitar journey.

“I think all us rock and metal guys have to learn ‘Smoke on the Water,’” he begins, believing that mastering its double-stop shifts is a rite of passage. “As soon as you hear that riff, it's just like Wow! The simplicity and power is just amazing.”

(I’m sure this writer wasn’t alone in first learning it the easy way — all on the low E string — but Simon McBride, who replaced Steve Morse in Deep Purple in 2022, says many guitarists are actually playing the song wrong.)

For Wylde, the riff also shows why guitarists should put songwriting, rather than outright showboating, first.

“For me, it was Sabbath first, and then I found Zeppelin and Deep Purple,” he says of his earliest rock discoveries. “And aside from the great musicianship of all three bands, they have great songs, they have iconic riffs.”

Another undeniable classic is one he has played countless times in front of an unfathomable amount of people since becoming Ozzy's foil in 1987: Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man.”

“You can play these riffs on one string — that's how iconic and classic they are,” he explains. “The great thing about Ozzy's singing is that, if the riff is powerful, he'll sing along with it.”

Discussing the origins of the riff with Guitar Player, Tony Iommi said the idea came from Bill Ward’s kick drum.

“I was in a rehearsal room, and Bill started playing this boom, boom, boom,” he recalled. “To the guitarist, the pounding sounded ominous. “In my head, I could hear it as a monster.”

The fact that Ozzy lifts the guitar melody for the vocals is inspired, not lazy. It showcases one of his greatest strengths as a songwriter.

“From all the years of me playing with Oz, whether it was ‘Miracle Man,’ ‘Crazy Babies,’ ‘Perry Mason,’ ‘No More Tears’ or ‘Mama I'm Coming Home,’ it would always be the first thing that came to his head,” he explains. “Very rarely did he go, ‘I've gotta come up with something better.’

“It's mindblowing; he really is the king of melody. Maybe it's because of his love of the Beatles; because Oz wouldn't know if it's major or minor — he'd just like the sound of it.”

The guitarist also believes “Jimmy Page could have quit right after ‘Rain Song’: That’s lights out, game over right there with the tuning and composition.”

He adds that Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” was “a big deal when I learned it,” praising its chord-based composition rather than turning to the iconic guitarist's more fretboard-burning creations.

The quintet of Zakk-approved tunes is rounded out by AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” a riff that had a much younger version of the guitarist stumped when he first tried to master it.

“I was able to play the chords, but I couldn't play to lick,” he reveals. Eventually he can't the hang of it. “You’ve gotta do a little by day by day: put another brick on the empire. Then I could play along to the record like, ‘Oh my god, this sounds amazing.’”

In related news, Wylde has recalled his audition for Ozzy's band, what surprised him about other candidates, and the strange gear quirks that the singer had when it came to writing riffs for him

He could have added another sterling name to his already-stacked resume, but says a Guns N' Roses audition lost him his place in Ozzy's band and sidelined his career.

Last year, he dished out his hacks for more creative guitar playing, and it’s a trick that has been the foundation of his career.

He called himself “the Killer,” and he lived up to the name, if not literally then figuratively.

Jerry Lee Lewis was one of rock and roll’s founding fathers, a piano-pounding boogie-woogie rocker with a piled-high pompadour and a smirk that said he didn’t give a shit if you liked him or not. He was a Sun Records original, alongside Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins, churning out hits that included signature romps like “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire.”

But while his fellow Sun rockers maintained favorable public profiles, Lewis was the bad boy, unpredictable except for the fact that you could count on him to stir up trouble wherever he went. He trashed pianos, crashed cars and once shot his bass player.

But Lewis scandalized rock and roll like few others when he married his 13-year-old first cousin once removed in 1957. The news didn’t come out until the following year, and when it broke, his career was all but finished.

By the time 1950s rock and roll had its revival in the early '70s, the world had moved on and Lewis was able to make a comeback. He staged it in Britain in 1973, where a new breed of electric guitar players were holding court. Lewis saw them as the key to his revival, and he courted them for his rather clumsily named album The Session...Recorded in London with Great Artists.

For guitarists and lovers of guitar rock, the record is notable for hosting appearances by British and Irish players like Albert Lee, Peter Frampton and Rory Gallagher. Lewis was attempting to stay relevant by connecting with the artists of the day in the hope that their cool would rub off on him.

It certainly didn’t hurt: The Session became his highest pop-charting album since his 1964 Golden Hits retrospective. It put his career back on track.

But as Gallagher revealed, the Killer was anything but an easy hang.

“He was pretty friendly with everyone, but you had to be one step ahead of him — you know, his sort of sense of humor,” Gallagher said of the sessions. “One minute he’s lifting the Steinway up on one foot, and…” He drifted off, leaving it to the reader to imagine what calamity might have followed.

Gallagher performed with Lewis on his cover of the Rolling Stones’ (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Apparently, the Killer had never heard the 1965 hit before.

Gallagher’s brother Donal recalled that Lewis, having read through Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ words for the tune, wasn’t sure if the song was real or a well-contrived joke to make old Jerry Lee look frustrated and out of touch.

“A bit bamboozled at the lyrics and a bit embarrassed at not really knowing of the song, Jerry’s paranoia kicked in and thought he was being ‘wound-up,’” Donal told Rolling Stone.

"Annoyance flashed on the Killer’s face, as his wild eyes scanned the studio, fixing on Rory. ‘I trust you boy. Without looking at anyone else but me, tell me truthfully, is there a song called ‘Satisfaction’? If so, you start teaching me.’”

Despite the melodrama, Rory appreciated that Lewis lived up to his legend.

“You know, that was the beauty of it,” he said. “You meet certain rock and roll legends and they’re a pale imitation of their stage image, or their legend is a kind of a dull version of it. But Jerry Lee was almost 99 percent full Technicolor!”

Dave Davies was considerably less generous in his estimation of the pianist. The Kinks cofounder was among the British guitarists — including Brian May — who performed with Lewis in London at a 1989 all-star tribute to the ‘50s rocker called Jerry Lee Lewis and Friends. Growing up in the 1950s, Davies considered Lewis “a big hero” alongside original rock guitarists like Chuck Berry.

But the tribute show changed all that.

“That was a big mistake,” Davies told Classic Rock in 2011. “I soon realized that Jerry Lee Lewis was an arsehole. A complete arsehole.

“He had a terrible personality. He didn’t treat people well at all. Maybe he was like that because he was surrounded by arseholes himself. You know, he could win all the accolades he wants, but on his deathbed he’ll have to look at himself.”

Davies and Gallagher at least had the advantage of being successful guitarists in their own right. Poor Ritchie Blackmore was a complete unknown when he began working with Lewis in 1963.

“Every time Jerry Lee Lewis would come to England, I was hired as his guitar player,” he told Guitar Player in 1996.

Like many artists of the day, Lewis would tour alone and use pickup bands and musicians for gigging. Blackmore, then performing with his group the Outlaws, was a frequent hire. But as he explained to GP, he had to endure a trial by fire at his first rehearsal with the Killer.

“The first time I played with him I’d just turned 18, and we were supposed to have a week’s rehearsal,” Blackmore explained. “The week before the tour he hadn’t turned up. Two days before the tour, still nothing. We were going to open in Birmingham, and he turned up the afternoon of the gig.

“I was shitting myself because I’d heard from all these bands that if you played a wrong note, Jerry would beat the shit out of you — he’d punch you in the face.

"I was a big fan, but I was very frightened of him.

“About an hour before the show, Jerry turns up, sits down at the piano and starts fiddling around. I’m petrified. I have no idea what this guy’s going to play, and we’re about to do a big show to a sold-out theater.

“He plays his intro and then turns around to us and says, ‘C’ [Blackmore sings a driving rock and roll groove]. The bass player’s giving me the nod for when we’re changing, because I still don’t know what we’re playing.

“Suddenly, Jerry Lee stops, says ‘F,’ and he’s into something else.

“Now he leaves the piano and starts to walk over to me. I’m absolutely petrified, looking at him, waiting for that punch.

“And he goes, ‘Play, boy,’ in that very southern way.

"I start taking my solo, sweating. ‘He’s going to hit me! I know it’s coming.’ He’s standing there with his hands on his hips, looking right at me.

"I came to the end of the solo, and he put his hand out: ‘Good, boy.’

“I was just relieved that he didn’t hit me!”

Blackmore went on to play many dates with Lewis, during which he and the Killer got better acquainted.

“After that we became the best of friends,” Blackmore said. “He wanted to bring me back to Memphis, but that was in ’63, and I was only 18.”

Over his 70-year career, Lewis would go on to work with many other guitar greats, including Jimmy Page, Keith Richards and B.B. King, whom he corralled for his star-studded albums. He continued his 12-bars-with-guitar-stars approach that worked so well for him back in 1973 right up until 2014, eight years before the Killer breathed his last on October 28, 2022.

There’s a great deal of symmetry to be found in the early years of Jimmy Page and Ritchie Blackmore. Both would leave behind their small village of Heston in Middlesex to become two of British rock and roll’s most prolific guitar players.

Once they’d mastered their craft enough to join bands, each cut his teeth in similar circles. And as Blackmore reveals, he knew Page was destined for greatness when they met some seven years before Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut album.

Discussing their shared early influences in the 2015 documentary The Ritchie Blackmore Story, Blackmore says it was the guitar-wielding sidemen, rather than the star singers, who grabbed their attention from the very beginning.

“When I was 11 it was about Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly,” he says, “and they had brilliant guitar players. You had Scotty Moore [in Elvis’s band], Buddy Holly played, and you had Cliff Gallup playing for Gene Vincent. We all idolized them. It was a very exciting time.

“I think at the age of 11 or 12 we all had first our acoustic guitars and then later on we got our electrics that we’d plug into the back of a two-watt radio,” he recalls.

“But it is strange how we all come from a similar area. Jimmy Page was from the same village, it wasn’t even a town, and Clapton was a few more miles out.”

Blackmore's first Fender Stratocaster actually belonged to Eric Clapton, whose roadie sold it to him for £60 — about $523 today — in 1969.

Jeff Beck meanwhile was going through the same motions at a similar age. He idolized Gallup above all others. When Guitar Player presented him with one of his hero's picks in 1993, Beck exclaimed, “I'm having a religious moment.”

As with Beck and Clapton, that symmetry could be extended even further, but it was Page that Blackmore met first.

“I met Jimmy Page in ‘62 when I was playing with a band called Screaming Lord Sutch & rhe Savages,” Blackmore explains. “We used to dress up like cavemen. I was thin as a rail at the time, so I was totally embarrassed to have this loin cloth on and all my bones showing. I was 16 or 17, and all the rest of the guys in the band were built like Charles Atlas.

“We played with a band called Neil Christian and the Crusaders, who I played with later, and [Jimmy] was playing his Gretsch guitar,” he continues.

Interestingly, Jimmy Page’s first proper guitar is believed to be a Gretsch Country Gentleman, which he used throughout the ‘60s, but it was cast aside by the time his recording career began. He'd switched to a Telecaster for his time with the Yardbirds.

“I knew he was going to be somebody then,” Blackmore remembers. “Not only was he a good guitar player, he had that star quality. There was something about him he was very poised and confident, but not arrogant. So I thought, He's going to go somewhere that guy, he knows what he's doing.

“He was way ahead of most guitar players and he knew he was good too. He was very comfortable within himself.”

Yet, his comments contradict the scathing retorts he had for his peers in Page and Clapton some 40 years earlier.

In March 1975 he was the cover star for International Musician & Recording World magazine. Speaking to American producer/guitarist Jon Tiven for the article, Blackmore was short on compliments for the pair.

“I'm not too struck on Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton," he said. "I never saw what was in Clapton at all.” However, it could be easy to dismiss those comments as ways of shooting down the competition. Perhaps Blackmore possessed an arrogance which he didn't reckon Page had.

That being said, Beck didn't find himself in the firing line.

“I like Jeff,” he told Tiven. “He's my favorite guitarist... a very natural guitar player. Being a guitarist, I obviously know a lot of tricks of the trade, but whenever I watch Beck I think, How the hell is he doing that?”

Ironically, when the pair did play togeher in those embryonic years, it was Beck doing the hand watching.

“In ‘64 or '65 I did a couple of sessions," Blackmore recalls. "Actually, one was with Jimmy Page, and one was with Jeff Beck.

"Jeff took the solo and everybody was raving about the solo, and I thought, Yeah that was a really good solo. But I noticed when I was playing that he was looking at my hands.

"I'm like, ‘Why are you looking at my hands?’ And he goes, ‘I don't know where we are; I'm just following your chords.’”

Ritchie Blackmore turned 80 years old yesterday. To celebrate, Guitar Player reached into the archives to resurrect his 1996 interview with the magazine, in which he spoke passionately about why the world needs more guitarists like Django Reinhardt.

This interview originally appeared in the December 1996 issue of Guitar Player under the title "Mistreated: Will Ritchie Blackmore Ever Get His Due?"

Deep inside a German castle, Ritchie Blackmore sits at a long table, dressed in medieval garb and clutching a goblet of mead. A group of minstrels skips into the dining chamber, playing a motley assortment of Renaissance instruments — crumhorns, sackbuts, rackets, regals, and hurdy-gurdies.

Transfixed by the otherworldly music and 16th-century setting, the Rainbow and former Deep Purple guitarist — a legend to thousands of aspiring virtuosos — experiences a sudden epiphany.

"This is what I want to do! I don't want to be plugged into a Marshall anymore!" he laughs, recalling the event later over a cold Beck's at a plush Manhattan hotel. "I actually said to them, 'Do you want a guitar player?' They said, 'No, we already have a lute player.' I was crushed."

It wouldn't be the first time Blackmore's been excluded from an elite musical club. While the trinity of Beck, Clapton and Page are roundly hailed as the Big Three of British rock guitar, mentions of Blackmore are usually reserved for the B-list, with a faint muttering about his infamous arrogance and a quip about "Smoke on the Water" inspiring 25 years of garage-band cacophony. Tell that to Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. "Pound for pound, he's one of the best soloists in history," Corgan says, "but he's such a dick that he'll probably never get the credit he deserves."

Okay, so Ritchie's been less than enchanting to certain individuals over the years. Miles Davis was no milquetoast either.

The facts: Despite his protestations to the contrary, Eddie Van Halen — perhaps the most influential post-Hendrix lead guitarist of the late '70s and '80s — owes far more to Blackmore's vocabulary than he does to Eric Clapton's, his professed main influence. Think about it: Rapidly ascending or descending triplet patterns, aggressive pick dynamics and quasi-Spanish phrasing, diatonic neoclassical runs, a beady and compressed high-gain sustain, stacked fourth double-stops over meaty, open-hat grooves, shrieking whammy bar growls, a screaming singer — the basic seeds of shred were sown by Blackmore and brought to full bloom by Eddie's original renegade vision. Not even Hendrix turns up in Van Halen's post-blues metal the way Blackmore does, and that goes double for Yngwie Malmsteen, Steve Morse (Ritchie's replacement in the new Deep Purple), Vinnie Moore, Randy Rhoads, Michael Schenker and many others.

While the rest of England's future guitar gods were listening to Chicago blues records in the mid '60s, Blackmore had already studied classical technique, played with Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis, and was doing extensive session work with producer Joe Meek and the Outlaws. He was also woodshedding with records by Chet Atkins, James Burton and Cliff Gallup. He admired Albert Lee's fiery finesse and dug the ferocious chops and cool attitude of Gypsy jazz giant Django Reinhardt. Instrumental Deep Purple tracks like "Wring That Neck," "Lazy" and "Mandrake Root" were born of virtuoso guitar traditions that relied on motifs, syncopation and long runs — not just licks and turnarounds — that most young guitarists of the era simply didn't grasp.

With jazz-informed drummer Ian Paice, it's little wonder Purple swung relentlessly on live ' 70s albums like the historic Made in Japan, which effortlessly melds space rock, boogie, jump blues, rockabilly and MC5-style protopunk. Delivered with monstrous chops, passion and high drama, Blackmore's cascading sextuplets on "Child in Time" married country bop and jump jazz with a new brand of hard rock vocabulary, creating a blueprint for the next generation of an1bitious players. With Rainbow he'd push the classical connection even further, with epic tracks like "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" snd "Stargazer.''

Blackmore may well deserve his reputation. He's a maverick, loner and practical joker who revels in gratuitous dissension. Claiming that singer Ian Gillan's attitude was becoming increasingly unprofessional and his voice "completely shot," Blackmore quit Deep Purple a year ago. (The classic Mark II lineup had re-formed in '85 and released several albums, including the excellent Perfect Strangers.) The 51-year-old has fired up Rainbow once again — albeit with completely different sidemen — on the new, heavily gothic Stranger in Us All, which delivers a refreshingly lyrical and laid-back lead approach.

In the market for a good 12-string, Blackmore, a fan of Adrian Legg and Leo Kottke, is also recording an acoustic album of Renaissance-inspired originals with his fiancée, Candice Night. Articulate, circumspect, and soft-spoken, Blackmore's a true eccentric who holds regular séances at his Long Island home, "practically lives" at Renaissance fairs, and maintains a surprisingly humble, even insecure, attitude toward his own electric guitar legacy.

"Music is an intangible force," he says as the lobby clock strikes midnight. "I'm still trying to master it, so telling someone else my views is like the blind leading the blind."

You have a long-standing reputation as being difficult and hard to work with.

My whole thing comes from Django Reinhardt. He's my hero, not just because of his playing, but because he was such an awkward bastard. It was brilliant how he would be scheduled to be onstage, and he'd still be in bed in a local hotel. And when they'd go to the hotel to get him, he'd have 20 people in the room with campfires going. He'd get paid an exorbitant amount and then take a taxi from Paris to Lyon, which is hundreds of miles.

Reading about that was so refreshing. I hate show biz. I hate people who confine themselves to the system. Why does everyone have to do the right interview at the right time, be on the right program, be politically correct, say the right things and be at the right parties? That gets up my nose. Why can't I just play the guitar? It's all I want to do. Why do I have to be in this video? Why do I have to say nice things to the record company president? Why can't we have more Django Reinhardts going, "Fuck everybody. I'll turn up when I feel like turning up." It's unfortunate that people like that usually end up penniless, compared to all the not-so-great musicians who know how to manipulate the music business and take it for everything it's worth.

Does it bother you that you're not given the same credit as Beck, Clapton, or Page?

No. I'm an introvert, as my father would say. I tend to be very withdrawn. I don't sell myself. I don't think Jeff Beck does either. I think Jimmy Page does and Eric does. They tend to push themselves out there a bit more, although they're all great people. A lot more falls on Eric because he can sing well, and Pagey is such a great writer and producer. Jeff is probably one of my favorite players. This man just hits notes and you think, How come that note's not on my guitar? And he gets this incredible sustain for no reason. He's so fresh, so un-show business. That's what I love about Jeff.

With all due respect to Page, I've always felt that Zeppelin was never as strong a live band as Purple, mainly because they didn't swing.

I agree with that, because Bonzo wasn't a swinging drummer. He was very good, but he was a lead-footed drummer. Ian Paice is a swing-type drummer, a jazzy, Buddy Rich-type drummer — skip-bop-bop-bop-bop. Also, Jon Lord was very inspired by Jimmy Smith and Graham Bond, who was the big thing in English jazz at the time.

You were one of the first rockers to play very long lines.

That's an interesting point. Pagey once asked me, "Where do you get all those runs from?" I developed it from Les Paul, Jimmy Bryant, Chet Atkins and Wes Montgomery. I wasn't listening to rock when I started out. The Beatles were around, but no one took that seriously — except for billions of record buyers! They're still a great band, but you couldn't learn anything instrumentally from them — pretty little tunes, though.

I was very into country music from '63 to '66: Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West, Chet and Don Rich, the guitarist from Buck Owens and the Buckaroos. In fact, when I first came to America in 1968, I thought it was a bit like taking coal to Newcastle. There are so many good players over here, why are we going to America? When people would tell me I played really well, I'd say, "You've got all these guys in Nashville who could burn me off the face of this earth." The response was, "Well, we don't listen to those people." Why not? "Well, that's country. They don't play rock."

Chet Atkins was my big idol. I used to try to copy his stuff. Back in '64 I learned Jimmy Bryant's "Arkansas Traveler." I played it for people just to show off. And of course I loved Gene Vincent's guitar player, Cliff Gallup, who was just phenomenal — another creative man who didn't play by the rules."

Who were your favorite blues players?

Shuggie Otis was the best player I’d ever heard. His father was Johnny Otis. He was only 14 at the time that he played most of his great solos. He had a very similar style to Mick Taylor, another favorite of mine — never throws away a note, and always that vibrato. I get a little lazy with my vibrato sometimes. It’s easy for me to play fast. I have to tell myself to slow down and say something: “Don’t just exercise, and remember the vibrato.” I always find that a good vibrato, like a B.B. King vibrato, is much easier to play, whereas a slow vibrato is more difficult. So I go for the slow vibrato just to punish myself.

Were you and Albert Lee friends or competitors in London in the ’60s?

I couldn’t compete with Albert — he was too good. I met Albert around 1962, the first time I went to London when I was around 16. I was a local boy from a very quiet village called Heston; I’ve since found out that Jimmy Page is from Heston, but I didn’t know him then. I’d never been to a nightclub before so I was a bit overwhelmed. The Ricky Barnes Band was playing, and their guitar player was Albert. He was playing a black Les Paul and he was just incredible. I didn’t know where his notes were coming from. It was such complicated, tasteful, brilliant stuff. I was like, “Oh, dear. If this is what I’ve got to compete with, I might as well hang it up. It’s all over.”

He was only a year older than me, so I was devastated. I went home with my tail between my legs. Luckily, not too many people played like Albert. I got friendly with Albert after a while, and I did an LP with him and my old teacher Big Jim Sullivan called Green Bullfrog.

Were your parents supportive of your career?

They were very supportive. When I was 11 years old, my father said, “I bought this guitar for you, and if you don’t learn it, I’m going to smack it across your head.” He sent me to lessons and said, “You’re going to learn to do this properly.” It was strange because the teacher was teaching me things like diminished and augmented chords, and I couldn’t even play a major chord yet. I was like, “What’s this all about? I just want to strum a guitar and show off. I don’t want to know about diminished chords.”

My dad worked at the airport as a draftsman, and he was very analytical. My mother was completely the opposite: “Just let him have fun.” My father helped me out in learning the guitar, because he was so mathematical. I’d say, “Dad, how do you play these notes?” He didn’t play an instrument, but he would work it out for me.

Do you still scallop the frets on your Strats?

Up to about the seventh fret, I sandpaper the frets very little. But up to about the 15th fret I get quite deep. Actually, I have two Fender Custom Shop models coming out. One of the models is something I designed myself. The whole thing is solid, not separate neck and body. I believe that the guitar resonates much better that way. It has two pickups, not three, very big frets and a scalloped neck. A lot of Fenders have such thin frets — very spidery. My neck will be one and a half inches at the nut and two inches at the 12th fret. Fender was telling me that Yngwie’s model doesn’t sell very well because of the scalloped neck. I said, “Yeah, but if we’re going to make a Ritchie Blackmore model, it has to be scalloped.” So they reluctantly scalloped it a bit, though I scallop it quite a bit more. But the result is very close to what I like.

Are you still a devoted Marshall man?

I use Engl amps now, built in Austria, and I have my own Ritchie Blackmore model. I first tried one when I needed a small amp to play with my friends, and I couldn’t believe how good it was. I asked a roadie of mine if we could get a deal, and he said, “No, the guy’s not interested in a deal. You’ll have to pay full price.” I was like, “I’m not going to pay full price for it.”

But after playing with it for a month, I said, “Okay, okay, I’ll pay full price.” That’s what I use on the entire new LP. And the head is only 50 watts. I was so sick of playing through my 280-watt Marshalls.

What’s the story behind those souped-up heads?

I wanted to use Marshall amps because they looked great and Jimi Hendrix and the Cream played them. At the time, I was still using a Vox AC30 with my Gibson 335. I knew Jim Marshall as a drum teacher who used to teach Mitch Mitchell, who, incidentally, worked in Marshall’s shop — Marshall’s of Ealing, near London. Pagey used to go in there a lot too. I told Jim that Hendrix using his amplifiers would make him huge worldwide. He said, “Hendrix — he’s the guy with the afro, right? Yeah, he’s doing well.” It didn’t quite click in. And Hendrix was paying for those amps, as were the Cream.

Ken Bran was the guy that really built the amps — Marshall just designed the speaker cabs and the look. I said to Ken, “I want to hear this really loud — that’s how we play.” He took me to a soundproof room, but it was still so loud that all the people on the assembly line—about 50 of them — would stop working and complain to Jim Marshall, “We’re not working with that racket.” I’d be playing for hours: “More treble!” Ken would literally be there with a soldering iron, taking out resistors. “More bass!” I told them I wasn’t happy with the sound. “There’s no sustain in your amps — no body.” “They’re good enough for Hendrix and Clapton.” “Yeah, but I want some sustain.”

I knew a bit about amplification. I used to work in radio at the airport. I told them that what it needed was an extra output stage, so they built extra output valves into it. After a while they explained that my amp was now 280 true watts, not American watts. This is equivalent to 600 watts.

Of course they said, “If anyone comes in here and asks for a Ritchie Blackmore amplifier, we’re going to tell them it’s stock Marshall, because we never want to do this again. You’ve put us through hell!”

Do you always solo with the neck pickup?
No. I change my settings probably 20 times during a solo. I like the inflections of different pickups. I’ll whip back the toggle switch to the treble pickup within one second of getting into a solo, and then back again.

Your sound is always so fat, though. It has the character of a single-coil, but the weight of a double. Is that just a function of cranking your amp?

It’s my preamp, which is an old souped-up Aiwa reel-to-reel tape recorder that I originally used as a tape delay. I had it lying around the house in 1970 and I thought, What can I do with this? In those days you made everything count. It has an input and output stage, so I plugged into it and noticed that it gave me a fatter sound—about a three-watt boost. I used it from that day on. If I don’t use it, the sound is too shrill. It seems to calm the sound down and get more midrange. It drives people nuts on the road — it breaks down all the time because it’s so antiquated.

I had a new one made to identical specs, but I could hear a difference. That’s the sound I’m used to, and I find it very difficult to play without it. I just thought it was a normal tape deck, but now it’s become this little soul on the side of the stage. It’s like my little friend. It waves to me. Nobody would dream of having that today. “Hey man, you could have 14 pedals that do that.” “Yeah, but are they old souls?”

When Christopher Cross came out of nowhere to score big time with his 1979 self-titled debut album, many assumed he was an overnight sensation. At the 23rd Annual Grammy Awards held in February 1981, Cross would take home five Grammys for the disc including, for the first time ever, four of the most prestigious awards: Record of the Year and Song of the Year (both for the single “Sailing”), Album of the Year and Best New Artist.

Despite his status as an overnight sensation, Cross had journeyed 10 years to reach that night — from his early days as an up-and-coming electric guitar player with killer chops to his sudden ascension to the top of the 1980s’ soft-rock genre… or as it’s known today, yacht rock.

Remarkably, Cross’s underrated guitar playing talents have always taken a back seat to his songwriting. Yet upon closer inspection, his output occasionally reveals his proficiency on the instrument. While the dulcet tones of “Sailing” might make listeners overlook his guitar skills, it’s hard to miss the face-melting guitar solo on the outro to Cross’s 1980 hit “Ride Like the Wind” (although you may wish they’d mixed it a tad louder).

Remarkably, there’s one guitarist who was aware of Cross’s talents long before nearly everyone else: Ritchie Blackmore.

In August 1970, Blackmore and his then-current group Deep Purple arrived in the U.S. on a tour that launched at the Jam Factory in San Antonio, Texas, Cross’s hometown. Cross, then working under his birth name, Chris Geppert, was one of the hottest guitarists on the local scene, a long-haired, heavy-music loving axeman who played in a covers band called Flash.

Cross was also a huge Deep Purple fan with a strong knowledge of the group’s catalog. All of which made him a shoe-in when Blackmore suffered a reaction to a flu shot and took ill prior to the performance.

"It was their very first show in the United States ever and someone advised them to get flu shots,” Cross told author Greg Prato in his 2018 book, The Yacht Rock Book: The Oral History of the Soft, Smooth Sounds of the 70s and 80s. “So, they did, and Ritchie Blackmore got very sick.”

The promoter behind the show, Joe Miller, was also friendly with Cross. “And Joe Miller — who was kind of managing me at the time — said, 'You know, there's this guitarist in town who's a big fan of Ritchie's and he could probably step in,’” Cross recalled.

Although Deep Purple frontman Ian Gillan was reportedly against it, the rest of the band had no objections. It didn’t hurt that Cross and his band had opened for Led Zeppelin just one year prior. He had even purchased Jimmy Page’s HiWatt amp head and a 4x12 cabinet for $700.

"So I came down, and I had a Flying V and long hair, and I'm this big Ritchie fan,” Cross continued. “So, we played the songs that I knew and then we jammed some blues.

“It was a great moment for me. And then, when they left town, I went to the airport and got to meet Ritchie, and he thanked me for covering for him."

Years later, Cross learned that Deep Purple’s keyboardist, the late Jon Lord, denied it ever happened.

“Max Vaccaro, who runs the [Eagle Rock Records] label, says he mentioned the story to Jon Lord, and Jon Lord said that never happened, ever,” Cross recalled. “So Max Vaccaro was kind of like, 'I think you're bullshitting.’”

Fortunately, Cross knew the Austin-based guitarist whose band opened for Deep Purple that night: Eric Johnson. The blues guitarist was all of 15 at the time his band Mariani supported Purple. It was there that Johnson and Cross first met, and Johnson recalls the date quite well today.

“Ritchie Blackmore had gotten sick and was unable to play the gig,” he confirms to Guitar Player. “An 18-year-old guitarist who lived in San Antonio was an avid Deep Purple fan and knew their songs. He was hired to fill in for Ritchie that night.

“That was the first time I met Christopher Cross. He showed up at the gig and asked me if he could use my amp. He played a Flying V and was quite the rocker! We’ve been good friends ever since.”

Cross continued to refine his guitar playing skills over the ensuing decade by paying his dues on the tough live circuit. He would often be found jamming the blues with fellow Texans Billy Gibbons and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In fact, Cross was the previous owner of Vaughan’s iconic Number One Fender Stratocaster, having traded it at Ray Hennig’s Heart of Texas music shop in Austin for a Les Paul because he wanted a guitar with a ballsier sound.

Johnson, meanwhile, continued to cross paths with Cross and would later guest on a track from Cross’s self-titled 1979 debut album. Containing the hits “Sailing” and “Ride Like the Wind,” Christopher Cross would provide the guitarist with his well-earned breakthrough

As for that burning outro solo on “Ride Like the Wind,” Cross nearly gave the spot away to a couple of hired guns: top-notch session guitar supremos Jay Graydon and Larry Carlton, who’d been hired to assist on the album. However, the album’s producer, Michael Omartian, had witnessed Cross’s six-string wizardry and suggested he perform instead.

Although he was reluctant to expose his playing skills after being around such accomplished guitarists, Cross eventually gave in and plugged his ’59 Gibson Les Paul Standard straight into a Dumble amp and laid down a blistering guitar solo in one take. Not too bad for a guy who popular culture remembers today as a yacht rock kingpin.

Guitar legend Ritchie Blackmore suffered a heart attack a year and a half year ago and has been warned not to travel by air, his wife, Candice Night, says.

Night, who performs with the former Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist in their renaissance rock band Blackmore’s Night, says Blackmore has six coronary stents, indicating the rock guitar legend has coronary artery disease.

He will turn 80 on April 14.

News of Blackmore's health was shared when Night spoke with Dawn Osborne of TotalRock about Blackmore’s Night returning to Europe for live shows.

"As far as flying anywhere right now, Ritchie has actually been told by his cardiologist not to get in a plane,” Night says. “He had a heart attack about a year and a half ago. He's got six stents. And I can't believe he's gonna be 80 on April 14th, which is crazy.

"But he doesn't look it, still doesn't act it. But eventually medical things wind up catching up with you. So we've gotta make sure we keep him happy and healthy.”

Night adds that the guitarist is also suffering from gout and arthritis, while dealing with back problems.

“So it's getting harder for him — it's tricky,” she says. “But, hey, I've seen people younger than him in wheelchairs onstage doing what they do.”

While Night says she understands why Blackmore wouldn’t want fans to see him in a wheelchair, “I would think people would just be happy to be under the same roof with him and listen to him play whatever he comes up with,” she says.

Ages have passed since Blackmore was among the reigning guitar champions of rock. As Deep Purple’s axman, he was known for flaying his Fender Stratocaster around the stage in extended bouts of guitar destruction.

Blackmore also became known as one of rock’s loudest guitarists, due in no small part to his use of a specially modified Marshall amplifier. Although he was no fan of Marshall amps, he appreciated the volume he could coax from them, and had the company place the electronics from his much-loved Vox AC30 into a Marshall Major head and tweak its output from 200 to 280 watts.

Blackmore subsequently went on to form Rainbow, the heavy metal group he regrouped in 2015 for a series of live shows that marked the guitarist’s return to rock after years playing with Blackmore’s Night. Blackmore formed the renaissance-rock group with Night in 1997. Although best known for his electric guitar work, Blackmore also performs on acoustic guitar and various renaissance-era strings instruments with the act.

He is not the only guitarist whose health issues are affecting his career. Rockabilly guitar great Brian Setzer revealed in February that an autoimmune disease has left him unable to play guitar, although he said recently that he is “getting better day by day.”

Peter Frampton, meanwhile, is dealing with Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM), a degenerative order, that he's been battling for the past 10 years. The guitarist made a surprise visit to the Martin Guitar booth at NAMM 2025, where he revealed he will tour and record in 2025 as his health allows.

Guitarist Harvey Mandel wants credit for helping to bring two-handed tapping into rock guitar’s repertoire. Not only does he claim to have been performing the technique on electric guitar several years before Eddie Van Halen rose to prominence, but he has two well-known guitarists to back him up.

Ritchie Blackmore told Guitar World’s Mordechai Kleidermacher way back in 1991 that he’d first witnessed two-handed tapping when he saw Mandel perform in the late 1960s.

“The first person I saw doing that hammer-on stuff was Harvey Mandel, at the Whisky A Go-Go in '68," said Blackmore, who told Guitar Player in 2018 how he ended up with the world's loudest Marshall amplifier. "I thought, What the hell is he doing? It was so funny.” Blackmore claimed the sight was so odd that “even the audience stopped dancing. Obviously, Eddie Van Halen must have picked up a few of those things.”

More recently, in an interview with Rocket circa 2009, George Lynch claimed he and Eddie Van Halen were together when they saw Mandel perform the technique. “We both witnessed Harvey Mandel from Canned Heat do a neoclassic tapping thing at a club called the Starwood in Hollywood back in the 70’s,” Lynch revealed.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Mandel makes it clear he doesn’t want to be overlooked for his contribution.

“I was actually doing it way before Van Halen and way before almost everyone else did after him,” he says. “People heard my stuff and thought I was a jazz player!”

As Mandel explains, he picked up the two-handed tapping technique in the late ‘60s from Randy Resnick, his co-guitarist in the American blues-rock group the Pure Food and Drug Act.

“He did it in a very melodic but simple way,” Mandel says of Resnick, adding that he was able to figure out the technique on his own after watching Resnick.

“Unfortunately, when I was doing the tapping, I wasn’t with a known band,” Mandel says, “as opposed to Van Halen, who had a hit record, so he did it, and the world got to hear it. When I did it, the audience that got to hear me do it was much more limited.”

While Ace Frehley has claimed Van Halen took the concept from him, Mandel believes the guitarist was inspired to perform two-handed tapping after seeing him do it at the Starwood.

“I was playing at the Whisky and the Starwood, and George Lynch, Van Halen and a couple of different people saw me doing it,” he says. “Next thing I know, he’s using it all the time, and he took it off into his own world.”

Mandel makes it clear that he has no beef with Van Halen. “He played great; I can’t say anything bad about Van Halen,” he explains. “He was a great player! But he was more of a gymnastic player.

“I still did the fast tapping and everything, but I tried to make it more musical, and parts of the melodies of the songs and stuff, as opposed to just going crazy and showing off with it.”

For a good listen to Mandel's tapping in action, check out his 1973 album Shangrenade. "Every song, every note of guitar you’re hearing on that record, except for the rhythm playing, I’m doing finger tapping," Mandel told Guitar Player in an excellent 2022 interview with Bill Milkowski for his most recent album, Who's Calling. "All those melodies, everything I did is total finger-tap style. And everything wasn’t about doing the real fast thing like Eddie Van Halen did. It’s more slow melodies, some soloing, but still going back and forth from one hand to the other, totally tapping. It’s all fingertips."

As for Van Halen, he told Guitar World in 2008 that he got the idea from Jimmy Page. "I think I got the idea of tapping watching him do his ‘Heartbreaker’ solo back in 1971,” he told the magazine. “He was doing a pull-off to an open string and I thought… I can do that, but what if I use my finger as the nut and move it around?"

The origins of two-handed tapping on guitar go back well before Mandel or his bandmate Resnick. As just a few examples, pickup designer Harry DeArmond used the technique to demonstrate his pickups’ sensitivity, and his friend Jimmie Webster not only put it to use but also described it in his 1952 guitar instruction book Touch Method for Electric and Amplified Spanish Guitar. Barney Kessel employed it as well, as did Italian guitarist Vittorio Camardese, who demonstrated two-handed tapping in 1965 on an Italian television show.

Mandel has had quite a diverse career, having performed with Charlie Musselwhite, Graham Bond and John Mayall, among others. He began working with Canned Heat in 1969 and played with the group at Woodstock that year.

Following Mick Taylor’s departure from the Rolling Stones, Mandel was invited to perform on their 1976 album Black and Blue. As he tells Guitar World in his new interview, he believes he would have been invited to join the group were it not for Keith Richards’ friendship with Ronnie Wood, who became — and remains — Keef’s co-guitarist.

When it comes to guitar in modern music, Dweezil Zappa says the guitar riff has lost its place as the hook of the song, or even part of the song at all.

It’s no secret that the electric guitar has faded in stature within popular music since the 1990s. Some outliers buck the trend, of course. Taylor Swift’s popularity has helped shine a fresh light on the acoustic guitar as a songwriting tool, and contemporary pop queens Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan find themselves in the center of a guitar solo revival.

But for the most part, the decline of the instrument has ultimately starved modern music of guitar riffs.

“A riff, in general, is a thing that has disappeared from modern music,” Zappa tells Matt Pinfield. “It used to be that you would have a singular type of phrase that was played on a guitar mainly, and — because of the personality of the guitarist, and the tone, and the vibe of it — you got into the song straight away. It wasn’t about all these other production elements. It was the real hook of the song.”

Taking Zappa’s comments at surface level, it would be easy to dismiss them as mere nostalgia chasing. Dig a little deeper, though, and it becomes an interesting observation of how songwriting, as an art form and a product has developed beyond the riff and the earworm it represented.

“You had guys like Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix that were great at writing these small, micro-encapsulated things that would stick in your head," Zappa says. "That also inspired you to pick up the guitar because it was so cool-sounding that you’re like, ‘I gotta find a way to do that.’”

Zappa has previously spoken about how he became obsessed with Van Halen’s music after hearing "Eruption" for the first time, which sent him down his pathway to shred. Little would he know his guitar hero would come to his house less than a year later, allowing him the rare chance to learn from him up close. Soon after, Eddie Van Halen showed up at his school talent show to gift him a rare Kramer guitar.

But apart from those lucky close encounters, Dweezil and so many impressionable teens like him were motivated to take up guitar by the power of guitar riffs.

Zappa points to some classic examples of rock tunes that remain popular today, many generations on, as evidence of the guitar power and the important role guitarists used to play in music writing.

“‘Smoke on the Water,’ ‘Purple Haze’ and songs that have these immediate things where you get into it as soon as you hear the guitar — that’s a really interesting way of thinking about how songs were written back in the day and what guitar players brought,” Zappa adds.

“‘Smoke on the Water’ is one of those riffs because it’s simple sounding. Compared to other things, it is easier to play on guitar, but it’s the feel and the timing and the way that he attacks the strings that gives it the personality that makes you really go, ‘Oh yeah, I’m into this.’”

As Deep Purple’s latest recruit, Simon McBride recently revealed, however, it’s a riff that many guitarists play wrong. The Irishman has stepped into Steve Morse's shoes after a lengthy 28-year spell as the band's lead guitarist and he's found that, when it comes to that iconic riff, simplicity is best.

“Some people overcomplicate the ‘Smoke’ riff by playing it like a guitar player — you know, they throw vibrato and other things into it – but then the riff loses its essence,” McBride says. “You just have to keep it simple. There are plenty of other places in the set for me to try new things.”

Dweezil doesn't go as far as to voice concerns about whether that could contribute to lower numbers of people wanting to learn the instrument, but it’s certainly clear that mainstream music is light on riffs and those eye-opening moments they can bestow on listeners the world over.

In his Deep Purple days, Ritchie Blackmore was known for two things: his habit of torturing his Fender Stratocasters and his love of volume. But getting an amp as loud as he wanted took particular skills and talents. It also took perseverance on Blackmore’s part to convince the only man he knew could do it: Jim Marshall.

“I knew him as a friend, because I used to buy my guitars from him,” Blackmore told Guitar Player in 2018. “He was a drum teacher, and he had a music shop in Ealing. Mitch Mitchell [of the Jimi Hendrix Experience] used to work there.”

As Marshall moved into amp making, he opened a factory in Bletchley. “Jim was a very nice man,” Blackmore said. “His office was down the road from the factory, but he would always come in when I was in there, because he could hear me blasting away. He would say, ‘I knew you were here!’ ”

As it happened, Blackmore wasn’t a big fan of the Marshall sound. “It was too mellow and too muted,” he said. “Hendrix always had trouble with the transformers blowing up if you pushed the amp too hard. They corrected the transformer problem, but it's interesting to note that Jim Marshall didn't know much about amplifiers, and yet he knew how to design something that caught on like crazy. This is a similar situation with Leo Fender, who never played a guitar.”

Blackmore was actually enamored of his Vox AC30, but Marshall was unable to match its tone. “I’d try to get them to give me more distorted treble on the output side,” he explained. “I’d go into a soundproofed room to test the amps — which still didn't stop the women who worked in the factory from saying they couldn't work or concentrate with me playing so loud.”

As he told Guitar World in 2018, the company came up with a cunning solution in 1970. “One of the secrets that they will deny to this day — ’cause they told me they would — was that they could not come up with the sound that I wanted,” Blackmore told the magazine. “I wanted this Vox sound, which was very distorted and very cutting, but seemed to have a bass resonance. And they just couldn’t get that.

"So in the end they said, 'What we’re going to do is get one of our combo amps and we’ll take out the innards and put in the Vox innards. So you’ll actually be playing a Vox, but it’ll say Marshall.' That was the big secret of the day.”

So much for secret number one.

But Marshall wasn’t about to give up that easily. Technicians Ken Flegg and Ken Bran took a Marshall Major — a 200-watt behemoth designed around four KT88 output tubes — and went to work. “They ended up building an extra output stage on the 200-watt Marshall, which took the wattage up to 280 watts,” Blackmore said. “At that point, I basically had the loudest amp ever made by Marshall.”

Blackmore got his amp, but Marshall swore him to a second secret: “They said if I told anyone, they would deny it, because they didn't want to have to make any more like that. I think I caused them a bit of grief.”

Ritchie Blackmore has never been shy in his regard for his fellow musicians. And not surprisingly, some of his comments have been highly controversial.

In 1991, he raised a stink with his appraisal of Jimi Hendrix. “I was impressed by Hendrix,” he told Guitar World in 1991. “Not so much by his playing as his attitude. He wasn’t a great player, but everything else about him was brilliant. Even the way he walked was amazing. His guitar playing, though, was always a little bit weird.”

In that same interview, Blackmore offered an uncomplimentary view of another Fender Stratocaster player. "Stevie Ray Vaughan was very intense. Maybe that's what caught everybody's attention,” he suggested. “As a player, he didn't do anything amazing."

Which raises the question, what musical artist does impress the erstwhile Deep Purple/Rainbow guitarist?

If it’s not obvious, think for a moment about the music he makes now with his Renaissance folk-rock act Blackmore’s Night. What other band in rock history comes close?

If you guessed Jethro Tull, you’re correct. In fact, in Blackmore's and Tull’s heyday, the guitarist would catch the band every chance he had. Blackmore admired music built on originality and complexity, and he was impressed by Anderson's flair for crafting highly intricate baroque-flavored rock in convoluted meters.

“Ian Anderson is a genius, especially with his later stuff,” Blackmore told Guitar Player writer Steven Rosen for his cover story in the December 1977 issue. “It's horrifying to think how he wrote that stuff. But if you talk to him, he goes, ‘Oh, I just count two.’ But you can't count two over that — it's 9 over 5 1/2! Martin Barre and the rest of the group must have memories like computers to remember that.

“Admittedly I wouldn't like to be in that band playing the same thing every night," he added. "But I love to go and see them. I see them at least four times a year."

Blackmore — who was known to have Tull's "SeaLion" playing in venues prior to his shows — admitted that he’d become such a fan boy, Ian Anderson once decided to take the piss out of him in front of a packed theater.

"In fact the last time I went and saw them was in Paris, and they put me right in the front row," he said. "I thought, "Why do they want me in the front row right in front of Ian Anderson?"

“So it came to the last number and Ian leaps off the stage and lands in my lap and starts singing to me. The spotlight is on me and I'm trying to act cool because my girlfriend was there."

Although he was less than thrilled at having his tough-guy public persona messed with, Blackmore was charmed by the episode and continued to to love Anderson's work. “Whenever he brings out a new LP, I say I hope it's not as good as the rest of them, because then I'll feel a little bit better that I can't write like that," he said. "And sure enough, he comes out with another blinder. He gets so involved he writes a symphony.”

Blackmore was somewhat less enthused about Tull guitarist Martin Barre, and shared some blunt opinions that, while fair, weren’t the kind of thing to win him any favor.

“Martin is fun, he's got a great memory, but he hasn't learned to improvise too well I think,” Blackmore said. “He's got a problem there with his fingers, but he's still great. You can't say anything against him because he's such a nice guy.”

As we reported here recently, Blackmore was highly complimentary about former Beatle George Harrison when the two greats teamed up in 1984 during an Australian tour in support of Deep Purple MkII's album Perfect Strangers. But it seems he was more impressed by George’s feet than his playing.

“George was very modest,” he concludes. “A very quiet man. I noticed onstage that he had big feet, because he was tapping out the rhythm. I looked down at one point and thought, My god, he has big feet!”

Ritchie Blackmore may be considered one of the definitive rock and roll Stratocaster players, but it wasn’t until 1970’s earth-rattling masterpiece In Rock that the Fender model found its way onto Deep Purple records.

Before then, Blackmore’s weapon of choice — from his pre-Purple instrumental group, the Outlaws, through to the band’s early shows and recordings — was a 1961 Gibson ES-335.

But it appears the choice wasn’t entirely his own.

As Blackmore explains in the latest episode of his Tales from the Tavern YouTube series, he was interested in buying a Gretsch Jet Firebird when a very persuasive salesman disabused him of that idea.

That man was none other than famed amp maker Jim Marshall, who at the time ran a music store in London's Hanwell borough.

“I went there with the intention of buying a Gretsch Jet Firebird,” Blackmore reminisces. “After half an hour of a sales pitch, he said, 'Forget the Gretsch. That's a toy compared to the 335.' I went, 'But I want the Gretsch. I love the Jet Firebird.' He said, 'You'll appreciate the 335 Gibson much more later in life.' So I walked out with a Gibson!”

Marshall's powers of persuasion went beyond his electric guitar pitch. He also convinced Blackmore to buy an amp. As a result, the guitarist says, “I was left with next to nothing to live on for the week!”

Marshall’s store was situated near the infamous Ealing Club where Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones met, leading to the formation of the Rolling Stones. It would be a little while longer before Marshall redefined the amplifier world with his namesake brand.

“Jim was a very affable kind of guy,” Blackmore says. “He knew nothing about amplifiers, yet it's funny to see today, every band has got a Marshall amplifier, and that was built in the beginning by someone who knew nothing about amplifiers.

“He was a drum teacher,” the guitarist continues. “I always find that slightly amusing!”

The ES-335 would go on to feature in the video for Deep Purple's "Child In Time."

It wouldn't be the last time someone influenced Blackmore's guitar-buying habits. By the late 1960s, the ES-335's neck was becoming bowed and he began looking for a replacement. He found what he wanted in 1969 when one of Eric Clapton's roadies, with a black Strat in hand, stopped by the house Blackmore shared with the rest of Deep Purple. He bought the Strat, which had belonged to Clapton, and went on to own many more (and even obliterate a fair few).

Blackmore wouldn't meet Slowhand for another four years when, in 1973, he accidentally gave his fellow Strat-lover a rude awakening at 3 a.m. The guitarist had cranked a Marshall stack (Jim Marshall strikes again!) to protest construction work that had been going on in the hotel. He had no idea Clapton was fast asleep in the room next door.

Another episode of Tales From the Tavern saw Blackmore remembering the time George Harrison sheepishly asked if he could join Deep Purple on stage, and play one of Blackmore's Strats in the process. Even though Blackmore butchered the Little Richard cover they played, he says the Beatle was having so much fun, he didn't notice.

The thorny subject of the greatest guitar solo of all time has long been a fiercely contested debate, probably because every solo is different. How do you compare, say, “Comfortably Numb” with “Crazy Train,” or “Stairway to Heaven” with “Sultans of Swing”? It’s impossible. Still, public opinion ebbs and flows, and we wanted to find out which solos currently rank among our readers as the greatest of them all.

So we ran a poll on GuitarPlayer.com to find out and here we present the results. We’ll take a look at the stories behind the songs and find out just what made those lead guitar breaks so great through conversations with Brian May, Kirk Hammett, Michael Schenker and others.

20. Gary Moore | “Still Got the Blues”

GUITARIST: GARY MOORE (1990)

The definitive blues guitar ballad.

Presented as the title track from his 1990 album, this wistful tune in A minor became Gary Moore’s calling card fairly late in his career, when he reinvented himself as a blues artist. There’s a point in the solo where you can hear the Belfast great switch from the neck humbucker to the bridge on the 1959 Les Paul Standard he nicknamed Stripe and start deviating from its main theme, mainly sticking within the A minor pentatonic scale, with a few notes from the Aeolian and harmonic minor scales.

Moore was plugged into his prototype Marshall JTM-45 reissue head with one of the company’s newly designed Guv’nor distortion pedals out in front. More than 30 years later, this remains one of the most raw and expressive blues tracks, with Moore almost fighting his guitar at points, yet never failing to deliver the goods

19. Metallica | “Fade To Black”

GUITARIST: Kirk Hammett (1984)

Metallica’s first ballad features some of Kirk’s most epic playing.

Recorded at Flemming Rasmussen’s Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen in February and March 1984, Ride the Lightning, Metallica’s sophomore album, was more progressive and stylistically greater in scope than the all-out thrash assault of their debut, Kill ’Em All. That change is evident on “Fade to Black,” which features acoustic guitars and a nonstandard structure more akin to the “Stairway to Heaven” school of songcraft. But it is the song’s timeless melodic solo that most vividly signals a stylistic shift in guitarist Kirk Hammett’s playing. And the signature element he employs for the last solo is arpeggios.

“I have been playing that song for so long now,” Kirk tells our sister publication Total Guitar. “For the very last solo, I know how I want to start it, but then I am in an area where I can improvise for 16, 18 or 24 bars, and then [drummer] Lars [Ulrich] will hit a certain fill, which means that it’s up and it’s time for the arpeggio part. And then I just slide right into those arpeggios.” And they are arpeggios played on two strings, Hammett specifies. “When guitar players first started incorporating arpeggios into their playing, before the whole Yngwie sweep-picking thing, arpeggios were played on two strings – not three or four strings,” he explains. “And that was what the vogue was at the time in the 1980s, so I have been playing those for a long time. I use my middle finger just to anchor my position on the neck.”

That’s a great tip from the man who plays the solos. But how should you tackle them yourself? First, there are two essential scales you’ll need to know: the B natural minor scale and the B Phrygian mode, both shown below. These cover you for the entire opening 30 bars, which, let’s face it, is a lot of music, so this is a good reason to learn a couple of shapes if ever there was one.

To make it simpler, most of your time is spent in the natural minor scale. Not until around bar 20 will you find yourself briefly landing on the C note, which appears in the Phrygian mode. The bottom line is that Hammett improvises this part of the solo live – and these are the shapes he uses.

Up next are those two-string arpeggio shapes, and they’re 16th notes – all of them! At 142 bpm, it’s pretty fast, but Hammett doesn’t pick every note, opting to use pull-offs to make those rapid licks easier. It’s definitely something to experiment with and if you’re still struggling, you could try adding in an occasional hammer‑on, too.

18. Steely Dan | “Kid Charlemagne”

GUITARIST: Larry Carlton (1976)

Messin’ with the “Kid.”

Steely Dan’s catalog is filled with remarkable guitar solos, but Larry Carlton’s brilliant work on The Royal Scam’s “Kid Charlemagne” remains the most celebrated. Carlton strings together a series of tasty phrases that follow the underlying chord changes with a blend of inside and outside playing that is technically mind bending and emotionally satisfying.

“I was pretty familiar with the tune, so I just improvised,” he tells Guitar Player. “People think I’m kidding when I say that, like I had worked the solo out beforehand, but I didn’t. It was straight improv, and it worked.” Very well, in fact. Perhaps more has been written about his solo than of the song itself.

Despite the acclaim, Carlton was, and remains, nonplussed. “When the record came out, there was a wonderful review of the tune in Billboard and they raved about the solo,” he says. “I put the record on and listened to it with my wife, and at the end of it I said, ‘I don’t know. It just sounds like me.’”

17. Cream | “Crossroads”

GUITARIST: Eric Clapton (1968)

The finest rock and roll cover of an acoustic blues song.

It started as a blues tune called “Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson and became one of the finest examples of natural ability, soulfulness and showmanship from a virtuosic 22-year-old guitarist named Eric Clapton. His reimagining of the song as “Crossroads” further cemented a legacy that by then had earned him the nickname God.

Famously recorded at San Francisco’s Fillmore West venue for supergroup Cream’s Wheels of Fire album, Clapton’s arrangement retains the soul and spirit of Johnson’s original but updates it for a contemporary audience raring to cut loose and be entertained by dazzlingly quick, passionate musicianship.

Remarkably, Clapton is no fan of the performance: He complains that the band lost the “one” in the first verse of his second solo break, thereby throwing off his phrasing. That’s perfectionism for you. For everyone else, this four-minute track remains a source of fascination more than 50 years on.

16. Eric Johnson | “Cliffs Of Dover”

GUITARIST: Eric Johnson (1990)

Heavenly tones from the Texan great.

This instrumental won Eric Johnson a Grammy for its exquisitely tasteful guitar playing and jaw-dropping tones. For the recordings, the Texan musician mainly stuck with his early ’60s ES-335, though he chose to use his 1964 “Virginia” Strat for the opening lead and parts of the main solo. The guitars were fed into a 100-watt Marshall Super Lead, with an Echoplex and BK Butler Tube Driver to help achieve those smooth, violin-like tones and warm sustain.

“I first heard him in 1986 on Live at Austin City Limits,” Joe Bonamassa told us in 2015. “It was ‘Cliffs of Dover,’ and it was just terrifyingly good guitar playing. I wasn’t even sure if it was real! Then I saw him live, and his tones were the best I’d ever heard. I wondered how this guy was getting all of these sounds out of his Strat. I’d never seen anybody have such a forward-thinking rig like that.”

15. Prince | “Purple Rain”

GUITARIST: Prince (1984)

The Purple One’s defining guitar moment.

The epic outro to “Purple Rain” – which takes up nearly two thirds of the song itself – stands out as some of Prince’s finest work on the six-string, wailing away in G minor pentatonic and occasionally including some more modal notes, like the minor 6th. There’s also that repeating motif that dances around the 2nd and minor 3rd intervals.

It’s simple and effective, setting things up for the vocal melody that comes in toward the end. It’s not a busy solo by any means. Rather, the Purple One chose to leave a lot of space in between the lines he played and focus on big hooks instead of monster licks.

Prince would extend the solo for up to 15 minutes in live performance. While there are many great live renditions of this track, his half-time performance for 2007’s Super Bowl in Miami is the stuff of legend. Shredding alone onstage in the middle of a storm, Prince seemed to be living the moment for which this song was written.

14. Deep Purple | “Highway Star”

GUITARIST: Ritchie Blackmore (1972)

Race with devil on English highway.

“I wrote that out note for note about a week before we recorded it,” Ritchie Blackmore said of his remarkable and most definitely memorable solo to “Highway Star.” “And that is one of the only times I have ever done that. I wanted it to sound like someone driving in a fast car, for it to be one of those songs you would listen to while speeding. And I wanted a very definite Bach sound, which is why I wrote it out – and why I played those very rigid arpeggios across that very familiar Bach progression – D minor, G minor, C major, A major. I believe that I was the first person to do that so obviously on the guitar, and I believe that that’s why it stood out and why people have enjoyed it so much.

“Over the years, I’ve always played that solo note for note, but it just got faster and faster onstage because we would drink more and more whisky. [Keyboardist] Jon [Lord] would have to play his already difficult part faster and faster, and he would get very annoyed about it.”

13. Guns N’ Roses | “Sweet Child O’ Mine”

GUITARIST: Slash (1988)

A game of two halves.

Slash’s solo on this Guns N’ Roses breakthrough single is rock guitar at its finest. The first half is laid-back and modal, built around the Eb minor scale with a few major 7ths thrown in for a harmonic-minor flavor. The second half is much more aggressive and bluesy, and sticks mainly to position one of the pentatonic scale an octave up the neck in the same key. The bends feel that much wider and the vibrato more pronounced.

Slash plays the first section on the neck pickup for thickness and warmth before switching over to the bridge for more bite, with his Cry Baby engaged. Perhaps most impressive is his off-the-cuff sense of feel and how he strings it all together, which is the mark of any great guitar solo. Remarkably, although Slash’s riff was responsible for the song’s creation, he wasn’t fond of the song originally. “We were a pretty hard driving band, and that was sort of an uptempo ballady type of a thing,” he said. “So it’s grown on me over the years.”

12. Ozzy Osbourne | “Crazy Train”

GUITARIST: Randy Rhoads (1980)

Fretboard fireworks galore on Ozzy’s Blizzard of Ozz comeback.

The Double-O has often cited Randy Rhoads as the man who saved his career – and when you hear the solo on “Crazy Train,” you understand why. Although Rhoads’ classical- and modal-based approach was far from Tony Iommi’s blues leanings, he was, like Ozzy’s old bandmate, a true inventor.

There’s a section toward the end of this solo that actually sounds like a train squealing off the tracks, thanks to the use of a chromatically ascending trill that then descends in key. Rhoads concludes the solo with a fast-picked F# minor pentatonic phrase before a rapid Aeolian legato run ending with a big bend on the 19th fret.

The shredder performed the solo with his customized Jackson guitar through a Marshall and a couple of 4x12s while sitting in the control room. “We’d plug the guitar directly into the console,” recalls Blizzard of Ozz engineer Max Norman. “We’d preamp it in the console and send it down to the amp from there. That way we could control the amount of gain that hit the amp.”

11. Michael Jackson | “Beat It”

GUITARIST: Eddie Van Halen (1982)

Breathtaking results from an unlikely pairing.

Asked to contribute guitar to Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, Pete Townshend declined but offered a suggestion: How about Eddie Van Halen? Jackson and producer Quincy Jones thought that was a great idea, and got Ed onboard to play the solo to “Beat It.” But after hearing the part where he was asked to solo, the guitarist was unhappy with the chord changes and had the engineer edit the tape to create a new pattern that better suited what he had in mind.

Ed knew Jackson might be surprised and possibly unhappy with his executive decision. “So I warned him before he listened,” he told CNN in 2012. “I said, ‘Look, I changed the middle section of your song.’ Now in my mind, he’s either going to have his bodyguards kick me out for butchering his song, or he’s going to like it. And so he gave it a listen, and he turned to me and went, ‘Wow, thank you so much for having the passion to not just come in and blaze a solo but to actually care about the song and make it better.’” And he did it for free.

10. The Beatles | “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

GUITARIST: Eric Clapton (1968)

An uncredited Slowhand makes a rare guest appearance with the Fab Four.

By 1968, George Harrison was penning compositions that rivaled those of his bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was every bit as good as anything his musical partners wrote, but no one could get up the enthusiasm for it, so Harrison invited his pal Eric Clapton to play on the session, knowing it would put the Beatles on good behavior.

Using Harrison’s 1957 “Lucy” Gibson Les Paul through a Fender Deluxe amp, Clapton doesn’t so much mimic the haunting, aching main melody as he creates a harrowing song within a song. His descending bends and release notes, and that inimitable vibrato, are on full display and are appropriately tear-jerking, weaving a dramatic narrative that builds to a shattering climax.

9. Chicago | “25 OR 6 TO 4”

GUITARIST: Terry Kath (1969)

Wah-drenched ecstasy.

This magazine once described Terry Kath’s “25 or 6 to 4” solo as “Wes Montgomery meets Jimi Hendrix,” and it’s a fair point, as Kath was influenced first by jazz and, later, hard rock. As a founding member of the jazz-rock band Chicago, he held down guitar duties for the group until his tragic death from an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1978.

Though his superb playing graced many tracks – notably “Introduction” and “Free Form Guitar,” both from the group’s 1969 debut, The Chicago Transit Authority – there’s no denying the power of his soloing on the group’s early hit “25 or 6 to 4.” Kath uses his wah generously to add emotion to his lines, giving them at times a frenetic despair.

Kath most likely played his Gibson SG Standard, as pictured on Chicago Transit Authority’s inner sleeve, using his favored string set, as revealed to GP: the high E string from a tenor set and a standard set for the rest, moved down one string (i.e. high E for the B string, B for the G string, and so on).

8. Lynyrd Skynyrd | “Free Bird”

GUITARIST: Allen Collins (1974)

The Bird is the word.

As it happens, the four-minute-and-24- second guitar solo that closes “Free Bird” was originally added to give singer Ronnie Van Zant a chance to rest his vocal cords during Lynyrd Skynyrd’s relentless performance schedule. At 143 bars long, the solo is far and away the most epic offering here (in fact, it’s 286 bars of recorded music because the whole thing is doubled).

The tune appeared on the group’s eponymous debut album in 1973, and guitarist Allen Collins delivered the lot on his 1964 Gibson Explorer. As Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Gary Rossington once told Guitar World, “The whole long jam was Allen Collins himself. He was bad. He was super bad! He was bad-to-the-bone bad. When we put the solo together, we liked the sound of the two guitars, and I could’ve gone out and played it with him. But the way he was doin’ it, he was just so hot! He just did it once and did it again, and it was done.”

7. Dire Straits | “Sultans Of Swing”

GUITARIST: Mark Knopfler

An understated guitar hero fingerpicks his way to glory.

Right when the world was crowning Eddie Van Halen the new King of Guitar, along came the rather unassuming Mark Knopfler – schooled in rockabilly, blues and jazz – who demonstrated that you didn’t need walls of distortion to turn heads.

Knopfler composed this pub-rock classic on a National steel guitar but thought it sounded “dull” – that is, until he picked up a Stratocaster, at which point the song “came alive.” Using nary a hint of grit on a Fender Twin, he fingerpicks not one but two standout solos.

The first features a lyrical section of elegant, Chet Atkins-style single-note and chordal bends that sigh and swoon with dreamy romanticism. In itself, that would be enough, but the outro solo is the real attention-grabber, on which Knopfler builds to a dazzling set of spitfire 16th-note arpeggios – cleanly played, precise and rousing every time you hear it.

6. The Jimi Hendrix Experience | “All Along The Watchtower”

GUITARIST: Jimi Hendrix (1968)

The greatest solo in a cover version.

This song tops any list of covers that are better than the original. Guitarists invariably refer to it as a Hendrix cover rather than a Bob Dylan original, proof of how much Hendrix made it his own. Jimi’s rhythm playing is astounding, both in the intro and in the deft chord/ melody work of the verses, and of course, there’s the small matter of four guitar solos to consider. The man many refer to as the best of all time makes the most of his Strat and Marshall rig here, but it’s his offering at the 2:20 mark that we’re interested in. Following an opening run of octaves, he gets into his stride with a typically blues-based minor pentatonic approach in C#.

At 2:32, the main solo explodes into a trademark combination of rhythm and lead, plus funky scratching on muted strings. It’s worth playing along with the scratches, trying to keep a loose wrist and consistent down-up strumming. Those few beats alone will teach you a lot about Jimi’s groove and feel.

To get the sound, select a bridge-position single-coil pickup, dial in delay at around 350ms, add compression for sustain and opt for a Vox wah pedal or something similar. You’ll hear the wind begin to howl.

5. Eagles | “Hotel California”

GUITARISTS: Don Felder & Joe Walsh (1977)

Those iconic twin-guitar harmony lines took the Eagles to new heights.

The title track from the Eagles’ fifth album, and without doubt the song the band will be most remembered for, “Hotel California” frequently tops greatest guitar solo polls. The solo begins at 4:20, forming an extended coda, over which guitarists Don Felder and Joe Walsh trade licks before joining together to play those iconic harmonized licks at 5:39.

As it turns out, those harmony lines work in a relatively simple fashion. Felder and Walsh play an arpeggio of every chord, and the harmony is created by one of the guitars always playing one note lower down in the chord. For example, the notes of the Bm chord are B, D and F#, so, if the higher guitar plays an F#, the lower guitar will play a D, and so on.

This nugget of information can take you a long way to mastering those descending arpeggios. We won’t go as far as to say you could easily work it out by ear, but if you know the chords to the song, it’s possible to jam along. And you can’t say that about many of the solos on this list!

4. Queen | “Bohemian Rhapsody”

GUITARIST: Brian May (1975)

It might just be the biggest rock song of all time.

Following Freddie Mercury’s 1991 death and a cameo moment in 1992’s Wayne’s World, “Bohemian Rhapsody” became a trigger point for a worldwide outpouring of affection and respect for Queen. Their renewed popularity would continue into the new millennium as Ben Elton’s We Will Rock You musical and the band’s discovery of a different way to exist behind frontman Adam Lambert brought their music to a new generation.

And “Bohemian Rhapsody”? Unsurprisingly, it’s Queen’s best-known song, and its brief nine-bar solo is a short and sweet musical interlude, bridging the verses to lead into what’s become known as the song’s “operatic section.” Those two words alone should warn you that this song shouldn’t work. There’s no chorus and, aside from two verses, no repetition. But of course it does work, and Brian May’s solo is the perfect melodic break.

His phrasing is loose and natural, moving across the backbeat rather than sticking to a rigidly timed grid. The fastest licks are expressive bursts, rather than repetitive noodling, and his articulate pre-bend and vibrato technique demonstrates his beautiful touch. Somehow, within the confines of the complex structure of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” this solo is made to order.

3. Led Zeppelin | “Stairway To Heaven”

GUITARIST: Jimmy Page (1971)

Heaven-sent soloing.

From the moment Jimmy Page plays the opening run on his ’59 Fender Telecaster, right through to the flurry of notes and the wailing bend that completes it, this is guitar-solo perfection – a masterpiece of composition. Rather than wander aimlessly, Page creates a song within a song.

The opening phrases set the scene, as he adds notes to the pentatonic scale to follow the song’s final chord progression. A rapid mid-solo repeating lick raises the bar before a game of question-and-answer with a haunting overdubbed guitar leads into that last flurry and bend. As we say, it’s all about the composition: licks that track the chord changes, the contour of the melody and the pacing of the widdly bits all take the listener on a journey.

Three takes were recorded (the other two allegedly still survive, presumably locked in a Led Zeppelin vault somewhere), all of them improvised, although Page has reportedly said that he had worked out the opening line. But while we’re all certainly curious to hear those solos, let’s face it: They’re not going to be any better than the one we’ve come to know and love all these years.

2. Van Halen | “Eruption”

GUITARIST: Eddie Van Halen (1978)

Eddie’s iconic solo that shook the world.

With its mix of fast legato hammer‑ons and pull-offs, pinched harmonics, whammy-bar dives and two-hand tapping, Eddie Van Halen’s mind-blowing instrumental guitar solo inspired a generation of guitar heroes. While the tapping gets the attention, his tone, blistering legato and creative note choices are all equally important. Amid all that virtuosity, Eddie still played with joyous rock and roll abandon.

Remarkably, Ed was never completely happy with the released recording. “I didn’t even play it right,” he told Guitar World. “There’s a mistake at the top end of it. Whenever I hear it, I always think, Man, I could’ve played it better.”

His admission aside, the track is a technical opus. The first eight bars are a bluesy affair, whose virtuoso legato licks perhaps recall the mojo of Jimmy Page’s breakdown solo in Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” It’s a theme Eddie develops over the following eight bars, taking notes from the major and minor pentatonic scales to add chromatics.

His tapping finale is probably one of the least understood solo sections in rock history. Eddie’s taps are not always on the beat, which makes for tricky timing changes as he switches from tapping the first and fourth sextuplet notes to the third and sixth notes. From start to end, “Eruption” is a masterpiece that would take most guitarists a lifetime to perfect.

1. Pink Floyd | “Comfortably Numb”

GUITARIST: David Gilmour (1979)

Gilmour’s greatness comes through in waves.

In a 1992 interview with MTV’s Ray Cokes, Gilmour was asked what he thinks of Keith Richards’ theory that songs, lyrics and guitar solos are “just out there in the air and you sort of grab them.” Gilmour agreed. “I think he’s right. They sort of appear as if they are out there in the air. But I don’t know how they get there.” But the best ones he said, just happen. “The best ones do, but often you work very hard and struggle over them.”

Gilmour's two "Comfortably Numb" solos are certainly among his best, and it’s easy to understand why our readers voted his efforts to be the number-one pick in our poll. But the real question is, which of those two solos qualifies for inclusion? Whichever way you go — and granted, most fans prefer the first solo to the second — there's certainly plenty to justify the song's position at the top.

The tone is legendary. Gilmour’s signal chain consisted of his iconic black Strat, then featuring a DiMarzio FS-1 bridge pickup, into a HiWatt DR103, with the essential EHX Ram’s Head Big Muff pedal. The FS-1’s fatness and the Big Muff’s smoothness leave no hint of the harsh treble that can plague Strats. With some extra help from an MXR Dyna Comp, Gilmour had so much sustain that he could hold notes as long as he wanted. As in his live rig, he combined a WEM 4x12 cab with a Yamaha rotary speaker lower in the mix, to add subtle modulation. The epic delay was added in the mix.

The first solo, in D major, uses the Strat’s neck and bridge pickups together, permitted by a custom switching arrangement. His phrasing here is the more unconventional of the two, with arpeggios and sliding passages. Gilmour’s use of the bar for vibrato – aided by its shortened tremolo arm – again distinguishes him from typical bluesers, inspiring many a fusion player in the process. He rakes into the beginning of many of the phrases, similar to Brian May, extracting all the excitement he can from every note.

By comparison, the outro solo’s licks are more standard, with phrases similar to Hendrix’s. The passages at 4:57 and 5:12 could be from “All Along the Watchtower” or “Foxey Lady,” but in this epic track few listeners would make the connection. It sounds both masterful and improvised at the same time. Gilmour has explained he created this impression by recording five or six takes and compiling the finished solo from the best bits of each. The result is stunningly well written, with a combination of repetition and development that keeps the excitement building for two minutes. The Hendrix-style blues lick returns at 5:27, longer and more intricate than before. The aggressive double-stops first appear at 5:15, and by 5:35 he has turned that idea into a motif.

For the climax, Gilmour shoots up an octave just when it seems he’s wrung every inch of expression from his maple neck. He descends back down the neck, incorporating one of his spectacular three-fret bends on the way, and finishes with another take on that double stop motif. It has all the excitement of an improvised performance, and all the structure of a careful composition.

Both solos share brilliant rhythmic awareness. Gilmour uses triplets, sextuplets, 16th and 32nd notes freely, within the same phrase. And check out the effect at 5:10 when he plays a lick in 16th notes and then immediately repeats and expands in sextuplets. A good solo can have great tone, rhythms, melody or expression, but only a work of rare brilliance features them all to this degree.

Ritchie Blackmore says jamming Little Richard’s "Lucille" with George Harrison was “overwhelming” and recalls that the former Beatle politely asked if he could play his guitar.

In the latest installment of his YouTube series, Tales From The Tavern — in which the former Deep Purple guitarist regales fans with anecdotes from his more than half a century at the heart of British rock and roll — Blackmore looks back on the time he traded licks with Harrison in 1984. It happened during an Australian tour in support of Deep Purple MkII's album Perfect Strangers.

“He was friends with Jon Lord and Ian Paice. He lived just down the road,” Blackmore recalls, as he sits with a classical acoustic guitar on his lap. “He was over in Australia when we were there as Deep Purple, and he said to me very politely, 'Can I get up onstage with you and use your guitar?' I said, 'Of course.' I was flattered.”

“Sure enough, we all got up onstage and we did the old rock and roll number 'Lucille,' by Little Richard.”

Although it's grainy, footage of the performance captures an electric energy onstage, with the pair trading solos with aplomb.

“We had a good time.” Blackmore continues. “He was a very nice man, very serious, and very complimentary. It was very overwhelming to play with a Beatle. I mean, there'll never be another band like the Beatles.”

Harrison had all but retired from music two years prior to the performance following the release of his 10th solo album, Gone Troppo. He would go on to describe himself as “peaceseeker, gardener, and ex-celeb,” thereby making his Deep Purple cameo even more intriguing.

Blackmore has discussed the fabled jam before, saying, "I was playing the wrong key and everything, but it didn't seem to matter".

In the new video, Blackmore goes on to say that he “absolutely loved” the Beatles’ early material, highlighting "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "From Me to You" for their “fantastic…simple melodies."

“George was very modest,” he concludes. “A very quiet man. I noticed onstage that he had big feet, because he was tapping out the rhythm. I looked down at one point and thought, My god, he has big feet! George was great.”

Blackmore’s new video series kicked off with a story involving him using Marshall stacks to protest against hotel maintenance works at 3 a.m., and waking up Eric Clapton in the process.

In related news, Harrison's Hamburg-era Futurama guitar, which can be heard on the Fab Four's earliest recordings, with Tony Sheridan, will head to auction next month. Purchased in 1958 from the same Liverpool music store where John Lennon got his first Vox amp, it was the closest thing he could get to a Stratocaster, the model he wanted thanks to Buddy Holly. At the time Stratocasters were not available in the U.K.

Stratocasters were first made available in the UK in 1959, and it wasn't until 1963 that they made their way to Ireland. Rory Gallagher's iconic road-worn Strat is thought to be the first to make it onto Irish soil.

You can watch the Deep Purple–George Harrison jam below.

Ritchie Blackmore has launched a new autobiographical video series that finds him regaling the finest rock n’ roll stories from his rather eventful, 55+-year career.

The Deep Purple guitarist has previously insisted he would never write a book, despite the fact he likely has enough stories for several volumes. Thankfully, the new video series offers a quirky alternative and a platform for Blackmore to air his anecdotes.

The series kicks off with Blackmore discussing how he first met Eric Clapton, with the two would-be legends both spritely startups back in 1968. A later encounter, however, proved far more awkward and, at least retrospectively, entertaining.

In 1968 and Deep Purple were supporting Cream at The Forum in Los Angeles, with Jimi Hendrix and Geroge Harrison among those enjoying front-row seats. Backstage, Blackmore sized the chance to steal some gear tips from Slowhand, having found himself in the same room as him for the first time.

“Before the show, Eric came into the dressing room I was in with Purple,” Blackmore relays. “I was always impressed not only by his ability to play brilliant guitar but also loved the fat sound sound he got. So I was questioning him.

“I was trying to figure out how he got this great sound. Basically, he was using Clifford Essex strings in the beginning, and then he went to Picato, and all these strings I used for years all because of him.”

Blackmore's move to the Fender Stratocaster was also inspired by Clapton, with him buying one of the guitarist's Strats off his roadie for £60.

After that, they met in slightly more unusual circumstances, after Blackmore's decision to crank Marshall amps in his hotel room at 3 a.m. to retaliate against noisy maintenance work backfired tremendously.

“We were in a hotel, I think it was in Melbourne, Australia,” Blackmore remembers. “What happened was, I knew that Eric was with his band in that hotel. We'd had three days there where we'd been woken up very early with hammering – the usual nonsense that goes on in hotels.”

After several days of this, Blackmore’s patience was wearing thin. He had an idea.

“We were so sick of it we actually threatened the front desk, ‘If you wake us up again tomorrow we will bring all our amplification into a room and play at 3 o'clock in the morning, and see how your patrons like hearing this noise,’” he continues.

“Which we did. The next day the hammering started as per usual, they took no notice of what we said, so we went ahead and brought in some Marshalls, stacked them, and my friend actually started playing the guitar – he started playing some bad blues, actually.

“As soon as he started playing we were so loud we got a bang on the door, and it was Eric's security.”

Up until this point, Blackmore believed that Clapton was staying on a different floor of the hotel. Not only did he turn out to be wrong – Clapton happened to be in the next room over – he suddenly felt embarrassed by what he must have heard.

“Believe it or not, Eric was in the next room to where we were,” Blackmore continues. “The next day we had some words with his security and I said, ‘I'm really sorry, I didn't realize we were next door.’ That was embarrassing, especially to think that Eric might have thought it was me making this racket on the guitar.

“I was in there having a drink, but I wasn't playing. That doesn't get me off the hook – it was really my idea to make all this noise.”

Check out Blackmore’s YouTube channel for further updates from the series.

Simon McBride joined Deep Purple in 2022, off the back of an established career as a blues solo artist and as a touring member of Don Airey’s solo band.

So, by replacing the outgoing Steve Morse and becoming the band’s fourth permanent guitarist, he busied himself with understanding the band’s guitar parts intimately.

While he had little issue with the bulk of it – indeed, Morse said he “nailed” the gig – there was one tricky little Ritchie Blackmore lick that had him stumped for a while.

“Most of it is actually not too bad,” he told Ultimate Guitar. “There's one little lick which annoyed me for a long, long time, it's in Lazy. I don't play the same solo he plays; Lazy is one of those songs where I feel I can just improvise a bit more and have fun with it.

“But there's this one lick he does in it, and I said, ‘I have to play that.’ And it's a bitch of a lick,” he expands.

“It's not ultrafast. It's just that there's a lot of chromatic stuff in it and slides in a very tight space, within three or four frets, and that's it. So that, to me, is the hardest thing about playing Purple.”

Blackmore wasn’t necessarily known as a particularly speedy or technical player, and McBride acknowledges that. But he’s been quick to praise his melodic sensibilities.

“Even Highway Star, the fast part in that, it's fast, but it's not John Petrucci from Dream Theater or something ridiculously fast, but it fits the song.

"Everything else that he played was more just melodies. Ritchie played for the song most of the time. But yeah, that lick in Lazy – that still haunts me every night when I come up to it. I'm like, ‘Oh shit, don't screw it up!’”

Guesting on Guitar Player's No Guitar is Safe podcast in 2022, McBride, who host Jude Gold called “a cold-blooded killer on guitar,” countered those who felt Morse wasn’t the right man for Deep Purple.

He believes Morse was the perfect replacement for Blackmore “because he was different. So sometimes when I play his stuff, it's not something I'd normally play, but it's cool to do. As a guitarist, you're always looking for new challenges. He's from the era of giants with Paul Gilbert and Satriani. You've gotta love him.”

Speaking to Guitar World that same year, he spoke about his leftfield approach to learning some of Morse’s parts, particularly the unison lead lines he’d share with keyboardist Don Airey.

“To learn things, I don’t necessarily pick up the guitar for the first two weeks; I’ll just sit and listen to the songs over and over until I’m sick of listening to them. When I actually sit down with the guitar, I like to be able to nearly play it already just from familiarity, knowing the chords and what positions they’re being played in.”

He continued, “I don’t think there’s too much that will be challenging for me. It’s mainly just remembering all the parts as a whole. It’s not like just learning a normal set with standard issue songs, which are verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo and done. They have all these alternate endings and, as you said, those mad sections with unison lines.”

Deep Purple recently gave a very literal performance of Smoke on the Water – a song McBride says many guitarists are playing wrong. They played the song on the wakers of Lake Geneva in Montreux, where the song has its origins, with smoke billowing out from behind them.

Deep Purple have delivered their most literal performance of Smoke on the Water, churning out the track’s peerless riff on a stage erected over Lake Geneva, with fire and smoke pluming into the skyline behind them.

The British rock icons, who will release their 23rd studio album, =1, later this month, marked their 10th appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in style over the weekend (July 8), helping give the festival’s new stage, erected over the lake, an apt baptism of fire.

Talking to The Standard, the band’s evergreen bass player Roger Glover reflected on the incidents that preceded the song’s birth, and how the track may never have existed if it weren’t for Frank Zappa and a flare gun.

It was 1971 and the band had chosen a Montreux casino to record their sixth album, Machine Head, taking advantage of the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio.

The evening before recording started, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were in town, entertaining a packed crowd at the casino’s theater. As the keyboard solo of King Kong moved through the gears, a flare gun was fired at the ceiling. The venue went up like a tinderbox, taking the band’s equipment with it.

“It burned all afternoon, all evening, all through the night,” Glover remembers. “We went and looked at it the next morning, and there it was, gone. It was a frightening thing.

“The following morning, I was in my room alone and I woke up with those words on my lips, and I said them out to an empty room. And then I kind of really woke up and I said, ‘What did I just say? Smoke on the water?’ No idea what it meant. I mentioned it to Ian [Gillan] and he said, ‘Yeah, sounds like a drug song. Better not do that.’”

Speaking previously to Classic Rock, Ritchie Blackmore had said the song was put together haphazardly.

“It was made up in the spur of the moment,” he said. “I just threw it together with Ian Paice. Roger Glover joined in. We went outside to the mobile unit and were listening back to one of the takes, and there was some hammering on the door.

“It was the local police, and they were trying to stop the whole thing because it was so loud.

“We knew that they were coming to close everything down. We said to Martin Birch, our engineer: ‘Let’s see if we have a take.’ So they were outside hammering and taking out their guns.”

Ritchie Blackmore claims that the riff was adapted from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, with a Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster unit used to produce a more biting top end and a subtle touch of distortion to the riff's genre-defining tone.

While knowing the song is a rite of passage for electric guitar players, Simon McBride, who joined the band in 2022, once explained to Guitar Player why many guitarists play it wrong.

In 2021, readers of Total Guitar and Guitar World magazines voted it the fourth-greatest riff of all time, with Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love claiming the top spot.

In his legendary tenures in Deep Purple and Rainbow – and even through to his current exploits in Renaissance music – Ritchie Blackmore, when playing electric guitar, has rarely been seen using anything other than a Fender Stratocaster. But if it wasn’t for Eric Clapton, that might have never proved to be the case. 

Speaking in the latest issue of Guitar World, Blackmore details how Clapton altered his six-string trajectory in 1969 by – via a roadie – providing him with his first Strat.  

“I was in Deep Purple in 1969 and I was living in Acton, London,” Blackmore remembers. “We were all in the same house, the whole band. Eric Clapton’s roadie came by the house because he knew one of my roadies, and he brought a Strat with him.”  

Before then, his instrument of choice was a Gibson ES-335, which can be heard on Emmaretta, from Deep Purple's 1969 self-titled album. When its neck began to bow, Blackmore began looking for an upgrade. 

“I think [the Strat] was black,” he continues. “So I said to him, ‘Do you want to sell that guitar? It looks interesting, and I wanted to try out a Strat.’ He said, ‘I’ll sell it to you for £60.’ I said, ‘Okay, you’re on.’ So, for £60, I bought one of Eric Clapton’s old Strats that he obviously didn’t want because he gave it to the roadie.”

It seems a bargain price, but taking inflation into account, £60 then is equivalent to about £842 (~$1,075) today. 

Blackmore's guitar collection has since grown, with Stratocasters a common sight, but, as he adds in his latest interview, it was Clapton’s second-hand Strat that he said was his “initiation into playing a Strat.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Blackmore would forge a palpable relationship with Stratocasters, helping propel seminal Deep Purple albums like In Rock and Machine Head.

His Stratocasters haven't been left to collect dust, however. They feature prominently on a number of Blackmore's Night [the guitarist's Renaissance music-minded group] tracks, with The Last Musketeer, from 2021’s Nature’s Light, being a standout moment. 

As previously reported by Guitar Player, it was a track written in honor of the “favorite” band he played in back in the early '60s, called The Musketeers. He is now the sole surviving member, and the song – which oozes beautiful blues tones that only a Blackmore-wielded Strat could produce – is his tribute to his former bandmates. 

The following is an excerpt from Martin K. Webb’s piece in the July/August 1973 issue of Guitar Player.

Ritchie Blackmore, lead guitarist and co-founder of Deep Purple, was born in Weston-super-Mare, England. 

Emerging to fame in America in 1968 with the hit single Hush, Deep Purple have appeared with the Royal Philharmonic at London’s Albert Hall, faced 4,000 rioting fans in Stuttgart, and been smuggled out of a concert hall in Iceland in a paddy wagon. 

Blackmore’s first guitar was a secondhand Spanish type, which he has since replaced with Stratocasters and Gibsons.

Did you ever have lessons?

“I had classical lessons for a year. That helped, because I learned how to use my little finger. A lot of blues guitarists play with only three fingers, so they can’t figure out certain runs that require the use of their little fingers.“

Besides getting you to use your little finger, has classical training affected your playing in any other way?

“I would say that it shows up most in the music I write. For example, the chord progression in the Highway Star solo – Bm, to a Db, to a C, to a G – is a Bach progression. The classical influence is always there somewhat, but I don’t intentionally use it that much really. I play a lot of single notes, and that’s not classical.“

How do you rate Steve Howe, as far as putting almost strict classical stylings into a rock context?

“He’s very good at it, but he’s not the kind of guitarist I can listen to. He’s very good at runs, but I don’t like that type of playing much.“

Did you ever do much work in record sessions?

“When I was about 17. Some of the work was a drag, but some of it was interesting. Session work makes you more strict. You can’t hit notes all over the place. You’ve got to make each one really count. 

“When you’re recording, if you’re not really clean in your playing, it sounds like a mess. You may think you sound fabulous on stage, but when you hear yourself played back on record, it’s just disastrous most of the time. If you can play well in the studio, you can play well on stage.“

How did you come to use your tremolo bar so much?

“I liked the way Hendrix used his tremolo – though I don’t think I use it the same way. A lot of guitarists think that a tremolo arm is for someone who can’t play a hand vibrato, but the tremolo arm gives a different vibrato altogether. 

“It affects whole chords. I can do the old hand vibrato just fine, but I like attacking the strings and getting all those sounds. You can get a lot of aggression out with a tremolo arm.”

You do a lot of hammering-on, and you frequently put your pick in your mouth and play with your fingers.

“I also play with my feet [laughs]. I use my fingers for different sounds and effects. But I actually play very lightly. That’s from the days when I used to use banjo strings. When I did a solo they sounded fine, but when it was over, I’d find the strings would be out of tune. So I started playing lighter out of necessity.”

How loud is your amp?

“Full up. Learning to play the guitar is one thing, but learning to play with a big amplifier is a different thing altogether. It’s like trying to control an elephant.”

I grew up thinking of hard rock as dangerous music. I wasn’t entirely wrong.

As a young musician with older brothers, and parents who indulged our musical interests, I was exposed to everything from the Who to the MC5 in the 1960s, well before I turned 10, and saw some hard-rock acts of the day performing at free outdoor concerts in and around the Detroit area.

It was a rough scene in a rough place, a sense that perhaps no band represented better in their music or stage show than the MC5, a truly revolutionary band of musical rebels.

But like most rebellious things, it was seductive as well, and I soaked up everything I could from that time, especially local acts like the MC5, Grand Funk Railroad and the Stooges, whose singer, Iggy Pop, summed up the attitude best when he ominously crooned, “Gimme danger, little stranger.”

I can’t think of three bands who could better warp a young child’s mind.

By the time Deep Purple came around with In Rock, in 1970, I was hooked on loud, aggressive guitar rock. I didn’t know much about that group’s guitarist at the time, only that, given the ferocity of his playing, he must be a sight to see onstage.

In time, I would learn that Ritchie Blackmore was one of the most unhinged guitarists to grace a stage from that era, and a man who showed no mercy to his guitar.

Sure, Townshend smashed them, and Hendrix set one on fire. But the destruction was spontaneous and over quickly.

Blackmore, on the other hand, prepared for the act and dragged it out, flaying his Fender Stratocasters with methodical menace.

And in this live clip from 1977, Blackmore shows no mercy at all as he systematically obliterates a black Stratocaster in front of a baying mob of Rainbow fans.

Firstly, the guitarist introduces the unfortunate Strat to his substantial platform boots (see above) as it howls on the floor. Then, holding his axe aloft, he delivers a decapitating blow as it smashes headfirst onto the stage floor.

It’s true ‘70s Strats have their critics, but this might seem a little harsh to some…

***The following originally appeared in the June 2011 issue of Guitar Player***

Certain guitar solos are infused with magic. They may or may or may not be technically challenging, flashy, or otherwise virtuoso, but they have that special something that sets them apart from what came before, and they typically alert guitarists everywhere that their world has forever changed. 

What’s more, those magic solos tend to inspire legions of guitarists to attempt to unlock their technical and tonal mysteries, and permeate the six-string community’s collective unconscious, re-emerging later as direct and indirect influences on individual players’ styles. Somewhat paradoxically, however, there is no consensus on which solos have achieved this iconic status.

When we began working on this story, we came up with a lengthy list of solos to include. Our first task was to set up some guidelines. We decided to limit the list to electric rock solos, along with blues and jazz-rock fusion solos that influenced rock. We also set a limit of one solo per artist.

At that point, there were still many more than 40 solos on the list, so we had to make some hard choices. To start, guitarists who were hugely influential overall, but couldn’t be tied to an ultra-influential solo – such as Tony Iommi and George Harrison – were cut. 

We then had to narrow down our selections to just one for each artist, which was difficult for someone like Eric Clapton, whose entries at that point included “Crossroads,” his cover of Freddie King’s “Hideaway” on the Blues Breakers album, and his historic wah workout on “White Room.” Once the smoke cleared, however, we had reached consensus. 

The solos are organized chronologically – including those that fall within the same year – because we thought it would be instructive to see how they relate to each other historically. 

We hope that you like we came up with and perhaps even discover an overlooked gem or two for yourself...

1. Elmore James “Dust My Broom” (1951)

Jimi Hendrix originally called himself Jimmy James and Maurice James in homage to Elmore, and every bluesman since the ‘50s – particularly slide players – owes something to the King of the Slide Guitar. 

Played in an open-D tuning (D, A, D, F#, A, D, low to high), probably on a Kay flattop or Harmony Sovereign with a D’Armond pickup, the slide hook on this tune, and the solo based on it, reappear countless times throughout blues and rock music.

2. Les Paul “How High the Moon” (1951)

The super-syncopated, slap-back soaked runs, chukka-chukka doublestops with bluesy bends, plucky cascading figures, and idiosyncratic ornamentations in Paul’s two solos helped propel this standard up the charts, and further established Paul as the most creative electric guitar player of his generation. 

It was recorded with his “old Epiphone” – a.k.a. “the Clunker” and “the Breadwinner” – with custom-wound hot pickups and other major modifications.

3. Scotty Moore “That’s Alright, Mama” (1954)

Armed with his Gibson ES-295 through a ‘52 Fender Deluxe, Scotty Moore, bassist Bill Black, and their bud Elvis, had no idea what a firestorm they were about to create with this early single. 

Moore’s simple, to the- point style covered the drummer-less bases quite easily with a fat tone and swinging musicality, giving this rather hillbilly ensemble some dangerous sonic heft.

His break on “That’s Alright, Mama” inspired everyone from George Harrison to Keith Richards to Jimmy Page, as well as Danny Gatton, who never missed an opportunity to throw a Moore homage in the middle of one of his famed rockabilly rave ups. 

Moore’s barking double-stops and approximation of a tic-tac bass line on “Mama” are as hooky as it gets, making this solo one of the most important ever.

4. Eddie Cochran “Sittin’ in the Balcony” (1957)

Slinging a 1955 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins Hollow Body 'G'-branded guitar with a Gibson P-90 in the neck slot, Cochran, with his iconic presence and echo-drenched tones, hugely impacted early rockers – such as Lennon and McCartney, who bonded over Cochran’s “Twenty Flight Rock” upon meeting in 1957 – and innumerable players thereafter, particularly Brian Setzer. 

The twangy solo on Cochran’s first hit, “Sittin’ In the Balcony,” crackles with the influence of his heroes Chet Atkins, Joe Maphis, and Johnny Smith.

5. Chuck Berry “Johnny B. Goode” (1958)

While some people might not consider this song’s intro a “solo,” it might be the most important rock guitar part ever recorded. 

The doublestops essentially usher in the post-Elvis rock era, and the tone and balls of this iconic part would echo in the playing of George Harrison, Keith Richards, Eddie Van Halen, and Angus Young... and that's just one tenth of one percent of the players who have copped these licks. 

Listen to it again. You’ll see.

6. Hank Marvin “Apache” (1960)

A primary influence on nearly every British guitarist of a certain age, Marvin created a dreamy, echo-y sound on this #1 U.K. hit that was achieved by playing his Stratocaster – the first in England – through a Meazzi Echomatic tape delay and a Vox AC30 tube amp. 

Marvin mostly used the bridge pickup, but picked near the neck, and palmed the vibrato arm to impart his trademark twang.

7. Freddie King “Hideaway” (1960)

Freddie (a.k.a. Freddy) King cobbled “Hideaway” out of parts lifted from tunes by Hound Dog Taylor, Jimmy McCracklin, Robert Lockwood Jr., and even Henry Mancini. 

Between the breaks where he recycled bits of “The Walk” and “Peter Gunn,” King played stinging solos that he plucked on a P-90 equipped Les Paul using a plastic thumbpick and metal fingerpick. 

Eric Clapton did his own version of the tune on John Mayall’s 1966 album, Blues Breakers, and the success of “Hideaway” made it a launch pad for a number of other King instrumentals that would further his notoriety as one of the top blues guitarists of the ‘60s and ‘70s.

8. James Burton “Hello Mary Lou” (1961)

Having turned pro as a teenager on the Louisiana Hayride, Burton was a seasoned vet by the time he became the lead player in Ricky Nelson’s band, which was featured regularly on the TV show The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. 

Burton was a great rock and roll player, as evidenced by his Chuck Berry-style solo on “Believe What I Say,” but he also inspired legions of pickers with his explosively twangy lead break on “Hello Mary Lou.” 

Burton’s playing on Merle Haggard’s early ‘60s hits like “Mama Tried” and “Swingin’ Doors,” inspired the late, great Roy Nichols, who said, “I learned a lot from Burton, and I copied some of his licks, but I couldn’t copy him to a ‘T’.”

9. Jeff Beck “Over Under Sideways Down” (1966)

Along with the Rolling Stones, no band inspired more hard-edged guitar-wielding maniacs than the Yardbirds. Beck’s playing on their classic garage rock anthem is, like much of his playing at this time, inspired by the groovy sounds of the sitar. 

Equal parts spacey modal madness and meth-infused pentatonic fury, it still ranks as some of Beck’s most inspired playing, and that says a lot. 

And not only was Beck’s otherworldly playing inspirational to a generation of guitarists, but his punky stage demeanor and nasty sonic streak (a ‘54 Fender Esquire into a Tone Bender fuzz and AC30), served notice to everyone that a new sheriff was in town, and he was kicking ass.

10. Albert King “Born Under a Bad Sign” (1967)

If Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix lift your licks lock, stock, and barrel, your influence has been spread very far and very wide. In fact, one can make the case that Albert King was the most influential King, just by virtue of the not-so-subtle tributes by his admirers. 

King Albert’s authoritative bends and economical phrasing are required study for anyone who wants to play blues-rock guitar. On this cut, the Velvet Bulldozer lives up to his nickname, making his Gibson Flying V moan, scream, and move mountains with sweeping bends and a stinging tone that delivers all of the nuances in his playing. 

It also proves that, even though SRV and Clapton could “do” Albert, they were never really even close. 

11. Eric Clapton “Crossroads” (1968)

This one is a giant among giants. Little did Slowhand know, after he walked off the Winterland stage in San Francisco, he had created a template setting the standard for expressive, lyrical, howling blues-rock guitar. 

Armed with a ‘64 Gibson ES-335 and a couple of non-master volume 100-watt Marshall stacks, Clapton’s first break is a textbook example of how to build a solo’s intensity, while the second manages to kick it up one more notch for maximum climax. 

Not a duff note in the bunch, impeccably phrased, and with a vibrato that’s as classy as they come, Clapton could have never played another note and he’d still be one of the most influential players ever. 

12. Jimi Hendrix “All Along the Watchtower” (1968)

One can only guess what sort of “light bulb” moment Jimi experienced when he first heard this tune from Bob Dylan’s 1967 album John Wesley Harding. Maybe it was the biblical references in the lyrics, or the great melody – or perhaps just the wide-open space for improvising afforded by the four-chord progression. 

Whatever it was, the version that appeared on Hendrix’ Electric Ladyland album gave rise to one of Jimi’s most memorable solo outings. Playing soulfully and inventively using a wah and fuzz, Hendrix reinvented “All Along the Watchtower” to such a degree that it’s sometimes easy to forget who actually wrote the tune!

13. Peter Green “Black Magic Woman” (1968)

B.B. King once said of Green, “He has the sweetest tone I ever heard; he was the only one who gave me the cold sweats.” After establishing himself as a masterful blues stylist in John Mayall’s band, Green quickly evolved both as a player and a songwriter with Fleetwood Mac. 

On his D minor tour-de-force “Black Magic Woman,” Green pulls off an incredibly captivating melody, and his beautiful phrasing and soulful bending on a Les Paul with “magnetically out of phase” pickups was pure gold. 

Carlos Santana made the song a huge hit on Abraxas, and Green was also influential on Irish blues rocker Gary Moore, who would own – and eventually sell – Green’s famous Gibson. 

14. Robert Fripp “21st Century Schizoid Man” (1969)

Fripp’s serpentine solo on this alarmingly virtuosic track combines a supersaturated sustained tone with atypical intervallic movement, non-bluesy bends and trills, and note choices and phrasing that had more in common with Coltrane than Clapton. 

Playing a three-pickup ‘59 Les Paul Custom through a Marshall stack and probably either a Burns Buzzaround or a Colorsound Tone Bender, he recorded the seminal progressive rock solo.

15. Jimmy Page “Heartbreaker” (1969)

Selecting the most influential Page solo led to a heated debate. 

But the squawking tone of a ‘58 Les Paul into a Marshall SLP 1969 Super Lead, maniacal cluster picking, wicked hammer-ons and pull-offs, and behind-the-nut G-string bending in the first solo on “Heartbreaker” – not to mention the smoking second solo – explain why everyone from Brian May to Steve Vai to Steve Morse have hailed it as a definitive guitar solo.

16. B.B. King “The Thrill is Gone” (1969)

With a tone sweeter and thicker than molasses, B.B. King graced this song with one of his most emotive blues solos of all time. King knew what the tune called for in context of the highly produced album Completely Well (his first with strings), and it wasn’t about showboating. 

Far from it, judging by the way he grooves so succulently behind the beat. Besides being a big hit for B.B., “The Thrill is Gone” showed guitarists the power of playing slow and cool. 

In an era when Johnny Winter was introducing blues-rock shredding, B.B. King’s huge vibrato and deep soul defined what “playing from the heart” was all about. 

17. Leslie West “Mississippi Queen” (1970)

Leslie West’s massive and massively influential tone on Climbing! – which included “Mississippi Queen” – was created by playing through a Sunn Coliseum P.A. head and four 4x12 speaker cabinets. 

“The head had four microphone inputs and a master volume control, huge transformers and gigantic KT88 tubes, and the cabinets were loaded with Eminence speakers, which never hurt your ears, even with the treble all the way up,” West told GP in 2010. 

He was playing Gibson Les Paul Juniors at the time, and used a single-cutaway 1956 Jr. with a single P-90, strung with La Bella Electric Guitar strings (with a .010 banjo string for the high E and the other strings moved down one to create a light-gauge set) on the track. 

The song reached #21 on the Billboard charts, assuring that West’s signature sound was heard across the country and around the world.

18. Duane Allman “Statesboro Blues” (1971)

By 1970 Duane Allman and Dickey Betts had forged one of the most iconic guitar sounds of all time with their harmonized melodies on songs like “Revival” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” 

But as far as slide players went, few at the time got more acclaim than Duane himself, after the 1971 release of The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East. Duane’s slick phrasing and fat, singing tone on the opening track of the double live album was inspired by hearing Taj Mahal’s rendition of the song with Jesse Ed Davis on slide. 

Sonny Landreth, who remembers seeing the Allman Brothers at the time, recalls: “That huge tone that Duane got when he played slide on a Les Paul through a Marshall was a real game changer. I don’t remember anyone else who had a sound like that back then.”

19. John McLaughlin “Meeting of the Spirits” (1971)

Although he had already done revolutionary work with Tony Williams’ Lifetime, Miles Davis, and as a solo artist, McLaughlin’s combination of molten Gibson-through-cranked-Marshall distortion, impossibly fast and complex yet ultra-precise picking, and unique phrasing on The Inner Mounting Flame shattered all existing concepts of “electric guitarist” and lit the fuse of fusion.

20. Ritchie Blackmore “Highway Star” (1972)

Actually a harmonized pair of solos, the tasty bends, rapid-fire triplets, and whammy manipulations on this Strat-into-a-Marshall-amp (via a reel-to-reel tape recorder preamp) solo make it one of Blackmore’s most memorable.

The Deep Purple guitarist’s influence on legions of rock and metal shedders from Morse to Malmsteen to Mustaine is undisputable.

21. Billy Gibbons “La Grange” (1973) 

Gibbons made his mark on this classic shuffle with two solos. 

The first, done on a ‘55 Strat, enters screaming with that classic rear pickup Fender bite, before Gibbons flips to the front pickup for a swinging double-stop workout and some liquid pentatonic runs delivered with his impeccable sense of time and swing. 

But it’s the track’s second solo that the guitarist is most famous for, and the one that every hard rock player would study, due to Gibbons’ insane pinch harmonics. With his “Pearly Gates” ‘59 Les Paul, the Reverend squawks, grunts, and chokes out so many pinch harmonics that it would be laughable if it wasn’t so damm bad ass. 

22. Brian May “Bohemian Rhapsody” (1975) 

Brian May’s touch, tone, and orchestral instincts have proven impossible to imitate, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. 

His majestic lines on this classic are quintessential May, with precise picking, impeccable phrasing, and a bold, loud sound. 

The solo’s placement in the mix was influential, informing how bands such as Boston and Styx featured their solos. You’ve got to assume Dr. May’s harmonized lines at the end of the song got Tom Scholz’s attention as well.

23. Larry Carlton “Kid Charlemagne” (1976)

Carlton was already a session legend known for his smooth-as-silk lines that were reminiscent of Wes, Pass, and Trane when he cut this Steely track. 

But when Mr. 335 combined a rock dude’s tone with a jazzer’s harmonic sensibilities, he created the standard by which every jazz rocker would be judged. 

Ask Steve Lukather, Robben Ford, or Mike Stern what impact this solo had on them. 

Alright then.

24. Carlos Santana “Europa (Earth’s Cry, Heaven’s Smile)” (1976)

Santana masterfully caresses the tune’s main melody with his trademark singing sustain and thick tone, never quite giving up the goods until the outro solo where he lets it all hang out in an outpouring of soulful yet wicked playing. 

He displays a fluid, tactile control at all times, and his tone is more open-sounding and less compressed than in recent years. 

And when he kicks the wah on, look out – he ratchets up the intensity tenfold, just when you think it can’t go any higher. Simply put, “Europa” is a study in pace, melodicism, and space – as well as good, old fashion burning!

25. Al Di Meola “Race with Devil on Spanish Highway” (1977)

Sure, there were people who could play fast before Di Meola, but nobody had made it such a central part of their deal before Big Al came along. 

Di Meola’s picking ability coupled with his sick, self-described “mutola” technique raised the bar for audacious shred and players interested in pushing the limits of picking. 

Far from being a pattern-minded monotone shredder, Di Meola’s Latin influences and his compositional sense have always made his displays of virtuosity supremely musical. 

And for all of the shred haters, Di Meola proved that the emotional impact of many notes is just as valid as a few well-placed ones. 

26. Eddie Van Halen “Eruption” (1978)

What can you say about this cadenza from hell? Cut in 1978, this has to be one of the most influential pieces of guitar playing ever. 

EVH took a Strat with a humbucker, an MXR Phase 90, and a plexi Marshall, and then played some supercharged Clapton licks that boggled just about every 6-stringer’s mind in the world. 

It was Van Halen’s two-handed tapping that truly grabbed everyone’s attention, however, and made this the most recognizable solo of the next two decades. “Eruption” made an impact on millions of rock dudes and seemingly every kid who set foot inside a Guitar Center.

27. Allan Holdsworth “In the Dead of Night” (1978)

As Bill Bruford put it, this solo was, “94 seconds of liquid passion married to a blinding technical facility that was to go down in the annals of rock guitar history. 

"All the hallmarks of his brilliant playing were there in this solo: poise, pace, melody, the Slonimsky interval jumps, the whammy bar, and all over a killer groove.”

28. Mark Knopfler “Sultans of Swing” (1978) 

When Mark Knopfler released this fingerpicked two-pickup masterpiece, he showed guitarists that you don’t need distortion or a plectrum to rock. 

With a Strat on the bridge and middle pickups, a Fender Twin Reverb and a Roland JC-120, Knopfler played two deft, bouncy solos that referenced Chet Atkins with snappy popped notes, crying bends, and clever arpeggios. 

Along the way he influenced just about every clean tone for the next 20 years. When people talk about an “out of phase” Strat tone, they’re talking about this tune.

29. Michael Schenker “Rock Bottom” (1979)

The 1970s was a great time for live records, with classics from Frampton, Lizzy, and Ted Nugent, but one of the sweetest solos to grace a double LP came from UFO’s Michael Schenker. 

The extended break on this tune has everything great about Schenker: melody, dynamics, tone for days, and burning. 

This lead would fascinate rockers all over the world, including George Lynch, Vinnie Moore, Akira Takahashi, and Kirk Hammett.

30. David Gilmour “Comfortably Numb” (1979)

Few solos can match the vibe of Gilmour’s work on this iconic piece. 

Playing a ‘79 black Stratocaster with a ‘62 neck and DiMarzios through Hiwatts and Yamaha RA-200 rotating speaker cabinets, Gilmour transformed what are essentially blues licks into a signature statement that affected the molecules in myriad musical minds. 

This is arguably his crowning achievement as a soloist.

31. Angus Young “You Shook Me All Night Long” (1980)

It serves to reason that a song that is all about getting it on should have a solo that is sexy, right? 

Damn straight. 

Young’s turn on this global hit finds him harnessing his kinetic blues tendencies into a steamy, attitude-laden solo that is actually kind of funky. 

His tasteful major pentatonic flavorings as well as his gorgeous tone – thanks to a wound up old Marshall and a Gibson SG – are the icing on the cake of his impeccable groove, intonation, and phrasing.

32. Randy Rhoads “Crazy Train” (1980)

After Van Halen, it wasn’t easy for an L.A. rocker to make a mark, but Randall Rhoads did so in a big way on his debut with Ozzy. 

Rhoads took what he had gleaned from Mick Ronson, Gary Moore, and Bach, and synthesized it into this metal tour de force. 

He wasn’t the first guy to blend classical music and rock, but he was absolutely the gateway drug for players like Zakk Wylde and Tom Morello.

33. Stevie Ray Vaughan “Pride and Joy” (1983)

The second cut on SRV’s debut album, Texas Flood, “Pride and Joy” blasted onto the airwaves courtesy of a great melody, catchy lyrics, and a gamechanging solo in which Vaughan threw down a barrage of killer licks with a gargantuan tone from his Fender/Dumble rig. 

SRV’s deft songwriting and his Albert King/Hendrix-influenced style succeeded in making what was fundamentally a classic “tay-hass” shuffle into a huge AOR hit that every classic rocker is expected to cover in perpetuity. 

Bottom line is, after SRV came along, anyone who thought they could play blues with fire and passion got a schoolin’ the size of Texas.

34. Yngwie Malmsteen “Black Star” (1984)

Mike Varney’s rep as a finder of great guitarists was already solid when he wrote about a kid from Sweden with a funny name in 1983. 

Many players’ first exposure to Malmsteen was on this shred fest. With his blinding speed, dazzling classical arpeggios, gorgeous Strat-into-Marshall tone, and larger than life vibrato, he didn’t raise the bar for rock technique – he obliterated it. 

Yngwie changed the game forever with this one, just ask any rocker who has swept an arpeggio since then.

35. George Lynch “The Hunter” (1985)

Dokken's George Lynch has inspired countless rock and metal players for nearly 30 years with his perfect blend of structured melodicism and off-the-rails fury – all in the space of a 16-bar solo. 

This solo is a perfect example, as he eases into it with memorable, understated melodic motifs that are helped along with some thick-ass tone and sick vibrato. 

Halfway through, however, Lynch begins to turn up the jets. Alternate picking, sweep picking, and legato playing become one within a single winding phrase, giving him a sound and style that are difficult to ape. 

However, Lynch did show the way for shred-obsessed guitarists on how to structure a meaningful statement in the middle of a tune and leave an everlasting mark. In fact, his solos are the only thing that don’t sound dated about Dokken.

36. Kirk Hammett “Master of Puppets” (1986)

Kirk Hammett’s influences include his teacher Joe Satriani, Michael Schenker, and Thin Lizzy. And nowhere are those influences more prominent than on this tune. 

Hammett’s whammy bar work and speed picking would inspire countless kids to notch their mids, cram their theory, and play blazing solos over chugging grooves.

37. Joe Satriani “Always with Me, Always with You” (1987)

Satriani is obviously known as a master technician, but it’s his melodic side that has left the biggest imprint on guitardom. 

This sweet ballad showcases Satch’s singing tone, skillful ornamentation, and ability to blend the tasty with the jaw dropping. 

The reach of this solo is apparent in hundreds of instrumental guitar records, country ballads, movie soundtracks, and car commercials.

38. Kurt Cobain “Come As You Are” (1991)

Although he took about as many solos and Johnny Ramone, the late Nirvana guitar anti-hero played a memorable one in this song from 1991. 

Presumably using a Boss DS-1 for dirt and an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone chorus for the warbly modulation, Cobain simply quoted the vocal melody in a snotty, vibey way, and the kids went crazy. 

Suddenly, young players – many with a sanctimonious disdain for ‘80s-style wanking – were taking a break from strumming through songs and trying their hands at playing single-note lines.

39. Zakk Wylde “No More Tears” (1991)

Logic dictates that Zakk Wylde was doomed to failure when he got the gig with Ozzy. 

A blond kid with a Les Paul? Really? 

But then people got a taste of his huge tone, squealing harmonics, and rapid-fire pentatonics and a new star was born. 

On this tune Zakk channeled Rhoads, Billy Gibbons, and Frank Marino into a solo that was emblematic of the new generation of metalheads.

40. Dimebag Darrell “The Great Southern Trendkill” (1996)

The post-Van Halen, post-Randy Rhoads world was in dire need of a champion when Darrell Abbott came on the scene. 

He took the styles of those guys, mixed in some Ace Frehley, some Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a heapin’ helpin’ of moonshine and created the ass-kicking solo here. 

Dime made it cool to love Holdsworth, EVH, and Billy Gibbons all in the same song.

I find it hard to imagine 1972 was 50 years ago.

This is in large part due to the fact that I was born on June 5th of that monumental leap year. What? You didn’t know 1972 is the longest year by the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) standard? With the added day, plus two seconds, the six-string purveyors of the day took full advantage of the extra time on both electric guitars and acoustic guitars.

As this new decade was still revving its engines, rock and roll was expanding in 1972. With the guitar at the forefront, there was glam rock, shock rock, prog rock, southern rock and even jazz rock. What’s more, there was the further development of soft rock and heavy metal alongside the burgeoning reggae and country rock genres.

Also on the rise was a reverence for the album format. Thanks to my older brother Louis and his well-fortified stereo system, our Jersey Shore home was consistently shaking at the rafters with all the rock 1972 had to offer. I soaked it all in from my very beginnings.

All things considered, it’s safe to say I was born into this collection of essential guitar moments from 1972.

Let There Be Rock

By the second year of the tumultuous 1970s, the world of rock had expanded into subsets that celebrated everything from platform shoes and glitter to fake blood and guillotines, and even included electrified southern-fried country and blues.

This trifecta of disparate approaches garnered a worthy collection of guitar moments, starting with David Bowie’s fab The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. 

Bowie’s brilliance is matched by the prodigious playing of guitarist Mick Ronson.

Ex. 1 shows something similar to Ronson’s opening salvo in “Ziggy Stardust,” where open chords and arpeggiation patterns combine to make the prototypical glam-rock arena riff.

Shifting to the dark side, Ex. 2 takes its cue from the title track of Alice Cooper’s School’s Out, highlighting the vibe of the incendiary E Dorian riff played by shock-rock stalwarts Glen Buxton and Michael Bruce.

Completing the trio is an iteration of the Am riff of “One Way Out” (Ex. 3), from the Allman Brothers Band’s quintessential southern rock album Eat a Peach, courtesy of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts.

All three original tunes are as celebrated today as they were in 1972, from arenas to local watering holes.

Opening Lines

The ’70s was the decade of Detroit Iron, when nearly everyone drove a hot rod. If they weren’t cranking an eight-track, they were listening to an FM rock station, which was in the beginning stages of a transformation to the album-oriented rock (AOR) format.

Nothing had you leaning over to pump up the volume faster than a great guitar intro. Elliott Randall’s opening A major pentatonic licks in the Steely Dan FM staple “Reelin’ In the Years,” from Can’t Buy a Thrill, was a top contender.

Ex. 4 is inspired by and loosely based on this classic intro solo.

Ex. 5 brings to mind the dreamy relative major and minor arpeggios and modulating bends immortalized in that track.

Another classic is the unforgettable opening of the Bowie-penned glam-rock anthem “All the Young Dudes,” recorded by Mott the Hoople.

These are just two of the many songs that reeled you in from the first notes and entertained every type of rock apostle, both young and old, as they cruised America’s highways.

Hammer of the Gods

Two of the three bands considered the creators of heavy metal released records in 1972. With Led Zeppelin between Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the Holy, the void was filled by Black Sabbath’s Vol. 4 and Deep Purple’s Machine Head.

Ex. 6 closely illustrates what Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi laid down on Vol.4’s “Snowblind,” with his signature power chording and speaker-melting gain in check.

As for Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore, he was in his creative prime at the time that the group dropped its magnum opus, Machine Head. Much like Zep’s fourth outing, Machine Head featured timeless tunes that have proven their longevity to this day, including the venerable “Smoke on the Water.”

While the opening riff has ascended into a ubiquitity for rock guitarists the world over, Ritchie’s fiery solo over a power chord backdrop in the key of G minor showcases such signature Blackmore-isms as pre- (or “ghost”) bends, adjacent-string rolls and 16th-note linear flurries.

This is all on display in Ex. 7, which presents a reworking of some key licks from this solo.

Though in its infancy at the time, metal began with these pioneering bands and with albums and moments like these.

Everyone is Experienced

But 1972 wasn’t all about high-gain licks and riffs. The influence of Jimi Hendrix, who died in 1970, was felt across the guitar pantheon. Indicative of the time were a pair of low-gain opening riffs from two different worlds but in no less capable hands.

Ex. 8 is patterned after a moment from one of prog rock’s most endearing releases, Close to the Edge, where perpetual ambassador Steve Howe threw down biting Hendrix-like chordal comping ideas in the key of E minor at the top of “Siberian Khatru.”

Ex. 9 offers a taste of the kind of dynamic-duo guitar work of the Doobie Brothers’ Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons on the endearing hit “Listen To the Music,” a moment that still motivates muscle-car drivers of yore to turn up the volume at the first hammer-on into that E/G# triad.

Groove Collective

But cleaner tones and booty-shaking grooves were also heard in 1972, thanks to the impact of a Jamaican film called The Harder They Come, which starred musician Jimmy Cliff. While the movie was released to much fanfare (on the very same day I started my journey to 50), it was the film’s soundtrack that made history, as it’s widely regarded as the world’s introduction to reggae.

Ex. 10 is inspired by the infectious opening groove heard in the Cliff classic “You Can Get It If You Really Want,” which features hallmark reggae rhythm guitar approaches with its tightly voiced top-string triads, anchored to the upbeat and treated with some staccato phrasing.

Back on the mainland, James Brown and Al Green were creating some of their most significant works. The Godfather of Soul put Hearlon “Cheese” Martin’s lock-tight precision into the limelight with “Get On the Good Foot” from the album of the same name.

An homage to Martin’s hypnotic single-note staccato phrasing is paid in Ex. 11.

Adding to the title tracks explored, the beloved gem from Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together features the sultry guitar of work of Mabon “Teenie” Hodges perfectly nested between Green’s enthralling vocal performance.

Looking at Ex. 12 reveals a remodeling of four bars from this treasured work.

Unplugged

Although the era of the chimerical Les Paul/Marshall monster had fully arrived by 1972, it didn’t quell the acoustic guitar’s substantial presence, which had solidified in the 1960s.

In fact, acoustic guitars were behind some of the most successful single releases of the year, including Paul Simon’s controversial “Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard,” America’s mesmerizing “Ventura Highway” and soft-rock troubadours Seals and Crofts’ irresistible “Summer Breeze.”

The main themes of all three songs have been reinterpreted in Examples 13–15.

Aside from Simon’s syncopated voice-led triads, the other two riffs make ample use of the acoustic guitar’s penchant for open strings.

Not to be outdone by his American counterparts, Canadian-born Neil Young released the best-selling record of the year with Harvest, which boasted the number one hit “Heart of Gold.”

A rendition of the perfectly sparse presentation of Em and D chords is found in Ex. 16.

Outro

With countless guitar moments still to gush over, it’s important to note that 1972 was also brimming with superbly constructed albums that had massive impact and further bolstered the emerging AOR radio format.

The year delivered classics that featured now-mythic guitarist pairings, including the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main St. (Keith Richards and Mick Taylor), Jethro Tull’s Thick As a Brick (Martin Barre and Ian Anderson), Genesis’s Foxtrot (Steve Hackett and Mike Rutherford), and the Eagles’ self-titled debut (Bernie Leadon and Glenn Frey), which helped bring country rock to prominence.

Before the year was out, Deep Purple went on to release the Made in Japan live album, and Stevie Wonder released his own pair with Music of My Mind and the seminal Talking Book.

The latter gave the world the funk-rock classic “Superstition,” which features a punchy Hohner Clavinet keyboard riff that has been appropriated by guitarists in countless cover bands.

If all these moments and genre births are any indication of the benefits to an augmented leap year, I say bring on the next one UTC.

If you like in-depth interviews with great guitar players AND you like to hear them play, then you need to listen to our No Guitar Is Safe podcast.

Presented by Guitar Player and hosted by Jude Gold, No Guitar Is Safe is free to listen to at your leisure on iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With over 150 episodes uploaded there’s plenty to get your teeth into.

Ready to “fly the ‘copter” all the way to Germany? 

Well, being that Jude Gold was just on tour with Jefferson Starship opening shows for Deep Purple all over Europe (so cool!), you know there was NO WAY he was not going to land an interview with their brilliant new guitarist, Simon McBride.

This exciting episode takes us all the way to Oberhausen, Germany, for an inspiring backstage guitar hang with the Irish six-string virtuoso, where, in a side room at the town’s Rudolf Weber-Arena (FKA the König-Pilsener-Arena) Simon plugs in his custom Paul Reed Smith.

Here, he demonstrates many of the captivating electric guitar approaches employed each night on stage with his legendary bandmates – Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Roger Glover, and Don Airey.

Simon also reflects on what it means to take over the guitar chair from longtime Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse – who, after 28 years in the band, stepped down earlier this year.

Elsewhere, the maestro reveals what it’s like follow in the footsteps of Deep Purple’s founding guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore; trade licks each night with the band’s formidable keyboardist, his good friend Don Airey; and start off one of the world's most iconic guitar songs each night, "Smoke on the Water."

Thank you for listening!

Visit the Deep Purple website for news and tour info.

Almost as disturbing as Tommy Bolin’s death itself (on December 4, 1976) was the fact that the 25-year-old musician's fatal drug overdose occurred just when he was emerging as a noted guitarist in progressive rock and jazz-rock circles.

After being summoned to fill the shoes of first Joe Walsh in James Gang and later Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple, Bolin could have easily been saddled with the title of 'best replacement guitarist.'

But his less publicized musical history reveals a journeyman musician whose versatility was matched by a restlessness to work and learn, the end result crystallizing into Bolin's own electric guitar style.

Born in Sioux City, Iowa, Bolin dropped out of high school at sixteen, and migrated to Denver where he formed a band called Zephyr in 1968. 

He recorded on two of the group's three albums: their eponymous 1969 debut and 1971's Going Back to Colorado.

After serving a blues guitar apprenticeship on the road with Albert King for a year, he made his way to New York and its budding jazz-rock scene in 1973.

His reputation had expanded to the point where Billy Cobham picked him for the session work on Spectrum, the drummer's noted solo debut that Jeff Beck often credits as a major influence in sparking his jazz pursuits.

Months later, Joe Walsh recommended Tommy for the lead slot in James Gang. He appeared on two of the group's albums in the one year he was with the band: Bang in 1973 and Miami in 1974.

In mid-summer of 1975, Bolin replaced Blackmore in Deep Purple, co-writing seven of the tunes on their Come Taste The Band LP.

Realizing perhaps that in his work with these two bands, coupled with a solo effort (Teaser), he'd written 33 songs in four albums, Bolin signed with Columbia to pursue his own career.

He had been touring with his own band following the release of his LP Private Eyes when he was found dead in a Miami hotel room.

The following interview extract was conducted on October 7, just two months before his death, and originally appeared in the March 1977 issue of Guitar Player…

What did you learn from playing behind Albert King?

I learned a lot about lead; learned that you don't have to blow your cookies in the first bar.

At that time, I was playing everything I knew when I took a lead. And he said, "Man, just say it all with one note."

He taught me that it was much harder to be simple than to be complicated during solos. If you blow your cookies in the first bar, you have nowhere to go.

Blues is really good that way. It teaches you to develop coherent solos, because the form you're playing over is so basic. You have to develop leads that go someplace.

The neatest compliment I ever got was when I was playing with Albert King at an indoor concert in Boulder, Colorado. He used to let me take solos, and I was very into playing that day.

After the concert he came up to me and said, " You got me today, but I'll get you tomorrow."

I really respect him. He's a beautiful player.

Why all the interest in so many styles, and how did you handle them all?

They were just gigs that came up. I'd rather work than not. I was very lucky to be able to play in all those extremes.

It was difficult following a guy like Ritchie Blackmore. When someone is the focal point of a group like he was, it's very hard to replace them. After a while, it just got to be pointless.

The way I got involved in jazz-rock was through a flute player named Jeremy Steig. He played on the second Zephyr album.

He showed me various jazz relationships and put them into a rock perspective, and then through him I met a lot of New York people like Cobham and [keyboardist] Jan Hammer.

Cobham called me for the Spectrum session, and I said, "I don't know how to read, man." He said it was okay.

So I went to the studio, and he handed me a chart. I told him again I didn't again I didn't know how to read, so we had a day of rehearsal, then cut the album in two days.

In rehearsal I'd just find out the changes – for example, Am to D9 to G6 to E13 – and play around those chords and changes.

I learned quite a bit through those people. You can't help but learn. All the different styles I've played have really helped me as a guitarist and helped me develop my own way of playing.

I have my own style, but it's different for each kind of music. There are certain little characteristic things every player has.

Browse the Tommy Bolin catalog here.

On April 6, 1974, Deep Purple appeared at the historic California Jam music festival in Ontario, California along with Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Sabbath, Black Oak Arkansas, Seals and Crofts, Eagles, Earth, Wind & Fire and Rare Earth.

Attracting an audience of somewhere in the region of a quarter million music fans, this mammoth event was broadcast by ABC, while Deep Purple’s performance was later released on the newly introduced VHS video cassette format.

Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was already wary of playing festivals when he was approached about performing at the upcoming Cal Jam event.

“I said, ‘No thanks, I’m not interested in any more festivals,’” recounted Blackmore. “They’re a nightmare. They always will be.

“There’s always complete catastrophe backstage. Nothing ever goes right. You’re always on late, or early. The billing is all wrong. It’s just awful.”

Despite his aversions, however, the guitarist eventually yielded to pressure and reluctantly agreed

Albeit with some important caveats.

Crucially, Deep Purple were to hit the stage at dusk when the stage lights were first switched on.

Blackmore considered this to be of paramount importance due to the impact it would have on the band’s audience.

Alas, while relaxing in the privacy of his caravan, Blackmore’s dreams of a dramatic sundown appearance were shattered with a premature stage call in broad daylight.

“That got me riled up,” he recalled. “I’m seething at this point.”

One of the fieriest performances in music history then ensued, with Blackmore smashing his Stratocaster into a stage camera in the midst of destroying his rig.

Quite literally adding fuel to the fire, one of Blackmore’s roadies agreed to pour petrol onto his amp – the idea being Deep Purple would finish their Cal Jam appearance in a blaze of glory.

Unfortunately, the improvised pyrotechnics were significantly more intense than expected and the ensuing explosion blew a hole in the stage.

“[Deep Purple drummer Ian] Paice’s glasses got blown off,” recalled Blackmore, adding, “It made a cameraman temporarily deaf.

“It looked great, but it was just overkill. I didn't realise it was going to just explode. It was supposed to catch fire, but it just went boom!”

While Blackmore was lucky to avoid serious injury, he was also fortunate enough to evade arrest.

As police moved in, he made his escape by helicopter in true rockstar style.

Buy Deep Purple: Live in California '74 here.

Bryan Adams has released a fourth single – “Never Gonna Rain” – from his highly anticipated album So Happy It Hurts. Due for release on March 11, the new long-player is the Canadian maestro’s 15th studio effort to date and will be available in the form of various bundles comprising CDs, regular vinyl, colored vinyl, and t-shirts.

A limited-edition box set features the Deluxe CD, the vinyl album, a signed photo, and a 48-page hardbound book.

With an accompanying music video shot in the loading bay of a Las Vegas hotel, Adams says the optimistically titled “Never Gonna Rain” is based around the idea of, “Living in the moment, instead of in fear. Turning the negatives into positives. Taking the rain and turning it into a gift."

Adams is one of the best-selling artists of all time with dozens of top ten singles to his name, including the international smash hit “Summer of '69” – an anthemic fist-pumper with lyrics that resonate with many a fellow ‘lifer’ guitarist.

But what exactly was that “first real six-string” Adams sings about with such bittersweet nostalgia? And was it really bought “at the five and dime?” It appears our sibling magazine across the pond, Guitarist, may have found the answer in a recent interview with the man himself.

"I bought an imitation Les Paul at a 'five and dime' store in Ottawa, Canada in 1971,” reveals Adams. “Before that, I had an imitation Strat which I bought in Reading, England in 1970.

“It felt real at the time to have a Les Paul, even though I'm a massive Ritchie Blackmore fan – still am. I was heavily into Humble Pie's Rockin’ the Fillmore album at the time, and both Peter Frampton and Steve Marriott were on Les Pauls. It's rock guitar heaven, that album."

Stream the Bryan Adams single “Never Gonna Rain” here.

Pre-order the album So Happy It Hurts here.

Infamously strummed using fifths in guitar stores for decades, Ritchie Blackmore’s “Smoke On the Water” riff (adapted from Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” according to the Deep Purple guitarist) is one of the most memorable and anthemic electric guitar moments in the entire history of hard rock.

Tracked during the sessions for Deep Purple’s 1972 Machine Head album Blackmore managed to glean this touchstone tone by plucking (rather than strumming) double-stop fourths using a large-headstock CBS-era maple ‘board Fender Stratocaster.

While he was using both Marshall and Vox amps at the time, a Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster unit was also employed to produce a more biting top end and a subtle touch of distortion. Interestingly, the band’s keys player, Jon Lord, also used a Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster in tandem with a Marshall amp to thicken the already harmonically rich tones of “Smoke On the Water.”

Recorded using a mobile studio belonging to The Rolling Stones, the bulk of the guitar tracks were cut in an empty theater in Switzerland, giving the sound a unique ambience. Having been moved on by the local police for making too much noise, however, the band set up again in an empty hotel where Blackmore then cut his solo using a Stratocaster neck pickup with his amp isolated in a separate space.

For some instant Ritchie Blackmore-inspired tones take a look at Catalinbread’s new Dreamcoat and Skewer pedals.

Buy Deep Purple’s Machine Head here.

Catalinbread have just launched a pair of Ritchie Blackmore-inspired stompboxes in a special edition box set. The Dreamcoat, which mimics the sounds of Blackmore’s Aiwa TP-1011 reel-to-reel preamp, and the Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster-style Skewer pedal feature matching artwork and are initially being offered together at a discounted price, after which they will be available to buy separately.

Designed to work together as tools that will help inspire you as much as they did the great man himself, Catalinbread are keen to emphasise the Dreamcoat and Skewer are intended to help guitarists create their own “sonic footprint” rather than simply mimic Blackmore’s classic tones. 

No doubt both stompboxes will be more pedalboard-friendly (not mention easier on the bank balance) than the original vintage Aiwa TP-1011 reel-to-reel and Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster. Catalinbread have promised the sounds of those classic rock originals have been faithfully recreated, but with extended controls these pedals also offer the ability to explore new sonic territory.

So, what’s under the hood of this box (set) of tricks?

Dreamcoat

The Dreamcoat is an accurate recreation of the preamp circuit in Blackmore’s Aiwa TP-1011 reel-to-reel deck, recalling the crystal-clear clean tones, unmistakable overdriven leads and everything in between from his classic recordings. Additionally, a frequency booster circuit that mimics the effect of the inductor-based custom tone mod in Ritchie’s Strat gives that little extra something when needed.

Skewer

In the same vein as their popular Naga Viper Dallas Rangemaster-style booster, the Skewer is Catalinbread’s take on the vintage Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster famously used by Ritchie Blackmore. This biting silicon transistor booster has been recreated here, albeit with a little more tweakability than the original, including a Skew knob which allows adjustment of the frequency response; an extended Boost control; and a gain-wringing Extra dial.

Visit Catalinbread for more information.

Today, Blackmore's Night – the eclectic folk group led by Deep Purple/Rainbow guitar legend Ritchie Blackmore and his wife, vocalist Candice Night – released their new album, Nature’s Light.

Notably, the album features an instrumental titled "Der letzte Musketier (The Last Musketeer)" where Blackmore – who typically focuses on acoustic instruments in Blackmore's Night – plugs in and delivers some scintillating, bluesy, high-volume licks that harken back to his early days with Deep Purple.

You can check the song out below.

The song's title, Blackmore said in a video about the track, is a nod to a trio he performed in back in the early '60s called The Musketeers.

The other two members of the band, Blackmore reveals, have since passed away, leaving Blackmore as "the last Musketeer." The new instrumental is Blackmore's way of thanking the other two members.

Nature’s Light is available now on all streaming services. You can also pick up a copy of the album right here.

Deep Purple in Rock is many things, but subtle is not one of them. Within literally seconds of listening to it, you’re blasted by Ian Paice’s frantic, slippery drums, Jon Lord’s braying organ, and, of course, Ritchie Blackmore’s indelible guitar riffing and loopy tremolo flourishes. 

Along the way, singer Ian Gillan references and rearranges rock’s DNA (“‘Good golly!’ said little Miss Molly/When she was rocking in the house of blue light!”), punctuating his Little Richard and Elvis Presley–inspired lyrics with ridiculously piercing and forceful shrieks and wails. For that matter, the frenzied rhythm, developed by bassist Roger Glover, emulates Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire.” 

From there, we’re through two verses and choruses and on to bearing witness to a classic Lord–Blackmore organ-guitar battle. And we’re only a minute into the record. The song we’re listening to is called “Speed King,” and it’s a wild and breathless launch to In Rock. 

It’s also completely in line with what ensues over the next 40 minutes or so. From the snaky, metallized grind of “Bloodsucker” to the breakneck gallop of “Flight of the Rat,” the monolithic guitar-organ groove of “Into the Fire,” and the thundering “Hard Lovin’ Man,” the album is a relentless sonic juggernaut, its massive and over-the-top sound reflected in both the album title and the Mount Rushmore–aping cover art. 

In fact, the only moment where Purple drive the music with anything less than the pedal fully floored is the 10-minute epic “Child in Time.” And given the fact that Gillan refuses to sing this one onstage anymore due to the practically inhuman vocal demands (there’s also an explosive, elongated Blackmore solo that many consider one of his best), this might be the most intense track of all.  

“If it’s not dramatic or exciting, it has no place on this album,” Blackmore once said of In Rock, and we’d be loath to disagree. There’s nary a moment on the record that isn’t a full-on white-knuckled experience.

But we’d also add the word heavy to the first part of Blackmore’s statement. Because even today, 50 years after its original release, In Rock is a testament to just how intense (and, per Ritchie, dramatic and exciting) guitar-based rock and roll can be. A half-century ago? It sounded positively revolutionary.

The album arrived at a turning point in popular music culture. The ’60s were, chronologically and spiritually, over. Woodstock had given way to Altamont, the Beatles were on the brink of breakup, and free love and the hippie dream had morphed into something darker and less idealized.

There were heavy bands, but many of them – Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Vanilla Fudge, Blue Cheer – were either dissolved or on their last legs. Into this moment stepped three British acts – Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple – that would push hard rock to new extremes and influence the generations of bands that were to follow.

By 1970, Zeppelin had established themselves as the preeminent hard-rock outfit, with two blockbuster albums under their belt and a third brewing that would delve more deeply into the band's folk and acoustic roots.

Black Sabbath, meanwhile, were crafting a doomy and downtuned sound that, paired with Ozzy Osbourne’s desperate wail and an overall exaggerated evil atmosphere, established the template for heavy metal going forward. And then there was Purple. By 1970, they were already, by the relatively brief lifespan of rock bands at the time, something of a veteran act.

They had released three albums – 1968’s Shades of Deep Purple and The Book of Taliesyn and the following year’s Deep Purple – and scored hits (at least in the U.S., where they were bigger than in their native U.K.) with covers of Neil Diamond’s “Kentucky Woman,” Ike & Tina Turner’s “River Deep – Mountain High,” and, most notably, Joe South’s “Hush,” which climbed to Number Four in the U.S. in the summer of ’68.

Of course, while that band was very much Deep Purple, it was not the decibel-defying, instrument-destroying, amp-exploding act that laid waste to arena and festival stages throughout the early and mid ’70s.

Nor was the Ritchie Blackmore of this Deep Purple the wild-eyed-but-cool-as-ice Fender Stratocaster–wielding, neoclassical-guitar-pioneering, whammy-bar-abusing six-string hero he would come to be praised as. That all began, unequivocally, with In Rock.

Back in 1968, however, Deep Purple were a fledging act led by Blackmore and Lord, the latter a classically trained pianist who had already logged years of recording, performing, and session work (he claimed to have played organ on the Kinks’ 1964 hit single “You Really Got Me”).

Blackmore, for his part, had spent time with a variety of acts, including the Outlaws, Neil Christian, and the outrageous “horror-rocker” Screaming Lord Sutch.

He also worked as a session guitarist around London and had, in his younger days, taken lessons from British session ace Big Jim Sullivan, who lived near Blackmore and was at one point in the mid ’60s considered the top session man on the circuit alongside the likes of Jimmy Page.

“He was teaching me classical – Bach, and things like that – and he was teaching me to read better than I was,” Blackmore said of Sullivan. Like Page and many other British guitarists of the time, Blackmore cut his teeth on a wide variety of sounds and musical styles. He once called 1950s British teen idol and skiffle player Tommy Steele his “first hero.”

Seeing Steele on a TV show titled Six Five Special, Blackmore recalled saying to himself, “That’s what I want to do: I want to jump around with a guitar like Tommy Steele does. I don’t want to play it, necessarily. I just want to jump around with it, like he did.”

From there, Blackmore dove deep into guitar, immersing himself both in classical forms as well as in the playing of Hank Marvin, Les Paul, Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, Scotty Moore, and Cliff Gallup.

His style, he said, “developed through sheer practice. When I was attending school, I was constantly practicing mentally. Then I would rush home and practice until the early hours. I would practice about five hours a day. I was obsessed with playing.”

By 1967 Blackmore, with his ever-present Gibson ES-335, had made a name for himself around London both as a performer (Screaming Lord Sutch, he said, “pulled me out front and demanded I jump around and act stupid”) and session man (“It was funny sometimes to hear yourself on perhaps eight out of 10 records being played on the radio”).

He was doing an extended stint gigging in Hamburg when he received a call to come back to England to audition for a burgeoning project conceived by British drummer Chris Curtis named Roundabout, which also included Jon Lord among its ranks. Curtis soon exited the project, and the band was rebuilt around Blackmore and Lord, who had found common ground upon meeting.

“Jon and I both had classical leanings,” Blackmore said. “He more so than I, so we had something in common immediately.” Eventually they added bassist Nick Simper and, after some musical chairs, singer Rod Evans and drummer Ian Paice, who had played together in a band called the Maze.

It is this lineup that began gigging as Roundabout, and, soon enough, as Deep Purple, after Blackmore suggested they rename the band after his grandmother’s favorite song, a 1930s-era standard that had been covered by various big-band and pop artists over the decades.

But there was also another consideration: “There were lots of ‘color’ bands around – Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, et cetera,” Blackmore explained. “Colors were in!”

By the summer of ’68, the new band had released its debut, Shades of Deep Purple, on EMI in the U.K. and Tetragrammaton Records (a brand-new label co-founded by comedian Bill Cosby) in the U.S., and notched a quick hit in the latter region with their organ-forward version of “Hush.”

Over the course of Shades and their next two records, Purple veered between pop, blues, rock, psychedelia, ballads, and baroque elements, without quite managing to carve out a distinct sound. Blackmore has acknowledged as much.

“I’m not particularly proud of the first three records,” he admitted. “They seem to be meandering all over the place. We didn’t really have a niche and we didn’t quite know where we were going.” 

Unsure of their musical footing, facing declining sales after “Hush” and dealing with the demise of Tetragrammaton, which went broke and folded soon after the release of Deep Purple, the group knew a change was in order.

Inspired in part by Zeppelin, Blackmore and Lord opted to take Purple in a heavier, more hard-rocking direction, and got Paice onboard with the idea. Their singer and bassist were less agreeable.

“We thought that Rod and Nick had gone about as far as they could,” Paice said. “We decided that if it was going to be a break, it was going to be a substantial one to refocus the band to look forward, to break this feeling of stagnation.”

Which is exactly what they did with the addition of leather-lunged vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover, both of whom hailed from British band Episode Six. Like Purple, Episode Six had struggled to break through to a wider audience. And like their soon-to-be bandmates, Gillan and Glover had grown tired of waiting for it to happen.

Thus, the classic Purple lineup, henceforth known as Deep Purple Mark II, was born. And while the intention all along had been to go in a heavier direction, ironically, the first fruits of their labors – the rather tame 1969 single “Hallelujah,” followed by the Jon Lord–spearheaded live classical album Concerto for Group and Orchestra – were quite the opposite. Blackmore, for one, was not amused.

In the wake of Concerto, “The split between the musical side of Jon and the harder side of Ritchie came to a head,” Paice said. “Concerto for Group and Orchestra was Jon Lord’s baby,” Glover observed. “People were confused about what kind of band we were. Subsequently, Blackmore firmly stepped up and changed the band’s identity into a jamming, hard-rocking force.”

The result of that step-up was In Rock. “That record was sort of a response to the one we did with the orchestra,” Blackmore said. “I wanted to do a loud, hard-rock record. And I was thinking, This record better make it, because I was afraid that if it didn’t we were going to be stuck playing with orchestras for the rest of our lives.”

With In Rock, Blackmore recalled, “Ian Gillan and Roger Glover had come in, so that gave us new blood. I found my niche being much heavier music and playing with more sustain on the amplifier – that sort of thing. We consciously sat down and said, ‘Let’s have a go at being really heavy.’”

But before the heavy new Purple hit the studio, they hit the road. Much of the material that would feature on In Rock was worked up onstage by the nascent lineup.

A bootleg from an August 1969 gig at Amsterdam’s Paradiso – only the band’s seventh gig with Gillan and Glover – shows early versions of “Speed King” (then titled “Kneel and Pray”) and “Child in Time” were already in the set. A review of the gig described the chaos of those formative days, noting that, during the former song, “the whole stage seems to be in a state of general mayhem.”

But the stage was also paramount to the development and eventual sound of In Rock. Said Gillan, “If you’re going to write about In Rock, you’ve got to combine the making of the album with the live performances. They were so much more important than the actual making of the record. Making records is almost an inconvenience, because you have to compromise in the studio.”

And while the combination of new members sparked a surge in writing – Gillan once remarked that he didn’t even know how “Speed King” happened – Glover also singled out Blackmore for being particularly inspired at the time.

“Ritchie wasn’t just the guitar player,” the bassist said. “He was a brilliant innovator. Things he wrote defy description. He was a magnetic, dynamic writer. I don’t think he could have done it in a vacuum by himself; it did require the rest of us. But I’ll certainly give him his due. He was the motivating character in the band.”

While In Rock serves as a showcase for every member of Deep Purple, it is without a doubt Blackmore who makes the biggest impression.

While his riffing and rhythm playing is rock solid and infused with plenty of attitude and aggression (“Bloodsucker” practically verges on heavy metal), it is in his lead work that the guitarist truly shines, mixing classical-tinged technique (the explosive triplet pattern that caps the dramatic “Child in Time” solo), deft, intricate runs (“Flight of the Rat”), insane whammy-bar warbles and plunges (“Bloodsucker”), and barely controlled noise (“Hard Lovin’ Man”) into an approach that manages to sound both studiously technical and completely unhinged. Blackmore was clearly, as intended, taking his playing in a harder-edged direction.

But there was more to his stylistic shift on In Rock than merely changing up his approach. Just as significantly, he also overhauled his gear. Around this time, the guitarist traded his stalwart ES-335 for a new number-one guitar, a Fender Stratocaster.

“I liked the way Hendrix’s Strat looked,” he explained. “A Strat has got that rock kind of look. So the visual thing attracted me first, even though it was an upside-down Strat in Hendrix’s case. I thought, I must try one of those someday.”

As for where he got his first Strat? “I knew Eric Clapton’s roadie. He was a friend of ours. And I think Eric had given him one of his Strats as a present. Probably because Eric didn’t want it. I think it had a slightly bowed neck, which was making the action pretty high. [The roadie] said, ‘I’ll sell it to you for £60.’ So Eric Clapton’s throwaway Strat came in handy for me.”

Blackmore used both the Fender and the Gibson on In Rock – “Child in Time” and “Flight of the Rat,” at least, are Blackmore on the ES-335. But it is the Strat, and in particular the guitar’s tremolo, that would come to dominate his sound.

“I changed to a Stratocaster because the sound had an edge to it that I really liked. But it was much harder to get used to,” he said, noting, “when you’re playing a humbucking pickup, you’ve got that fat sound, and it’s quite forgiving. But when you play with Fender pickups, they are so thin and mean and edgy and hard. And every note counts; you can’t fake a note.”

While the Strat didn’t allow Blackmore room to “fake a note,” it did make it possible for him to bend, bow, wobble, and whammy the heck out of them.

Which, of course, Blackmore did, making extreme trem abuse a cornerstone of his playing beginning on In Rock, and then throughout the rest of his ’70s work with Purple. To be sure, Blackmore was hardly polite in his approach to the whammy bar. Rather, he said, “I went crazy with it. I used to have quarter-inch [vibrato] bars made for me because I’d keep snapping the normal kind.

My repairman would look at me strangely and say, ‘What are you doing to these tremolo bars?’ Finally, he gave me this gigantic tremolo arm made of half an inch of solid iron and said, ‘Here. If you break this thing, I don’t wanna know about it!’

“About three weeks later,” Blackmore continued, “I went back. He looked at me and said, ‘No – you haven’t.’ And I said, ‘Yes I have.’ In graphic detail, I explained to him how I would twirl the guitar around the bar, throw it to the floor, put my foot on it and pull the bar off with two hands. He was a bit of a purist, so he wasn’t amused.”

Blackmore’s whammy bar makes itself known less than 20 seconds into In Rock, with a loopy dip signaling the first chorus (and every subsequent one) of “Speed King.”

But he really leans into the bar on tracks like “Bloodsucker” and, in particular, the tour de force finale, “Hard Lovin’ Man,” which closes with roughly a minute and a half of pure six-string guitar mayhem, with Blackmore unleashing shredding licks as he pummels his tremolo, violently scrapes his strings, and conjures all manner of screaming feedback.

His bandmates, seemingly unable to keep up, eventually drop out of the mix, then return and drop out again, leaving Blackmore to finish the song – and the record – on his own, going out in a hail of guitar screeches and moans and white noise.

It is a literally show-stopping end to the record, and stands as arguably one of the most beautifully unhinged recorded guitar moments of the era. “One of the engineers who originally worked on that album was this stuffy bloke who didn’t like rock and roll music,” Blackmore recalled.

“While I was recording the solo on that song, I got this urge and started rubbing the guitar up and down the doorway of the control room to get all that wild guitar noise. So this bloke looks at me, and he’s got this expression on his face as if I’d lost my mind.” Of course, Blackmore could also be subtle and nimble when the part called for it.

Take the long break in “Child in Time,” which sees him building something of a composition within a composition, his solo beginning with round-toned, bluesy phrases accented with moaning note bends, before gradually picking up speed, taking on a biting, snarling sound and exploding in a flurry of classical arpeggios.

It’s one of his most celebrated and complex solos, and what’s more, Blackmore said years later, he would sometimes play it much faster onstage.

The only problem, he admitted, “was coming into that part at the end of the guitar solo that the band would do in unison. You can only play that so fast – unless you start tapping, which I don’t do, out of principle. It’s just an A minor arpeggio, but it’s all downstrokes. You try and play that really fast after you’ve had 10 scotches!”

Then there’s “Living Wreck,” where he constructs his solo almost entirely of long, vibratoed notes played in phrases that slowly make their way up the fretboard to reach a climactic end. The result is a passage that sounds almost violin-like in tone and texture, and contrasts with the distorted organ bleats that otherwise characterize the song.

That push and pull between Lord’s organ and Blackmore’s guitar, it’s worth noting, would become a key component of Purple’s sound. And once again, it all began on In Rock.

As Roger Glover once explained, “Jon played the blues when he was young, and that gave him a solid foundation, because when he played hard in Deep Purple, he was able to match Blackmore’s massive guitar sound and transform the organ from a polite instrument and stand toe-to-toe with a guitarist as overpowering as Blackmore.” 

One way Lord did that, Glover continued, was by “abusing his instrument and sticking it through a Marshall instead of a Leslie to make it scream.”

Which was useful, as Blackmore tended to play loud. “I’ve always played every amp I’ve ever had full up, because rock and roll is supposed to be played loud,” he told Guitar Player in 1973. “Also, keeping the amp up is how you get your sustain. I turn down on the guitar for dynamics.”

Blackmore has always been a bit cagey when it comes to discussing his exact amp setup back in the day, though it is common knowledge that in the early ’70s he was fond of both Vox and Marshall units.

Eventually, he moved on to Marshall Majors, which he had modded with an extra output stage to give the amp “a fatter sound, a bit more distorted,” he said. 

“This extra output stage basically made the 200-watt into a 280-watt. So for the first probably five years of Deep Purple – ’70 to ’75 – I did have the loudest amp in the world.” No matter what amp he was using, however, a mainstay of Blackmore’s rig in those days was the Hornby-Skewes treble booster.

“That is the sound I always used, coupled with the Vox or the Marshall,” he said. “For a while, Jon Lord used the Hornby-Skewes and Marshall for his organ as well. We were looking for a distorted organ sound and I said, ‘Why don’t we plug your organ through my Hornby-Skewes and into my amp and see how an organ sounds like that?’ So we did it, and of course he loved the sound.”

And what’s not to love, really? The massive sound that Deep Purple forged on In Rock, and then carried through on subsequent early ’70s masterpieces like Fireball and Machine Head, would inspire and spawn literally generations of hard-rock and heavy-metal bands.

One future guitar hero who found it impossible to look away from Blackmore was virtuoso neoclassical shredder Yngwie Malmsteen, who is clearly indebted to the Purple man in terms of sound, style, and even choice of instrument. In a call with Guitar Player, he was eager to testify to the greatness of Blackmore and the band on In Rock.

As a child growing up in Sweden, Malmsteen said, “Hearing In Rock was like taking a brick and just shoving it right in your head. It’s heavy, it’s fast, it’s technical, it’s sick. It’s a really, really aggressive sound. ‘Flight of the Rat,’ ‘Child in Time,’ ‘Into the Fire’… It’s timeless. It’s ridiculous.” 

Following In Rock, Deep Purple, of course, went on to experience greater highs (there’s that little Machine Head ditty “Smoke on the Water” for one), and also incredible lows.

To the latter point, there is the rift that has lasted for decades between Blackmore – who now focuses primarily on acoustic Renaissance music, as well as occasionally playing with his reunited post-Purple act, Rainbow – and his former bandmates.

In fact, when Purple were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Blackmore, depending on who is telling the story, either declined or was prevented from standing alongside them to accept the honor.

As Glover said in a 2018 interview, “He can be difficult to work with, but he is even more difficult to live with. Blackmore is a very unique character, and in the early days we had fantastic times and wrote great songs.”

Indeed they did, and many of Purple’s greatest are collected on In Rock, which, 50 years on, is still as alluring, mesmerizing, and flat-out overwhelming as ever. It’s the album, as Blackmore has said, where “everything clicked” for Deep Purple.

Or, as Malmsteen says, “It’s the one where they go full out the most. Everybody talks about Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, and I love those bands, too. But In Rock is heavier and more metal than any of the other guys. 

"It was just, ‘Turn everything up and play as fast and as loud and as much as you can!’” He laughs. “I was eight years old when I heard it, and it messed with my head forever. Because I still do that!”