“I’d met Elvis Presley’s guitar player, who told me James Burton used banjo strings...” How Ritchie Blackmore came across an obscure string mod that introduced him to a whole new sound – and why it didn’t work for him

Ritchie Blackmore tears his Fender Stratocaster a new one as he performs live with Deep Purple in the early '70s.

Back in the day, guitar players didn’t have the choice of electric guitar strings that we have today, and for those operating at the outer limits of performance – you might even call them proto-shredders – that presented a problem. Players had to think outside of the box.

In the early 1960s, Ritchie Blackmore did just that. With mixed results. He was out cutting his teeth in the Outlaws, working the rock ’n’ roll circuit. A trip to Germany with Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent would present him with an epiphany that changed how he strung his electric guitar.