Joe Lynn Turner has contacted Classic Rock to clarify our recent story headlined ‘Ritchie Tried To Ban Son From Using “Blackmore”.’

Turner sings with Over The Rainbow, the band featuring three other ex-members of Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow: Greg Smith (bass), Paul Morris (keyboards) and Bobby Rondinelli (drums). The line-up is completed by Jurgen Blackmore on guitar, son of the legendary Ritchie.

In our original story, Turner was quoted as saying that Ritchie was concerned about Jurgen capitalising on the Blackmore name: “Ritchie… became very antagonistic. Things got so bad that he insisted Jurgen – his own son – couldn’t use the name ‘Blackmore’. Jurgen’s full name is Jurgen Richard Blackmore – it says so on his birth cerificate. So, he ended up sending a copy of that to Ritchie, to prove he had every right to the name.”

However, Turner now says that Jurgen’s middle name – Richard – was in fact at the root of the problem.

“Ritchie Blackmore was not against his son Jurgen using his surname ‘Blackmore’. It was Jurgen’s middle name of ‘Richard’ that Ritchie was concerned about,” Turner informs Classic Rock.

“The truth of the matter is that Ritchie and his manager, Carole Stevens, were concerned that agents, promoters and fans would think Ritchie was in the band Over The Rainbow if he [Jurgen] used the ‘Richard’ in J.R. Blackmore.

“A promoter also thought this was a concern [about using ‘Richard’]. We understood this potential problem and posted a disclaimer on our MySpace site back in December 2008.

“Thank you for your interest and invaluable assistance in clarifying the truth.”

Classic Rock is happy to set the record straight.