Traditional folk rock band Blackmore’s Night’s songs are written by singer Candice Night, her husband Ritchie Blackmore, and… an Eastern-European ghost?
In a June 2025 interview with The Rock N’ Blues Experience podcast, the iconic musician revealed how she and her famous husband became the owners of a special piano that later turned out to be haunted, according to her.
It all started when Night decided she wanted a piano for their Long Island, New York home so she could work on songs for demos. “We read in the local paper that an elderly couple was getting rid of their furniture because they were moving to Florida,” she recalled. “They said, ‘Listen, we’re going to apologize, the piano is not a great instrument… but we can’t just get rid of it because the family has sat around this for decades. We really want to make sure it has a good home.'”
Moved by the story, Night and Blackmore took the piano with them and housed it in their dimly lit “dungeon bar” in the basement. However, it didn’t take Night long to realize there was something unique about the old instrument.
“The first time I went down to play it, I looked up and I saw a reflection behind me of a man standing there in a jacket with a hat, and I thought ‘Oh Ritchie came to hear what I’m doing,'” she recalled. However, he had disappeared by the time she finished playing. When she went upstairs to see why he didn’t say anything to her, he claimed he’d been sitting on the couch the entire time.
“So now I think that the piano came with its own ghost,” said Night. She isn’t scared of the potential entity, though. In fact, she says it inspired her to write some of her most popular songs. “When I channel what the piano wants me to play, I come up with these sort of Eastern European melodies. So ‘Black Roses’ came from that, ‘Along With Fate’ came from that, ‘In Time,’ and of course, ‘Dark Carnival.'”
In the end, the haunted instrument ended up being quite a gift to the artist. “Somehow I am channeling some Eastern European spirit that has come with my piano that gives me these wonderful songs!” she said. “So I have to give credit to the piano.”
