[hand] [face]
The Original Deep Purple Web Pages
The Highway Star

Beverly hillbillies in Jones Beach

Part 2 of Phil Aston’s interview with Ritchie Blackmore

News | read more »


Medieval bossa nova

Ritchie Blackmore Official channel reposts this CNN short feature from 2007 where Blackmore pulls the interviewer’s leg with the straightest of his faces and tells that The Riff was nicked from Beethoven’s Fifth. This legend is still being repeated at face value to this day by some unscrupulous publications.

Blog | read more »


Rising again

Darker Than Blue reports that Ritchie Blackmore has been booked to appear on UK radio station Planet Rock on Sunday, October 11, 2026, between 5 and 6pm. The show is called The Longer Player with Mark Jeeves, and his appearance will be on occasion of the 50th anniversary of Rainbow Rising. One can listen to […]

News | read more »


The best-dressed Leprechaun

In this new interview with The Chap Ian Gillan discusses the Hounslow Heath, Terry-Thomas‘ inheritance, dress codes, hairstyles, music styles, wireless apartheid, and skinny dipping, among other things. Do you prefer the term heavy rock or hard rock for Deep Purple? If you want to pick a genre, then I would prefer hard rock. Only […]

News | read more »


On the blue Danube

At the Vienna gig on October 5, 2026, Deep Purple were joined on stage by classical violinist Lidia Baich for a rousing rendition of a Johann Strauss’ classic and some fun on Perfect Strangers. Widely regarded as one of the most versatile violin soloists of our time, Baich was born in St. Petersburg and received […]

Blog | read more »


Deep down the rabbit hole

This well bearded gentleman has recently started a podcast dedicated to the more obscure corners of the Purple family jungle. Ladies and gentlemen, we present you the Deeper Down the Deep Purple Rabbit Hole

Blog | read more »


Thinking outside the box

Ritchie Blackmore’s official channel has recently posted a couple of videos of interest. Ritchie Blackmore & Candice Night discussing their 2013 album Dancer and the Moon in what appears to be a contemporary electronic press kit for the release. Caveat: it is incomplete and ends rather abruptly. Same, being interviewed a very picturesque setting circa […]

News | read more »


Where Buffalo roam

Longtime Ian Gillan’s collaborator Michael Lee Jackson (Gillan’s Inn, Live in Anaheim, WhoCares) is being inducted into The Buffalo Music Hall of Fame, class of 2026. The induction ceremony will be held tonight, October 7, with a gala concert to follow on October 8. There’s even deeper trainspotting going on here: Michael will share the […]

News | read more »


Biff Baby’s Allstars

Steve Morse is featured on the self-titled debut album of a project that has been going back since the 1980s. The album and project in question is Biff Baby’s Allstars, and is a brainchild of Ernie Ball’s son Sterling ‘Biff’ Ball. There are moments in music when the stars align and something truly special happens. […]

News | read more »


Cannock’s most famous son

Louder Sound publishes an opinion piece Nine Glenn Hughes albums you should listen to and one to avoid: Throughout his career Hughes has been equally blessed and cursed: respectively, with arguably the most distinctive voice in hard rock, and by drug addiction that saw him ricochet from one project to the next with no real […]

Blog | read more »


Just like the Jersey Boys

Ian Gillan has appeared on British TV again, and this time around it went way better, thanks to great rapport with the host with a clue. In between tours, after the US tour and right before the European leg, Deep Purple’s icon Ian Gillan, made a stop to chat with Angela Rippon at the London’s […]

News | read more »


A skirling whiff of danger

Deep Purple opened their European leg of the Splat! tour on September 29, 2026, in Sofia, Bulgaria. And there were surprises in the set. Spoilers ahead.

News | read more »


Somebody stole his guitar

Steve Morse sat down to chat with Guitar World at the last NAMM, which was held in January 2026. They teased the interview in May, promising to publish it in full “in the near future”. After the appropriate period of gestation, the future is apparently now. Here Steve shows not only that he can play […]

News | read more »


Thunder in my brain

Several video clips have been posted over the last few days on the Ritchie Blackmore Official youtube channel, some of those known better than the others.

Blog | read more »


King Arthur, followed by Motörhead

Gillan has also recently appeared on The Strange Brew Podcast. In the fairly short (for these days) interview, a lot of ground has been covered — from his upcoming Talking Gib’rish tour to the Javelins, and many things in between.

News | read more »


These are not the same guys

Yesterday, September 25, 2026, Ian Gillan has his ‘Mr. Grover, Mr. Gillian’ moment on the national TV in UK. He appeared for a brief interview on the prime time news program. We’ll try to forgive them, for they obviously don’t know what they are doing (and, as per bloody usual, sound like strapped for time). […]

News | read more »


Benz on the highway

Europe teamed up with fellow Swede Erik Grönwall to play a song we all know on Swedish TV: The performance is from a long running Swedish quiz show where Europe acts as the house band for the first three episodes of the season. The question for this musical segment was of course which artists made […]

Blog | read more »


Blame it on the cat

Ritchie Blackmore was interviewed by Phil Aston for the Now Spinning Magazine podcast. In this the first episode of what is promised to be a 13-part series, no less, Ritchie talks about his recent guest appearance on stage with Deep Purple.

News | read more »


We all came out to college

Sometimes Deep Purple related news come when you least expect it. I was browsing the conference schedule for a pro audio-video tradeshow taking place in Stockholm in early October. Kicking off the proceedings is a talk called, “Smoke on the Water – the story behind a rock classic“. A kind of odd topic where the […]

Blog | read more »


Self-described as underrated

Greek blog Rock Overdose publishes an interview with Joe Lynn Turner done on the occasion of him apparently playing some dates in the country (his own website is conspicuously mum about it). Rock Overdose: Speaking of Ritchie Blackmore, you know him better than most people. What do you think would have to happen for Ritchie […]

News | read more »


||||Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
© 1993-2026 The Highway Star and contributors
Posts, Calendar and Comments RSS feeds for The Highway Star