Ritchie Blackmore on how Led Zeppelin shaped Deep Purple
Just as the 1960s were about to turn into the 1970s, a new revolution was happening in rock music. Bands were getting louder, darker, and more riff-heavy. The power of amplifiers and distortion was beginning to evolve rapidly, and with the proper equipment in hand, heavy metal was able to prosper as a genre all its own. Leading the charge at the front were a trio of British acts: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple.
Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was never shy about citing the influence of his peer, Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, even if he occasionally accused the band of stealing his sound. “I was impressed with what Zeppelin did,” Ritchmore explained to Classic Rock. “I wanted to do that kind of stuff, and if it doesn’t take off, we’ll go and play with orchestras the rest of our lives. So we did it, and it was Deep Purple In Rock, which, luckily, took off. We’d purposely made it so it hammered along every song, there was no lull. I was very pleased with it because I never wanted to work with an orchestra again.”
Blackmore is referring to the band’s 1969 album Concerto for Group and Orchestra, which featured Deep Purple collaborating with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall. Blackmore came away from the concerts disenchanted with the band’s direction, looking to strip things down and simplify the music. The solution came by taking a note out of Led Zeppelin’s book.
“Zeppelin. I liked their hard approach when they came out and did ‘Whole Lotta Love’,” Blackmore explained in 1978. “I immediately tuned in with that type of style because before, when we were fiddling around with orchestras, I thought: something’s wrong; I’m not giving all that I can. Thanks to them for the inspiration. They got it from Jeff Beck, who got it from the Small Faces,” Ritchie Blackmore said.
“It is strange how we all come from the same area,” Blackmore said in an interview for the documentary Ritchie Blackmore Story. “Like I said, with Jimmy Page, he was in the same village, it’s like a village. Really not even a town. Clapton was a few more warm miles out, and course (Jeff) Beck was in another area, but course, the same age.”
“I knew that he was going to be somebody then. Not only was he a good guitar player, he had that star quality there,” he adds. “There was something about him, he was very poised and confident. He was confident but not arrogant. So I thought, ‘he’s gonna go somewhere’, that guy, you know. He knows what he is doing.”
“He was way ahead of most guitar players. He was really good, he knew he was good too. (Also), he wasn’t arrogant, but he was very comfortable within himself,” Blackmore said. “Then, ’64 or ’65, I met up with him, we did a couple of sessions actually with him. One was with Jeff Beck. Jeff took the solo, and everybody was raving about the solo, that was a really good solo. I noticed I was playing, and he was looking at my hands. I’m like, ‘Why are you looking at my hands?’ and he responded, ‘I don’t know where we are. I’m just following your chords.'”
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