Ronnie James Dio

[Library Jon]

Any Ronnie James Dio fans? This has been a good couple weeks for Dio fans. A few weeks ago, a new live album was released from Philadelphia during 1986. I think that this material was originally only available on VHS in a shortened form. Some of it may have existed on an EP called "Intermission." I am not sure about that. Last week, a new 2 disc deluxe version of one of Ronnie James Dio's later albums called "Magica" was released. I have listened to both of these new releases a few times at this point. The live tracks on these CDs sound great as well as the new bonus studio tracks. Has anyone else picked these up? Would anyone like to share their favorite Dio albums? Any memories of seeing him in concert? I really miss Ronnie! I am glad that the Heaven and Hell albums were so well received. What a great way to go out, right?


Library Jon

[Rufus]

Intend picking up the Live in Philly DVD . I have yet to explore his solo career so will be watching this thread with interest ! His vocals on Rainbow Rising are unequalled by any rock vocalist IMO !

[Vic2012]

I've been campling the Dio/Sabbath albums on youtube. Awesome.

[JeffCarney]

First saw him with Sabbath in '82, then saw his first ever solo concert about 15 months later. He went from playing with Sabbath in an arena to playing a barn (literally).

Then he worked his way up again and was playing arenas soon thereafter. Of course, I believe I have read that his first solo concert was a bit of a mistake in terms of where it was booked, but I'll never forget driving, and driving, and driving, and driving ... until we finally found the place!

I liked Holy Diver when it came out, but upon revisiting it a year or so ago, I didn't feel it had aged that well and I'm not that nuts about Vivian Campbell's style or the overall production. I think it was a mistake that Ronnie was left to produce that album himself.

Conversely, I think his work with Sabbath and Rainbow has aged remarkably well. I count myself as a huge fan of his even if I never got that into his solo career.

[Jerjo]

I use to love his 80s stuff but as Jeff points out, that work hasn't aged well. But the songs with Sabbath and Rainbow are eternal. Maybe RJD was at his best when he had a great guitar player as a foil.

[Banquo]

[NogbadTheBad]

Agree with others, the Rainbow & Sabbath stuff stands up really well. Rainbow Rising is probably his defining album.

[gregory]

I recall I liked his Strange Highways album back in times. But of course, Dio's prime years were 75-82.

[SteveSly]

Dio remains my all time favorite rock vocalist. I was first introduced to him through the “Rainbow – On Stage” album. To this day I think it is one of the best live vocal performances that I have on any CD. Listening to the live version of “Catch The Rainbow” can still send shivers up my spine. I saw him live once with Sabbath (“Dehumanizer tour), and a bunch of times with his solo band. The last time was on the “Magica” tour in 2002. I am still kicking myself for not catching any of the Heaven and Hell shows, but who knew at the time it would be his last tour. As for his albums I think they are very inconsistent. As a songwriter Dio could be brilliant or frustrate the hell out of me. As others have mentioned, he may have been at his best when collaborating with other people. Sabbath’s “Heaven And Hell” and Rainbow’s “Rising” are his two high water marks from a songwriting perspective to my ears. On the other hand I was pretty disappointed with “Dehumanizer” and “The Devil You Know”, both of which were not as good as I was expecting them to be. Of his solo albums, my favorites tend to be some of his more obscure. My favorite Dio band disc was “Lock Up The Wolves” which did not have any hits and fell off the charts rather quickly, but I think it is a great album. I also really liked “Magica” as well. “Holy Diver” and “Last In Line” are pretty solid with some great songs, but there are also a few duds on each of them. Live Dio was a powerhouse of a vocalist. At his height, his stage productions were so over the top it became very Spinal Tap-ish, but they were still loads of fun. I can’t remember which tour that he had the pyramid, mechanical dragon (which Dio “fought” with on stage), the floating crystal ball, and enough pyro to start a war. It was all kind of cheesy, but great at the same time. Dio was one of the all time greats and it sucks that he is gone.

Steve Sly

[prglvr]

I actually got to meet Dio at the talent agency I worked for in the early 80s. I remember being struck by the fact that such a big, powerful voice could come out of someone of his size. He was not puny, just smaller than I imagined after hearing that huge voice!
Stargazer is the one song that I think embodies everything Dio.

[GuitarGeek]

I was lucky enough to see Dio live twice, once when his band at the time played on a bill with Deep Purple and Scorpions in...let's see it was just after the NEARfest that Nektar played at, so it must have been 2002 (I remember the NEARfest/Nektar connection because I wore my then rather novel Remember The Future shirt to the Dio/Deep Purple/Scorpions show, and someone came up and asked about it, the first of many such occasions that happened in the ensuing years).

But anyway, I'm not too terribly familiar with the Dio records, so I didn't really get into most of his set. I do remember he did Long Live Rock N Roll, Man On A Silver Mountain, and I think Children Of The Sea, and maybe one or two other Sabbath songs. I do remember, I think it was during Man On A Silver Mountain, there was this sort of break down in the middle...I can't remember if he fully replicated the Rainbow On Stage arrangement, but it was kind of a similar thing, but the the reason it stands out in my mind is when the band segued back into Man On A Silver Mountain, Ronnie starts singing Long Live Rock N Roll, which he does maybe once, then apparently realized his error then switched to singing the correct lyric (or maybe this was Long Live Rock N Roll he did that in, and it was Man On A Silver Mountain that he mistakenly started singing...gimme a break, this was almost 11 years ago now).

Anyway, I got to see Heaven And Hell on that last tour they did, for The Devil You Know, I guess was the name of the album. There's actually a funny story about how I got to go to that show. A friend of mine and I went to see Judas Priest a couple months earlier, this was the tour where Priest was doing all of British Steel, and we almost didn't go because of how expensive the tickets turned out to be. I had planned to buy the tickets at the box office on the day of show, thinking I could avoid the Ticketmaster service charges, which you used to be able to do, but apparently not anymore, so even on the day of the show the tickets were like 34 bucks.

But I went ahead and bought the tickets, and once my friend and I got into the show, we saw that they were selling general admission seats for Heaven And Hell for like 10 bucks a pop, with no service charges. So we were basically frantically going through every pocket, trying to scrape together 20 bucks so we could buy a couple tickets for Heaven And Hell. I think we had just exactly twenty dollars in loose change between the two of us. When I got home, I checked the Tickets.com website, and I found out that the tickets for Heaven And Hell were otherwise going for about the same as they were for Judas Priest, ie like 35 dollars with the service charge. I think I figured out that if you averaged the two shows together, it was something like 30 bucks for each of us for each show.

So anyway (and I'm sure I've lost everyone after the ponderous and superfluous story about buying the tickets), Heaven And Hell totally killed. Dio, you could tell, was happy to be onstage and performing for us, as were, I think the whole band. And they pretty much did everything you want to hear that combination of musicians do, ie Heaven And Hell itself, Children Of The Sea, Sign Of The Southern Cross, Neon Knights, The Mob Rules, etc. There's one or two songs I'd like to have heard (like Slippin' Away), but in general, they gave me the show I wanted to see. And the whole band sounded awesome.

[Joe F.]

I picked up Rainbow Rising around '78 and then promptly got the other two studio albums. Easily my favorite era of Rainbow.

I saw him for the first time in '80 with Sabbath, along with BOC, Molly Hatchet and Riot. A nice mini-fest in Seattle.

I never did warm to his solo material.

[sonic]

Dream Evil is a great album. Love it! I love the first 2 Rainbow albums too.

[Cuz]

I love his work with Rainbow and Sabbath. However, like others have said in this thread, I don't feel his solo albums have aged very well. I got Holy Diver (his first solo album) as soon as it came out and I loved it. I listened to it 6 or 7 years ago and I was bored by the end.

As far as Heaven and Hell is concerned, I saw a show on that tour and it was great, and he sounded great. But if I'm being honest, I feel the album is merely OK and the reason for that is Dio. If you listen carefully to Iommi, that album has some of the best riffs he ever came up with. But Ronnie's vocal melody lines (or whatever the proper term is) were the same old same old. And after awhile I become tired of his habit of over-enunciating every syllable and the dopey lyrics.

[dgtlman]

I was lucky enough to see Dio live twice

As was I. Once with Rainbow & once with Sabbath. THE MAN!!!

[davis]

I haven't listened to him lately, but I remember Strange Highways, Angry Machines & Master of the Moon as my favorites. Holy Diver didn't do much for me. I held off for a long time listening to any Sabbath w/o Ozzy but when I decided to give the Dio/Sab albums a chance, I found I like them a lot.

[Yves]

I saw him with Sabbath on The Mob Rules Tour and as a solo artist for Holy Diver, The Last In Line, and Sacred Heart. The man was the consummate professional and always so gracious towards his fans. You always knew you'd get a top quality show with plenty of visuals whenever you saw him.

I agree with Jeff's assessment though. That solo material is spotty at best, in retrospect. Vivian Campbell is not a guitarist I particularly cared for either. I'll revisit any of his Sab material and his Rainbow matterial but never felt the urge to re-purchase any of his solo albums.

[gregory]

Strange thing about Dio is that at the start of his career - which covers rather long period))- he wasn't that extraordinary type of vocalist, as he's usually known. Seems that only when he joined Rainbow, he began to sing properly.

[Jay G]

Love Dio. My favorites are Rainbow ST, Black Sabbath H & H and Dio Last in Line. I was fortunate enough to see him countless times.

81 Black and Blue tour with BOC
Holy Diver tour
Last in Line tour
Scared Heart tour
3 later years solo tours
First H & H reunion tour
H & H Metal Masters tour

BTW that release of the Philly show is actually a re-release from a few years back. The last time it was released it was under the name We Rock I believe and contained footage from 2 different shows. I believe this is the first release of the entire show since the original VHS. Should also mention that the video release from the Scared Heart tour was also from Philly. We were probably his biggest market back in the day and he would often open and close tours with Philly shows.

[arturs]

I really like Dio Sabbath. I saw them in 82 but they were so loud and the guitar so totally dominated the mix I'm not sure I actually heard any of his singing! Good show in terms of a noise onslaught but most of the time you couldn't even tell what song it was.

Only several years later, while renting a room during a summer internship, I found my landlord had the Heaven and Hell LP and I played it a lot and realized how great it was. I have never checked out Dio solo, but I should one of these days.

[SteveSly]

I But if I'm being honest, I feel the album is merely OK and the reason for that is Dio. If you listen carefully to Iommi, that album has some of the best riffs he ever came up with. But Ronnie's vocal melody lines (or whatever the proper term is) were the same old same old. And after awhile I become tired of his habit of over-enunciating every syllable and the dopey lyrics.

Exactly how I feel about “The Devil You Know”. Along with The Who’s “Endless Wire” it was probably one of the most disappointing albums for me in the past decade. I really really wanted to like it, but as you point out the album seemed to bring out the worst in Ronnie’s writing skills both lyrically and melodically. Iommi has some great riffs, and there are a couple of really good songs, but overall album was a pretty big disappointment to me.

Steve Sly

[nosebone]

Last In Line is a great Dio vehicle but Stargazer from Rainbow Rising is his finest moment imo.

[Joe F.]

Stargazer from Rainbow Rising is his finest moment imo.

Agreed. Imho, Rising is the best thing he ever did, with the exception of "Do You Close Your Eyes".

[GuitarGeek]

Agreed. Imho, Rising is the best thing he ever did, with the exception of "Do You Close Your Eyes".

(Mental note: play Do You Close Your Eyes on this week's show)

[davis]

I tracked down some of his doo-wop recordings. it's pretty interesting stuff.