McIpedia

From Ricky to Ritchie

People of a certain age such as myself may remember the frisson of excitement in the 1970's at the appearance on Top Of The Pops, amongst the seemingly endless parade of Peters and Lee, Pickettywitch and the Rubettes, of rock bands such as The Who, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. The fact that they were all miming barely took the edge off their performances as it was such a treat to actually see bands one would otherwise only hear on Radio 1.

Perhaps one of the best known of the singles by these bands that charted was Deep Purple's 'Black Night', with Ian Paice's thunderous drumming, the impassioned vocals of Ian Gillan and best of all, Ritchie Blackmore's wild guitar playing.

It was something of an illusion being shattered when I was told by my friend Steve Peters, a regular contributor to these pages, that the very catchy riff played by Blackmore was, in fact, lifted in its entirety from a Rick Nelson B-side. In an effort to appeal to a more adult audience, the former Ricky became, with the issue of this 1962 single,  just 'Rick'. The A-side, the pleasant, if unexceptional 'Young World' was very much in the vein of his previous releases. The B-side, however, was a rocked-up version of George Gershwin's 'Summertime'. The opening notes come from the no-nonsense bass lines of Joe Osborn.

The riff was also purloined by The Spectres (pre-Status Quo) for their 3rd and final 45 release 'We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet' which came out on the Piccadilly label in 1967. The MC5 also used it but the name of that track escapes me.