RITCHIE BLACKMORE Welcomed A Year Off From Touring While In Quarantine: 'I Hate Traveling'

June 3, 2021

Ritchie Blackmore's official YouTube channel has released a short video clip of the legendary DEEP PURPLE and RAINBOW guitarist talking about his life in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said: "I wanted last year off completely from touring. I hate traveling, because I've done it so much through my life. I getting into planes and trying to be somewhere. So, to me, I thought, 'Great. We'll take the year off.' But it has gone on a bit too long."

BLACKMORE'S NIGHT, Ritchie's collaborative project with his wife Candice Night, released its eleventh studio album and the first in six years, "Nature's Light", on March 12 via earMUSIC.

Blackmore stepped away from his Renaissance-inspired brand of music with BLACKMORE'S NIGHT in 2016 to perform a handful of shows with a brand-new lineup of RAINBOW, the band he had formed after quitting DEEP PURPLE.

Although Ritchie initially said that he had no plans to make new RAINBOW music — explaining in early 2016 that he wanted to "just get back to playing the old songs one more time" — he later revealed to Japan's Burrn! magazine that he had changed his mind.

In addition to Blackmore, the current incarnation of RAINBOW includes singer Ronnie Romero, who is originally from Chile but is now settled in Romania after living in Madrid, Spain for a number of years, STRATOVARIUS keyboardist Jens Johansson, BLACKMORE'S NIGHT drummer David Keith, bassist Bob Nouveau (a.k.a. Robert "Bob" Curiano, ex-BLACKMORE'S NIGHT),and backing singers Candice Night and Lady Lynn.

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