Ritchie Blackmore Rainbow Rising in France When Deep Purple cries, Rainbow smiles. It's a bit moral, if not a way of life imposed by Ritchie Blackmore, the guitarist and leader of Rainbow who left Deep Purple last year, no doubt feeling the old galley take dangerously water and assuming the next drowning. "It's a feeling that I can't suppress and which I admit may sound strange, but when people cry. I can't help but laugh out loud." Did that reaction come when the announcement of the end of Purple was announced? No answer. What is the thing you hate most, dearest Ritchie? PEOPLE. Ahhh, folks, ALL, but even more so, those who have a guitar or a microphone and are cute, but have nothing to say. I have nothing to do with that category and especially if they distort the deep essence of hard rock. I loathe these people. I BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF NUMBERS Venerable Ritchie, sweet lamb of electricity, are you supersitious? Completely, I believe in the power of numbers. While on tour I cannot stay in a hotel room that has number 13. We must also beware of traps. If the room has the number 607 or 706 or 67, I digress, because by adding these numbers you get the fateful 13. It's a trick of fate. This happened to me once, I ended up with viral hepatitis. Horror!! Do not joke with these things! I never cut my fingernails and toenails on Sundays, it was a gypsy friend who warned me. I can't see anyone on a staircase. Wear green on the supper. And thousands of other little things. It is under a rather favorable astral sign that the group's European tour will take place, which will drive to France around mid-October. The line-up of the group since the release of the second album "Rising" remains unchanged, Jimmy Bain on bass, Cozy Powell on drums, Tony Carey on keyboards, Ronnie Dio on vocals and the suspicious Ritchie on guitar whose last words hang over our heads like a diabolical imprecation. I believe in reincarnation, after my death I will go to my grandmother and I will make her listen to my music. She will definitely like it. © Best Magazine - France August 1976