1. Deep Purple’s Black Knight: The Virtuoso Identity of Ritchie Blackmore in defining the riff-driven Heavy metal of In Rock
Who Do We Think They Are? - Deep Purple and Metal Studies - Andy R. Brown
Kevin Ebert [+]
Musician and PhD candidate
Description
As Kevin Ebert makes clear in Chapter 1, neither the popular riff composition status of ‘Smoke On The Water’ or the baroque-classical soloing to be found on Machine Head’s ‘Highway Star,’ as outlined by Walser, fully do justice to the extent of Blackmore’s heavy metal legacy, not least because neither includes his seminal contribution to the definition and subsequent development of the genre, laid down in conjunction with the classic Purple band on the pivotal 1970 album, In Rock. Indeed, as Ebert notes, these claims to fame to be found in guitar features and surveys, such as Rolling Stone’s ‘100 Greatest Guitarists’ (2015) lead to Blackmore being ranked a middling 50th, while other metal guitarists are placed above him and rock guitarists above them. Some of this, as Ebert notes, is attributable to Blackmore’s ‘the man in black’ or Black Knight persona, reflected in his ‘difficult’ relationship with the rock press. But this persona itself appears to be a defensive response to a perceived lack of recognition of his contribution to heavy rock and metal song composition but also a lack of appreciation of the technical skill and sheer audacity of his ‘live’ performances. It is the combination of these two aspects that Ebert seeks to explore in his re-examining of the making of the classic In Rock album, made possible by the musical leadership of Blackmore at this time, through a ‘guitar centric’ examination of the album itself and the anthemic track list of songs that define it. But also a focus on the musical journey of Blackmore as a guitarist and his development of guitar virtuosity techniques, such as his innovative use of extreme vibrato, aligned with his search for the loudest amplifier set up, made possible by the development of the Marshall 200watt stack. All of which leads Ebert to place Blackmore and his work on In Rock as central to the foundations of heavy metal music. After leaving Deep Purple, the first time around, Blackmore formed the band Rainbow and developed a neo-classical and hard rock sound, captured on the debut album Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (1975) and perfected on the follow up, Rainbow Rising (1976), especially on tracks like ‘Star Gazer’ where Blackmore’s anthemic song structures were complimented by Ronnie James Dio’s neo-classical, operatic vocal range and medieval-themed mystical lyrics, creating for many the music and lyrical template for power metal (Brown 2025). However, after Dio departed, Blackmore took the band in a much more commercial, rock-pop and R&B direction, on the aptly titled Down To Earth (1979), bringing in Roger Glover as producer and co-writer/ lyricist, as well as external songwriter Russ Ballard, to pen popular ballads and chart toppers, like ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ and ‘All Night Long’.