Singer David Coverdale spoke with Antihero Magazine about his relationship with Ritchie Blackmore and Jimmy Page.
Here’s what Whitesnake’s singer told the magazine:
“I reached out to Ritchie, through his wife, Candice, after we’d lost John, to offer my sincere condolences, and I wished him well and complimented him on doing the kind of music that he wants to do and sticking to it. One of the first things we discovered when I’d go to his house in Camberley in Surrey was our love of folk music, modal English folk music, which of course, you can translate into Bach’s style of music, where it’s modal, you can sing one note and the chords change underneath. It’s a very British thing.
And we connected on Traffic, that we loved. He loved Jethro Tull and I loved the early stuff where there was a lot of Bach aspects to Ian Anderson’s composing. So, we reconnected very positively.
We email each other regularly on anniversaries because he’s like me. I only know it’s the 40 something anniversary of California Jam because people tell me on social media. So, then I’ll send him that, and I’ll go, “Oh, thank you. Oh my God. Can you remember that?” It’s very savoury, very healthy and I wish him well. I’m really pleased he’s playing some rock again when he has the opportunity. So yeah, we have reconnected in a positive way, which is really cool. And I’m still very close friends with Jimmy Page. We speak and text quite regularly.”