Deep Purple icon Ritchie Blackmore tells us how a visit from Slowhand’s roadie turned him into a Fender Strat diehard – and why he kept breaking whammy bars
There are few players who have wielded the Fender Stratocaster with more authority than the legendary Ritchie Blackmore. The firebrand guitarist who brought the world some of its most iconic riffs (and solos) with Deep Purple and Rainbow has made it his number one electric guitar for decades, and at 79 he is in no mind to change now.
It wasn’t always this way. Longtime Blackmore fans will tell you it was the Gibson ES-335 that he made his name on. So what was it that got him swap the semi-hollow for the solidbodied doublecut?
Well, as he explains here, in an interview that takes us from his 1991 GW cover shoot to the present day, there was a knock at the door. Enter, Eric Clapton’s roadie… But first, what about that Strat from the GW cover?
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