Category: About Me

This post on the third anniversary of Dio’s death originally appeared on the Terrorizer website.

Ronnie James Dio was, without a doubt, one of the greatest, and most important frontmen heavy metal has ever had.

Dio changed my life. I was around 12 years old and tape-traded with a school friend. I was given a C90 cassette tape with Rainbow’s ‘Rising’ on one side and Rush’s ‘A Farewell To Kings’ on the other: the tape itself was a copy of a copy, and there was some compression at the start of side two of ‘Rising’ that I came to believe was part of the recording.

These two records have shaped my life, all that has ever interested me since is music. Three years after the passing of the man himself, I’m privileged to write about what Dio’s music means to me and present you with my own playlist of Dio’s music from his time with Rainbow.

After Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple in 1975, he formed Rainbow with four members of Elf, who had supported Purple on tour. Rainbow was essentially a Blackmore solo project with each album never having the same line-up and only one constant, the ‘Man In Black’ himself. Dio recorded three studio albums with Rainbow and with the release of ‘On Stage’, there were five 1970’s canonical Rainbow albums (including the Dio-less ‘Down To Earth’ in 1979):

• ‘Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’
• ‘Rising’
• ‘On Stage’ (live)
• ‘Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll’
• ‘Down To Earth’ (with Graham Bonnett on vocals)

The importance of Dio’s contribution to Rainbow cannot be overstated, as singer, lyricist and frontman, he was a conduit of the early ‘Bach ‘n’ Roll’ that Blackmore pioneered, in Terrorizer #135 (September 2005) Damien wrote “when the roots of power metal are accurately traced one is inexorably drawn to Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and the sophomore 1976 masterpiece that is ‘Rainbow Rising’. This inspired work of genius has it all: fantasy artwork, lengthy epic gargantuan guitar solos, classically inspired riffs and arrangements, swirling synths, soaring vocals, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and lyrical content built around myth, mystery and magic.”

For these four albums, Blackmore and Dio were the constant members of the band, and together they produced a songbook of unrivalled power, influence and melody. The songs I have chosen to demonstrate Dio’s work from this period have been selected to showcase more Dio’s skills as a singer and lyricist, rather than Rainbow as a band, per se. The difficulty in doing this, though, is because he and Blackmore were a team who produced great music: in this context the singer, the guitarist and the band are inseparable, as Damien continued “the lyrical subjects are grandiose and the execution weighty… between them, guitar maestro Blackmore and vocalist Ronnie James Dio wrote the book.”

‘Self Portrait’ from ‘Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’ (1975)

I bought this record on it’s ‘Oyster’ imprint around 1985 from a junk shop in Manchester, having had a Polydor reissue for some years before. For me, the highlight of the album is ‘Self Portrait’. It has a(n unusual for rock ‘n’ roll) 6/8 time signature and boasts mind-blowing lyrics, a beautifully melodic guitar solo and a wonderfully clear vocal performance.

“Paint me a picture
Of eyes that never see
With flashes of lightning
That burn for only me”

(‘Self Portrait’, Blackmore/Dio)

‘A Light In The Black’ from ‘Rainbow Rising’ (1976)

‘Rising’ is the album that changed my life, or rather one of them: my copy has pen lines around the ‘Rainbow’ on the cover where I’d traced round it to transcribe the logo to stitch onto my denim jacket (a jacket which I sold in 1985 to finance a ticket and coach trip to see Deep Purple play Knebworth on their ‘Perfect Strangers’ comeback tour). This is an absolute pile-driver of a song including some utterly brutal drumming by Cozy Powell, unison scored instrumentation section, mystical lyrics and a rousing, crashing finale.

“Breathed the air before
Heard the thunder roar
Never knew it was for me
Always looking down
Lost and never found
Eyes that looked but not to see
All my life it seems
Just a crazy dream
Reaching for somebody’s star
Like an open door
That you’ve passed before
But you’ve never had the key”

(‘A Light In The Black’, Blackmore/Dio)

‘Catch The Rainbow’ from ‘On Stage’ (1977)

I bought my copy of ‘On Stage’ in 1984 from someone at school. For years, this was the only live Rainbow album and drew on material from the first Rainbow album and ‘Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll’, only referencing ‘Rising’ briefly as part of a medley (’Starstruck’). ‘Catch The Rainbow’ occupied the whole of side two of ‘On Stage’. The track was on Rainbow’s first album and draws heavily from Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’, Dio introduces the song “‘Catch The Rainbow’ is this song” and Blackmore leads into a prelude based on Bach’s ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier: Prelude In C’ – which he was used again and again with Rainbow, including it in ‘Weiss Heim’ and it often surfaced in live performances of ‘Difficult To Cure’, itself based on the famous choral melody of Beethoven’s 9th symphony.

Beautiful, tender wistful lyrics compliment the gorgeous instrumentation (which includes a mellotron) and Dio’s vocal performance is outstanding: it is often the reworking of Purple’s ‘Mistreated’ that makes it to Rainbow compilations, but Dio’s force as a frontman is better evident nowhere else than on this track, as he screams “Catch the rainbow, and ride the sky.. make it shine, shine, shine, shine, shine, SHINE, shine shine… shine for you and I…!”

“When evening falls
She’ll run to me
Like whispered dreams
Your eyes can’t see
Soft and warm
She’ll touch my face
A bed of straw
Against the lace”

(‘Catch The Rainbow’, Blackmore/Dio)

‘Rainbow Eyes’ from ‘Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (1978)

This is the closer from ‘Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll’; the lyrics are forlorn and introspective with an almost autumnal sense of loss. This album marked the departure of Dio from the band (the album itself was born from an environment of personality clashes and personnel shifts) and, as you’re about to read, he went on to Black Sabbath (as Rainbow was heading in a much more commercial direction). This ballad includes a chamber arrangement and, of course, drops hints-a-plenty of Blackmore’s own future with Blackmore’s Night.

“Summer nights are colder now
They’ve taken down the fair
And all the lights have died somehow
Or were they ever there”

(‘Rainbow Eyes’, Blackmore/Dio)

To find out how I can help you or your business, please drop me an email Miranda@MJY-CA.com.

I started playing guitar when I was sixteen, of course within a year I’d formed a band and was scaring the life out of our neighbours. Before she passed away, my grandmother used to always tell me:

I will never forget watching you and your friends carrying those drums, cymbals, guitars, speakers and everything else to the bus stop and getting on the bus with all that musical equipment, it’s one of my favourite memories…

I still laugh at the thought of us getting all that equipment on a municipal bus, to travel all the way into Altrincham from Sale (dormitory towns south of Manchester); this is what being a teenager is all about.

My video above is of my playing a section of Dire Strait’s ‘Telegraph Road’, a piece I have loved since I was a teenager. The bands and musicians who originally got me into music were Blondie, Rainbow, The Smiths, Rush, Kate Bush, Hendrix, Bowie, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Queen, Iron Maiden and Dire Straits. 

The more music I discovered, the more I loved, getting into the 1980s alternative and goth scene was great fun, it gave me the chance to look ridiculous and hang out with a social group of people with similar interests. In my early 20s I started listening to more ‘arty’ and progressive music, which now forms much of my musical diet. 

I’m very much an amateur guitar player, it comes about more from what I have said about needing to achieve something; learning a new piece of music or a new style is such a satisfying process, and of course as a creative outlet music cannot be bettered. The sheer achievement of mastering a piece of music you love is incredibly satisfying, and remember it looks pretty flash when you’re at a party and someone pulls out a guitar, and yiunget your three and a half minutes of fame. 

So, three great reasons to play a musical instrument:

• It’s fun;
• It’s creative; and 
• It helps keep you sane. 

The great thing about guitar is that you can teach yourself. Give it a try!