David S.t. Blackmore

Ritchie Blackmore is beyond doubt one of the all-time great guitar players. From his pop roots with The Outlaws and his many session recordings in the sixties, through defining hard rock with Deep Purple and Rainbow in the seventies and eighties and on to the renaissance rock of Blackmore s Night, Ritchie has proved that he is a master of the guitar across a multitude of styles…

Perhaps the first example of "dragon rock" – a style perfected by bands like Iron Maiden and Dio in the early to mid-'80s – was Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, a rather pretentious 1975 collection from the guitarist's first post-Deep Purple project. Fittingly enough, a young Ronnie James Dio provides the goblin-like frontman presence required by the increasingly Baroque Blackmore. The young Dio is at his best when he fully gives in to his own and Blackmore's medieval fantasy leanings, in hard-rocking tracks like "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" and "Man on the Silver Mountain." The dark, trudging doom rock of "Self Portrait" most clearly showcases what they were capable of. The album's ponderous lyrics are occasionally punctuated by poetic phrases such as "crossbows in the firelight."

Volume 2 of Connoisseur Collection's 2 part series on Ritchie Blackmore's overall career. Where Volume 1 focused largely on Blackmore's '60s sessions and his Purple work from 1968 to 1974, Volume 2 is more of a grab bag which has a lot of variety. Originally intended mostly to cover the period from 1975 (Rainbow's formation) onwards, it actually covers from 1965 to 1984 with several memorable pit-stops in between. This great CD is bolstered by great liner notes and great pictures, including some magazine covers quite rare to find anywhere else. Anyone remotely interested in the heights to which Blackmore can reach will be rewarded here.