Rainbow : The DIO years

[panayiotis1984]

The Dio Years

In 1974 Blackmore became infuriated at the funk/soul elements being introduced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes as well as with the rejection from his bandmates of his suggestion to record a cover for inclusion in Stormbringer, and originally intended to record "Black Sheep of the Family", a song written and recorded by the band Quatermass, as a solo single to express his ideas that were being suppressed in Deep Purple. During recent US tours Deep Purple's support band had been Elf, and Ritchie had been impressed by Elf's singer, one Ronnie James Dio. Blackmore and Dio found they had such a creative rapport that a full album's worth of music was soon composed and they recorded it with Elf as a session band. Emboldened by the experience, Blackmore decided to leave Deep Purple and form his own band around Elf, effectively taking it over minus their guitarist and renaming it Rainbow. The name of the band was inspired by the Hollywood Bar and Grill called the Rainbow which catered to rock stars, groupies and rock enthusiasts.

Rainbow's debut album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released in 1975 and featured the minor hit "Man on the Silver Mountain".

Rainbow's music was different from Deep Purple's. The music was more directly inspired by classical music and Dio wrote lyrics about medieval themes. Dio possessed a versatile vocal range capable of singing both hard rock and lighter ballads. Although Dio never played a musical instrument on any Rainbow album, he is credited with writing and arranging the music with Blackmore in addition to writing all the lyrics himself.

Blackmore fired everybody except Dio shortly after the album was recorded and recruited drummer Cozy Powell (formerly of the Jeff Beck Group), bassist Jimmy Bain and American keyboard player Tony Carey. This lineup went on to record the next album Rising. This line-up also commenced the first world tour for the band, with the first US dates in late 1975. By the time of the European dates in the summer of 1976, Rainbow's reputation as a blistering live act was already established.

Blackmore subsequently decided that Bain was substandard and fired him in January 1977, and the same fate befell Carey shortly after. However, Blackmore had difficulty finding replacements he liked. On keyboards he finally went for Canadian David Stone, from the little-known band Symphonic Slam. For a bass player, Blackmore originally chose Mark Clarke from the band Tempest, but once in the studio for the next album, Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Blackmore disliked his playing so much that he fired Clarke on the spot and played bass himself on all but three songs on this album ("Gates of Babylon", "Kill the King", and "Sensitive To Light"). For these tracks he finally settled on Australian Bob Daisley. After the release and extensive world tour in 1977–78, Blackmore decided that he wanted to take the band in a new commercial direction away from the "sword and sorcery" theme. Dio did not agree with this change and left Rainbow. He would go to replace Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer in Black Sabbath (coincidentally, Daisley and future Rainbow members Cozy Powell and Bobby Rondinelli also joined Black Sabbath at various times). Dio would later form his own self-titled band.


Discography: The DIO years

* Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975)
* Rising (1976)
* On Stage (1977)
* Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1978)
* Chase The Rainbow (1981)
* The Best Of Rainbow (1981)
* Final Vinyl (1986)
* Live In Europe (1996)
* The Very Best Of Rainbow (1997)
* 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Rainbow (2000)
* Live In Germany '76 (2001)
* Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology (2003)

More information : http://www.ronniejamesdio.com/disc_rainbow.asp
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Video games are bad for you? That what they said about Rock 'n' Roll...

[panayiotis1984]

Brief story from the pass of DIO, from rainbow and also the discography of rainbow that DIO is at the vocals.

I wrote this post because someone was asking in the DIO talk about the discography of Ronnie with Rainbow
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Video games are bad for you? That what they said about Rock 'n' Roll...