When married couples form a band together, this often seems strange to outsiders. And you're instinctively suspicious of saying, "It's only good!" This is Ritchie Blackmore's brief assessment of "musical family businesses", while Candice Night says in more detail: "So we can always be together, and if Ritchie has an idea, he can come to me and try it out with me right away"
It's been 18 years since Ritchie, back then still in the final phase of his revived band Rainbow, released a light, light folky medieval pop album called "Shadow Of The Moon" under the dark name "Blackmore's Night". But while the side project started in 1997 has developed into a permanent band with his then fiancée Candice, he surprisingly put Rainbow ad acta aside. "Ritchie had too high a claim to success for Rainbow at that time," remembers the Rainbow singer Doogie White. "With a balancing act between hits like 'I Surrender' and virtuoso hard rock, in the early eighties you could fill medium-sized halls and get into the charts, but in the mid and late nineties this was no longer a real option. I tried to persuade him to make another hard rock album that wouldn't squint at chart positions, but would make hardcore Rainbow fans happy. And there were even first songs, but then he finally decided for the family."
But before Blackmore's Night could start, there was a last attempt by Ritchie to re-establish Rainbow. Blackmore contacted his favourite drummer Cozy Powell, who also showed interest. Even before Ronnie James Dio's "Rising" triumvirate could be reinstated, Powell died in April 1998 in a self-inflicted car accident. The musical path for medieval pop à la Blackmore's Night was finally clear.