<\/p>\n \u201cI owe him a lot of money,\u201d the guitarist once joked.<\/p>\n Best picks for you<\/p>\n So while Blackmore\u2019s work with Deep Purple \u2014 most successfully with the Mark II era of the band \u2014 popularized the fusion of styles and very much made it his own, he doesn\u2019t want to take the credit for the idea.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was 15, there was this incredible band that came to the South Wall Community Center,\u201d he says in a newly uploaded YouTube video. \u201cThey were called Nero and the Gladiators, all dressed up as Romans in togas and what have you.\u201d<\/p>\n Formed in 1960 by keyboard player Mike O’Neil, who assumed the role of Nero, the band scored minor hits with rocked-up versions of “Entrance of the Gladiators,” composed by Julius Fu\u010d\u00edk in 1897, and Edvard Grieg’s 1875 orchestral work “In the Hall of the Mountain King.”<\/p>\n It was the latter that led Blackmore to his epiphany.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s where I got my inspiration from,\u201d he explains. \u201cSome people think that I kind of started that craze, but they were the first. I saw them, and I was just overwhelmed.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were great showmen,\u201d he continues. \u201cI’ll never forget that experience. I was open-mouthed watching this rock playing of classical pieces, and to me, it made much more sense than Chuck Berry playing \u2018Sweet Little Sixteen\u2019. All of a sudden, it was, \u2018Yeah, this is where I want to go.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cI thought Tony Harvey\u2019s guitar playing was incredible. He was a big influence on me.\u201d<\/p>\n Don’t miss these<\/p>\n Talking to Guitar World<\/a> in 1991, Blackmore went into more detail about how this revelation helped him find his identity as a guitarist, in particular on electric guitar<\/a>. As a player, he was coming up in the thick of a huge blues movement in the U.K., but it didn\u2019t quite resonate with him the same as it was for two other local guitarists who would rise to prominence alongside him: Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, from whom he bought his first Strat<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI was never sure what I wanted to be,\u201d he reflected. \u201cI found the blues too limiting. Classical, on the other hand, was always too disciplined. I was always playing between the two, stuck in a musical no-man’s land.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m not good enough, technically, to be a classical musician,\u201d he added, \u201cI lack discipline,\u201d hence why he has always seen his sound with Deep Purple as a simplified take on classical tonalities.<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n But his forays into classical guitar<\/a>, he had told Guitar Player<\/a> 18 years earlier, taught him things that playing the blues didn’t.<\/p>\n \u201cI learned how to use my little finger,\u201d he explained. \u201cA lot of blues guitarists play with only three fingers, so they can\u2019t figure out certain runs that require the use of their little fingers.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say that it shows up most in the music I write. For example, the chord progression in the \u2018Highway Star\u2019 solo is a Bach progression.\u201d<\/p>\n But he wasn\u2019t purely lifting from concertos and overtures. His own personality was embedded in what he coaxed out of his Stratocaster\u2019s<\/a> fretboard.<\/p>\n \u201cThe classical influence is always there, but I don\u2019t intentionally use it that much,\u201d he added. \u201cI play a lot of single notes, and that\u2019s not classical.\u201d<\/p>\n Blackmore is currently at home recovering from a recent health scare<\/a> that brought an abrupt end<\/a> to his latest tour with Blackmore’s Night, the renaissance-folk act he performs in with his wife, Candice Night.<\/p>\n![\"British](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Fd4gbmDbRhkdR3ybXgG5nW.jpg\")
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