Candice Night

Candice Night was born Candice Lauren Isralow at Hauppage, New York. According to the lady herself, she began singing lessons from four years old, her parents telling her she was singing melodies from the age of six months! She also took acting lessons from a young age, studied piano for a while, and began working as a child model at the age of 12.

Instead of going to university as she could easily have done, she opted for an internship at a local radio station through which at the age of just 18 she would meet Ritchie Blackmore, who was playing in a charity football match. To say something about her caught his eye is a classic understatement. Candice was stunningly attractive with long blonde hair and blue eyes, personality to match. But what did she see in him? By 1989, Ritchie was already a legendary guitarist having done session work among other things before becoming a founder member of Deep Purple and then the founder of Rainbow. He was also 26 years her senior with three failed marriages behind him, and his son was eight years older than her! Any bookmaker would have given long odds on such a relationship lasting more than 18 months, but after two years they were lovers, and more than that, this was a meeting of not merely soulmates but pioneers as would be demonstrated eight years later. Ritchie instilled in her a love of Renaissance music, something she said she had never heard prior to their meeting, and this would mushroom into something truly wonderful.

Her first stage appearance with Ritchie was 1993, The Battle Rages On tour when she sang backing vocals on "Difficult To Cure" in the Czech Republic. Then she began writing lyrics, and it would soon become clear this girl was a lot more than eye candy and a voice. In 1995, she wrote her first complete song, "Black Roses," which would not be released until 2011. It was though as a lyricist and a singer that she would make her mark on contemporary music. She contributed lyrics to the 1995 Rainbow album Stranger In Us All, but was really launched on the world only in 1997. June 2 of that year saw the release of Shadow Of The Moon which contained three popular songs: the dreamlike title track, "The Clock Ticks On" and "Renaissance Faire," the latter two based on melodies from the 16^th Century by Tielman Susato. In November, Blackmore's Night made their world debut, in Tokyo, and never looked back. Shadow Of The Moon went gold in Japan; the follow up album did not appear until May 1999; Under A Violet Moon was more of the same, and the 3^rd album, Fires At Midnight put the seal on it. The song "Under A Violet Moon" had actually been written long before the album was released, and was included in the band's Tokyo debut, which ran to a hundred minutes.