Ritchie Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English guitarist. He is former member and founder of British hard rock band Deep Purple.
In the 1950s, Blackmore played with small bands. In 1968, Blackmore, with keyboardist Jon Lord, singer Rod Evans, bassist Nick Simper and drummer Ian Paice created the band Deep Purple. Deep Purple had a hit song in the United States with "Hush". Although they were doing well, Ritchie Blackmore and Deep Purple decided to get a different singer. They replaced Evans with Ian Gillan. The band's album Deep Purple In Rock was released in 1970. In 1972, Deep Purple made the album Machine Head. It included one of their most popular songs, "Smoke on the Water. In 1972, they recorded the live album Made in Japan. Gillan and Glover left the group in 1974. The new Deep Purple released two albums Burn (1974) and Stormbringer (1974). Blackmore left the band soon after these albums were released.
In 1984, Blackmore got together with Gillan, Glover, Lord and Paice and made the album Perfect Strangers. The album had many successes with the songs "Knocking at Your Back Door" and "Perfect Strangers". After recording the album The Battle Rages On, Blackmore left the band in 1993.
In 1975, Blackmore founded the band The Rainbow. The band included Ronnie James Dio as singer, Craig Gruber on bass, Micky Lee Soule on keyboards, and Gary Driscoll on drums. The band's first album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released August 4, 1975. It was followed by Long Live Rock 'n' Roll in 1978, with Cozy Powell in drums. On Difficult to Cure (1981), The band included the vocalist Joe Lynn Turner, replacing Dio. After several changes in it's members, Blackmore disbanded the band in 1997.
A reformed Rainbow performed three European concerts in June 2016. The concert setlists included both Rainbow and Deep Purple material. The band featured metal singer Ronnie Romero, keyboardist Jens Johansson and bassist Bob Nouveau.
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