On March 10th, 2023, Blackmore’s Night will celebrate the band’s quarter century anniversary with a deluxe, remixed reissue of the band’s debut Shadow Of The Moon via EARMusic.
In early January, Blackmore’s Night presented a new mix of their interpretation of the classic “Greensleeves” with a lyric video. Earlier this month, they released “Play Minstrel Play,” a collaboration with long-time family friend Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson alongside a lyric video.
The fully remixed 25th Anniversary Edition of Shadow Of The Moon will be available in a variety of deluxe editions, all including an exclusive bonus documentary on DVD as well as two previously unreleased acoustic recordings.
Blackmore’s Night were founded in 1997 by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and award-winning lyricist and singer Candice Night to stage and explore their love for traditional Medieval and Folk-Rock music. The band’s debut album Shadow Of The Moon (1997) was not only Blackmore’s deliberate radical cut from his previous life in Deep Purple and Rainbow, it was a ground-breaking statement of his artistic influences via acoustic music, particularly the songs of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
All physical first print editions will also carry an exclusive Shadow Of The Moon documentary on DVD as bonus. To fully celebrate the occasion, two Black vinyl LPs will carry a “Golden Ticket”. Two lucky fans will win a Fender Ritchie Blackmore Signature Stratocaster guitar.
Candace Night shares:
The songs are timeless. Many of them are from are from a bygone era, updated with new lyrics and arrangements. They hit the heartstrings of people with an emotional depth while also bringing the listener to a more simple time. The positive energy that we give from the music, and receive in turn from the fans, is electric.
Back in 1997, when we first started writing, we did so basically just for ourselves. Ritchie was in Rainbow and they were recording in a farm house studio in Massachusetts. While the snow was falling outside, and we were sitting by the fireside as the rest of the band was doing their tracks, we would just be in our own world with his acoustic writing melodies as an escape from the rock and roll world that, for him, had become more corporate. So he started writing the songs that became Shadow of the Moon.
We did it just for ourselves, and when we played some songs for our neighbors at a party, they said ‘If you put this out as a record, we would buy it!’ That to us meant that someone besides us enjoyed it as well. Then the Japanese record company heard the songs and wanted to put it out in Japan. They were the first ones to believe in the band, and the CD charted immediately. It has been an amazing journey ever since. The fanbase grows every year. We love what we are doing, and you can’t ask for more than that.
