“No Smoke on the Water.”
- Sign posted in guitar shop -
Today is the birthday of British guitar legend, Ritchie Blackmore. Blackmore, born in 1945, was the founder of the influential bands Deep Purple (1968-1975/1984-1993) and Rainbow (1975-1984/1993-1997). In 1995 he formed a folk rock project with then girlfriend, now wife, Candice Night called Blackmore's Night. Jeffrey Pickett, the creator of my website and doer of my videos, has done a good bit of work with Blackmore's Night. He could speak to the specifics of it, but for example, the video he did for their song Second Element has 1,136,433 views on YouTube. Shut up!
Blackmore has been a steady working rocker for sixty-plus years and he was an early influence on me. When I was ten years old we had a .45 in our house of Deep Purple's monster hit, Hush. It was my sister's. If I had any money at that age I spent it on baseball cards. But, I loved that song. I would sneak into her room when she wasn't around and blast it as loud as I could get away with. From the wolf's howl in the intro to the opening guitar riff and the killer chugging organ all the way through…man, it was infectious. I learned too that if you put Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah Nah, Nah, or some such, in a song, it works every time. Think about it… “Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah…Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Hey, Hey, Hey, Goodbye”…"Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah…It cuts like a knife". See?
So, Hush introduced me to a harder edged sound that I would soon embrace with other bands like Led Zeppelin who followed close behind. Deep Purple is also responsible for one of the most recognizable songs in rock history, Smoke on the Water. Whether you consider it a legendary rock staple or a punch line is a personal thing. The intro riff is one every kid from that era learned to play the first 10-minutes they held a guitar.
Blackmore's other band Rainbow, while not as well known as Deep Purple, was still a major player in the world of heavy metal-ish sound. Teaming initially with the incomparable vocalist, Ronnie James Dio, they produced some heavy-hitters like Man on the Silver Mountain and Stargazer. After Dio split, Joe Lynn Turner and his powerful vocals joined the outfit. My favorite of their songs comes from that lineup, Stone Cold.
Happy birthday, Ritchie Blackmore. Rock on!
*** Hush was written by songwriter Joe South (The Games People Play) and originally charted on country radio with a cover by Billy Joe Royal in 1967.