(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Fri 2 January 2026 21:00, UK
Most musicians who form a close working relationship usually establish common ground or mutual respect from the get-go. Ritchie Blackmore, on the other hand, once thought that his future best friend was one bad move away from punching him square in the face.
This isn’t all that surprising when you consider Blackmore’s background and the type of environment he built his name in. After all, we’ve all heard the tales of woe that sprung from the scenes of high-energy rock ‘n’ roll, and often, Blackmore had front-row seats to whatever raucous event would be going down on any given day.
He’s also always been naturally one of the more outspoken players in the field, never shying away from revealing his honest feelings towards something or someone whenever presented with the question. And while Blackmore’s disdain stretches to some of the more esteemed groups in the business, from The Rolling Stones to Cream, one of the more telling remarks came when he started opening his mouth about the one scene people regard as the most authentic: punk.
“The editor of Melody Maker, the big paper in England, was saying how wonderful the music was,” Blackmore said in The Ritchie Blackmore Story. “Ian [Anderson] was stunned, like, ‘Are you joking? This is awful. Dreadful stuff.’ And, of course, I tended to agree.”
Blackmore wasn’t always so cut and dry with his thoughts. He’s always had a little more confidence than many of his peers, but early on, before his stint in Deep Purple, he was a little more conscious of his place, especially when he was around other, more established legends. Back in the 1960s, Jerry Lee Lewis hired the Outlaws for gigs, and while Blackmore had enough talent to be a worthy choice, he was far less established than many of the other guitarists in the room.
Naturally, therefore, he felt anxious about whether he’d be able to please ‘The Killer‘ himself, which was made worse by the fact that, at the time, Lewis’ reputation wasn’t exactly one of someone who had the most patience or treated his collaborators well. In fact, word on the street was that, if you made a mistake, you’d be met with a fist to the face. Of course, Blackmore wanted to avoid that outcome at all costs.
As he recalled to Guitar Player, “The first time I played with him I’d just turned 18, and we were supposed to have a week’s rehearsal,” Blackmore explained. “The week before the tour, he hadn’t turned up. Two days before the tour, still nothing. We were going to open in Birmingham, and he turned up the afternoon of the gig. I was shitting myself because I’d heard from all these bands that if you played a wrong note, Jerry would beat the shit out of you – he’d punch you in the face. I was a big fan, but I was very frightened of him.”
He also recalled a moment in rehearsal when Lewis approached Blackmore, who was playing his guitar, and praised him with a simple, “Good boy”, and he held his hand out, which Blackmore reached out to for a handshake, and the fact that Blackmore could do that while continuing to play his guitar impressed Lewis, who uttered another murmur of praise before turning away, no doubt to find someone else to focus his displeasure on.
According to Blackmore, everything was alright after that: “We were best friends after that, and he always called me Johnny Cash, because when I was 18, I looked a bit like [him].”
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