Well, you need a unique guitar-playing ability, plenty of great stage presence, and, something often overlooked, an ear to the ground. Blackmore’s love of music was always consistent. Even during the height of his success, he was constantly going out, watching gigs, and learning from other guitarists. This influenced his style of playing massively and meant he continued to sound fresh.
For instance, when you listen to a lot of Deep Purple’s early material, a lot of the classical music that plays such a big part in their sound comes from a band that Blackmore saw at 15 years old. He was fascinated with the cross-pollination of classical music and rock, so Deep Purple continued trying to blend the two.
“My interest in classical music overall is what led me in the direction of trying to combine blues, rock and classical ideas into the stylistic statement,” said Blackmore, “At the age of 15, I saw a band that did rocked-up classical tunes, called Nero and the Gladiators. They all wore togas, and you would think they must have looked really silly, but it worked.”
Of course, Deep Purple didn’t always stick with classical music; they also embraced a much heavier side with their critically acclaimed record In Rock. Again, this idea came from Blackmore staying engaged with the music scene around him. He wasn’t ignorant of his success and was always interested in what ideas were circulating and if there was anything he could be influenced by. In Rock was a direct result of Leslie West’s music.
“I remember being in a place in Germany, and Ian [Paice] and I were out drinking together,” he recalled, “In those days, you could go to a club and listen to the new records in their entirety that had just come out. Paice and I heard, ‘Mississippi Queen’, and we both went white! We were thinking, ‘Who the hell is that?!’ It had such a big sound! For three guys, it was incredibly heavy.”
This affinity for live music and finding inspiration in modern music scenes was something shared by Deep Purple. In fact, it was Blackmore and Jon Lord’s shared love for one specific band that led to the formation of Deep Purple in the first place. At a bar in Germany, they both realised they had an obsession with Vanilla Fudge, and Blackmore continued to insist that the band were underrated.
“We loved Vanilla Fudge – they were our heroes,” he said, “They used to play London’s Speakeasy, and all the hippies used to go there to hang out – Clapton, The Beatles – everybody went there to pose […] The group was ahead of its time […] So, initially we wanted to be a Vanilla Fudge clone. But our singer, Ian, wanted to be Edgar Winter. He’d say, ‘I want to scream like that, like Edgar Winter’. So that’s what we were – Vanilla Fudge with Edgar Winter!”
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