Is Ritchie Blackmore ready to rock again?
The answer is “yes,” says Joe Lynn Turner. The singer insists he’ll cut a deal with his former RAINBOW bandmate for a reunion in 2015, according to guitarplayer.com.
“He’s itching to do some rocking, and we’re going to get together in the fall,” Turner told Classic Rock on April 5, following a solo performance in London.
“Ritchie is really, really ready to rock. He still has the chops too.”
Turner talked about a Rainbow reunion in December 2014, noting that Blackmore “deserves to go out in a big blaze of glory.” Talks were reportedly held that month.
“Now is the time—2015,” Turner said in December. “Everybody’s sitting there waiting for this to happen.”
Rainbow were active from 1974 through to 1984, when they disbanded. At the time, Blackmore and bassist Roger Glover returned to Deep Purple, where they had originally performed together from the late Sixties to the early Seventies. Rainbow regrouped in 1993 with Doogie White replacing Turner on vocals.
Blackmore split from Rainbow in 1997 to focus on Blackmore’s Night, his Renaissance-influenced group with his wife, Candice Night. The band has been the sole outlet for his work since then. To date, Blackmore’s Night have released nine studio albums.
According to Turner, previous negotiations for a Rainbow reunion included a 60-day tour and an HD 3-D movie. Those plans reportedly fell apart when Blackmore pulled out to work on a Blackmore’s Night project.
Turner added that bassists Jimmy Bain and Bob Daisley have both been recruited, though it’s unclear why the band would need two bassists. Bain performed with Rainbow from 1975 to 1977, when Daisley took over and stayed until 1979.
“I’m not sure if it’s going to be a Rainbow reunion or a bunch of remakes—which I detest, because you can’t improve on perfection,” Turner said. “But that’s what’s happening.”
Stay tuned, and we will see if it actually happens this time.
Andy Sneap who seems always busy and can hardly find time to answer his messages, mentioned Blackmore as one of the major influences. The legendary Wolf Hoffmann told me that he is not afraid to confess that he worships Ritchie and the mighty Pumpkinhead Michael Weikath told me “I could say many things but given his position and history, who am I to say anything?” Simon Johansson went even further as to attribute Ritchie for being “a bit responsible” for his starting to play guitar!”
“I just proofed a coffee table book that I’m doing on Ozzy Osbourne, which is like a timeline with quotes book, like my Iron Maiden coffee table book that just came out. And I’m halfway through a WHITESNAKE book, I’m gonna do a book on a Canadian band called MAX WEBSTER and I just finished up a 400 page book that I’ve got with my layout guy on MEGADETH. So lots going on, and also through another big American publisher I’ve got a coffee table book that’s like an oral history of Hair Metal, so going from about 1980 roughly to about 1991 when NIRVANA came out. Plus working with Banger films, we did the Rush movie Metal Evolution and we did the IRON MAIDEN movie. We got a new series called Rock Icons, it’s half hour episodes on just one person at a time, so I’m in there as a consultant as well, one week on, two weeks off, so I dip that in between everything else.”
“Yes I agree with that, I think DEEP PURPLE’s big contribution is the bringing of a classical element to heavy metal and that’s a combination of Ritchie and Jon Lord. We might have gotten some of that Middle Eastern or Turkish or Morrocan sound too. All of power metal, which is a massive heavy metal genre, owes a lot to bands like DEEP PURPLE, RAINBOW, JUDAS PRIEST, and Ritchie is in two of those bands. It got even more power metally when he started RAINBOW, especially with “Rainbow Rising” and “Long Live Rock ‘N Roll.” At that point you have Ronnie James Dio helping him out and they both agree philosophically about subject matter like fantasy, dungeons and dragons, castles and all of that stuff. You’re right, heavy metal would be a very different beast, it might have gone more of that blues or doom route, not this interesting classical route if it wasn’t for Ritchie.”
“That’s an interesting one because Yngwie is almost the guy who picked up where Ritchie left off and just went crazy. RAINBOW was almost like the uber DEEP PURPLE on steroids kind of band, but when you get into Joe Lynn Turner he’s moving into a more American sound. So he went one way and Yngwie is like hmm well if Ritchie kept getting heavier and faster and more crazy and bombastic and more heavy metal and more classical, more and more everything. He’s almost like the guy who did pick up from there. In doing that Yngwie battered us all over the head and came up with a style that’s even more distinct.”
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