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Too busy practicing, or thinking
Here is an interview with Ritchie Blackmore circa 1983, taken from an unidentified source.
In this fascinating archival interview, legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore talks about his life and career, including his early beginnings, session work, forming and working with Deep Purple, the creation of his own band Rainbow, and his work with Ronnie James Dio. Blackmore also discusses playing up to the image portrayed of him, providing a rare glimpse into the mind of one of rock’s most enigmatic figures. Don’t miss this explosive interview with a true music icon.
Thanks to BACKSTAGE PASS ROCK-NEWS for posting this, and to Uwe for bringing it to your attention.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
A great broadcast with the father of the British Blues Boom, the late great Alexis Korner. Always great to revisit this interview.
March 22nd, 2026 at 23:27Wonderful presentation by Alexis Korner. How grand to hear a radio presenter from the golden days of entertainment. Ritchie is quite revealing at times in regard to certain things, nice to hear. Thanks for the article, a good one indeed. These days it is usually a ‘bot’ doing the ‘oral’ presentation. Oh how far have we fallen? Cheers.
March 23rd, 2026 at 10:16Awww Ritchie was cute as a little kid!
But I always search for a reason to why he is like he is and always has been, and maybe there is some sort of explanation here: his dad!
Does not sound to me like he felt loved and secure as a little boy.
Or maybe I’m just overanalysing and overthinking everything ☺️
If I may compare to Ian: his mum loved him so much and I guess she was partly the reason to Ian’s enormous self confidence!
However Ritchie strikes me as very insecure man.
F.i. the marriage he rushed into as a young man, and regretted! And I guess in his later years he found true love, a beautiful woman who knows how to deal with his mood swings ☺️
Well, enough of my intolerable pocket psychology ☺️😉
But it was very interesting to learn more about Ritchie Blackmore, the sublime poet into guitarism 😃😊
In Rock – an amazing album 💜
On the charts for a year! Woah.. not surprised 😊
“Maybe I’ll play something I actually like” – 🤣 he is a pill.
And he acknowledge Ian, oh my ☺️
The moody guitarist – proud of it… well ok then.
I don’t care, he is my favourite guitarist 😊
He is never bored, well neither are we Mr Blackmore!
Thanks so much for posting this 😊
March 23rd, 2026 at 11:34Is that Alexis Korner’s voice? I (shamefully) didn’t know! 😔
March 23rd, 2026 at 11:34Oh, and I forgot (🫣)
Ritchie is mentioning liking Dio being into the occult stuff.
And that reminds me of when I was young and attended the gymnasium in Randers: thanks to some priests of a sort in the US (maybe Russ can confirm this?) a lot of the rock music we listened to was named occult.
Maybe you’ve heard about Eagles and ‘Hotel California’, and all that hoopla there was about that.
Well, being nosy and not very scared of anything, I asked for permission to borrow the gymnasium’s sound lab (yes we had such a brilliant and wonderful room) and I had with me all my so called ‘occult’ albums.
I listened to them all, played backwards, all of them, and it took me my sweet time, but when I was done, what did I find?
ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
No weird backwards messages from the beyond, no occultism of any sort.
So it amuses me a bit to hear Ritchie claim the things he does in the interview.
Well of course my little survey may not bring anything to light, but there was really nothing.
Many years later I heard about those priests who might have said what they said, to keep their flock under lock and key.
Isn’t it a beautiful life 🤩😃
March 23rd, 2026 at 13:27Muah 😙 to you all!
That’s from “Guitar Greats” a BBC radio series. This episode was 1982
March 23rd, 2026 at 14:52David was already alive back then!
March 23rd, 2026 at 16:13@5
“maybe Russ can confirm this?”
Yes…
“Many years later I heard about those priests who might have said what they said, to keep their flock under lock and key.”
That’s the way I see it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiTt-NtqI4k
As George Carlin said “I was a Catholic until I reached the age of… Reason”
March 24th, 2026 at 02:22“Ritchie is mentioning liking Dio being into the occult stuff.“
Which is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black(more). Or as it read on the sleeve notes of LLRnR (the album): No thanks to Baal! He apparently didn’t like rock music disturbing his (un)hallowed Chateau. Or perhaps he just thought Cozy’s drumming insensitive, demonic forces have taste too, you know.
I always viewed Ritchie’s interest in the occult as an adolescent leftover from viewing too much Hammer Horror Films humbug. I think Jimmy Page was a more devoted and serious student of Aleister Crowley’s philosophy and “magick”. Ritchie, superstitious as he was and is, also regularly chickened out when things got seriously occult.
He (Ritchie) probably does have gypsy blood running in his DNA somewhere though, at least I’ve always said so! He sure has the look (and the musical tastes to go with it).
March 24th, 2026 at 04:07Correct. I actually listened to it when it was first broadcast. It gave me hope for the eventual reunion since he spoke well of the other band members. Interesting his comments about KTK and WFT.
By this time Uwe, I was a Purple completist. Riding my bike to the not so local Virgin record store to buy on the day of release any Rainbow, Gillan or Whitesnake album or single release.
March 24th, 2026 at 06:09Ritchie was never into the ‘occult’ or anything else superstitious or unknown. It is all a prank or three, a bit of fun and that is all it ever was, excepting his hat that is. I need one of those hats……… As for Jimmy Page, well not much different, just that he purchased the old mansion that Crowley once performed so called rituals and orgies and whatever other debauch and macabre acts in. Another gimmick. Still, we did see a Rainbow Rising and offered No Quarter in the meantime and don’t forget that ‘the moon is just the sun at night’ so all’s well that ends well eh? Sorry Uwe, I just enjoy some of Ronnie’s lyrics at times and because Uwe is watching and reading and waiting, I cannot resist. The dogs of doom are howling more……………Cheers.
March 24th, 2026 at 07:20@8
Uhh Russ, Ten Years After, classy 😊
I like this one:
https://youtu.be/01-2pNCZiNk?is=v7gf4VA3HwJVNJHD
😊
March 24th, 2026 at 08:48@9
I see it exactly like that Uwe:
“I always viewed Ritchie’s interest in the occult as an adolescent leftover from viewing too much Hammer Horror Films humbug.“
– who hasn’t been lying under the covers with friends as a kid, telling deadly exciting horror stories 😄 almost peeing your pants because you were too afraid to tiptoe to the bathroom? Well, me neither ☺️😉
But @9 & @11 – sadly I cannot read minds (yet 😁) and when someone like Ritchie claims to be into the occult, well who am I to disagree?
But talking of spells…..😍
https://youtu.be/lcsOURZOp7g?is=NT3FiJ3w57_WTihv
And he is so happy, dancing and everything 😃
@9
“Ritchie, superstitious as he was and is, also regularly chickened out when things got seriously occult.”
– ‘seriously occult’ Uwe?
I remember many moons ago I innocently asked you something about “real” witches, and man you had a good laugh on my behalf 😄
So – please define “seriously occult” Uwe dearest!
May sunshine (as Liam pronounces it), warm coffee (or tea) and a very good mood follow you all today 😃🙏🏼❤️
March 24th, 2026 at 09:02https://youtu.be/3aatEBIZHNU?is=5FOdNsmWJNeFrA4h (0:40)
Hello.
Now we are getting somewhere.
Just joking. I do share MacGregor´s point of view. Not that I was somekind of expert here, but just like David Black, been kind of a serious fan of these nicely peculiar musicians we are talking about here day in and day out for long enough. Before this world wide web… it really was fascinating to try to get some information of these artists and their bands. And one dream did come true, when they put DP Mk II together again in 1984. It was somekind of wonderful, just like they sing in one song elsewhere. And I guess you do got to have somekind of a hobby, at least now in these days we are wittnessing…
Ritchie has always been a prankster. On a good day, he is just a pure genius with those hilarious brainchilds of his. On the other hand, RJD did seriously warn us of playing with those dark powers. They did experience something nasty while doing LLR&R album. There´s RJD himself telling of these things on one of the Dio´s (the band) dvds. I just don´t remember which one right now. Ouija board, anyone?
Page? Now that´s one of a character indeed. Poor Jimmy has been stuck with all things of LZ for too long. But on the other hand he has been there to keep the legacy of the band out of trouble and very alive and I guess you know what I mean. Mr Crowley (yawn)…so boring, sorry.
So from the other land of ice and snow…I hope some of these days I get the chance to visit there Down Under, Mac. I guess we surely would have something to talk about. You just always seem to nail these things and find the right words. Thank you for that. It just cheers me up every time.
My coffee is ready!
Kippis mates.
March 24th, 2026 at 09:38It looks like granddaddy Uwe has his bass playing cut out for him by this young lady playing Tom Sawyer by Rush. Karin do NOT watch this, it is Geddy singing on this Rush classic. Gee the kids these days are getting better and better and younger and younger at playing some of the classics. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmNyNJFCugo&t=92s
March 24th, 2026 at 09:59And here Ellen is playing a few familiar songs from the past. Uwe old son, I think it is time to retire the bass, don’t you think, he he he. Cheers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIf8U-mKdXw
March 24th, 2026 at 10:06@Karin #5: From 1985 – 87 I had to do my social service in a hospital in my hometown Stuttgart which was run by protestantic soeurs (not real nuns but close to). There was also a school attached for young nurses-to-be. To get accepted there, you first had to take half a year of pre-school, where half of the time you were working for free in the nursing home for the elderly soeurs, the other half of the time you had to attend the lessons in New Testament, Old Testament and Ethics.
March 24th, 2026 at 12:13Unfortunately I once told one of these nurses-to-be that I like Deep Purple a lot and that I even had a few Black Sabbath records (just round the corner there was Stuttgart’s first Second Hand Records shop where I left a lot of my money). This had the consequence that one of these young ladies once yelled at me in the public that I was possessed by the devil and another shouted after me in the stairhouse that she was astonished that this hospital was occupying convinced atheists.
On top of the list of nonsense however was a book I was given called “Because they only want to have your soul – facts and backgrounds about rock music”. As you said, Hotel California was one of the pinnacles. They deducted this from the line “And they could not kill the beast”. For the writers it was beast = devil, hence the whole song described how the devil was capturing these easy-go-luckies.
Mr. B also got an honorary mention in the book as “one of the biggest occultists”. Reason they gave: “He is always wearing black”.
With BS like that they filled more than 100 pages IIRC.
The frightening thing about it was how nice, helpful people believed this. There was another urse there who didn’t concentrate on rock but considered New age music as the real diabolic threat.
I guess this was one of the reasons why I was happy to start my physics studies soon after to finally get back to a more reasonable and evidence-driven world…
Didn’t Jimmy Page own an esoteric bookstore in London for a time that peddled “seriously occult” literature and especially also Crowley’s writings? I think he more than just dabbled with the subject.
Ritchie was basically into doing seances and Ouija board trivial pursuits. There was a time where he (and Dio) professed an interest in “White Magic” as opposed to “Black Magic” which they claimed to fear. I don’t think they ever really studied Black Magic literature or dived into Satanism as a philosophy (which, as any true Satanist will be eager to tell you, professes to not be an evil philosophy by its own definition, rather viewing organized Christianity and other monotheistic religions as the evil that needs to be fought).
“Seriously occult” is for me where you leave seances and hand reading behind and begin to really delve into dark rites as a practiced religion shaping your world view. It doesn’t mean that I personally believe that there is such a thing, I just find it interesting from a cultural/anthropological view. Good and evil are strictly man-made concepts, not natural forces pre-existing outside of our minds, they only show effect through and via man. A world without humans would be one where the two concepts become irrevocably moot, nothing in nature is either good or evil, both categories are irrelevant criteria for how nature works.
March 24th, 2026 at 14:42@17
Christoff – ohh my! 😃
Poor you to be yelled at like that 😝
How dare they to claim such horrific things on other people, is beyond my understanding.
Now I am mostly dressed in blue colours, but years ago most of my clothes were 50 shades of black 😁 I wonder what they would have yelled at me?!
The things you tell us here fill me with true horror, in the good old black ‘nobody expect the Spanish Inquisition’-days, that was all it took to kill other people, at least all you experienced was being yelled at, even though I fully understand how awful that must have been.
However it also shows me how important it is that we learn to think for ourselves and no matter what we believe and who we believe in, I honestly think that we need to be kind and understanding to each other 🤗
If they were so afraid you were doomed, they ought to have talked to you with care and understanding, not trying to scare the living daylight out of you.
Well, again Ian was right, I’m thinking of course of the lyrics in ‘Ted the Mechanic’:
“…. Too many rules and regulations
Stupid laws designed by fools behind closed doors
And another thing I won’t discuss is religion
It always causes a fight…”
Thank you for sharing that with us.
March 24th, 2026 at 18:25@14
“Ritchie has always been a prankster. On a good day, he is just a pure genius with those hilarious brainchilds of his.”
– Normally I can tell when people are making fun, but oh man I have serious problems reading Ritchie! 😊
Your coffee is ready! So is mine 😃 – ALWAYS! 😁
March 24th, 2026 at 18:29@15
Thank you so much MacGregor 😃🤗🤗🙏🏼
Now I get why I cannot stand his voice!
It sounds – and please remember in my ears alone – like a child’s voice, not completely in pitch (sorry if that’s not the right word)
And – again only in my head – it sounds like he has sniffed helium..
I am really relieved because I couldn’t explain it! Now I can…
March 24th, 2026 at 18:34And what a cute little bassist 😃😍
@18
Uwe I get what you mean, and for all what is warm, yummy and with a splash of milk, I really won’t be all philosophical now…. Just answer this little question:
– on second thought, no I better not 😁
But as Friedrich the great of Prussia once uttered: Everyone is blessed in their faith.
Apparently even lawyers 😄
March 24th, 2026 at 18:42I know Lil’ Ellen, Herr MacGregor, a bit of a circus pony with an overzealous dad pushing her. 😑
Geddy is a fine player, but he never really moved me, he’s neither really rock’n’roll nor funky. And melodically, he’s a bit angular, but then that is Rush for you.
Rock bass playing for me is this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFU5vawwUJk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffZXnWkbkgs
Jim Lea has swagger, groove and zest, Geddy plays bass like a (thoroughly skilled) librarian in contrast. But for Rush, he’s perfect.
Christof, would it be asking all too much if maybe you shared some more of your experiences as a young man with young nuns and nurses here? I hasten to add that my general curiosity has no ulterior motives!
https://www.laestadea.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/nuevo-video-de-deep-purple-vincent-price.jpg
Among my more prized DP Family-related memorabilia posessions belongs a makeshift folded leaflet in a garish/hellish red that US Evangelicals apparently distributed before the venues during Sabbath’s Born Again tour – some German chapter of theirs distributed it in Germany too on a later Sabbath tour. Of course it mixes Ozzy-, Ronnie- and Ian-era Sabbath together in a wildly incoherent way, the horned infant and lyric snippets from Disturbing The Priest are however prominently featured. I still have it tucked away in the sleeve of my Born Again vinyl. Priceless. If I can get my hands on some virgin blood (a scarce commodity at the best of times), perhaps I can perform some dark rites with it tonight?! 🤣
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast …
March 24th, 2026 at 19:42@ 18 – “Didn’t Jimmy Page own an esoteric bookstore in London for a time that peddled “seriously occult” literature and especially also Crowley’s writings? I think he more than just dabbled with the subject.” He would have had no idea what he really was getting into Uwe. Let’s face it, it is all in someone’s mind, whether they spread the word or not. Created by humans as most of these things are, imagination, fascination, easily lead or some other more sinister reason behind it. No harm done if nothing becomes of it, but if anyone is messed up by it or messed about, well, we better not go there. Some of it can be of interest though, at a certain stage of our lives perhaps, but it usually stays there as a curiosity of sorts. It is part of the ‘arts’ in some ways, or at least a trend of sorts for some. Cheers.
March 24th, 2026 at 22:11@ 21- thank you Karin for clicking on the Rush link and listening. The chipping away at the armour continues and I appreciate you having another listen to Geddy’s voice again. Be very careful it doesn’t turn into a ‘ear worm’. Repeating itself continuously for ever and ever and then driving you crazy. Stranger things have happened in this world. Cheers.
March 24th, 2026 at 22:31@ 23- I am not into looking at the ‘child prodigy’ musical instrument playing videos Uwe. A friend of mine who isn’t into Rush at all, but knows that myself and a few other friends of his are, sent a text comment with the link. I actually left it for many hours before I had look at Ellen’s bass playing ability. It was amusing to say the least, particularly the second clip with the assorted bassists that she covers. I have looked at a few clips posted here of Deep Purple music and the related youngsters playing a tune or two, but that is about all to be honest. Parents probably should be more carful shouldn’t they in posting video’s online etc. But as I am not a parent, who am I to judge anyone on these sort of things. Cheers.
March 24th, 2026 at 22:45@23
” US Evangelicals apparently distributed before the venues during Sabbath’s Born Again tour ”
Probably the same folks that tried to “save” me out in front of the San Diego Sports Arena after a Dio gig.
March 25th, 2026 at 02:10@17 Christof, I remember that book too! It’s a fun read indeed. Mentioned a lot of my heros. I bought it at a christian hospital in 1984.
March 25th, 2026 at 06:33@ 27 – most probably the same mob who turned up at Ronnie’s funeral. And let’s not forget way back in the early 1970’s and Black Sabbath themselves copped it big time down in the South. There are plenty of lyrics out there depicting this childish behaviour but we will not go there. Cheers.
March 25th, 2026 at 09:03@Uwe, #23: “Christof, would it be asking all too much if maybe you shared some more of your experiences as a young man with young nuns and nurses here? I hasten to add that my general curiosity has no ulterior motives!”
Uwe, with pleasure!
March 25th, 2026 at 10:43There indeed was a young lady (nurse-to-be) with whom – well, how do I express this like a gentleman? – I had the desire to get to know her a bit more. All these nurses-to-be were living in the “Diakonissen-Mutterhaus”, the home of the soeurs, in two-bed rooms. As Sabine’s roommate had a depressing evening (she was suffering from her insight that she couldn’t mission all the people she had seen on this day) we chose to go to another room. Close to some stairs she made me wait as she had to fetch something. Of course Murphy’s Law struck (any physicist can tell you that this is the most important law of nature by far!) and I heard the steps of somebody coming down the stairs. As I was wearing a bulky sweater and had long hair back then I knew that you couldn’t decide whether I was man or woman if you just saw me from behind (on the ward it happened very often that they asked “Schwester!” if they wanted something from me and couldn’t see me from front) so I turned away from the stairs. From the corner of my eye I could see that it was a soeur in her nightgown coming down the stairs.
Of course, Sabine chose this moment to come back again, see the soeur, see me and get pale. Panicking, she yelled “Christof, no way that you stand here!”. The poor soeur got the shock of her life, did flee upstairs again and poor Sabine was completely devastated. Actually, she really got some trouble afterwards to smuggle somebody inside while I went unharmed as I was no employee of the hospital but rather a civil servant which was kind of “lent” to the hospital. Only consequence for me was that among my colleagues I was then labelled as “Der Schleicher vom Mutterhaus” – roughly “The Creep from the soeurs’ home”
Christof, esoteric/New Age movements are logically viewed as a threat by organized religions “of desert origin” because they – increasingly popular in the a Western World – offer a spirituality that does without the personification of a higher power. To monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam that is of course anathema and new paganism in disguise. These religions all have the belief in the existence of a supreme being at their core, not just a spiritual force (or forces) that has no physical form. “Bodyless spirituality” is probably something that worries them more than atheism, agnosticism and fringe movements such as Satanism/the occult put together. It’s real competition to them because it’s convenient for modern Western life since it is so highly individualistic.
March 25th, 2026 at 15:15My forthright sympathies, Christof, you were close to scoring a home run. Novice nurses in lingerie, my mind runs rampant now! 😂
“Der Schleicher vom Mutterhaus” sounds like the title of one of those Edgar Wallace franchise thriller films! 😎
https://youtu.be/sjoMi92Goac
March 25th, 2026 at 16:26“Well I stood before the Diakonissenmutterhaus***
Throwing up a brick
Sabine came and let me in
I’d really done the trick”
(*** Yes, one word, it’s German remember … 🤗)
Say no more, life imitating art! How I envy you, Christof! I herewith champion the placing of a honorary plaque commemorating the night of the “Schleicher”! Where can I sign up? We really need to crowdfund this.
https://www.olgahaus.de/fileadmin/_processed_/2/d/csm_WueU_Wer_wir_sind__KOK_und_Mutterhaus_JPG_0c9de38068.jpg
https://youtu.be/ZkcPmnyRPEY
March 26th, 2026 at 03:33@ 14- Hiza, no worries and if you are ever ‘downunder’ yes it would be good to catch up for a talk and a coffee or three of course. Regarding poor ole Aleister Crowley, I always enjoyed Bob Daisley’s lyrics in the song from the Blizzard of Oz album. Keeping things nice and ‘down to earth’ so to speak. I say Bob because he was the prime lyricist in that band, although Ozzy may have added a line or two here and there occasionally, possibly, who knows. Cheers.
Mr. Crowley, what went on in your head?
Oh, Mr. Crowley, did you talk to the dead?
Your life style to me seemed so tragic
With the thrill of it all
You fooled all the people with magic
Yeah, you waited on Satan’s call
Mr. Charming, did you think you were pure?
Mr. Alarming, in nocturnal rapport
Uncovering things that were sacred
Manifest on this Earth
Conceived in the eye of a secret
And they scattered the afterbirth
Mr. Crowley, won’t you ride my white horse?
Mr. Crowley, it’s symbolic, of course
Approaching a time that is classic
I hear that maidens call
Approaching a time that is drastic
Standing with their backs to the wall
Was it polemically sent
March 26th, 2026 at 08:56l want to know what you meant
I want to know, I want to know what you meant, yeah
Yes Uwe @33 but did Sabine’s daddy come and ban your head? Or bang your schadelknochen but that doesn’t scan as well.
March 26th, 2026 at 09:00That interview has been official for 40 years.
March 26th, 2026 at 09:51Wow, Uwe, you are not just a lawyer but also a private eye!
March 26th, 2026 at 10:46It actually was the Karl-Olga Krankenhaus I was doing my Civil Service at and it was the Diakonissenmutterhaus der Olga-Schwestern (what a word, eh!) where we got caught (or better say caught the soeur).
The upper building on the picture actually still exists and is today’s surgery department; the lower part has been dismantled a long time ago; the Mutterhaus now is on the other side of the hospital, conected via a long tunnel under the road which separates the two buildings. Camera-surveilled but it paid off to know the guy from the gate (also a Zivi) … So I didn’t have to throw a brick, it was enough to buy a beer for the buddy.
And thank you for the video – a flashback to childhood. I won’t get it out of my head again for a long time now…
Bad grief!, how can we in good conscience discuss ole Aleister here
https://nwfilmforum.org/images/uploaded_images/0000/3026/ac_feature.gif
and not link to this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKPexx3fIN0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_of_Thelema
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAhdn_t3u68
You guys will
March 26th, 2026 at 12:05burn in hell… ok, go to heaven then for this ghastly omission!“The Unknown source” is the BBC radio series “The Guitar Greats”. Narrated by Alexis Korner and written and interviewed by John Tobler. Its been generally available for years.
March 26th, 2026 at 19:12There’s also a book featuring the interviews (or edits of them) with a chapter on B.B. King, Scotty Moore,James Burton,Hank Marvin,Eric Clapton,Jeff Beck,Pete Townshend,Jimmy Page,Ry Cooder,Ritchie Blackmore,Steve Miller,Carlos Santana,Joe Walsh and Brian May