Richard Hugh Blackmore, best known as Ritchie Blackmore was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England in 1945 and 23 years later he helped to form Deep Purple, group which would become one of the most influential in history.
He was a member of the band until 1975 when he decided to leave to form Rainbow and then from 1984 until 1993 when the classic line-up reunited. His records with the band are untouchable and helped him gain the status of a real guitar hero. However, Blackmore doesn’t like everything he did with the group and in an interview back in the mid-70s with Creem magazine he revealed which was the classic song that he thought was awful.
The Deep Purple song Ritchie Blackmore thought it was awful
When Ritchie Blackmore decided to leave Deep Purple in 1975 the group already had released nine studio albums. Their most famous album continues until nowadays to be “Machine Head” released in 1972 which contained several smash hits. One of the praised songs from that album is “Space Truckin'” that still is present on the setlist of the band’s live acts. However, as Blackmore told Creem magazine in 1975, that was one of the tracks he thought were awful.
When asked if he used to listen to the albums of the band he said: “I never listen to all that stuff. I don’t know if other artists get this but I can’t listen to much that I play at all. The only time I can listen to it’s when I’m drunk out of my head in a discotheque somewhere. I’ll hear our records, and then I’ll go, ‘Oh .. that’s all right.”
He continued:
“But if someone puts it on at home, I’ll feel very embarrassed. Because I’m only playin’ a third of what I can really put out. You can never excel yourself on record; it’s just hopeless. I listen to our records, think ‘Christ. That’s awful.’ Things like ‘Space Truckin’. Other times I listen to somebody else and I’ll go ‘Well, that’s awful too.’ So at least ours is acceptable because it’s better than most,” Ritchie Blackmore said.
“Machine Head” is Deep Purple’s best-selling album. It had many other famous tracks like “Highway Star”, “Smoke On The Water”, “Lazy” and “Pictures Of Home”.
At the time, the band was formed by Ian Gillan (Vocals), Jon Lord (Keyboards), Ian Paice (Drums), Ritchie Blackmore (Guitar) and Roger Glover (Bass). The record occupied the first position on the charts of several countries at the time, including the United Kingdom. It also reached position number 7 on the United States Billboard 200.
Blackmore believed the guitar riff for “Space Truckin'” was too simple and was insecure
Especially in the early days, Ritchie Blackmore was a shy person. Sometimes he was insecure to share some of his ideas with his bandmates. He recalled in an interview for the TV series “Classic Albums” in 2002 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) that he thought at first that the riff for “Space Truckin'” was too simple and they wouldn’t be able to use it.
“It was almost like a thumb exercise. It could be played with a thumb and I took to Ian Gillan. I said: ‘Ian, I had this idea but it is so ridiculous. It’s so silly and simple that I don’t think we can use it’. He said: ‘Just play it to me.’ I go over in the corner and I very quietly played it to him.”
“He said ‘What is the type of vocal you have for it?’ I said: ‘Something like ‘Come on, ta da da da…’ I was very shy and he grasped it and immediately said: ‘Great, sounds really good’. I said: ‘But isn’t too simple?’ He said: ‘No, I think we can use it’,” Ritchie Blackmore said.
Deep Purple is still considered one of the most important Hard Rock bands of the history of music. They are also one of the best-selling bands of all time. The group has sold an estimated amount of more than 100 million records sold worldwide.
The group continued after Blackmore decided to leave for good more than three decades ago. Since then they had in his place Joe Satriani (From 1993 to 1994) and Steve Morse (From 1994 to 2022). Now the band’s guitarist is Simon McBride.