Blackmore’s Dad: Learn Guitar Or I’ll Beat You!

Yes, Ritchie is wearing tights in this pic!

Wanted a Trumpet, Drums; Settled for Guitar

Fender.com recently published a short-ish interview with Ritchie Blackmore that had a couple of interesting tidbits in it, below. For the full interview, which discusses his current work with Blackmore’s Night, click here.

Fender: Is it true that when your father bought you your first guitar at age 11 it was on the condition that he was going to have someone teach it to you properly or smash you across the head with it?

Ritchie: Yes, that is true. He did say that. I think he was used to me…getting bored very easily and that it was a passing phase — that I wouldn’t carry on playing the instrument. I initially wanted to be a trumpet player, but they were too expensive. Then a drummer, but they were too expensive. So my dad bought me a guitar. It was cheaper. I wanted to be Eddie Calvert – he was a trumpet player – when I was 8.

Could you talk about your evolution as a guitar player, from those early classical lessons to Deep Purple and Rainbow bassist and producer Roger Glover helping you to recognize that while playing with speed can look flashy, that slowing down and holding a note is also a true art?

I realized when I first started playing the guitar I wanted to be very fast. Then I realized, when that wore off, that playing slower and with more feeling and emoting was much harder. It took me a few years to get used to playing slowly. Now I find it harder to play fast.

You’ve been a longtime Fender Stratocaster® player and have your own signature Stratocaster model, which   features a graduated scalloped rosewood fingerboard. What made you originally decide to use a scalloped fingerboard?

RB: I had a classical guitar way back when I was 19 or 20. It had a pitted fingerboard, worn out from excessive use so the wood in between the frets was almost concave. It felt right. Then when I went to playing the electric guitar and I wanted to bend a note, I always felt that the fingerboard should be scalloped so one could grip the string easier. I first did this, as far as I remember, back in 1971.

Notable: Low Attention Span?

It’s been said that you never play the same set when you tour or play a song the same way twice. Is this improvisational style a desire to stay unique, a continual search for perfectionism, or do you just get bored easy with being repetitive?

The last one. I get very bored and distracted very easily. I can never remember set pieces, set lines or set anything. I would never be able to be an actor.

Notable: ‘Smoke’ Riff

Your guitar intro to Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” is widely considered as one of the most famous rock ‘n’ roll riffs ever.  The lyrics of the song were inspired by the experiences the band had when a fire broke out at the Montreux Casino concert hall in Montreux, Switzerland, but how did you come up with the famous riff?

Ian Paice (Deep Purple drummer) and I often used to jam, just the two of us. It was a natural riff to play at the time. It was the first thing that came into my head during that jam.

[I was going to drop a Blackmore’s Night tune/performance in here, but couldn’t find any “Woody” ones. Then I stumbled across this: I guess Renaissance people want some DP too!]

Category: Ritchie Blackmore, Strat