Last month, Ritchie Blackmore started his new ‘Tales from the Tavern’ YouTube series, which finds the Deep Purple electric guitar legend look back over his storied career by sharing anecdotes of his most notable career milestones.
In the most recent episode, Blackmore has recalled the time he played alongside George Harrison in the mid 1980s, after the Beatle had spontaneously joined Deep Purple onstage in Australia to jam Little Richard’s Lucille.
In true Blackmore fashion, the guitar star couldn’t help retell the tale with a bit of his famous British humor, joking Harrison had once asked him to join the Beatles.
“I’d never heard of them, and I knew they were going nowhere, so I said, ‘No, absolutely not,’” he quips.
As for the time he actually met Harrison, Blackmore recalls, “The truth is, he was friends with Jon Lord and Ian Paice – he lived just down the road.
“He was over in Australia when we were there as Deep Purple, and he said to me very politely, ‘Can I get up on stage with you and use your guitar?’ I said, ‘Of course.’ I was flattered.
“Sure enough, we all got up on stage and we did the old rock 'n' roll number Lucille by Little Richard. We had a good time.”
To add to the recollection, Blackmore also shares footage from the gig, which took place in Sydney, Australia, in December 1984. In the grainy clip, Blackmore and Harrison can (just about) be seen riffing through Lucille, with the rest of Deep Purple in tow.
Fortunately, footage from that evening (albeit equally grainy) survives of the entire eight-minute jam.
“He was a very nice man, very serious, and very complimentary,” Blackmore adds. “It was very overwhelming to play with a Beatle. There will never be another band like the Beatles.”
The tale of the two guitar heroes joining forces to jam Little Richard has been told before, with Harrison once recalling how he was only vaguely aware of Deep Purple during their 1970s heyday.
“I never knew their music, but I’d heard this one thing, about Smoke On The Water or something like that,” the guitarist said in an old interview (via Louder). “But I’d never actually seen them… I’d heard they were in the Guinness Book Of Records for being the loudest group in the world.”
In an earlier episode of Tales from the Tavern, Blackmore recalled the time he disturbed Eric Clapton by cranking Marshalls in a hotel at 3am.
