In his legendary tenures in Deep Purple and Rainbow — and even through to his current exploits in Renaissance music with Blackmore’s Night — Ritchie Blackmore has rarely been seen using any electric guitar other than a Fender Stratocaster. But if it wasn’t for Eric Clapton, that might have never proved to be the case.
Blackmore recalled how Clapton altered his six-string trajectory in 1969 by providing him with his first Strat.
“I was in Deep Purple in 1969 and I was living in Acton, London,” Blackmore told Guitar World. “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 $1,300 today.
Clapton was instrumental to Blackmore in ways beyond the Stratocaster. As Blackmore once told Guitar Player, it was Clapton who taught him the importance of using vibrato. Prior to that, Blackmore thought mostly about speed on the fretboard.
“My feeling was, if you play vibrato you’re wasting time,” Blackmore said. “‘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.
“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.”
