Guitar Player has an article on Ritchie Blackmore based on an interview he gave to the paper version of the magazine circa 1996.

That relentless, almost surgical pursuit of perfection was felt far beyond his own ranks; it reverberated through the generation of electric guitar players raised on his records. As Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins told Guitar Player in 1995, “Pound for pound, he’s one of the best soloists in history, but he’s such a dick that he’ll probably never get the credit he deserves.”

No one understood the paradox better than Blackmore himself. Asked one year later about his reputation for being difficult, he didn’t deflect. He indicted the entire enterprise.

“I hate show biz. I hate people who confine themselves to the system,” he told Guitar Player. “Why does everyone have to do the right interview at the right time, be on the right program, be politically correct, say the right things and be at the right parties? That gets up my nose. Why can’t I just play the guitar? It’s all I want to do.”

Read more in Guitar Player.

Despite the cancellation of the pretty much all Glenn Hughes tour dates for this year, his appearance at the Sound & Vision Awards in Palm Springs, California, on March 2, 2026, is apparently proceeding ahead. Glenn has posted on his Twitter:

Music changes lives – especially for kids 🎵

Join me March 2, 2026 at the historic Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs for the @adoptthearts Sound & Vision Awards, honoring my good friends, @_paulrodgers
and @geezerbutler

An intimate night of iconic music supporting elementary school music education.

🎟 Get tickets: https://bit.ly/SoundAndVisionAwards

#AdoptTheArts #SoundAndVisionAwards #MusicMatters #PalmSpringsEvents #PaulRogers #GeezerButler

Thanks to Daniel for the heads-up.

For Record Store Day in the UK, there will be an exclusive 3 color vinyl release of the Rainbow concert in Köln/Cologne 25 september 1976. Here is the promo blurb from the Record Store Day UK site:

First time ever vinyl release for this incredible live concert from Rainbow’s debut world tour and documenting one of the band’s first ever shows in Europe, at Cologne’s Kölner Sporthalle on 25th September 1976. Released on 3LP with each disc pressed in a different colour of the Rainbow (Translucent Red, Yellow and Blue) and Newly Mastered by Andy Pearce & Matt Wortham When Rainbow finally landed in Europe for their debut live shows there, it was on the back of both the albums ‘Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’ and ‘Rainbow Rising’ having charted, so the band were playing sold out venues, and what a band… with the line up consisting of Ritchie Blackmore, Ronnie James, Cozy Powell, Jimmy Bain and Tony Carey As one of the cornerstones of British Rock, Rainbow, led by the never-predictable but ever-astonishing guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore, became synonymous with some of the most well regarded and popular charting Rock songs of the seventies and eighties. This show recorded on the bands Rainbow Rising tour in 1976 in Cologne Germany, features stone cold classics such as ‘Stargazer’ and ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’. This live album has only been available on CD pressings originally made 20 years ago, both as a single concert / as part of the Japan only 6-CD Box Set Deutschland Tournee 1976. Now nearly 50 years on from the original concert, the recording makes it’s debut appearance on a vinyl format with the audio Newly mastered by Andy Pearce & Matt Wortham.

Thanks Richard Paul Jones for the heads up.

PROG magazine has an interview with Steve Morse, highlighting the earliest years of his illustrious career.

But the music programme at Miami wasn’t ideal. I was very interested in classical guitar. I wasn’t that interested in the jazz department, because I was playing Jimmy Page songs and weird, teenage angsty music. So I didn’t know how that was going to work out.

When I got there I didn’t fit in with the classical people; I wasn’t advanced enough. And the jazz people were laughing when they saw me at the audition with my Telecaster – that wasn’t the right presentation. You were supposed to have an acoustic hollow body guitar with a pickup on it, like Wes Montgomery.

So they rolled their eyes and said, “Put him in the rock ensemble,” which was really a Latin jazz group. There were only six of us in that programme; guitarists like me that failed the jazz audition. So Miami started off really bad, but being around all those other guitarists, suddenly I could relate to them.

Read more in Louder Sound.

In other Steve news, he will make a guest appearance (along with Joe Lynn Turner and Bob Daisley) on Carmine Appice’s upcoming album Cactus Allstars Temple of Blues II, due out on Cleopatra Records in early April.

Thanks to Guitar.com and stevemorse.net for the heads-up.

The much rumoured Deep Purple show at the Royal Albert Hall has finally materialized. It is scheduled for November 25, 2026. The tickets go on sale this Friday, February 6 at 10 a.m., with registration for presale already open via the same link.

Promo blurb reads:

On November 25th 2026, Deep Purple will return to the Royal Albert Hall for a very special one-off performance, reconnecting the band with one of the most significant venues in their storied history. The Hall holds a unique place in the Deep Purple story: it was here in 1969, that the band made history as the first rock group to premiere a full classical composition with an orchestra on the Royal Albert Hall stage, a bold artistic statement that expanded the boundaries of rock performance. That landmark moment remains one of the most important cross-genre events in British music history, and reflected a band unafraid to challenge convention — a spirit that continues to define Deep Purple today.

This November’s return will be a full-throttle Deep Purple rock show, showcasing a band that remains creatively sharp, musically fearless, and utterly commanding on stage. With a current lineup that blends world-class musicianship, renewed energy, and fresh material alongside the band’s iconic catalogue, this performance is not about nostalgia — it’s about the power of Deep Purple in the present tense. In the grandeur of the Royal Albert Hall, the band will once again prove why they remain one of rock’s most compelling live forces, making this one-night event an essential moment for fans old and new alike.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the heads-up.

Ian Gillan was a guest on the Songwriting For Songwriters podcast, talking about, naturally, his songwriting process, both within the band and as a solo artist. He also mentioned that the new Deep Purple album is due out some time in June.

Well, it’s very interesting on this one. I can’t give you too much at this stage, but it’s basically very optimistic. Let’s say there’s a general theme. It’s a fairly loose conceptual idea of the end of humanity, but not as grim as it sounds. In fact, it’s very optimistic. It’s about the metamorphosis of humanity into a metaphysical state, our next incarnation. It’s a bit too early to be doing interviews about this. I don’t mean time of day. I mean, it’s not gonna be out until June, so I don’t want to give too much away.

Here’s the whole thing for your listening pleasure (it’s audio only):

…And the song that Big Ian wishes he could have written is:

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and quote.

In this collection of bite-sized memoirs, Ritchie Blackmore talks about the earliest days of Deep Purple: meeting Derek Lawrence, signing an unfavourable contract, covering Hush, and 16 telegrams from Chris Curtis. Continue Reading »

A couple of Steve Morse interviews from the recently concluded NAMM 2026.

Steve talks about his relationship with Ernie Ball and his latest album Triangulation Continue Reading »

Purpendicular holds a special place in our hearts, as its release and events leading to it coincided with the formation of the online community that had founded this website and still runs it to this day. It is also one of the seminal albums in the history of the band — alongside with In Rock, Burn, and Perfect Strangers.

Our editor emeritus Doug MacBeath celebrates the 30th anniversary of the album.

It occurred to me the other day when I was listening to Purpendicular that it was hurtling towards its 30th Anniversary, and that got me thinking on whether it is arguably the most important album the band have done. It certainly is from a personal level.

The personal side is easy to justify – for me, music is not just about the songs themselves, but also about the memories of the events and people I associate with them. Musically, this is my favourite album since the band came back together in 1984. I play it regularly and I sing along. Listening to it in the car, I can honestly say I know every lick, every word, every nuance and by the end of the tour, I was indeed on first name terms with several of the crew. But that’s another song (and so’s that 😉 ). Along the way I made friends with a bunch of people who I’m still in touch with today, and who still mean a lot to me. Hearing the songs reminds me of all the good times we’ve had over the years.

But what about the band itself? Blackmore had left, but news was hard to come by. We had one or two issues of Darker Than Blue (the DPAS magazine) a year. They reported rumours and more in-depth news, but were often reporting events that could be several months old. For anything else we relied on Kerrang! and the likes, and the mainstream music press, especially in the UK, had taken to bashing the band. Fans I knew were already wary about what would follow, especially after the divisive S&M album and tour. But I think it helped that this time, the band did things differently. The Satriani gigs were heavily bootlegged, so it gave many of us a chance to hear what a post-Ritchie Purple would sound like. And it was good (the revamped set certainly helping).

And then we got the announcement of the permanent replacement in Steve Morse. A guitarist’s guitarist, but a name unknown to many, or at best as the guy who played The Friday Rock Show theme. The band went into the studio but then hit the road, playing new material before it was released, something not done since 1971. Again these gigs were bootlegged giving us an early taste of Ted the Mechanic, Soon Forgotten and The Purpendicular Waltz. If you got the right bootleg, there was also an acoustic version of what was to become The Aviator Jon, Rog and Steve played on South African radio. Those lucky enough to attend the first DPAS Convention in 1995 also got to hear an exclusive studio jam – the Turtle Island Shuffle. All this certainly whetted the appetite of those of us open to life after Blackmore.

Then came the album release and the start of a two-year-long tour, kicking off with 19 UK dates — more than the previous four UK tours put together, and mostly in the smaller venues. Out went the fancy lasers, and in came… a mirror ball (used in Highway Star) and the band set about rebuilding their slightly battered reputation by letting the music do the talking.

We got up to seven tracks a night from Purpendicular in those early shows, and eight were featured in total over the 150ish shows. I originally planned to attend four shows on the tour – the first two nights in Plymouth and Reading, plus the two Scottish shows. I ended up adding Newcastle (the only time I’ve ever bought a ticket from a tout outside) and the final UK gig in Brixton. The first shows featured Mary Long and Rat Bat Blue, but these had been changed for Bloodsucker by Newcastle. I think I added Brixton in the hope that they’d make a further change for the last few dates.

But, back to the personal, and what I didn’t know at the time was that this little thing called the “World Wide Web” was bubbling along in the background. Sure, I’d seen a few demonstrations of it at Uni in 94/95, but it was very much being touted as something for academics (I remember the lecturer being very excited by something called Super JANET). It was therefore a surprise to see details for the band’s official website on postcards being handed out at the first night of the tour in Plymouth (the old FSL.com address). After the show, Roger was going on about something called a “newsgroup” and how he’d originally posted the studio reports in the Tour Book there. So, a few days later (ok — looking at the gig list it must have been around two weeks!) a friend and I ventured into an Internet Cafe in Edinburgh… possibly called Hot Frog. I do remember that by coincidence I vaguely knew one of the staff, and the search engine was called Webcrawler. They showed us how to access the website, but also the newsgroup, Alt.Music.Deep-Purple (or AMDP)

I ventured back several times over the next few weeks, and even stood outside the Brixton gig with a number of fellow AMDPers and website editors (not that I knew anyone back then). I eventually splurged on a modem (top speed? 33.3k!) and became a regular on both AMDP and the associated IRC channel (an early chat page). The vibe I got from the six UK shows seemed to be resonating with others all over the World, and I was desperate to see the band again. I therefore hooked up with some fellow fans and did my first solo trip abroad to see the band in Zwolle, Netherlands. I think it was that trip I also met Dave H, one of the founding fathers of Purple’s internet fandom, and The Highway Star. The following summer, I did the Daytona Festival in Lahr, where I met several more AMDP regulars. By this time, I had also gotten to know Stephen (we would both go on to become Editors of THS for a bit) after we’d realised we drank in the same bar in Edinburgh. I finished off the year with the three Chicago shows, including Steve’s Wedding, and a bunch of North American fans. Those three shows brought my total for the tour to 11.

So… thirty years on, the band are still going strong. I suspect if _|_ (as we abbreviated it to on AMDP) and the tour had not been so well-received, the band may have fizzled out, at least for a while. Who knows? But as we know, the band came out fighting, and proving all the nay-sayers wrong. So yes – I do believe that it is the most important album the band have done, and it allowed them to continue.

As it is, we are now in 2026, anticipating another album of new music and another World Tour. Along the way, that little website I discovered became known as Rosa’s Cantina (complete with neon cactuses) before settling down as The Highway Star we know today.

But more importantly, I’m still in touch with so many friends that I first met on that, and subsequent, tours. We’ve grown up together. We’ve grown older together. We’ve had highs and lows. We’ve had families. We’ve lost friends, including sadly, Dave H himself. A group of us met up at the Berlin gig in 2024, and picked up from wherever it was we left off years earlier. Some us even had our own kids with us.

30 years…? It’s been the best 30 years of my life (yeah, ok – marriage, family and career helped too!) and it’s been an absolute pleasure. I look forward to seeing many of you down the road somewhere this year.

Doug MacBeath

Thanks to another editor emeritus Trond J. Strøm for the UK tour flyer.

You can take a peek at Rosa’s Cantina, sans the neon cactuses unfortunately, courtesy of our very dusty archives. The Wayback Machine has another copy of the Cantina from late 1996, which shortly afterwards became known as The Highway Star.

The yearly Namm Show in Anaheim, CA ends today. As usual, the show is a place where both professional musicians and regular folks roam around the show floor looking for the latest in musical tools. This always generates interesting YouTube videos from demos and impromptu small concerts in exbitor booths.

Paul Gilbert and Steve Morse did a demo in the Ernie Ball booth that was captured by a visitor. The full thing can be seen here:

If you prefer shorter clips, here is their performance of Gary Moore’s “Still Got the Blues:

They also played Aerosmith’s “Last Child”: