Ritchie Blackmore did not want to get back with Ronnie James Dio for current Rainbow

Ritchie Blackmore did not want to get back with Ronnie James Dio for current Rainbow

Former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was recently interviewed by Newsweek and asked whether he was disappointed that he was unable to invite Ronnie James Dio to take part in Rainbow‘s shows back in June 2016 given that the powerhouse singer passed away in 2010.

Blackmore candidly replied: “I hate to say it, but no, I wasn’t. I’d finished with Ronnie a long time ago, and we kept in touch now and again but I went on to other things and he was in other things. We kept it very convivial and that, but I think neither one of us really wanted to get back together. He’s a strong alpha male, and so am I; he wanted to go one way, I wanted to go the other.”

Blackmore also criticized another Rainbow singer that he worked with when asked about reforming Rainbow in the mid ’90s to which he replied: “I kind of left the Purple camp and I was really at a loose end, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I didn’t want to travel anymore. They were all over the world, all the time, and I hate traveling. It’s funny, because I chose a profession where all you do is travel. I thought maybe I’ll re-form Rainbow and see how it goes.

Popularity-wise, it went very well. But I wasn’t pleased with the lineup. After being in the studio, I thought, You know, I’m not happy with the singer [Doogie White]. My main connection with music is the singer and if I don’t have a good singer, I can’t force it. And when you bring somebody into a band, sometimes the egos go crazy, so I thought, “Why am I doing this?” And Candy and I would often get around the fire because we were up in Massachusetts in a snow storm all the time, so we‘d often spend nights coming up with ideas. And I noticed that I was having a better time playing songs that Candy could sing rather than what the singer at the time in Rainbow was coming up with.

So I decided to gravitate more toward the ballads and Medieval/Renaissance music, which of course has been my favorite music since 1972. So this was like two things in one: We’re having a good time and I’m playing basically Renaissance music, so I was very happy with that.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Blackmore at Newsweek.