The artist Ritchie Blackmore said was the world’s greatest composer, singer and showman
Genre isn’t as important as it used to be. Previously, when music was less accessible than it is today, genre was important because a lot of people were buying albums before actually having the chance to listen to them. Genre helped them spend their money wisely, as people knew that if they liked Pink Floyd, they might be interested in other psychedelic bands. Or if they liked heavier music like Black Sabbath, there were other metal bands they could listen to.
These days, genres are a lot more fragile. Bands and artists are happy to dabble in various different styles of music, knowing that, because of accessibility, people don’t need to rely on their favourite genres quite as much. It’s exciting for music lovers, as it seems that we have no idea what to expect from every album we listen to, and artists are constantly pushing themselves creatively, even in what is often considered a saturated market.
However, while artists blurring the lines between genres might be more common these days, there have always been musicians willing to do it. Ritchie Blackmore was one of them. While he is considered one of the greatest rock guitarists, he was always willing to incorporate different styles and sounds into the music he made.
For instance, some Deep Purple albums incorporated classical elements, while others focused predominantly on hard rock. Blackmore was constantly listening to different pieces of music and was happy to use all of them when writing and recording with the band. The idea to use classical compositions alongside rock came when he saw a local band doing something similar.
“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,” he said, “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.”
His varied approach to writing meant that Blackmore could see more facets to a song than just the one piece of music. He could appreciate the different styles an artist was trying to use, the performance of a song and the overall construction of a piece of music. While what we like and don’t like are subjective matters, you can count on Blackmore to give you a reasonable opinion on music recommendations, and there was one artist he always admired that he held in high regard above everybody else.
Blackmore was never shy about telling anybody who would listen how much of a big fan of Jimi Hendrix he was. In an interview, he made it clear that he loved not just his guitar playing but also the way he wrote music, his attitude towards playing songs, and his general approach to creativity.
“He had the music down, he had the composing down, he had the singing down, plus the showmanship. So nobody can compete with something like that,” said Blackmore, “I don’t think really anybody can come up to what he could do. Because he could do everything. That was the thing that I thought it was very interesting.”
