Kind of strange”: The formative night Ritchie Blackmore played in front of Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison

Although Ritchie Blackmore developed his technique throughout the 1960s and was as much a product of the era as the other great guitarists that London produced, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and the rest, he didn’t find a level of continued global fame as they did until early the following decade. Deep Purple might have formed in 1968 and found minor success in the US that year due to their cover of ‘Hush’, but it took the band a couple more albums to really find their sound. To do so, Blackmore looked to the already-established guitarists for inspiration.

While Blackmore had also experienced a taste of moderate success previously in the decade, thanks to cutting his teeth with acts such as Screaming Lord Sutch and Neil Christian, it wasn’t until rock exploded into a much more full-bodied and exciting musical force following ‘The British Invasion’ and the form’s metamorphosis into psychedelia in 1967 that he had his eyes opened to the dazzling sounds the six-string could offer. It proved to be a spiritually liberating time.

Following the rise of psychedelia and hard rock, Blackmore experienced a creative awakening. The American pioneer Jimi Hendrix—a fellow Fender Stratocaster virtuoso—left the greatest impression on him, demonstrating how to push the boundaries of musical convention. After forming Deep Purple, Blackmore set out to carve his own path in this emerging heavy genre, building on the foundation laid by Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton.

Hendrix’s natural ability to weave between serene blues and incendiary rock heat made such an impact on Blackmore that years later, he would admit that one of his ultimate cuts, ‘Speed King’ from Deep Purple’s 1970 masterpiece, Deep Purple in Rock, was based on ‘Stone Free’. It’s clear that without the Seattle maestro, Blackmore’s pioneering sound, which made use of dive-bombs and dissonance as much as it did angular riffs, would not have had a concrete context from which to emerge. It speaks volumes about the impact Hendrix had on guitar playing and rock, as without Blackmore, there’d be no Eddie Van Halen or Billy Corgan.

When speaking to Tales from the Tavern in 2024, Blackmore recalled a life-affirming early show where Deep Purple supported Clapton’s Cream at the Los Angeles forum, where Hendrix and The Beatles legend George Harrison were in the front row. Not only were they there to witness his licks, but it also offered him the opportunity actually to meet Clapton, a player he’d long admired, despite later claiming he never “saw what was in” the former Yardbirds man. This was a transformative night for his sound.

He recalled: “I remember Deep Purple was supporting Cream at the Forum in Los Angeles. Funny enough, in the front row I think was Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison sitting right there. Right in front of me, which was kind of strange. Before the show, I think Eric came into the dressing room I was in with Deep Purple. We never met formerly before, so we introduced each other, little bit of small talk. I was always impressed with Eric’s, not only ability to play brilliant guitar playing but I loved his sound.”

Speaking to Clapton gave Blackmore the opportunity to ask him how he achieved his “fat sound”. In doing so, he discovered that he was using Clifford Essex strings, which he purchased as soon as he could. Their use assisted his move into the muscular sonic environment he did after 1968, all the while safe in the knowledge that he was on the right track as Hendrix, Harrison, and Clapton dug his sound.