Ritchie Blackmore’s name was made in the late sixties and seventies, not just through his legendary incendiary skills on the guitar, but also through his rep for divisive behaviour, a headstrong attitude and his willingness to walk away from any band situation not to his liking. Just ask his ex-bandmates in Purple and Rainbow.
But for the last (almost) thirty years, he’s been playing a very different type of music from which he made his name. Blackmore’s Night, alongside inamorata Candace Night is as radical a musical shapeshift as you’ll find. This band’s music involves elements of soft rock, with occasional lapses into something a little rockier, folk. There are even and tunes with Renaissance influences, using instruments as diverse as the hurdy-gurdy, nyckelharpa and mandola, music intended for calm and non-challenging listening. But despite all this, Ritchie still retains his rock chops. On the title track ‘Fires at Midnight,’ he shows he can still more than hold his own with any top rock guitarist with 90 seconds of sterling electric playing.
Fires at Midnight was originally released in 2001, the band’s third album and also the first which saw Blackmore incorporating the electric guitar into the mix and is now being rereleased as a double CD, plus also being issued on vinyl for the first time, with two tracks having new vocal versions rerecorded by Candace Night. This album maintained the medieval flavour of the previous two releases, albeit with a slightly harder edge. The inclusion of electric guitar saw songs like ‘I Still Remember’ and ‘Written In The Stars’ rock. Blackmore is also equally as adept on acoustic, as he shows on ‘Praetorious (Courante)’ and the sublime Greensleeves-like ‘Fayre Thee Well’ with some gorgeous touches, as he also does on bonus track ‘Possum’s Last Dance’.
For all the medieval connotations, tracks such as ‘Midwinter’s Night’ and ‘All Because Of You’ are very radio friendly. ‘Crowning Of The King’ is more upbeat and could easily have been performed by Steeleye Span, whereas ‘Storm,’ which begins quietly but becomes rockier as it unfolds, and the drama which is ‘Hanging Tree,’ would fit into any set by Pentangle. Their reworking of Dylan’s classic ‘Times They Are-A Changing’ sees it turned into a slightly slower medieval folk song.
The music of Blackmore’s Night mostly harks back to a time long past and the musicianship is of a very high standard .. no surprise given Blackmore’s high standards. Candace’s voice is gorgeous and Blackmore’s electric work is fiery but controlled, never dominating the songs it features on. Blackmore’s Night took a risk by adding electric guitar to the mix but, as Dylan showed, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
