Part VI: The last in line
Black Sabbath: the Dio years --- Black Sabbath --- 2007 (Rhino)
As I say, this album is only noteworthy for its inclusion of three new tracks, featured below, and also for being the springboard for the new band, Heaven and Hell, which would emerge from these sessions. Other than that, it's a standard compilation, which I generally do not review.
The devil you know --- Heaven and Hell --- 2009 (Roadrunner)
After the perhaps unexpected success of the new tracks recorded for the retrospective album, Iommi, Butler and Appice decided to broaden their project and entered the studio to record their first album, which would ultimately be not only their last, but also the last studio work Ronnie would produce before his untimely death. As the guys were still in Sabbath at the time, the new band was christened Heaven and Hell, and they released what would be their only album, “The devil you know”, to worldwide acclaim.
The album starts off quite Black Sabbath-heavy, with “Atom and evil” (see what they did there?) with some fine guitar as ever from Tony Iommi, and Vinny Appice sounding happy to be back in the fold, as it were. One year before his death, Ronnie's voice sounds as strong as ever on this, his last studio recording. “Fear” takes things up a gear slighty, a bit faster, a bit more of Dio the band shining through, then “Bible black” is a nice little gentle almost acoustic intro, with some lovely soft guitar from Iommi, and Ronnie on the keyboards, but about a minute and a half in it stops pretending and reveals itself to be a heavy mid-paced rocker with the guitar cranking up several notches and the powerful drumming of Appice thundering in.
Great bass intro from Geezer Butler to “Double the pain”, and it's another mid-paced rockin' headbanger, while “Rock and roll angel” is a bit more stately in its pace, but no less heavy, with a really nice little guitar solo from Iommi, and another really lovely classical guitar outro, then we're into “The turn of the screw”, which romps along nicely on hard riffing guitar and steady bass. Listening to this now, it's hard to understand or indeed accept that we're listening to a man who would be dead the following year. There's certainly no outward signs of the illness that would take Ronnie from us in just under one year.
The guys all seem to be gelling well on this album too, all having a good time, and there's no indication of any discomfort or in-fighting, although original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward did turn down the invitation to participate, leaving the door open for Appice to return. “Eating the cannibals” flies along on rails of rock and metal, and is great fun, then Ronnie's ominous organ chords provide the backdrop for Iommi's snarling guitar to open “Follow the tears”, a hard rock cruncher with real bite and a very Sabbath sound.
As the album approaches its end, things gets rocking in no uncertain fashion with “Neverwhere”, recalling the best of early Dio, Ronnie's voice in full flight, Iommi's guitar blazing like a comet, and the final studio song recorded and released by Ronnie James Dio is again strangely prophetic, and perhaps says a lot about his attitude to life, and even death. A very appropriate title, “Breaking into Heaven” is a heavy, pounding, grinding closer worthy of the most classic Black Sabbath, a final, defiant punch of the air with a spiked fist, almost as if Ronnie is proclaiming and promising that he won't go down easy, won't let go of life without one hell of a fight.
After the tour to promote Heaven and Hell in May, Ronnie was diagnosed with stomach cancer, the treatment for which put paid to both the rest of the tour and his plans for the next Dio album, which was to be “Magica II” as well as another Heaven and Hell album intended for 2010. Ronnie fought the cancer, with his wife Wendy by his side every step of the way and well-wishers from the world of rock and heavy metal praying and hoping for his recovery, but he sadly lost his battle with the disease, two years ago today.
There was one more album to be released --- well, two --- both posthumously. One was a live album recorded on the “Holy diver” and “Dream evil” tours, and was released six months after Ronnie's death. The other was a live album compiled from the Heaven and Hell tour of 2009 and released the same month, November 2010. But as these were both released after Ronnie's death I prefer not to feature them, seeing “The devil you know” as the final album to feature this remarkable musician.
Ronald James Padavona, whom the world had come to know and respect as Ronnie James Dio, died with his wife by his side May 16 2010 at 7:45 AM CDT at his home. At the memorial service held for him, former Dio and Black Sabbath personnel attended, with some giving performances and a video documentary chronicling Ronnie's life running on a huge video screen. On his passing, Ronnie's wife Wendy set up the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund, to research a cure for this horrible malignancy that plagues the human race even in the 21st century. To date, over half a million US dollars has been raised.
Like many other a rock musician gone before him, Ronnie left behind not only a legion of fans, and new bands inspired by his music, but a huge catalogue to stand testimony to his time on this Earth, including ten studio and five live albums with his own band, three with Black Sabbath and three with Rainbow, as well as three with Elf and one with Heaven and Hell. During his time he played with some of the greats, eventually rising to their level so that he could, at the end, stand proudly shoulder to shoulder with these men who had carved their own place in music history.
A rocker, a singer, an innovator, a kind-hearted human being, a dreamer, a tireless worker and perfectionist, and an inspiration for generations of rockers who came after him, Ronnie James Dio certainly gave the best years of his life to rock and roll. He was one of a kind, and perhaps it is to the greatest writer the planet has produced that we should leave the final word:
”He was a man, take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again.”