16 Amazing Facts about Ritchie Blackmore

Everyone who either listens to Deep Purple/Rainbow or at least has some semblance of knowledge about "The Man in Black" has their own theories about who he is or how they think they know everything about him. Here are some facts you may or may not know about "The Man in Black".

BTW, even though it says 16, the person who compiled these facts put 14 twice!
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1. His full name is Richard Hugh Blackmore
2. He was born on April 14, 1945 in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England to Violet and Lewis Blackmore

3. His father gave him his first guitar when he turned 11. He often rode to a guitar tutor on his bicycle, making a long almost 6 mile trek from there to home

4. His guitar tutor was none other than then-legendary musician Big Jim Sullivan. He taught young Ritchie how to use all his fingers, including his thumbs

5. Prior to forming Deep Purple, Ritchie had used a Hofner Club 50 guitar and a Gibson ES-335, but from 1970-1997, he used a white Fender Stratocaster

6. In the 2009 biopic Telstar, Mathew Baynton played Ritchie

7. He joined Deep Purple in 1968 after accepting an invitation from Chris Curtis

8. In 2004, he was ranked #16 on the Greatest Metal Guitarists of All Time by Guitar World
9. April 2016 marks the year he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Deep Purple
10. Blackmore gives credit to fellow guitar legend Eric Clapton for helping him to develop his own style of guitar playing and use of vibrato in 1968 or 1969
11. Robert Walser, a famous musicologist defined Ritchie Blackmore as "the most important musician of the emerging metal/classic fusion" in 1993
12. Ritchie derived the name of his post-Deep Purple band Rainbow in part from the famed Rainbow Bar and Grill, a legendary music hangout on LA's Sunset Strip

13. He was once quoted as saying "I like popular music - I like ABBA very much."
14. According to Rolling Stone Magazine's 2011 "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", he comes in at #50
15. Guitar World ranked "Highway Star" and "Lazy" at #19 and #74 on, presumably, list of good guitar solos
16. Blackmore said he picked up the guitar because he wanted to be like Tommy Steele

17. He is credited as an inspiration and precursor to the so-called "guitar shredders" that came to fame in the mid-1980s

A few additional facts...

-He was married three times. His first wife was a German woman named Margrit Volkmar. He was married to her from 1964-1969. His second wife was Amy Rothman, the daughter of a prominent Long Island, New York doctor. He was married to her from 1981-1983. His third wife is Candice Isralow or Candice Night, which is her stage name. He met her in the mid 1990s at a soccer game, where they became fast friends and he only recently married her, in 2008. About six months into the relationship is when the romance was said to have started

Ritchie Blackmore and Amy Rothman

Ritchie Blackmore and Candice Night

-He has three kids. His oldest son, Jurgen, with whom he is estranged. He also has a daughter named Autumn Esmerelda and Rory Dartanyan, both of whom he had with Candice

-He is the youngest of two kids. He has an older brother named Paul

-In 1971, he suffered a massive breakdown. It was during the Machine Head tour that he suffered from a massive emotional breakdown. He was not at rehearsal and one of the roadies was sent to look for him. They found him in his room, in the corner, crying. When the roadie managed to find out what was going on, he babbled about constantly being on the move, not staying still for long and all the pressure of touring. The roadie got him to a doctor, but all Ritchie could do was cry. The doctor prescribed tranquilizers and he spent much of the 1971 tour zoned out on tranquilizers to battle his depression

-He became known as the master of pranks because when he first started working. It was at the London Airport when he was 16. He worked with the radios, despite not having technical knowledge. He was sent to fix the radio on one airplane, and of course, had no idea how to fix it. It took some time and the pilot figured out Ritchie didn't know what he was doing. Come to find out, his coworkers had set him up as a prank and were in stitches. From then on, he would become the master of pranks and ensure no one got the better of him. But over the years, people pulled pranks on him, but it seemed to backfire.

-What initially drew him to Ronnie James Dio was his amazing singing voice. After talking, the two discovered a love of the same period in time-Renaissance, Medieval. Essentially the first lineup of Rainbow was the band Elf; some of the members were fired, but Ronnie was kept and Ritchie played guitar