In March 1975, Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore appeared on the cover of International Musician & Recording World magazine after conducting a rare interview with American writer/producer/guitarist Jon Tiven.
Hailing Blackmore as "perhaps the world's finest electric guitar player" in the introduction to his interview, Tiven pointed out that the guitarist "does not take well to interviews", `and quoted Blackmore as saying, "I'm a musician, not a politician, and I don't want to influence the minds of our fans." With that said, Blackmore didn't hold back in the interview which followed, especially when sharing his thoughts on a number of his peers.
Strictly speaking, Tiven didn't ask Blackmore for his thoughts on Jimmy Page or Eric Clapton, but Deep Purple's guitarist brought the pair into the conversation when asked, 'What guitarists do you like?'
"I like Jeff [Beck]," Blackmore replied. "He's my favourite guitarist. There are a lot of guitarists around that get overlooked. When you're a guitarist yourself you tend to get so buried in what you're doing. Mike Bloomfield is really good. Steve Howe's always been a very good guitarist. I'm not too struck on Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, I never saw what was in Clapton at all. He's a good singer."
