Early February this year German TV channel NDR aired a short special about Jürgen Blackmore. Here’s the gist of it courtesy of our correspondent on location:

• After five years of lack of communication, he met his dad again when he was ten. It was a very moving moment. They were in a dressing room in Hamburg and Ritchie asked him “do you play guitar?” Jürgen replied: “yes, mom bought me a concert guitar for fifty Deutschmarks, I have started learning how to play it.“ Whereupon Ritchie picked out one of his own guitars and said “this one is for you“.
• Margit Blackmore spoke (in an old interview) about a rather well-known story how she bought new shoes for Ritchie from her first salary when his got stolen
  at Hotel Pacific, where he was lodging at the time. Two months later she moved to England with him.
• Jürgen pointed out that he never wanted to copy his father. He just felt the desire to play guitar — it was “within him”.
• Jürgen mentioned that it was Steve Morse’s idea that he come on stage and do a guest spot during SOTW with Purple in Hamburg in November 2010.
• Purple actually had asked him to accompany them on tour this year. He had to decline the offer as he is still dealing with the health effects from a bad case of bacterial infection. That’s why he still has to rest a lot and spends his time in the studio producing.

You can watch the original German report online at ndr.de.

Many thanks to Yvonne for the info and translation.

A report appeared on BraveWords today titled “Iranian Rockers Stopped From Paying Tribute To Rainbow Rising Anniversary” (it is 40th anniversary, by the way). So what, I thought — people living under a theocratic regime are having a hard time with their hard rock. Move along, nothing to see there. But the story was with a twist. Turns out, evil ayatollahs have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Five Iranian rockers joined forces with local journalist and producer Mohsen “Stargazer” Fayazi. They decided to pay tribute to the landmark album and put their version of Stargazer on Youtube. Most people would just do it, but they wanted to do the right thing^(tm) and obtain a proper permission, so they have contacted Blackmore’s agent.

Fayazi tells the story from here:

From the very beginning, our goal was to show respect and love to everyone who was a part of that magical record. It was not as simple as I thought. I really had no clue that the copyright of the first two albums by Rainbow does not belong to them anymore. I had to discuss and explain our situation for a few publishing companies and every time a new company approached me, I had to explain it from the beginning.

I think they were a little bit confused, which I don’t blame them for, I am sure it was their first time to receive an email from someone in Iran asking for permission like this. I should mention they were all nice, kind and helpful during the discussion. But after about many emails back and forth, I received the news that the right holders rejected our request, but may consider it if we paid a license fee, though still no guarantee. There is no chance for us to pay any fee as earning money from this was never our plan, we were not selling a recording. Also, due to sanctions, no foreign banks currently work with Iran, so transferring money is impossible.

Are all corporations inherently sociopathic?

It is also kind of a sad anniversary when you start to think that 3/5 of that band — Cozy Powell, Ronnie James Dio and Jimmy Bain — are no longer with us.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

A 20-minute documentary about Jon Lord’s quest to produce the ultimate verstion of his Concerto for Group and Orchestra was posted by the official DP channel a couple of days ago. Starring: Jon Lord, Paul Mann, and Marko de Goeij. Long time THS contributor Nigel Young gets a name check.

Once again I had the privilege of seeing Deep Purple perform, this time in Sapporo, Japan on this past Monday night May 9th. I last caught them at London O2 in December, 2015 and as I mentioned in my review then, these guys are showing no sign of slowing down. In fact the 5 month break away from touring has re-energized them. Particularly Ian Gillan whose voice was very strong and clear on this night.

I made a last minute trip to Sapporo on Sunday and tried to track down Purple tickets but it’s really hard to do in Japan unless one can speak the language. And no online booking service there either it would seem, not from overseas in any case. So I took a chance and lined up early on Monday night at the Sapporo Geibunken Hall for tickets. Incredibly I scored a front row centre seat!! I couldn’t believe my luck, it seems there had been some VIP tickets that hadn’t been scooped up, and at that last minute I got lucky!

The hall was not large like O2 or Budokan, but it was a full house, packed with 2,200 appreciative Sapporo fans. As for me, I still couldn’t believe how fortunate I was to be up front and centre to witness Purple playing about 15 feet in front of me. They opened with Highway Star and then into Bloodsucker, and on that Ian’s voice in the upper register was very impressive.

From there it was Hard Lovin’ Man, Strange Kind of Woman (very nice guitar solo by Steve Morse), Woman from Tokyo, Vincent Price, Contact Lost, Uncommon Man, Well Dressed Guitar, The Mule (great drum solo by Ian Paice), Don Airey’s Keyboard solo which morphed into Lazy, Demon’s Eye, Hell to Pay, Perfect Strangers, Space Truckin’ and the closer – Smoke on the Water.

And as if I hadn’t been lucky enough to get the front row seat, at the end of Smoke I caught one of Ian Paice’s drum sticks!!! The guys came back on for the encore numbers of Green Onions, Hush (with some very nice keyboard and guitar interplay by Don & Steve), and the final song , Black Night with some nice bass work by Roger Glover. An hour and 55 minutes of great music put on by 5 men who look very happy to playing together.

There were no new songs yet from the upcoming album, but I would imagine those will be inserted into the setlists after the new album’s release (I believe they want to maintain the surprise factor in much the same way as they did with Now What?!). Looking forward to seeing Deep Purple again after that new album release.

Gary Halverson, Sapporo, Japan – May 2016

— Why do you always go on tour — on, and on, and on, and on?
— It’s like any addict, very difficult to give up what it is that turns you on.

A 2000 vintage interview with Jon Lord (with Paicey joining in towards the end) was posted by the official Youtube channel. It’s lengthy at 21 minutes, and unedited, and as so quite interesting and frank. We decided to promote it from the RSS sidelines to a post of it’s own to get it the attention it deserves.

Italian publication SpazioRock has an article on Ritchie Blackmore with several quotes from the man (and this time it’s not in a machine-reverse-translation).

The most important points included him ruling out the possibility of a Rainbow album or a full blown world tour:

No. Also, there won’t be any Rainbow new studio album.

He reaffirmed that his commitment remains with the Blackmore’s Night:

My commitment lies with the Blackmore’s Night band but this is just a few dates for fun.

He also said that he actually thought of attending the RnR HoF induction ceremony, but decided against it:

No, I was thinking about going. And then heard Deep Purple management Bruce Payne didn’t think it was a good idea, so I wouldn’t like to turn up at an event when there are people that are hostile, like the management of Deep Purple. […] I wrote all the popular music that they play. I came up with the name and put the band together in the beginning to start the whole thing. But I haven’t played in the band for 20 years.

On his recent finger surgery:

Recovery is coming along. Any operation on fingers is always involved. I don’t anticipate any problems.

Thanks to SpazioRock and Team Rock for the info.

Another interview with Blackmore in German. This time he professes his love for Schlager music, talks about his arthritis and the recent finger surgery he had. He didn’t call any of the old Rainbow members for the fear of the band becoming an “old men’s club”. JLT in particular was not tapped to sing because Blackmore wants to focus on the Dio era songs. He revealed that there were plans of writing some new music together with Jon Lord, but the schedules didn’t work out, and then Jon died.

The interview is available in Die Welt (in German).

In related news, Deep Purple Italia had a chat with the new Rainbow bassist Bob Curiano. Apart from being known as Sir Robert of Normandy in his Blackmore’s Night days, Bob is a talented multi-instrumentalist (who has not been fired by Blackmore, yet).

He sends this tongue-in-cheek message:

Read the interview on Deep Purple Italia (scroll down the page for the English version).

Thanks to Yvonne and Francesco for the info.

Ritchie Blackmore recently spoke to German national newspaper Die Welt. Quite curiously, his interview appears not in the arts or entertainment section, but in the automotive one.

Here’s the gist of what Blackmore the motorist had to say:

• He didn’t get his driver’s license until he was 39.
• He still keeps his first car — a Mercedes 300 SE — albeit it’s not in running condition any more.
• When in Germany, he likes to drive on quiet country roads as opposed to autobahn.
• Mercedes mechanics in Long Island charge way too much.
• He has been to so many castles in Germany that he’s perfectly qualified to write a guidebook. He proceeded to nail the lay of the land regarding most comfortable castle hotels near major cities on the country.

Read more in Die Welt (that is, if you can read German).

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

Not sure if RnR Hall of Fame induction has raised Deep Purple’s profile in the States, but it certainly did for Glenn Hughes. He sat down to talk with Loudwire for their Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? series, where he recalls — to the best of his abilities — different episodes mentioned on his Wikipedia page.

Thanks to TeamRock for the info.