Ritchie Blackmore Set to Play With Deep Purple After 33 Year-Estrangement
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Ritchie Blackmore is set to make a one-song encore appearance with Deep Purple at their Jones Beach show in New York, ending a 33-year absence from the band’s live stage. The planned reunion is significant because Blackmore is the group’s founding guitarist and a key writer of its best-known songs, while previous prospects of him rejoining had repeatedly been ruled out.
Blackmore said he contacted singer Ian Gillan, who took the proposal to the rest of the band and received approval. He left Deep Purple amid tensions in 1993, and did not join the group at its 2016 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction; since then, Steve Morse and later Simon McBride have filled the guitarist role.
- Blackmore plans a one-song Deep Purple encore.
- It would end 33 years apart.
- The band approved the proposed appearance.
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Deep Purple are a British rock band formed in the late 1960s and are widely associated with the development of hard rock. Their best-known line-up included guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, singer Ian Gillan, keyboard player Jon Lord, bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice, and produced songs such as “Smoke on the Water”.
Blackmore was a founding member and a major songwriter, known for a guitar style that combined rock with classical influences. He left the band more than once, with his final departure coming during a difficult 1993 tour, after which Deep Purple continued with other guitarists.
The band has changed members several times over the decades but has remained an active touring act. Relations between Blackmore and some former bandmates were long seen as strained, making any shared appearance significant for the group’s history and for fans of its classic era.
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