“Even standing with the guitar is tricky”: Ritchie Blackmore’s wife gives concerning update on the Deep Purple legend’s health
Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore is having “quite a few medical issues” according to his wife and musical partner, Candice Night.
In a new interview with Eonmusic, Night says that while Ritchie “doesn’t look and certainly doesn’t act” 80 years old, he is facing some medical problems that are hindering his ability to play guitar.
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“He actually had a heart attack about a year and a half ago, and he’s got six stents in his heart at this point. And we’re battling arthritis and some gout issues, and he’s still got his back problem that he’s had, so travel is difficult for him because of all that sitting,” Night explains.
“And standing on stage, even standing with the guitars is tricky, although I do see a lot of people even younger than him at this point in the industry, showing up in wheelchairs. I don’t think he wants to be thought of like that or remembered like that.”
Blackmore’s Night, the husband and wife duo’s musical project, are set to perform some dates in the US in April as they’re all locations suitable for the pair to drive to. However, Night says Blackmore was “warned” not to fly just days ago, so international performances look unlikely for the foreseeable future.
Blackmore and Night first met when she was working for a radio station just six months after she saw Deep Purple for the first time. “It was Deep Purple [and] Guns N’ Roses on their maiden tour with Appetite for Destruction, and Aerosmith on a triple bill,” she explains.
“It was 1989 and that’s the first time that I saw Ritchie perform on stage, and then I met him a few months later.“ She explains that initially she worried about conversing with the guitarist. “I was like, ‘What am I going to talk to this guy about?’ I was a Rainbow fan, and then I didn’t know much about him. I only knew the Purple songs that were on the radio… He never did want to talk about any of that. He just wanted to talk about ghosts and castles and history.”
In other news, Deep Purple keyboardist Don Airey recently said that guitarists are “very insecure” people, saying “they don’t really know how they do what they do”.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
