After Being Criticized By His Hero, This Guitar Legend Responds To Ritchie Blackmore’s Remarks…

“Unfortunate”

If you’re a musician, it can’t be easy for the musician you look up to criticize your playing style. Wouldn’t you take that personally? I know I would. Nevertheless, there are those who take it in stride and offer up classy responses, just like Joe Satriani.

Recently, Ritchie Blackmore did an interview where he talked about the time that Joe Satriani stepped in for him when Ritchie unexpectedly stepped down from Deep Purple. Ritchie had good things to say about Joe, but also criticized his playing to some degree. Here is some of what he had to say…

“Joe Satriani is a brilliant player, but I never see him really searching for notes; I never hear him playing a wrong note. Jimi Hendrix used to play lots of wrong notes because he was searching all the time … and when he did find that right note, wow, that was incredible. If you’re always playing the correct notes, there’s something wrong; you’re not searching, you’re not reaching for anything. But that’s not to say that he isn’t a very brilliant player.”

Joe caught wind of these remarks and offered a very classy response during and interview with Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon. Here is what he had to say…

“It’s unfortunate when somebody that you look up to has something negative to say about you. That part will always hurt. I wouldn’t hide my feelings about that.”