Ritchie Blackmore recalled buying his first Stratocaster from Eric Clapton’s roadie, and explained why he eventually settled with white as the color of his main Strats.
The ’60s and ’70s British hard rock and blues scene saw a lot of cross-pollination, whether it’s in the form of artists collaborating and/or joining each others’ bands (such as Yes’ Rick Wakeman hopping over to the Black Sabbath camp for a quick recording or two), and the same apparently goes for instruments.
Eric Clapton seems to figure in several of such guitar-swapping stories. In addition to the famous tale of how he allegedly “begged” to buy a 1959 Les Paul off of The Police’s Andy Summers (which then became one of the blues icon’s favorite tools during his time in Cream), Clapton was also instrumental in getting Ritchie Blackmore to switch from ES-335s to Strats, which then became a staple of the former Deep Purple guitarist’s sound and image.
In a new interview with Guitar World, Blackmore recalled how he actually bought the Strat from one of his scene mate’s roadies — whether Clapton himself knew of the destiny that would befall his ax is another matter. The guitarist recalled:
“I do have a short story about my history with Strats. I was in Deep Purple in 1969 and I was living in Acton, London. We were all in the same house, the whole band, and Eric Clapton’s roadie came by the house because he knew one of my roadies, and he brought a Strat with him. I think it was black. So I said to him, ‘Do you want to sell that guitar? It looks interesting, and I wanted to try out a Strat.'”
“He said, ‘I’ll sell it to you for £60.’ I said, ‘Okay, you’re on.’ So, for £60, I bought one of Eric Clapton’s old Strats that he obviously didn’t want because he gave it to the roadie. That was my initiation into playing a Strat. Up until then, I always played a Gibson ES-335.”
In the same interview, Blackmore explained how he eventually opted for white Strats instead of his formerly favorite Sunburst color scheme:
“I like the sunburst Strat color because of Buddy Holly, but I was always fascinated by the white Strat.”
“I remember Colin [Manley] from the Remo Four playing a white Strat back in ’66. He was the first player I saw play with a white Strat, and it was very majestic and to me. It kind of said, ‘I don’t have to be any color because white stands out.'”
“I wore a lot of black on stage and liked the contrast. Then I saw Jeff Beck had a white Strat, then Jimi Hendrix had a white Strat. But like I said, the first one I saw was Colin from the Remo Four playing it in Hamburg, Germany.”
“My subliminal thinking was, ‘I would really like to get a white Strat one day.’ Now it would seem every guitar player that gets a Strat is playing a white Strat, so I may have to rethink my thinking on that one.”
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