<\/p>\n
One of the greatest British guitarists of all time Ritchie Blackmore created incredible music with Deep Purple and Rainbow<\/a>, being a crucial part of the evolution of Hard Rock.<\/p>\n He began his career in the 1960s and had the opportunity to witness the effervescence of the British rock scene including the emergence of the Beatles. Throughout his career he spoke many times about them and gavec his opinion on the late guitarist George Harrison whom he also had the chance to meet and play with.<\/p>\n What is Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s opinion on George Harrison<\/p>\n Ritchie Blackmore is a big fan of George Harrison and The Beatles. He already said the late guitarist was a very nice man and according to him, someone who also had big feet. Like most musicians of his era, Blackmore was influenced by the Fab Four and a couple of decades later, in 1984, he had the chance to share the stage with Harrison during a Deep Purple<\/a> show. \u201cI did play with George Harrison<\/a>, he wanted me to join The Beatles. I\u2019d never heard of them and I knew they were going nowhere. So I said no, absolutely not,\u201d he joked. \u201cBut the truth is he was friends with Jon Lord and Ian Paice. He lived just down the road in Henley, I think it was.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe was over in Australia when we were there as Deep Purple and he said to me, very politely, \u2018Can I get up on stage with you and use your guitar?\u2019 I said: \u2018Of course!\u2019 I was flattered! Sure enough we all got up on stage and we did the old Rock and Roll number\u2026 (plays his acoustic guitar to remember which song it was). It was \u2018Lucille\u2019 by Little Richard, not played as badly as that. We had a good time, he was a very nice man. Very serious and very complimentary. It was very overwhelming to play with a Beatle.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued:<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, there will never be another band like The Beatles. (They) early stuff, I absolutely love, \u2018I Want To Hold Your Hand\u2019, \u2018From Me To You\u2019, that stuff, these simple melodies were fantastic. George was very modest, a very quiet man. I noticed when we were on stage that he had big feet. Because he was tapping out the rhythm and I did look down at one point and I thought \u2018My God, he has big feet\u2019. George was great,\u201d Ritchie Blackmore said on his Youtube<\/a> channel (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).<\/p>\n The show took place in 1984 during Deep Purple\u2019s reunion tour at Sydney\u2019s Entertainment Centre. He was introduced on stage by Ian Gillan, who joked that their special guest was \u201cArnold Grove from Liverpool,\u201d before the crowd realized who he really was.<\/p>\n George Harrison said he liked to Deep Purple\u2019s show<\/p>\n George was not a big fan of Hard Rock or Heavy Metal and did not know much about Deep Purple before becoming friends with Ian Paice and Jon Lord. He had heard \u201cSmoke on the Water\u201d around the time the song was released but was unfamiliar with the rest of their discography. The night he played with the band was also the first time he had watched their show and he later said he enjoyed it.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re my neighbors, two of them, Jon (Lord) and Ian (Paice). They live near me. I\u2019ve known them now for probably 8, 9 years. Yet they were so famous in the 70s, I got to know them in the period after they broken up before they reformed. So I never knew their music. I mean, I heard this one thing about \u2018Smoke On The Water\u2019 or something like that. I\u2019ve actually never seen them. I heard that they are in the Guinness Book Of Records for being the loudest group in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Ritchie Blackmore continued:<\/p>\n \u201cSo I thought, well, I was in Australia at the time. They happened to be doing a concert in Sydney. So I thought I\u2019d go and check them out. Get my earplugs and go and see them. I really enjoyed the show. I sat on the stage for part of the show behind the loudspeakers. Then I walked down and sat right on the center of the hall. It was not too loud. It was really funny. I liked it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought Ian, who is my neighbor, Ian Paice, he is such a good drummer and Jon Lord, rocking his organ (laughs). Ian Gillan<\/a>, I thought he is just a scream, he is really funny. I enjoyed. They said \u2018Hey! Here\u2019s a guitar, come on!\u2019 So I just went on and sang, I don\u2019t know what it was. I was playing the wrong key. But it didn\u2019t seem to matter,\u201d George Harrison told\u00a0Warner Brothers Music<\/a> in 1987 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).<\/p>\n So, at least until he got to know Jon Lord and Ian Paice, it seems he was unaware that Deep Purple had covered The Beatles<\/a> song \u201cHelp\u201d on their debut album \u201cShades of Deep Purple\u201d, in 1968. In the 1980s, Ian Paice ended up being part of a few of George\u2019s songs, such as \u201cCheer Down\u201d, \u201cCockamamie Business\u201d and \u201cPoor Little Girl.\u201d Those tracks also featured musicians like Jeff Lynne, Jim Horn, and Richard Tandy.<\/p>\n One aspect of his guitar playing that Ritchie Blackmore said was different from George Harrison\u2019s<\/p>\n Blackmore always admired The Beatles members as incredible players and songwriters. He even said back in the 1970s that he thought Paul McCartney was the best musician from the past 100 years. When it came to guitar playing, Blackmore believed there was one interesting difference in the way he and George played. According to him, because Deep Purple played so loud, it wasn\u2019t necessary to use \u201cbig chords\u201d the way Harrison did in The Beatles.<\/p>\n \u201cI have a tendency that while I\u2019m playing, I don\u2019t change my level, either. If I\u2019m playing rhythm, I\u2019ll be playing like a bass part, with a dampened right hand. So the notes are kind of stopped, and then when it comes to the solo, I just let the notes ring out. But then I\u2019ll go back to the dampened right hand, I never play your full Beatles chords, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ll see George Harrison playing the bar chord. To me, I would play the triad. Well, actually just the fifth, and then an octave up from the root note. I just play those three notes. When you\u2019re playing that loud, you can\u2019t knock out a big loud G major chord. I never played those chords that George Harrison would play big chords, like on \u201cTaxman\u201d. We were playing so loud that just one note on the guitar was sufficient. If you wanted to play a chord, then it would become two notes,\u201d he told Paul Guy<\/a> in 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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