Richard Hugh Blackmore is an English guitarist who has been a founding member of both Deep Purple and Rainbow. However he left Purple in 1993 due to a growing rift between Blackmore and other members in spite of renewed commercial success. His current band is the Renaissance influenced Blackmore's Night. He was ranked 55 on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time in 2003.

Blackmore's use of the harmonic minor scale set him apart from - and possibly prevented him from reaching the stellar fame of - his more blues-based comtemporaries such as Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page. Ironically, given his past history of fiery rock riffing, producing arguably the most famous riff of all time in Smoke On The Water, he is now producing some of his finest playing...on acoustic guitar.