The two artists Ritchie Blackmore blamed for the dumbing down of music: “It’s slipping back”
There are several contenders for the title of rock’s supreme curmudgeon. While Keith Richards and Lou Reed are two of the most famous candidates, with a long list of vitriolic takes between them, another is former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore.
Like the aforementioned, Blackmore is well within his rights to be a harsh critic. After all, he’s one of the most influential guitarists of all time, bridging the gap between Jimi Hendrix and later virtuosos such as Eddie Van Halen and an undisputed pioneer of metal thanks to records such as In Rock by Deep Purple. Possessing the blunt realism needed to self-critique his ideas, refine them and rise to the top, having a tangible impact on culture, and an array of prominent fans has only emboldened his outspoken nature.
Across his career, Blackmore has been bold in slamming the work of others. While he’s made it very clear that he thinks the Police are the worst band of all time because they made corporate sheen ubiquitous in 1980s music, he despises several other notable names.
When speaking to Creem in 1975, Blackmore was asked by the interviewer, Cameron Crowe, what he thought about the state of music at the time. After all, the metal wave led by Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin had long since lost its verve, glam rock had taken hold, and punk was on the horizon.
Blackmore started by lamenting the loss of his idol Jimi Hendrix five years earlier, who had given him faith that people wanted to hear great guitar music, and not just vocal harmony groups such as The Beatles and The Hollies, whom he questionably described as “great, but musically nothing”. Switching his focus to the present, Blackmore then criticised David Bowie and Alice Cooper – two figures credited with instilling theatre into music – for dumbing it down since the heady days of Hendrix.
“It’s slipping back,” he said.
“I’m afraid at the moment, with David Bowie and Alice Cooper and people like that, the scene has dampened again. So it’s slipping back. There’s nothing happening musically with people like David Bowie and Alice Cooper, but some people seem to think they’re the new messiahs, so I guess that’s the way it is,” Blackmore told the publication.
Blackmore was particularly fed up with music at the time. He left Deep Purple later that year after openly criticising the direction the latest iteration of the band had taken with 1974’s funky Stormbringer. In one of his last decrees before he departed, he forbade bassist Glenn Hughes from performing on Bowie’s album Young Americans.
Hughes and Bowie became friends in Los Angeles after the latter contacted the former and informed him he was a big fan of his singing. When they met up, they realised they had a shared love of cocaine and Luther Vandross, which led to Hughes being asked on to Young Americans. However, the grumpy Blackmore nixed the prospect. He told Classic Rock in 2021: “Unfortunately, Ritchie Blackmore was vehemently against it. He thought it would be bad for Purple’s image. I was a bit pissed off about that”.
Ironically, Hughes also claimed that Bowie helped him keep Deep Purple going after Blackmore left. Bowie suggested they get a guitarist who looked and sounded nothing like Blackmore. According to legend, Bowie even took Hughes to replacement guitarist Tommy Bolin’s audition.
