Blackmores night biography

British-American band

Blackmore's Night is a British-American neo-medievalfolk rock band formed in 1997, consisting mainly of Ritchie Blackmore (acoustic guitar, hurdy gurdy, mandola, mandolin, nyckelharpa, and electric guitar) and Candice Night (lead vocals, lyricist, and woodwinds). Their lineup has seen many changes over the years; Blackmore and Night have been the only two constant members. They have released eleven studio albums. Their early releases were mostly acoustic and imitated early music, but eventually Blackmore's Night started using more electric guitars and other modern instruments, as well as performing folk-rearranged cover versions of pop and rock songs.

History

Early

Candice Night was a Rainbow fan, and first encountered Ritchie Blackmore to ask him for an autograph in 1989, while she was working for a local New York radio station. The two started living together in 1991, and discovered they both had a passionate interest in Renaissance music.^[1]

During the reformed Rainbow's recording of the album Stranger in Us All in 1995, on which Night contributed some of the lyrics and backing harmony vocals, the duo were already gearing up their debut album. In 1997, the project started as being a pun of their

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Blackmore's Night began as a side project to the reformed Rainbow. Blackmore and his partner Candice Night (a former model who had met Blackmore during Deep Purple's reunion spell with Joe Lynn Turner) were writing the material at least as early as 1994 (one of the songs appeared on the Rainbow reunion album Stranger In Us All), but didn't begin to record the new music until September 1996.

Members of Rainbow were aware of the project but didn't realise it would mean the end of the group. Indeed the situation had distinct echoes of late 1974 when Blackmore was still a member of Deep Purple but was recording an album on the side...

Rainbow played some American shows in early 199, but after a gig in Denmark in May, Blackmore put Rainbow on hold to promote the first Blackmore's Night album. The band were told Ritchie might want to do some more shows with them later in the year, but they couldn't afford to wait and see.

Shadow Of The Moon sold well enough to give Blackmore the confidence to pursue this new musical direction on a full-time basis. It's a musical style which saw Blackmore bringing together elements of folk and Renaissance era musical themes, along with rock and pop. Purists of the various genres were unconvinced but Blackmore himself determined to stick w