TotalTelly.co.uk

Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV

Black Knight: Ritchie Blackmore


RRP: £14.95
Our Price: £7.91 (subject to change)

Priorities wrong.
Review date: 2007-07-20 Rating: 6 out of 10

This book was just okay, in fact I was contemplating only giving it 2 stars! My reason for this is that I feel the author has got all his priorities wrong. When I first saw this 400 page hardback I was really excited as I have always been an admirer of Ritchie Blackmore, however, the book seems to drag on and on and the author seems to concentrate as much on the practical jokes Blackmore used to play on people as his music. In my opinion for the useful information contained in this book, 200 pages would have been quite adequate.

Similar Products

Reviews


Good inside track
Review date: 2007-01-15 Rating: 10 out of 10

Blackmore is a notoriously secretive character and in "Black Knight" Jerry Bloom has done a good job of pulling together almost everything that is available in one way or another without formal input from TMIB himself. This includes a range of magazine reviews, a generous helping of personal stories from ex-band members, friends and management plus some of his own anecdotes as an acquaintance of Blackmore's. He suggests he is a friend of Blackmore's so clearly, if he values that friendship, which I'm sure he does, then what's in the book must be pretty reliable. The book is a balanced account of Blackmore's 50 odd years of making music. Each period is dealt with in equal detail. I for one found the early years covering his late teens and early twenties as engrossing as the more famous 1969-1981 period. All the ups and downs from the Rainbow years are well documented and often very funny. They include comments from many of those who didn't cut the mustard and got the bullet - some before they ever appeared on record. I don't think Bloom has fudged anything - most of what's there seems to stack up and cross-reference with other information available. Bloom is well informed as the editor of one of Blackmore's key fanzines for many years - so he avoids the obvious and well-ploughed narrative.
A good read - I got into trouble with the missis for not being able to put it down - even when the kids were screaming.

Lengthy but light
Review date: 2007-01-01 Rating: 6 out of 10

A full-length bio of the man in black is long overdue and this effort is worthy for the attempt but ultimately disappoints. RB is largely absent here except in the images painted by others from which we learn that he runs a tight ship, tends to play lots of rough but childish pranks on some new band members, learned to drive a car very late, has been known to exploit people and has at times been extremely rude. You didn't know this? The early chapters offer the most insights on his development as a player and a person, placing RB in the context of the emerging UK music scene but by the time we get to the DP and Rainbow days the text falls into the album-tour-album-personnel change-album-tour cycle that we all know so well without adding anything new.

Yes RB and co worked at a ridiculous pace in the early 70s, seemingly driven by a management determined to milk as much out of them as possible. That their work has stood the test of time so well is remarkable, but it's not clear why - there is no real critical analysis of the work offered here. The text relies very heavily on well-known interviews from magazines and in part on lengthy ramblng quotes from some of the less important sidemen in his career (Turner, White, etc.) when we really need the Gillan, Lord, Dio views. What makes the man the musician he is we shall not learn here. How do other guitarists of his stature and time view his contribution? How does RB view his own and various others' contributions? How does he create and write music? RB's relationship with his son is minimal, apparently, and he has had several wives and serious partners, though only one of them seems to have spoken to the author. The book is called the RB Story and that is what you get - a story more than a serious biography, pieced together from existing stock and presented too uncritically to offer fresh insight. The author makes it clear more than once that he knows or has met RB but little seems to have been gained from these meetings. It's difficult to get a real impression of the man from this, despite it's length, though I came away from the text with less interest now in RB than I had - he comes across mostly as a bit of a jerk who obsesses about success while feigning no interest in the industry. That he has made some of the greatest rock music ever is easily forgotten here, and why his work and solos went down the tubes in the late 1980s is not discussed though it's widely considered to be the case by fans and critics. In sum, this work needs to be significantly edited with a view to producing a more considered perspective on the music and the man who has lived the life, which after all is what it's all about. Yes, if you're a fan you'll buy it but if you yearn for serious critical analysis of rock music and it's place in our cultural heritage, then the wait continues.

long overdue!!!
Review date: 2006-12-05 Rating: 10 out of 10

i ve been a fan of ritchie since the purple ,rainbow days and still enjoy his work with blackmores night. he is a character that you often hear rumours about little stories and such. this eases all of that curiousity. its a very well written and researched history of ritchie. it draws on interviews of people who worked with him and also alot of material contributed by ritchie himself (altough it is an unofficial biography.
i really enjoyed this book and if you want to know more about some of those little stories like the guy who threw the flash cube or his fascination with spirits or him showing up alvin lee (one of my favourite bits!!!!!)

highly recommended

It's about time too...
Review date: 2006-10-12 Rating: 10 out of 10

If you're a fan of Ritchie Blackmore.
Don't argue, just by it.
You won't regret it!

Product Details/Specifications


Authors:
Jerry Bloom

Recording label: Omnibus Press
Manufacturer: Omnibus Press
EAN: 9781846097577
Binding: Paperback
Dewey decimal number: 782.42166092
ISBN: 1846097576
Number of items: 1
Number of pages: 400
Publication date: 2008-07-02
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Unknown)
Language: English (Published)

Add to Cart

© 2006 Darren Hester, DesignsByDarren.com, Some Rights Reserved.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional