Before
Deep Purple formed in 1968 Ritchie Blackmore (14/4/1945 in Weston-Super-Mare,
England) had already contributed to several records by artists such
as The Outlaws and Screaming Lord Sutch.
Deep Purple MK I also featured the musical talents of John Lord (keyboards),
Ian Paice (drums), Rod Evans (vocals) and Nick Simper (bass).
Though being a British band Deep Purple had their first success in
the USA, when the single "Hush", taken from their debut
album "Shades Of Deep Purple", reached number 4 in the charts
there. After two more albums with this line-up Jon and Ritchie decided
they needed a new singer and bassist to enable them the musical progress
they were trying to achieve. Thus Ian Gillan (voc) and Roger Glover
(bass) joined the band. The first album they did together, the "Concerto
For Group And Orchestra" seemed to indicate that Jon Lord had
won the battle against Ritchie about which musical direction the band
should take: Heavily orchestrated music or a guitar-orientated hard
rock style. But their next album would reveal the path they were to
choose…
"In Rock", released in 1970, was an aggressive rock album
on which Ritchie could at last express himself the way he wanted to
Deep Purple MK II wrote such rock classics as "Speed King",
"Child In Time", "Black Night", "Highway
Star" and "Smoke On The Water", just to mention a few.In
1973 David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes replaced Gillan and Glover.
The first MK III release, "Burn" featured a bluesier style
of rock music. Being unhappy about the soul-influences Glenn brought
into the band, Ritchie decided to leave in 1975 to form Rainbow. Having
recorded "Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow" he decided only to
keep the singer Ronnie James Dio and replace the rest of the band.
Rainbow went through a constant change of line-ups, recording albums
like "Rising" and "Long Live Rock'n'Roll" with
Dio, "Down To Earth" with Graham Bonnet and "Difficult
To Cure" with Joe Lynn Turner on vocals.In 1984 Ritchie and Roger
Glover, who had joined Rainbow in 1979, were approached to reform
the legendary Deep Purple MK II line-up, so after a final tour in
Japan that same year Rainbow ceased to exist.The comeback album "Perfect
Strangers" was followed by "The House Of Blue Light"
in 1987 and an extensive tour ensued, during which they would record
the live album "Nobody's Perfect".
After Joe Lynn Turner had sung on "Slaves And Masters" Gillan
returned in1992 to do the vocal duties on "The Batlle Rages On".During
the tour in 1993 Ritchie got more and more dissatisfied with Gillan's
performance and unprofessional attitude, so he decided to leave the
band after the last Eurpean show, played in Helsinki.In 1995, with
a new-formed Rainbow, Ritchie records "Stranger In Us All".
For the first time Candice's talent as a songwriter is used on one
of his records.The successful tour that same year takes the band across
Europe and Japan, where they receive their golden record after the
first show in Tokyo. Ritchie gets awarded best guitarist in both Japanese
and German magazine reader's polls. "Black Masquerade" is
nominated song of the year in Japan and to honour this the Osaka Hard
Rock Cafe creates a special drink of the same name. -It tasted nice!
