Blackmore and Powell's friendship pt 11.
(They are always that close in all Rainbow photo sessions...)
Well I saw that the previous part had a good acceptance (thanks for that).
In this part 2 I'd like to talk about three, short and cute but important, things to show that their friendship was not something superficial like 'we are bandmates and we have to get along' No, they were genuinely friends. And how nice (and non-expressive English) they are.
(This will be filled with some cute quotes)
(And again, I'm doing this because I'm still surprised that they were friends)
Cozy stayed with Ritchie when nobody else did.
In 1979 they re-build the band. In the late '78 Ronnie just left the band followed by David Stone and Bob Disley leaving Ritchie without a keyboard player, a bass player and a singer. Cozy, unlike the others, choose to stay with Ritchie (yeah, suprisingly, someone wanted to stay with our moody Ritchie) because he believed in the band. And that was not a matter for money anymore. Was a matter of friendship (if you want called it) and still believing in the band.
"We both took a week off to talk things out and we reached the conclusion that, yes, we wanted to carry on with the band because we still believed in it. After all, Peters And Lee did alright, so we reckoned that Blackmore and Powell, you know..." -Cozy. (Sounds 1979)
This is a extremely important thing because if Cozy hadn't chosen to stay with Ritchie probably the history of Rainbow would have been a little different. Maybe Down To Earth and Difficult To Cure would never have existed. It would have been a bit difficult for Ritchie to re-build the band on his own if Cozy hadn't stayed with him. (I know this is boring but I needed to highlight this)
This brought them more trust on each other and at the same time their relationship was wearing out (But I'll talk about that in another occasion)
⢠Admiration for each other.
Beyond their equal love for make Ronnie's, Tony's and everyone else's life impossible. They had admiration for each other (Like a normal bandmates but cuter and is funnily awkward because they are too English). Time for the nice quotes!
"No, it was Cozy's idea. He was amazing at that. The drum solo always was the most successful part of our show. Cozy came up with an installation that rises above the floor of the stage and moves closer to the audience. Twenty years later, Motley Crue did this too. Cozy came up with the use of dry ice and smoke, which made it seem as though a spaceship was taking off. He invented drumming to the music of Tchaikovsky. Cozy was amazing. When he did his thing, we left the stage to have a rest. For me it was a rescue, because I could go behind the scenes for some time to watch him play, take a rest and go back on stage. Cozy played wonderful and exciting drum solos. Drum solos are usually very boring. Even John Bonham played the usual stuff. Cozy really know how to make it exciting for the audience. His solos always left people happy, no matter how good the rest of the show was. (laughs)"
Interviewer: "When I met with Cozy a few years ago, he told me that other drummers did that kind of solo already way before he did it."
"I didn't know about that and I don't care very much. I saw and heard it from Cozy for the first time and it was amazing." -Ritchie. (Metal HM 2006)
(Those were many 'amazing' don't you think, Ritchie?) This is cute.
"We've got on very well since the band started. But I hate to think what will happen when we do have an argument ... no, he's been very good to me. He more or less lets me have a free hand. I like it this way. It's nice to work with someone as good as Ritch! He's on top" -Cozy. (Melody Maker 1978)
'Lets me have a free hand' That's another thing. We all know Ritchie for being demanding and he supervised the other band member's work but with Cozy was different (but I will highlight this in another part)
"You can't get any better than Cozy you know... he's always up there on stage going crazy, he always pushes me on when I look round, he always gives me that incentive to play because Cozy won't let anybody take it easy." -Ritchie (Sounds 1979)
In fact, Ritchie said the same thing about Cozy before, in 1977.
"There'll always be a Ronnie, there'll always be a Cozy and myself in Rainbow and that's all that matters, others may come and go because they always turn out to be sidemen, unless we get some one really good. And Cozy, you can't get any better than that, so anybody else who comes along has got to be as good as him or they're not accepted."Â -Ritchie (Sounds 1977)
(Okay Ritchie, okay, we got it) It is nice because we know Ritchie for being a hard, strange bloke. He rarely talks like that about someone. Just Jon, Candice and a very few people. That's way I'm saying, again, that Cozy was "special" in some kind of way.
Complicity and Trust.
Time for some more nice quotes! Although their ups and downs, they had a lot complicity and a nice trust in each other.
"Cozy and I would love to stay here. I think Cozy would love to live in Luxembourg, near the racing track and I would love to live in a castle. (Laughter of both)" -Ritchie (they were together in this interview) (Melody Maker, 1976)
They had another thing in common that made their friendship strong... they loved ABBA.
"I think here it's worth to return to the stories with Cozy in that French castle, when he and I were sitting by the fireplace in this ancient, we discussed music and listened to different tapes.
Once Cozy, having drunk a little bit more alcohol than usually, asked me: "Do you know what my favourite band is?". When I asked: "What?", he said: "You will laugh". I asked: "What's so funny?", he replied: "Well... I adore ABBA". And suddenly I started like: "I also love ABBA"... He revealed his secret, which was common to us (laughs). Because at that time, you couldn't admit that you like ABBA. It was so good when Cozy finally said it. "Let's listen to ABBA!". Cozy brought an ABBA cassette to the fireplace and we listened to it until the next morning. Everyone was happy." -Ritchie. (MH, 2006)
This is a ver cute and suggestive quote from Ritchie about revealing secrets to each other.
There's no doubt that they were great friends. They knew each other's thoughts (I'm not joking, they answer for each other). This friendship became so interesting to me 'cause they were almost best friend without knowing it and thinking that they were just bandmates.
(I'm sorry if this part is not as interesting as the previous one.)
