BLACKMORE'S NIGHT's RITCHIE And CANDICE Describe Their First Encounter

BLACKMORE'S NIGHT guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (ex-DEEP PURPLE, RAINBOW) and his fiancée Candice Night recently told The Patriot-News that they met when the music-obsessed Night was working as an intern at a Long Island radio station and the disc jockeys took on the members of DEEP PURPLE in a soccer match. The band won. What happened next is, Night admits, "a Cinderella story."

"Afterwards, I just sucked it up and went over to Ritchie to congratulate him ... and I got an autograph," she said. "He looks up at me and he actually said, 'Oh, you're a very beautiful girl,' in that English accent. And I'm like, wow, that's great, and that was going to be my oh-my-God-I-met-Ritchie-Blackmore-story.

"The surprise ending was that he sent some of his roadies through the crowd to find out who I was and asked me to meet him later on at this little pub down the road," she said. "We just talked all night, and it was just so strange because it was really like talking to an old friend. We found that we had so much in common, even though we had come from such different places — the experience that he had or the age difference or the career difference — we still met on every level."

For Blackmore, 59, the attraction was more basic.

"I think the most important and the most substantial and the deep one was just the way she looked," he said.

"Here I am, waiting with bated breath," Night, 33, cracked after hearing that.

"Candy at that point didn't really sing that I knew of," Blackmore continued. "So we were in the studio with DEEP PURPLE and I was just sitting there getting bored with the noise we were making ... [And] so to relieve that boredom, Candy started singing the theme from 'Mahogany'. And I thought, what a great voice she has, and that kind of started sowing the seed." Read more.