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Blackmore is sued for botched album promotion
Blabbermouth reports that Blackmore’s record company Frontiers is suing him for failing to adequately promote the latest Blackmore’s Night album All Our Yesterdays. According to the complaint, filed on March 16 in Manhattan federal court, Blackmore received a $220,000 advance for the album and signed a contract guaranteeing his “full support to the promotion surrounding the release of the album” and using his “reasonable best efforts to help and support all the activities and promotions (including but not limited to interviews as settled by the [Frontiers] and its representatives)”.
The complaint then goes on to enumerate the laundry list of refused requests for interviews, TV appearances, and other grievances. For example, in France he only granted 4 out of 14 requested interviews, in Germany he refused 6 TV appearances and two interviews interview with leading national publication Bild (among 25 to 30 stories in less respectable outlets). And so on and so forth.
The record company claims that his failure to adequately support promotion of the album resulted in poor sales and is asking for $150,000 back (presumably, the non-recouped portion of the advance).
Blackmore’s lawyer denied the allegations, calling them “ludicrous”.
Here endeth the fact and starteth the opinion.
It is well known from history that Blackmore does not give many interviews. He did not exactly start this behaviour in 2015. What have changed? Sales so poor that the record company can’t even recoup the advance? Methinks that it was not the poor promotion to blame, but poor material. It is this editor’s humble opinion that having once established a successful formula with Fires at Midnight and Ghost of a Rose, the band had stagnated and each subsequent album was more of the same and less and less exciting. Perhaps that is the reason for poor sales, and not his failure to grant interviews and appear on TV?
Thanks to Blabbermouth and New York Post for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Same ol’ Blackers
March 20th, 2016 at 23:04That’s a lot of lute.
March 20th, 2016 at 23:04They should have been aware that Ritchie absolutely hates doing interviews .
March 20th, 2016 at 23:07Lost all respect for Blackmore years ago when he slagged off SRV…
March 20th, 2016 at 23:21Unfortunately, despite their long lasting ill feelings for each other both Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan need to feed off each other’s ‘negative’ energy to create ground breaking music. Deep Purple has and always be the GREATEST hard rock time and it was Mark II and only Mark II that can create that magic. Ritchie and Ian need to find a way to make amends. Suggestion is to make an album and then just walk away for a couple years. Do not even call each other during those 2 years. You 2 guys are not married and should not be, heaven forbid that. But the chemistry is remarkable. Maybe this strategy is what was missing through all these years. Please blow it all off and get back in the studio. If for nothing else, please for Jon Lord (R.I.P) who was a wonderful person and all he wanted was to make the best music in the world. You guys should do something in his remembrance and put your ill feelings aside just this one last time. God Bless Ritchie Blackmore/Steve Morse, Ian Gillan, Jon Lord/Don Airey, Roger Glover and Ian Paice. I am just one of the many millions of devout Deep Purple fans and we all want everyone to get along and continue making the greatest music of all time 🙂
March 20th, 2016 at 23:23This is actually good news, he would probably add a Rainbow date to pay this “debt”. On a side note I would like to meet the executive from Frontiers who green lighted the $220k in advance for a renaissance folk album in 2016, I have a blue unicorn for sale.
March 20th, 2016 at 23:34He wouldn’t have that problem if he was playing a Stratocaster through several Marshall amplifiers.
March 20th, 2016 at 23:34Thus, I see a Rainbow rising… on the horizon!. “I got bills, I gotta pay, so I work work work every day” (Lunch Money Lewis).
March 21st, 2016 at 01:24Once you’ve bought one Cure for Insomnia CD, you don’t need any more.
March 21st, 2016 at 02:24April Fools already?!? I have never even heard of such a thing. Good, now he can devote himself solely to Rock…I hope!
March 21st, 2016 at 02:38My take is a little different.
The upcoming rock shows have overshadowed any kind of promotion for the latest Blackmore’s Night album and so the record company is looking for a piece of that pie.
When one considers Blackmore’s track record with interviews, it could be argued he IS adhering to the terms of the agreement.
March 21st, 2016 at 03:43Who gets $220,000 advances anymore?
March 21st, 2016 at 06:14If that rave can be believed, it is getting close to April 1st after all, timing indeed.
March 21st, 2016 at 08:02Fair dinkum, as if Blackmore would sign an agreement for all those interviews. He loathes that shite! Well most of the time it appears he does. Unless someone else signed it & didn’t read the contractual obligations etc! Might have to get the guillotine out & dust the cobwebs off it! There would have to be one in the castle somewhere, surely! Anyway, what is really important is that Rainbow will now have to record a new album & play some extra shows & don’t tell Frontier about it at all! Wouldn’t that piss them off! But then again, it sounds like their pissed off already! Or were they getting wind of the Rainbow Rising again & hoping for a bigger fish to fry? Tell em to fuck off Ritchie! Cheers.
Fully agree with “opinion” at the of article – poor material.
March 21st, 2016 at 09:19The more I learn of him the less I like him.
March 21st, 2016 at 09:48Didn’t he just come out with “Blackmore’s Story” DVD? That has a lot of interviews in it.
March 21st, 2016 at 10:25I don’t think it’s necessarily poor material that’s causing poor album sales. I think it’s basically the same material over and over again that’s causing it. Iv’e always said as long as you have 2 or 3 Blackmore’s night cd’s you really don’t need the rest. Not much changes from album to album with this band. If you look at Ritchie’s history, think of the differences from his entire catalog. In Rock is nothing like Shades of Deep Purple, Burn has a different sound, the first Rainbow album is nothing like Purple at all, Rainbow Rising is nothing like the first Rainbow album and Bent out of Shape is nothing like Rainbow Rising. My point is he was always changing for better or worse but nothing stayed the same. With Blackmore’s Night I really can’t tell much of a difference from the first album to the latest one. This is just my opinion. I like the band but I tend to get a little bit bored with the lack of change. Three of the four of his last cd’s I did not buy. I heard them and said ” same old same old “.
March 21st, 2016 at 10:34Agree that he became lazy with the last few BN albums. I haven’t got them. I also like FaM and GoaR a lot. For all his musical genius and ability he needs strong players around him to push him. MKII is the obvious example but Ronnie James Dio and Cozy Powell were strong characters to push him and complement him . 80’s Rainbow had very good musicians, but didn’t really bring a creative edge to push him further (maybe apart from Roger, but Roger said it was Ritchie’s band, so probably never had the final say on anything anyway).
He needs to try something different, such as an album with guest singers of varying styles and other guitarists / instrumentalists. But, as ever, he’ll go his own sweet way – sometimes jaw dropping, sometimes cringe inducing.
Ciao
March 21st, 2016 at 10:54Richie has a great history of shafting record companies and musicians. But I say good luck to him it’s more like a jungle dealing with people in the music industry. I wonder how much Steve Morse gets paid for his work with DP or shows. Is it spit by 5 or the Lion Kings get the bigger share. Food for thought!!!!
March 21st, 2016 at 12:50Isn’t Whitesnake with Frontiers? If you compare and contrast the efforts put in by David Coverdale to support the Purple Album you can see the different levels of professionalism at work. Admittedly the market for All Our Yesterdays is smaller than that for a Whitesnake release but refusing to do promotional interviews and TV appearances is daft, especially in this day and age. Promotion is everything. Ritchie needs new management, pure and simple.
March 21st, 2016 at 13:26I have a bridge for sale!
March 21st, 2016 at 19:37I love Ritchie and really looking forward to the Rainbow show in June, however, agree entirely with Jaffa, DC commits to it heart and soul which you need to these days I’m afraid.
March 21st, 2016 at 20:07Poor material without doubt..even die hard fans like me are fed up with the same old song.And the cheap and shitty “all green”vid they made with Candice’s iphone said it all.How can you support an album with such a ridiculous vid?
March 21st, 2016 at 20:50BN are well past their great years and are just coasting at this point .
March 21st, 2016 at 23:05All of the Blackmore’s Night Albums are worth buying, however I would agree each release is a little less good and more predictable.
The earliest albums are the best (Shadow, Violet, Fires), and I believe its because there was more actual medieval and renaissance inspired music on them.
The problem with the last few Blackmore’s Night albums is the strange inclusion of 2 or 3 “Russian/Eastern European Oom-pah” songs on every CD. With all due respect to Russians and Russian folk musicians, those “oom-pah” songs just sound a little lame and silly. Ad to that, for some reason those “oom-pah” songs have been chosen as the singles, whereas each album has at least 2 or 3 genuinely good Blackmore pieces on it. As a general CD buyer, those “oom-pah” songs give a kind of weird impression of the band, not necessarily reflective of their overall style
Less “oom-pah”songs, and More Play Minstrel Play & Under a Violet Moon style songs, please
Thanks,
March 22nd, 2016 at 00:07Mr. Oom-pah Oom-pah
Time to put Rainbow back together before he can’t do it anymore.
March 22nd, 2016 at 00:48In progress and less than three months to go !!
March 22nd, 2016 at 00:50fair enough
March 22nd, 2016 at 00:58😀
March 22nd, 2016 at 00:59Blackmore loses this, I’ll bet good coin on it. They failed their promo plan by involving the cheap. It’s robots who have no record sales backing tools, and they post on behalf of Ritchie and Candice, and fill the rest of the posting activity with their own ridiculous cheese. And, very little touring and a top industry publicist that isn’t from the label should make the list here too. They aren’t cheap. Dustin at Frontiers can’t do it all and isn’t supposed to, according to their deal and why they’re suing. I side with the label, I have written for their publicist for years. I knew this deal was going to be tricky. They don’t tour here enough to begin with in order to effectively sell records. It rolls uphil from there if you know anything about record distribution.
March 22nd, 2016 at 01:12Taking the lions share is only to get back the advance. But the artist has work to do behind it these days. Not something he’s likely used to but probably figured could handle it.
March 22nd, 2016 at 01:14Steve Anderson Hasn’t he done that already? Looks like a management company is involved, whoever this logo consists of. Carole’s new digs, or? I’m told that the live CD/DVD is being planned with Eagle. So, that cuts Frontiers out of any possible Rainbow deal at this point considering all that is out of the bag here.
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:27Take a better look around Ritchie. Not many deals out there being offered in the U.S.(Frontiers) that don’t involve your own push on the back of it. Shop harder, waste your time even more. They don’t exist and you’re lucky Frontiers has any advance deals to offer. My ultimate mutter would be that is what you get for walking away from an industry on the down swing and looking around so many years later thinking you can walk right back in the and same deals await you. Consult with people, rather than through people. Your big black book is reduced to a few pages.
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:30Yep!
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:34I guess he has, but I am out of the loop. Thank you for updating me.
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:35A name can be attractive now, but not necessarily mean a sale without “tooting your own horn.” I’m inclined to think faking it is making it better than not.
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:35Love Rainbow. Like Purple. Blackmore’s Night- don’t care.
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:36Am mostly ready. One ticket came and I ordered two others and the Usps stole both. So I get to pay three times for Sat .
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:39He hasn’t since 94! Now Engls!
March 22nd, 2016 at 02:57Yeah, and my tickets to Wicked on Broadway, the Red Sox Yankees, Mets Reds are in. Preceded by all there is to do in Memphis and Nashville, and I don’t have to wait till summer. A few weeks and it will be underway. I’d consider the pond hop for this if that trip weren’t booked prior to it. But don’t expect it to save rock ‘n roll via this topic. lol
March 22nd, 2016 at 03:13Steve Anderson Love Rainbow? How’ve they been doing the last 20 years? 🙂
March 22nd, 2016 at 03:15I love the Dio, Graham Bonnet and Joe Lynn Turner years. After that not so much……..
March 22nd, 2016 at 03:59Only one more album to talk about – 1995 and it’s got some of Ritchie’s best work actually.
March 22nd, 2016 at 04:42This just in: Candace can’t sing. She’s a one-note crooner that puts you to sleep almost instantly. All that la-la-la, slow mystical manure glazes the eyes (and ears) over. All the mystical spells and Renaissance tripe is a joke. That’s why RUSH quit doing that in the late 1970s, and went to music and lyrics that people can relate to in today’s world. Not some garbage from 1595 or whatever. The only real spell was the one Candy cast on Ritchie. He paid attention to his eyes and not his ears, and ruined his career.
March 22nd, 2016 at 04:47Steve Anderson That doesn’t leave much heard since 1983 does it?
March 22nd, 2016 at 05:00Does it really? It’s all cut from maybe two or three beer-fueled sessions at Ritchie’s own place. That’s not exactly a lot.
March 22nd, 2016 at 06:01BN has probably had its day – and to be honest its had a fair old run. Im not sure RB would see it that way as he has a lot invested in it i.e. his wife.
I cant see him returning to Rainbow full time – maybe a few more shows. How long before he gets bored again?
I think that unfortunately BN will run and run what ever the record sales.
March 22nd, 2016 at 12:00A lot meaning about 90 minutes of total interviews. That for RB is a lot.
March 22nd, 2016 at 12:11For me….Blackmore’s Night albums are always mediocre, at best.
The last good album from Blackmore was The Battle Rages On, by MKII Deep Purple.
Bye.
March 22nd, 2016 at 17:31To borrow a phrase of an old friend of Harold: Lazy … you just stay in bed …
I agree that Blackmore’s Night peaked with Ghost of a Rose and have been on a lacklustre downward spiral since. And the last few albums have been real lame – even for their standards.
Now Ritchie has Italian enemies, careful, the Don never repeats an offer! ; – )
March 22nd, 2016 at 19:56Have to agree with most of the negative comments above. BN is nice, soothing, boring, and mostly the same time and again. If he’s happy with it, then that’s fine, but I’ll steal a line from H.D. Thoreau; Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. Methinks he’s just in love with is wife (good thing) and fulfilling her is more prominent or important. In the scheme of things, he’s doing what he should; it makes them both happy. In the larger sense, though, we fans all expect more. Got a feeling he’ll prove the latter this summer.
March 23rd, 2016 at 03:18Uwe (post 50) you may have identified a key problem for Richie with that last comment. He’s a silly man.
March 23rd, 2016 at 11:30Wow, what a surprise. Ritchie not doing interviews. We’re Frontier kidding themselves? Didn’t they know who they were signing? I kind of find it ironic that they are complaining about lack of promotion in an era where record companies do little/nothing to promote an artist.
They are probably getting more publicity from the lawsuit than any interview with Ritchie!!!
March 23rd, 2016 at 14:45Anyone ever imagine what some of those Blackmore’s Night songs might sound like if they were done in a hard rock style (Rainbow/Deep Purple), instead of that folky old style music?.
March 23rd, 2016 at 15:31Nice post @51 Dan R! Someone gets it. Nice change from all the trash talk…!
March 23rd, 2016 at 16:14Time to call Blackmore’s Night over. Mr. Moody needs therapy for his issues. I got into his stuff early on but it has been the same music and sound the last several years. This is why he is itching to do the rock and roll thing again. More than likely he has become bored with the whole “Night” thing and feeling his age of 70 and is deciding to do something noteworthy again. Show people you can still do it Ritchie…..but this time put on a smile and look like you are doing something you enjoy.
March 23rd, 2016 at 17:30Sorry for the late reply. He just poor mouthed Stevie and said he was nothing special. That hits deep to a Texan. By the way, I have seen Sunderland play at the old Baseball Ground in Derby. Great loud supporters!
March 23rd, 2016 at 22:28It’s strange that thehighwaystar brings news of Blackmore that casts him in a bad light, but not a word about his recent operation on his hand.
March 23rd, 2016 at 22:51@58 Agree so much with your comment
March 24th, 2016 at 07:51IGP @58:
health is a very private matter and judging by how quickly the pictures were taken off from facebook, he wants to keep it that way. that’s why we didn’t report it. lawsuits, on the other hand, are a matter of public record (and for a good reason).
March 24th, 2016 at 15:11Well put Nick. Just as with Glenn Hughes discussing his heart condition in that latest interview and keeping it secret for so long. Some things are private matters and THS respecting that is a true testament to the upstanding character this site exudes toward the band.
Hats Off to you guys!
Ch-BeerZ
March 24th, 2016 at 16:53@60 The piece regarding Ritchie’s finger without the pictures is still on his facebook and comments still there with many many folk wishing him a speedy recovery. It was also reported in a number of well known online music websites so it still amazes me why this site did not even report it as it clearly has not been a private matter. If Ritchie had wanted it to be a private matter then it would have been
I am sure all the people interested in the Purple family on this site also wish Ritchie good health and good recovery
March 24th, 2016 at 20:58Me thinks that after Shadow Of The Moon, all of BN’s albums, sound the same. Just sayin…
March 31st, 2016 at 13:06