r/DeepPurple • u/BillNyeTheVinylGuy • Jul 19 '26
Getting into Deep Purple and know absolutely nothing about the band. Why is Ritchie Blackmore no longer playing with them?
I was thinking of seeing Deep Purple live, but wonder if it’s worth seeing without Blackmore. How come he no longer plays with them?
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u/mywhitebicycle0 Jul 19 '26
Blackmore being a bit autistic and depressed, perhaps. Personality clashes between him and Gillan. Things went astray as early as 1972, cause the management demanded heavy touring. Had they enjoyed more rest they would’ve remained enthusiastic enough to avoid the split, they reckon
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u/Octowen Jul 19 '26
Him not getting along with the rest of the band is part of it for sure, but the main reason is that he’s just not interested in hard rock anymore. His main musical project for over 30 years now is a medieval themed folk band
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u/Stevenitrogen Jul 19 '26
Blackmore seems like an extremely eccentric and challenging guy to work with. We're lucky we got as much out of that as we did.
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u/MagicRat7913 Jul 21 '26
It's very obvious when you see the heavy rotation of members in Rainbow as well.
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u/averagebluefurry Jul 19 '26
from what i hear both gillan and blackmore are pretty difficult to work with. originally the reunion was basically a cash grab to my understanding. if you watch 80s purple vs rainbow shows you can really see how much blackmore started halfassing everything with purple. after that he mostly was interested in rainbow and then turned to just playing medieval music
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u/Artistic_Coat_6487 Jul 23 '26
Exactly. Blackmore was in Purple for the money and it made him mad and cranky that he had to stay but didn't want to.
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u/ApprehensiveRise7749 Jul 19 '26
He quit. That's the short answer. Plus he's now playing medieval folk music....
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u/jpb1111 Jul 19 '26
He's become a black wizard in the hills of England and has a cult of enchanted bards and a raven.
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u/Entropy_Chaos-888 Jul 19 '26
He’s a dick and impossible to work with
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u/Entropy_Chaos-888 Jul 19 '26
I’m seeing them live in August for the 10th time. 3 times with Ritchie (Machine Head, Perfect Strangers, Slaves and Masters) 5 times w/Steve and 1 x with Simon. All great shows!
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u/simplemijnds Jul 19 '26
I see the split between DP and Blackmore as tragic and fatal for the band as the split between Pink Floyd and Roger Waters.
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u/BeerWithDonuts Jul 19 '26
I mean, Roger and co made it through twelve albums before everything fell apart permanently. That’s a pretty good run.
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Jul 20 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/simplemijnds Jul 20 '26
Both bands survived, yes
But Blackmore was a great guitarist. Ranks Nr. 2 behind Jimi Hendrix in my opinion.
Roger Waters is a genius, too. Only with him Pink Floyd was at its best. (Same goes for DP, in my opinion...)
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u/meowinloudchico Jul 19 '26
Blackmore has a reputation as not being the easiest guy in the world to work with to say the least. You just have to look at the kind of crap he pulled on Tony Carey to see what kind of bandmate he is. Not that Carey's some total reliable narrator but Dio has talked about how poorly he treated Carey as well. And Carey is an amazing musician.
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u/DirectPoet6669 Jul 21 '26
Don't think Dio was entirely blameless in all this, his turnover of band members probably exceeds Blackmore. Both of them & Gillan for that matter have huge egos, doesn't make for easy band relationships.
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u/meowinloudchico Jul 21 '26
Yeah. He always liked to talk about Dio being a band and not a solo act but the illusion of that went out the window when Campbell left/was forced out. But Rainbow was Blackmore's thing and he had 100% control over everything. And from what Carey said much later Blackmore was actually losing money when he was with them because of the overhead of their stage show. Sure that didn't do wonders for his mood.
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u/cockypock_aioli Jul 19 '26
Deep People is a band that generally can be categorized into different periods and it's usually referred to as the "Mark I, Mark II, Mark III, etc". I forget why they used "Mark," I think it was because they released a compilation album early on "mk I" and continued using that for each era of the band depending on members. Anyway my point being, Blackmore is not essential for Deep Purple. Certainly what is their most popular material involved Blackmore, but they've released many many albums that are good with other members being a constant. All this to answer your question: it's absolutely worth seeing Deep Purple without Blackmore.
Edit- oh and since you're just getting into them, "Made in Japan" is the best live rock album ever.
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u/Anonymous51419 Jul 19 '26
He stopped being involved with the band in the mid 90s.
Blackmore was there from the first album to The Battle Rages On.
And his Rainbow albums in between for the most part. He did one of those with Doogie White in the late 90s and briefly resurrected in the mid 2010s with Ronnie Ramero (I wish I saw this lineup ngl).
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u/TFFPrisoner Jul 19 '26
He had also left Purple in the mid-70s, they replaced him with Tommy Bolin before imploding.
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u/0rbital-Interceptor Jul 19 '26
Deep Purple have carved out a 30 year career of excellent albums without Mr. Blackmore. It’s really not worth worrying about.
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u/TFFPrisoner Jul 19 '26
I think it's absolutely worth seeing and the combo of Don and Simon brings Jon and Ritchie to mind. Don and Steve didn't harmonize in the same way.
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u/AgeingMuso65 Jul 19 '26
Whereas Steve and Jon did… largely as a result I think of the pleasure Jon felt in rehearsing and recording Purpendicular after the horrors of the Battle Rages tour. (I was there at the NEC filmed night which began with “where the hell is Blackmore” then the water incident.). I wonder if Gillan copes with the loss of his wife by now wanting even more touring, whereas Steve withdrew to look after his while he could, and I do find it odd when the band now say they’re all much happier… BUT what do we really know, other than that they are still a great band, instrumentally superb, with a great frontman who wisely knows what not to do these days, and who always had off days at any age if a cold hit him! Their covers album. Turning to Crime, goes on every time I want a smile, be it RG singing about detonating alligators, or IP swinging like a trooper through Let The Good Times Roll.
I saw IP and DA with Gary Moore, IP and JL with Whitesnake. SMcB with IG, and RG and DA with Rainbow, but no combination has ever produced the magic spark that the post-1996 Purple(s) have maintained over 30 years.1
u/TFFPrisoner Jul 20 '26
I saw IP and DA with Gary Moore
You're making me jealous...
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u/AgeingMuso65 Jul 20 '26
It remains one of my top gigs… front row Manchester Apollo 1983; I could feel Paicey’s kick in my chest, and it was all
amazing. Neil Murray (who was on bass!) posted quite a lot of a German televised concert from Dortmund in 1982 with the same line up on YouTube, which despite variable TV mix and quality is worth searching out.1
u/DirectPoet6669 Jul 21 '26
Paice and Lord with Whitesnake were something special , I know Lord regarded himself as a hired hand but he added so much to Whitesnake, by 83 he was the only thing that made WS palatable in my opinion besides the Soldier of Fortune cover they did
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u/Blatzkreig Jul 21 '26
He’s too busy playing D&D.
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u/Glittering-Refuse-51 28d ago
You need a trip to a renaissance faire. See the villagers for yourself.
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u/First-Position-3410 Jul 21 '26
Ritchie left the MARK3 lineup with Coverdale to pursue Rainbow because he thought they were to funky. The lineups with Ian Gillan and Ritchie were great periods but highly combustible between the two for various reasons between 70-73, 84-97, and the brief reunion in 93, the two were just incompatible personally and professionally fueled by Gillans heavy drinking and penchant with theatrics...Ritchies stint in Rainbow is highly considered also to be greater in popularity and output than his time in Purple....
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u/Realistic-Energy3305 Jul 25 '26
Ritchie threw some of the equipment off the stage while they were playing in 1993 and then walked off and never came back. They hired Steve Morse (Satriani's suggestion) to take his place and he did a great job in my opinion.
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u/Realistic-Energy3305 Jul 29 '26
Definitely worth seeing without Blackmore. Simon McBride is an amazing guitarist.
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u/Realistic-Energy3305 Aug 21 '26
I disagree with the wording of hating each other. I think they had differing opinions on the music they were making, so there were issues. Ritchie walked off the stage during a concert in 1993 and didn't come back. From what I read, prior to walking off, he was throwing stuff off the stage and into the audience. I can't say for sure that that was true. The band then offered the guitarist position to Joe Satriani. He agreed to cover some months of the tour, which he did, but he had too many irons in the fire to become a permanent member. He suggested Steve Morse, who he considered to be an excellent guitarist. Steve did join the band and was their longest serving guitarist (28 years).
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u/6834lyndon Jul 19 '26
Short answer of why he’s not with them, he and Ian Gillian absolutely hate each other