Broken Rainbow: The Rise and Fall of Ronnie James Dio
 

Broken Rainbow
A Tribute to the Life and Work of Ronnie James Dio
(July 10 1942 - May 16 2010)
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/YF...43J-320-80.jpg

The chances are, if you call yourself any sort of a metal fan at all, your path has crossed that of one Ronald James Padavona, better known as Ronnie James Dio. From Rainbow to Black Sabbath and on into his own band, Dio, Ronnie carved out a path to glory through the highest echelons of heavy metal, working with, and earning the respect of, giants like Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi, Cozy Powell and Richie Blackmore, and gaining a huge following, which seemed to transfer with him as he went from band to band. He was a tireless campaigner for several worthy causes, including the Children of the Night, an organisation which attempts to save children from falling into prostitution, and he had a huge regard for the dispossessed and the lost.

Originally written in 2012, one year after I had returned to the forum, this was my tribute to a man who certainly left his indelible mark on metal and who is sadly missed, nearly twelve years gone now. In this special feature I will be looking at his long and varied career, from his start in Elf through his association with Rainbow and Black Sabbath, into the eventual and perhaps inevitable formation of his own band. Ronnie never wrote or sang on any chart-topping singles, and to the masses outside of heavy metal and rock he may be virtually unknown, but to those who knew and loved his music, the man was indeed what his assumed surname translates as, a true god of rock and roll.

Part I: Dio Rising

Ronnie was born in Portsmouth but soon moved to New York, and remained in America for most of the rest of his life. He originally played the trumpet and French horn, but even in his early bands a natural ability to sing - which he apparently attributes to the special kind of breath control it's necessary to learn in order to play the French horn - was evident, and he soon took over vocals in his first band, which went through many namechanges but eventually settled on Ronnie and the Prophets. This was back in 1961, and that band lasted till 1967, when he disbanded it and with their former guitarist, Nick Pantas, formed the Electric Elves, later shortening the name to Elf in 1969. For all intents and purposes, this is where, musically, we pick up the story.

Elf - Elf - 1972 (MGM)
https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/im...QwT5nWxLggX-IP
Although Ronnie's heavy metal roots would not really show until he joined Rainbow, his first “real” band, Elf, does display his love of rock and roll. Heavy in its way, but more in a Creedence/Zep way than a Deep Purple/Sabs way, their debut album, self-titled, certainly rocks, and you can hear from the very off the powerful set of pipes that were to set the world of heavy metal alight for over forty years. Elf put out three albums over their eight year incarnation, one of which was a live effort.

Although they were in fact together since 1967, after Ronnie disbanded his previous band, Ronnie and the Prophets, they began life as The Electric Elves and only changed their name to Elf in 1969, on which name they put out their debut three years later. So in a real, recording sense, Elf only lasted from 1972 to 1975, when Ronnie joined Rainbow: three years, and so that much more impressive that they released three albums within that time. Their debut was produced by Ian Paice and Roger Glover from Deep Purple, who were so impressed with the band that they had them open for them on their tour, giving Elf a lot more exposure than they could ever have hoped for at that time.

For a debut, it's a pretty damn fine album, with tracks like the opener “Hoochie Coochie Woman” and the ballad-that-metamorphoses-into-a-slowburner-blues “Never More” standing out in particular. The keyboard work of Mickey Lee Soule stands out, but it is of course the vocals of Ronnie - who at the time was going under his given name of Padavona, and who, on this album only, also plays bass - which really catches the attention and hints at a star in the making. There's a certain sense of a heavier Bob Seger to “I'm Comin' Back For You”, with some fine piano playing from Soule, but it's the epic southern boogie of “Dixie Lee Junction” that becomes the album's standout, a powerful slice of rock and blues with some great time changes.

Carolina County Ball - Elf - 1974 (MGM)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...CountyBall.jpg
1974 saw the release of Elf's second album, Carolina County Ball, a somewhat less heavy album than the debut, with more of an emphasis on the blues side of their music. Tracks like the title, relying heavily on a brass section presumably created on Soule's keyboards and the riotous joy of “LA 59” still make the album very listenable, and if nothing else it's notable for the first time I can see that Ronnie's love affair/obsession with rainbows begins, with the seventh track titled simply “Rainbow”. Though, to be fair, the premise for using this title is pretty shaky, and the song certainly does not live up to its promise.

By this point, Elf had brought a dedicated bass player on board, so Ronnie was able to concentrate on his singing duties, also sharing the writing of all the songs with Soule. Although the tracks in general are good - not great: I far prefer the debut - there are those that let it down, like the overlong and quite whiny and boring, perhaps misnomer “Happy”, and the flat, lifeless closer, “Blanche”. At this point destiny was calling anyway, Ritchie Blackmore deciding he'd just about had enough of Deep Purple and thinking of starting his own band, which would eventually absorb not just Dio but most of the remaining, ahem, elves.

Trying To Burn the Sun - Elf - 1975 (MGM)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...BurnTheSun.jpg
The pointy-eared ones returned to their rockin' roots for their third, and as it turned out, final album, one year later. Much heavier than the very disappointing Carolina County Ball, their swansong, Trying To Burn the Sun even had Elf experimenting with strings and orchestration when they employed the Mountain Fjord Orchestra on the track “When She Smiles”, a sort of Beatles/Beach Boys hybrid.

The writing was, however, on the wall. During the recording of this album, Elf were also working with Ritchie Blackmore on his first solo album, which would in fact become Rainbow's debut. After the album was released though, everyone bar Dio was fired by Blackmore, and thus ended the association of Ronnie with his band, as he became an integral part of Rainbow, not only singing but also co-writing most of the band's songs, and bringing his own style and flair to them.

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - Rainbow - 1975 (Polydor)
http://canzonimetal.altervista.org/w...es-Rainbow.jpg
From the off, Ronnie was more than just a vocalist or writer. He helped Blackmore shape his vision of his new band along lines both were happy with. Ronnie had always been interested in medieval times, but his last band hadn't really allowed him any scope in this area. Blackmore, coming off of Deep Purple's flirtation with fantasy themes, was more willing to explore this side of things and so together they composed “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves”, “Man On the Silver Mountain” and “The Temple of the King”. The album also afforded Dio his chance to stretch his lyrical muscles on the beautiful ballad, “Catch the Rainbow”, which would become a later standard.

It was clear that the partnership was a winning one, and Ronnie remained with Rainbow through what would perhaps be termed as their classic years, recording two more albums which are highly praised among the fans. Indeed, after Dio left the band, they took a much more commercial, almost pop turn, admittedly gaining their biggest hit singles with the likes of “I Surrender” and “Since You Been Gone”, but the fantasy, mythic and symphonic rock element left with Dio.

Rising - Rainbow - 1976 (Polydor)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nbowRising.jpg
I've already reviewed this album at length, so let me just state that it was and is a classic Rainbow album, perhaps the classic Rainbow album, and served to showcase two consummate professionals and experts working at the very top of their game, with Dio shining on powerful vocal performances on the likes of “Tarot Woman” and “Do You Close Your Eyes”, while the double-epic that took up the second side of the album (ask yer da!), “Stargazer” and “A Light in the Black”, were together perhaps one of the most ambitious projects any heavy metal band had undertaken up to then. With a total running time of over sixteen minutes, they tell the tale of a man taken, with many others, to a strange land where they are forced to build a tower in the desert, a ladder up which an enigmatic sorcerer intends to scale to Heaven itself. He fails, and falls, and the second part is the story of the man's journey home.

While “A Light in the Black” was seldom performed live, “Stargazer”, which could stand on its own perfectly well, became a tried and trusted favourite with fans, but more importantly, showed Ronnie firmly stamping his authority on the music, carving out his own idea of what they should sound like, and laying the groundwork for the path he would follow through his long career. Many people will tell you that Rainbow just wasn't the same after Ronnie left, and they're right: the band really changed its sound, and a lot of the fantasy elements were lost from albums such as Difficult to Cure, Bent Out of Shape and Down to Earth.

On Stage - Rainbow - 1977 (Polydor)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ow-onstage.jpg

Something of an anachronism and certainly a disappointment to the growing legions of fans who had sprung up after Rising, this live album is notable for its exclusion of virtually anything from that album except for the rather tame “Starstruck”, and instead plunders most of Blackmore's first album, ignoring later-to-be-classics like “Stargazer” and “Tarot Woman”. One of the album's four sides is in fact given over to a thirteen-minute nonsense of one of Blackmore's old Deep Purple songs, with another taken up entirely by “Catch the Rainbow”. Why Rising, released the previous year to critical acclaim, was so badly served on this album is beyond me. It's almost as if Blackmore was trying to completely ignore it.


Long Live Rock'n'Roll - Rainbow - 1978 (Polydor)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rocknroll1.jpg

The last Rainbow album, then, to feature Ronnie, this 1978 effort is characterised by his signature lyrical themes, in tracks that would later become Rainbow classics, such as “Kill the King” and the title track, and one which Ronnie would adopt and play at his own live performances, the eastern-influenced “Gates of Babylon”. It also features what would become a staple of Dio's work, the appearance of a rainbow, either in the song title or lyric, and here we have the closer called “Rainbow Eyes”. This, in fact, would resurface on his second solo album, in the lyric to “Egypt (The Chains Are On)”, when he would sing ”They were frightening in the darkness/ They had rainbows in their eyes!”

In the same way that Rising featured an orchestra playing on “Stargazer”, the Bavarian String Ensemble contributes to “Gates of Babylon”, and there are both cello and viola in “Rainbow Eyes”, a beautiful little minstrel-style ballad that closes the album and gives more space to Ronnie's love of the middle ages. There are some very heavy tracks on it though, and it pushes more away from the overt progressive rock of Rising towards a more out-and-out rock idea, which would in the end be watered down by Blackmore as he sought to take the band in a more commercial direction, a position Ronnie disagreed with and which would see his leaving Rainbow after this.

It might well have been Blackmore's close-mindedness that led to Ronnie's departure from Rainbow, although it's more widely accepted that he left due to being unhappy with the more commercial direction Blackmore was pushing the band towards, and they parted company in 1979, as a new decade hovered on the horizon, and a new phase of the musical career of Ronnie James Dio was about to begin.

The solo in Gates of Babylon called to me like a snake charmer. It was my first inkling at wanting to become a guitar player. Ozzy/Randy's Mr Crowley pushed me over the edge, but if it wasn't for watching Rainbow play GOB on Don Kirshner's I wouldn't have been on that edge in the first place.

Part II: At the End of the Rainbow

Heaven and Hell - Black Sabbath - 1980 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...n_and_Hell.jpg

The next port of call was Black Sabbath, who had parted company with Ozzy Osbourne and with whom Ronnie recorded one of their most successful albums, Heaven and Hell, which again pulled in his love of classical, mythological and medieval themes to create a heavy prog-rock/metal album which still stands today as the favourite of many Sabbath fans. From the opening powerdrive of “Neon Nights”, you can hear Ronnie in fine voice and sounding happier than he's been for a while. He wrote the lyrics to all the songs on this album - of which there are only eight - collaborating on the music with the rest of the band. There are some real classics on the album, including the title track, “Die Young” and “Children of the Sea”, the latter being one of two ballads on the album, not complete rarities for Sabbath but certainly not the norm. Ronnie's influence helped pull them away from the overtly dark tag they had struggled with over their career to then, although the lyrics still mention gods, devils, Heaven and of course Hell, but they're treated in a more abstract, less literal way, almost more as concepts than reality.

One of Dio's strengths seems to have been that he could subtly change the sound of any band he joined, without actually ruining the image or the ethos of the band. He slotted in well to Black Sabbath, and is still many people's choice of vocalist for that band. Less screechy than Ozzy, more disciplined both in his voice and his work, and with a considerably smaller ego to feed than Ian Gillan, it's a shame really that he only lasted the two albums with them. But then of course if he had stayed, perhaps he would never have started his own band. Ronnie also brought the sense of the epic to Sabbath that had characterised his work with Rainbow with tracks like “Stargazer” and “Gates of Babylon”; Sabbath had not exactly been averse to the odd long song prior to his arrival, but Ronnie definitely brought a more prog-rock feel to the band.

Mob Rules - Black Sabbath - 1981 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...SabbathMob.jpg

Released only a year after the successful “rebirth” of Black Sabbath, Mob Rules would be the last studio album on which Ronnie would feature, for now. It's a faster, snappier album than Heaven and Hell, with much shorter songs, even though it does contain the epic “Sign of the Southern Cross”, almost eight minutes long, and two five-minute closers in the fast and powerful “Falling Off the Edge of the World”, and “Over and Over”, a grinding, slowburning rock cruncher. You can see on this album, and the previous, how Dio was honing and perfecting both his writing talent and his vocal ability, something that would serve him well when he finally decided to strike out on his own.


Live Evil - Black Sabbath - 1982 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Evil-Front.jpg

The last actual Black Sabbath album to feature Ronnie (until his brief return in 1992), this was a recording of the Mob Rules tour, and features, among others, a twelve-minute version of “Heaven and Hell”, as well as other Ozzy-era standards, like “War Pigs” and “Iron Man”, and of course their signature tune. It's interesting to see how Ronnie handles these, the different nuances and colours his performance give songs which, up until then, had been seen exclusively as lying within the Osbourne pervue.

After the album was recorded and was being mixed, differences which had become insurmountable finally led to Ronnie leaving Black Sabbath. He would not return until eleven years later, and then only to record the one album before returning to his solo material. We will look at that in due course, as this section is intended to run chronologically.

Part III: Stand up and shout

After having parted ways with Black Sabbath, Ronnie and drummer Vinnie Appice, who left with him, sharing his misgivings, still wanted to work together, so they recruited a new young up and coming guitarist called Vivian Campbell, who had been working with Irish heavy metal band Sweet Savage, and keyboardist Jimmy Bain, whom Ronnie had known from his days with Rainbow. Together they formed the new band which would bear Ronnie's name, and gain him his most significant following and fame, and his biggest hits, up to his untimely death.

Holy Diver - Dio - 1983 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...oHolyDiver.jpg
I have already extensively reviewed this album, so I won't go too deeply into its guts here, but it is nevertheless important to mark its place as the beginning of the Dio phenomenon, Ronnie in effect stepping out from the shadow of people like Blackmore and Iommi, and facing the world on his own terms, as his own man. Probably most singers dream at some point of having a solo career; Ronnie not only worked towards and at it, but succeeded, possibly beyond his own wildest dreams.

The debut was a huge smash, at least among rockers, and instantly cemented the credentials Dio already had as a member of Sabbath and Rainbow, but having his own band elevated him to new heights, and the discovery of Campbell was looked upon as something of a master stroke. Not surprisingly, the album courted controversy from the beginning, with its unsettling imagery which could be seen as anti-religious (a claim Ronnie refuted during his life) and Ronnie's reputation of having “been in that Black Sabbath band”, but there was no denying the quality of the album.

Tracks like “Rainbow in the Dark”, “Don't Talk to Strangers” and the title track all vie for standout on this debut, with others like “Stand Up and Shout” (which would later lend its name to a charity Ronnie's wife Wendy would set up to fight cancer after the singer's death), “Gypsy” and “Invisible” ensure there is no filler on this excellent debut. Hitting number 13 on the UK album charts and even number 56 on the difficult-to-break-but-bloody-impossible-for-a-debut US Billboard charts, Holy Diver was a roar of intent from the man known as Ronnie James Dio, and a marker for further great albums to follow, though in fairness he would never again achieve the pure brilliance of this debut.

The Last in Line - Dio - 1984 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...LastInLine.jpg
No, he may not have reached the dizzy heights of Holy Diver, but by gum he came close with his second effort! Standing as two of the best Dio albums, these were the creative peak of the band, which is sad really, as there were another eight albums to follow, few if any of which attained the level of quality of Holy Diver and The Last in Line. This could perhaps be attributed to the core of the band leaving over the period 1985-1989, with by 1990 no-one left of the original lineup except Ronnie himself. On this album Jimmy Bain, who had played bass and keys on the debut, moves to just bass as Claude Schell is drafted in to take his place behind the keyboard.

Nevertheless, this was the heyday of Dio and the album contains some excellent tracks, starting off powerfully and forcefully with “We Rock” (and they do!), which charges along at breakneck speed, slowing down for the title track, which is a true metal cruncher, with a Black Sabbath-like rhythm, somewhat reminiscent of “Heaven and Hell”, in fact, and nodding of course back to Zep's “Kashmir” in the keyboard melody. “Breathless” and “I Speed at Night” kick the tempo back up, flying along in the fashion Dio fans had come to expect from songs like “Gypsy” and “Stand Up and Shout”, before things slow down (insofar as Dio ever slowed things down: ballads were not their forte!) with “One Night in the City”, with some pretty growly backing vocals!

Sadly, though three singles were released from this album, none really charted and Dio would never again repeat the commercial success they enjoyed with Holy Diver, but then, few metal bands ever break into the charts, bar the likes of Iron Maiden or Metallica. “Evil Eyes” revisits the opener in style, then “Mystery” is a keyboard-led almost AOR song, taking something of its style from “Rainbow in the Dark”, before the one track I see as sub-par, “Eat Your Heart Out”, spoils things, but then the album closes strongly in an eastern-flavoured cruncher, “Egypt (The Chains Are On)”, reimagining the arrival of aliens whom the ancient Egyptians took for gods. Original? No, but that doesn't stop the song from being a storming finale to a great album.

After this album relations between Ronnie and Vivian Campbell would be strained to breaking point, with Ronnie remarking that Campbell “wasn't there” for the recording of their third album, after which the guitarist would leave. Whether due to that, or just the general fall in quality that I personally perceived throughout much of the remaining catalogue, this album would be poorly received, and a general lack of interest would begin to pervade the casual Dio fan, though his hardcore fans would ensure his albums continued to sell, if not in the quantities they had from the start.

1985 saw Ronnie's first real foray into charity work, something that, with second wife Wendy, he would engage in a lot more vigorously throughout his life. When the leading lights of heavy metal banded together to form the metal version of Band Aid, Hear'n'Aid, it was Ronnie's bandmates Vivian Campbell and Jimmy Bain who were instrumental and pivotal in arranging and organising the effort, and of course Ronnie sang on the single they produced, “Stars”, and on the subsequent album, which garnered one million dollars for the charity in its first year.

Sacred Heart - Dio - 1985 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...acredHeart.jpg
You can immediately hear the cracks beginning to appear as this album gets underway. Dio's third, and the last one to feature both Campbell and Bain, it would mark a shift away from the quality metal of the first two albums into a sort of muddled no-mans-land through which Ronnie would release another five albums before finally returning to the level of Holy Diver with his 2002 effort, and indeed penultimate album, Killing the Dragon.

There are good tracks on this album, and in fairness it's not a total loss, but quality would definitely start to slide after this. Opener “The King of Rock and Roll” gets things going nicely, and like the start of the previous two albums it's a fast rocker, with this time some faux live performance effects, then the title track is a slow cruncher. In fact, looking at the albums, at least the first three, they do seem to follow a pattern of starting with a fast rocker, then slowing for a cruncher, then back up the gears for another few tracks before taking it back down again. Nothing wrong with that, though it does make the albums the smallest bit predictable perhaps. For all that, “Sacred Heart” is a great track, quite keyboard-driven, and so far the album is living up to the promise of its two powerful predecessors.

“Rock and Roll Children” is a great song, but lyrically it's just a rewriting of “One Night in the City” from the previous album. Doesn't make it any less excellent though, but a bit of originality I feel might have been more welcome here. Things just get better though with the storming “Hungry for Heaven”, with some great solos from Vivian Campbell. Unfortunately there's a sharp dip in quality from there on, with the only really decent track after this being “Just Another Day”, and the album ends weakly on “Shoot Shoot”.

Possibly one of the problems I've come to recognise with Dio's music - at least, with his own band - is that an awful lot of it was very similar. The opening track on this album is very close to that which opened The Last in Line, and as already mentioned, “One Night in the City” from that album adheres fairly closely to the style and lyrical content of “Rock and Roll Children” from this one. Similarly, “Like the Beat of a Heart” here is very much on the same lines as “Straight Through the Heart” from Holy Diver. That does not of course mean Dio's music is generic or formulaic always, but a lot of it does seem, on close analysis, built on the same ideas, themes, melodies and rhythms.

Things would go from bad to worse for Ronnie the next year, as Campbell left the band, citing musical differences and disappointment in the direction Dio was heading, often it would seem a familiar reason for bands splitting. Unfazed, Ronnie recruited a replacement and went on to release Dio's fourth album, but it does come across as largely quite flat, missing the spark that characterised the first two, even three albums.

Between this and the release of his fourth album, Ronnie put out a live album - well, more an EP really, as it only had a total of six tracks. One of these was a new song, included to introduce the new guitarist, Craig Goldy, who was to replace Vivian Campbell.

Intermission - Dio - 1986 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...termission.jpg
As far as live efforts go, I feel it's kind of a case of rehashing stuff I have already written about particular tracks or albums, so rather than repeat myself (not to mention the fact that I don't have his live albums!) I will just give a quick overview of each as I come to them, pointing out any important tracks or points, such as above, where there was an extra track included, “Time to Burn”, and also the fact that this being so relatively early in the career of Dio the band, that there is a medley of two Rainbow songs mixed in with one of his own. Pretty unremarkable though really.


Dream Evil - Dio - 1987 (Vertigo)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...oDreamEvil.jpg

Personally, this was the point at which I decided to stop buying Dio albums. I was very disappointed with this effort, and though it made a decent showing in the UK album charts, it did not do as well as Sacred Heart, and was in fact the last Dio album to trouble the upper echelons of the charts. As a matter of record, the highest any Dio album after Dream Evil would attain was 159, this being for their last album (although of course at that point no-one knew it was destined never to be followed up, with Ronnie dying six years later). Sacred Heart was in fact the last Dio album to be certified, going Gold in the USA. After that, there was a massive vote of non interest.

Dream Evil has its good tracks, though they are few and far between. It starts off well (and predictably) enough, with “Night People”, though this track is a little more keyboard than guitar-driven, and the strain of sparring with Campbell does seem to be telling on Ronnie; you can hear it in his voice. It's not as powerful, confident or brash as it used to be. At least the cycle is broken though, as the title (and second) track is a fast enough rocker, not a cruncher. Quite a lot of “Caught in the Middle” from Holy Diver on it I feel however.

Surprisingly, this is the very first Dio album to have a proper, assigned ballad, and I have to say, it's been worth waiting five years for! “All the Fools Sailed Away” is a fantastic, powerful, emotional and moving song which easily stands out as the best track on this album, and while in general that's unfortunately not saying a lot, it even stands quite easily shoulder to shoulder with Dio standards like “Rainbow in the Dark”, “Don't Talk to Strangers” and “Egypt” as one of the very best songs this band has produced. A pity it's not matched by the rest of the album, or indeed, Dio's output for the next few years following this. Nevertheless, while one song does not an album make, and you can't really make a case for buying an album for one track, if you were thinking of getting Dream Evil and just needed a reason, then this is it: it really is worth the price of purchase alone.

Other than that though, I can really only recommend “I Could Have Been a Dreamer”, with the rest of the songs just okay, but not I think up to the usual Dio standard. He does surprise at the end, because with a title like “When a Woman Cries”, you're definitely expecting a ballad and it's just, well, not. But as I say there's not too much to recommend this fourth album, and sadly that would not only continue to be the case, but worsen as the years wound on.

Last week, I picked up a box set of five of his albums. It was the first time I'd heard Holy Diver in its entirety. The box also included Sacred Heart, Lock Up The Wolves, The Last In Line and Dream Evil. I'm looking forward to checking them all out.

Dio was so well spoken. His interviews from Metal: A Headbanger's Journey were excellent.

Holy Diver and Last In Line are his two best, imho. Sacred Heart was ok, but Campbell was on his way out after that, and again, imho, he was one of the main reasons the previous albums were so well done. He's a phenomenal guitar player.

No question. He brought it back I think for the last album, Killing the Dragon, but after the first two everything was spotty. Some great tracks on Sacred Heart, Dream Evil, Lock up the Wolves and so on, but overall nothing like those two albums, where pretty much every track was gold. Not much skipping on those. Campbell was a prodigy, to be that good at such a tender age.

:beer:

Dio, like Alice Cooper, surrounded himself with A list players. Vivian, Vinny Appice, Jimmy Bain, Blackmore, the Sabbath guys, they're all awesome players.

He sure did. In Rainbow and Sabbath, the talent was already there, but with his solo stuff, without Campbell it kinda fizzled out.

For me, The last in line is one of the best songs ever.

And Dio is always on my playlist.

:beer:
http://49.media.tumblr.com/89cfbd1a7...bjf8o2_500.gif

Okay, well.. how do you guys like his 2000 album Magica?

Cause this ain't so bad.



Saw him playing with Sabbath (Heaven & Hell) in what would turn out to be his last concerts in Norway. Dio kinda comes across as a little cheesy and weird on screen maybe? But his stage presence was undeniable.. a legendary voice and performer.

Magica's a decent album. One of his last batch, with Master of the Moon and Killing the Dragon tying up a fantastic career than kind of sagged in the middle but ended on a high. More or less.

I don't know this album.

Get to know it. :)

In the heat and the rain, with whips and chains





Also Children of the Sea is one of the best Sabbath tracks. Then again so are quite a few Dio tracks, I just really like Children. One of my first CDs was Black Sabbath - The Dio Years.

Have you listened to Dehumanizer? It's a worthy album.

I don't think so. I'll have to check it out.

It's tight that Stargazer is like unanimously one of the hardest rocking songs there is

Part IV: Fading Colours

More members of the band departed before the release of the next album, three years later. In fact, everyone who had been in the original lineup left, leaving Ronnie with the job of finding replacements for Vinny Appice (who had helped him found Dio) and Jimmy Bain, as well as keyboard player Claude Schell. Craig Goldy, who had been brought in to (try to) replace Vivian Campbell for Dream Evil, left soon after that album was finished and was replaced by Rowan Robertson, but he would only last for this album.

Lock Up the Wolves - Dio - 1990 (Reprise)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...pTheWolves.jpg

And again we run the familiar formula! Fast rocker to open in “Wild One”, then things slow down for the obligatory rock cruncher, this time it's “Born On the Sun”, then for once the spell is broken as we remain rock crunchin' for “Hey Angel”, heavy, pounding drums and a gravelly vocal from Ronnie, but it's still hard to see anything new, or indeed, progressive, about any of the songs here. Which is a pity, as they're all great in their own right, just a little too ... predicatable. “Between Two Hearts” opens with the chingling guitar seen in “Don't Talk to Strangers”, but in fairness it doesn't speed up as that track does, but stays heavy and slow, providing another surprise, and surprise is something I normally tend not to associate with Dio.

The album does contain the longest Dio composition ever, the title track, which comes in at a massive eight and a half minutes, and opens on proggy synth and keys, then guitars hammer in alongside drums and we get something more akin to “Stargazer” or “Gates of Babylon” from Rainbow than anything else. Incidentally, before any Dio know-it-all raises his or her hand and points out that the closing track on 2000's Magica is over eighteen minutes long, I should point out that I discount that, as it has no music and is essentially a long spoken monologue.

“Evil on Queen Street” has a very Black Sabbath feel to it - more Ozzy era than Dio, truth be told - and I'm starting to notice that this is a very slow, heavy, grinding album: I've hardly heard, since the opener, any fast rockers at all. At least the status quo is being challenged, which is a good thing always, but this is becoming very heavy going, almost like trudging through thick mud in flimsy sandals, and I'm beginning to feel bogged down.

And here comes a helping hand, at last! Now I'm climbing out of the mire as “Walk On Water” rocks the speakers and kicks everything up the arse, finally. About damn time! Slow and crunchy and ponderous is all very well if you're listening to a sludge metal album, but the very least I expect out of Dio is to rock! Great guitar solo here from the new boy (who would soon be replaced) but we're soon back to the slow rock crunchers with “Twisted”, though there's a decent push as the album comes to a close with “Why Are They Watching Me” rocking along nicely, and the powerful “My Eyes”, with its often almost acoustic passages and its semi-medieval flavour harking back to Ronnie's days with Rainbow.

I don't think I can recall an album before or since by Dio which was so weighted on the side of slower, heavier, grinding power crunchers, and I think perhaps it's this that marks this album as a failure in my book: I miss the fast Dio rockers of the last few albums, and if this was an experiment to change the sound of the band (which I don't know) then it didn't work. Not for me, anyway.

After this, Dio basically broke up the band when invited by Geezer Butler to get back together with him and the guys in Black Sabbath. This explains the curious hiatus in Ronnie's involvement with Sabbath (ten years between albums) and is, I think, unique in heavy metal. I can't remember any vocalist working with a band, leaving and then coming back again so much later. Even Bruce Dickinson was only away from Maiden for seven years, even though that seemed like an eternity!

Dehumanizer - Black Sabbath - 1992 (IRS)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ehumanizer.jpg

(Note: Okay Mondo, it seems I have heard it!)

Would it be a good idea, this getting back together with Sabbath after so long? Would Ronnie take the band back to the heyday of Heaven and Hell, injecting some needed epic and progressive tones into their music, or would he, indeed, eschew the very themes that had mostly driven his own band, abandoning the fantasy themes to concentrate on more straight-ahead heavy metal? Well, there's no doubt that Dehumanizer (must assume they were targeting the American market, with the spelling) is a heavy album, so heavy it's almost thick and impenetrable. It's the Sabbath of old, really, sans Ozzy, and the opener “Computer God”, despite its attempt to drag the seventies metallers into the nineties really just comes across as someone, as Blackadder once opined, “strategically shaving a monkey and forcing it into a suit”.

It's a good song, no doubt, and there are elements of the old, “classic” Dio in there, but the boys have, since Ronnie's departure, reverted to their heavier, darker side, such as was seen on albums like Paranoid and Vol 4. Tony Iommi can still play a guitar as well as ever though, and he puts in some blistering solos. Ronnie was also reunited with the estranged co-founder of Dio here, as Vinny Appice occupies the drumstool, indeed bringing the whole thing full circle really. Geezer Butler is, well, Geezer Butler, and Ronnie of course is in powerful voice, but on the whole you have to wonder what the point of this “mini-reunion” was. It's not like they intended to stay together for any more than one album.

“After All (The Dead)” has a lot of “Iron Man” in it, with Ronnie even, perhaps unconsciously, emulating Ozzy's vocal style without the falsetto of course, while “TV Crimes” gets things rocking in no uncertain fashion, but everything's back slow doomy and crushing with “Letters from Earth”, and Butler's bass figures heavily (in both senses of the word) on “Master of Insanity”, then there's some welcome keyboard relief in “Time Machine”, though it doesn't last. This is not a bad album, and I have to admit that post Mob Rules I have heard nothing of Sabbath's catalogue, with the exception of the awful Born Again (which in itself was pretty instrumental in my coming to the decision not to proceed any further with Sabbath after Ronnie left), so I can't say if this album is representative of their usual output during the nineties and beyond, but it all kind of goes by in something of a blur for me.

It's Ozzy revisited again for “Sins of the Father”, again very heavy and with a lot of feedback, and you would definitely get the impression, whether accurate or not, that Ronnie was regretting his decision to hook up again with the boys from Sabbath, and was already thinking of getting Dio back together and composing songs for his forthcoming sixth album. Nevertheless, there's a rather lovely ballad - what? No, you heard me: a ballad. A nice, almost acoustically driven slow song, which at least slams the brakes on for a few minutes. Okay, so it doesn't remain a ballad for too long, and “Too Late” may be a prophetic title, but then, I don't actually hate this album: I just don't see the need for it. But for what it is it's quite enjoyable, if you like your metal at the grungier, crunchier end of the spectrum. Definitely making a bid for the shortest song title ever, “I” is a decent rocker and the album closes on a pretty appropriate Sabbath title, “Buried Alive”.

So after briefly revisiting his past and dipping his toes once more in the steaming, murky waters of Black Sabbath's music, Ronnie decided it was time the world heard from Dio again. Trouble was, he had lost all of his original lineup. So he had to find replacements. Again. Would Vinny Appice be coaxed back into the band, having worked alongside Ronnie again? Seems he would, and Ronnie soon found able replacements for guitar keyboards and bass, thus leading to the release of his next Dio album.

Strange Highways - Dio - 1993 (Reprise)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...geHighways.jpg

Deciding to go with a more straightforward approach lyrically, concentrating on modern issues rather than fantasy themes, Dio embarked on a three-album spree that would see them alienate many of their fans, who had grown used to the more progressive songs and themes used on previous albums, and indeed those who had followed Ronnie through Rainbow and Sabbath. The album kicks off solidly enough, certainly, with a good fast rocker, however the title could have caused some worry, though really “Jesus, Mary and the Holy Ghost” is hardly that much further than “Sacred Heart” or indeed “Holy Diver”, and Ronnie had courted, or at least attracted controversy from the outset, so should have been more than able to deal with it.

It's certainly a very metal start, then we're into the usual slow cruncher, though I think Ronnie was experiencing something of a hangover from his time with the boys from Sabbath, as this sounds more like it belongs on one of their albums than his. The title track then is another hard stomper, grinding along like the best of Sabbath and Dio combined, with an almost palpable sense of menace, then “Hollywood Black” keeps it heavy and slow, like a low growl rippling through the album so far. New guitarist Tracy G seems to have fit right in, and though there's not at this moment a lot of keyboard work, new keysman Jeff Pilson is kept busy anyway, as he's doubling on bass, as Jimmy Bain did originally.

Seems there's to be no letting up on the slow, heavy crunchers, as “Evilution” (see what he did there?) ;) takes the stage, and again I can hear Ozzy in the chorus: whether that's a conscious effort on Ronnie's part to poke fun at the Black Sabbath vocalist he replaced and is known not to have rated, or just an involuntary thing I don't know, but he's definitely taking a lot from his Sabbath-ical (!) - sorry! - from Dio and putting it into his music here. This could almost be a Black Sabbath album. Strange highways, indeed! There are at least some really weird and odd electronic sounds, presumably made by Pilson on the synth, which leavens out the thick heavy metal a little, and some siren sounds on the guitar from Tracy G do lighten the mood a little, but this is still pretty heavy stuff.

I'm not holding out too much hope that a song titled “Pain” is going to go anyway towards redressing the balance here between heavy, grinding metal crunchers and fast metal rockers, and indeed it would seem that hope would indeed have been in vain, as we're hit with basically the same sort of song again. I don't so much feel I'm listening to this album as being bludgeoned over the head with it, and that's not a feeling I enjoy. “One Foot in the Grave” is not, as some might expect, a musical tribute to Victor Meldrew, but is instead yet another heavy crunching doom-laden song that falls just this side of black metal really.

If I had to choose one word to describe this album, I think it would be monotonous. It's all so similar, at least thus far, and unrelentingly dark and grinding, that I find it tends to get me down. I don't like the way Ronnie growls and scowls at me from behind the mike, almost as if daring me not to listen. This is not what I've come to expect from Dio, and even the last two albums notwithstanding, this is the worst I've heard from him to date. I know of course that there's worse to come, as I have had the displeasure of sitting through the frankly awful Angry Machines, which is the album he released after this, so sadly no respite on the horizon.

Unless this can change things? A nice little gentle guitar line and a relatively easy drumbeat looks like it might be introducing a ballad, of all things. Could it be? Well, “Give Her the Gun” starts off very promising, does kick into a harder rocker a little way in, and I don't think we're in ballad territory here after all, but it does release the almost incessant pressure that's been pushing me down since the album began. Well, since the second track anyway. So we head towards the end of the album, with “Blood from a Stone” retaining the basic theme and rhythm the album has maintained throughout almost exclusively, until finally “Here's to You” kicks out the stays and Dio floor the pedal, a great fast rocker which takes us up to the closer. “Bring Down the Rain” though shows that Ronnie is unable to resist going back to the tried-and-trusted formula, slowing everything down for another rock cruncher which sets the seal on an album I personally don't like, and which alienated many of his fans, kickstarting a period that would last seven years before he would go back to the fantasy themes and melodies that had made him famous and earned him legions of fans.


Angry Machines - Dio - 1996 (Mayhem)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...y_Machines.jpg
With Scott Warren now on keys and Jeff Pilson concentrating on bass, Dio released their seventh studio album, which I personally regard as their worst. Angry Machines made me angry! How could Ronnie have recorded such a sub-par album? I know he was trying to move away from his old image of wizards and elves etc., and had achieved a measure of distance from those themes with the last album, but this one just went over the top. Or if you prefer (and I do), right to the bottom.

The signs are not good, right from the beginning, with a real Sabbath-style grinder, “Institutional Man”, which is pretty hard going, but at least the tempo kicks up for “Don't Tell the Kids”, with a rocker in the vein of “I Speed at Night” and “Stand Up and Shout”, and a very decent guitar solo from Tracy G, though he gets a bit confused and messy on “Black”, which is just, well, terrible. Even Dio's singing grates on the nerves, and the idea in the song is so thin there is no way it can be expected to last even the three minutes plus that it runs for. Okay, maybe it's meant to sound mechanical and alien, but even so...

“Hunter of the Heart” has at least a decent, atmospheric guitar intro and a sassy little bassline before it gets going, but unfortunately when it does it's nothing new, just the same old ideas rehashed and used till they're paper-thin. Good interplay between bass and guitar, and some driving drumming from Appice, but not really enough to hook your attention for any length of time. It's followed by the longest track, another Sabbath clone which runs for just over seven minutes. “Stay Out of My Mind” again recalls the vocal style of Ozzy, and I don't know why Ronnie was doing this, or if he even realised he was. There's a nice kind of blues idea to the guitar riff in it, which is good to hear, and to be completely fair, there's a lot more thought put into this than previous tracks, indeed, albums.

There's a really quite cool strings section about halfway through, which gives way to an extended hard guitar section, and it works very well in not only filling out the song but in upping the tension and maintaining the suspense. I'd have to say, given what else I've heard on this album, this would be the standout. Could be the one decent track on the whole thing, the exception to the rule. Certainly a whole lot better than “Big Sister”, which follows in its wake, its inferiority only underlining how good Dio could be when he wanted to be, but how he often - at least, here - took the path of least resistance and ended up with substandard songs.

The only good thing about “Double Monday” is that it's the shortest track on the album, just under three minutes, then “Golden Rules” opens with the nursery rhyme “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”; sadly that's about the only good part of it, as it's largely unremarkable. “Dying in America” has at least a bit more heart about it, with some powerful grungy guitar and a pretty good solo, then we close - and it's nowhere too soon - on “This is Your Life”, which certainly surprises, turning out to be a piano ballad, with beautiful strings arrangement. I would probably go so far as to say this is close to Dio's best ballad, even notwithstanding “All the Fools Sailed Away” from Dream Evil. It's the more frustrating that it comes at the end of a really disappointing and sub-par album, still regarded by me at any rate as his worst ever. At least though it leaves you with a more tolerable taste in your mouth, and you're left humming a decent tune at the end.

The first proper live Dio album then comes during the tour for this album, released in 1998. Oddly, but thankfully, there is little of the Angry Machines album on it, and it consists mostly of music from the debut Holy Diver and The Last in Line, along with some Black Sabbath material from Ronnie's time with them, and a few Rainbow tracks. It's a double album, and therefore more representative of the full Dio catalogue, and yet, it is quite restricted.

Inferno: Last in Live - Dio - 1998 (Mayhem)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...LastInLive.jpg

I suppose the fact that only two tracks off Angry Machines are featured on this live outing is telling: Ronnie obviously realised that the album had not sold well and was not going down well generally with the fans, so he fell back on his standards and classics, the crowd-pleasers. So you get “Holy Diver”, “Don't Talk to Strangers”, “We Rock”, “Rainbow in the Dark” as well as “Heaven and Hell”, “Long Live Rock and Roll” and a medley composed of “Catch the Rainbow” and Blackmore's old Deep Purple song “Mistreated”, but generally speaking the expected batch of songs. There's also one track off Strange Highways, but that's about it.

Fantastic posts, such a great read. I think my favourite will always be Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow.

Part V: Dio resurgent
Two more years would pass before Ronnie would return to the studio, to start work on what would be his eighth Dio album, and the first that reverted back to the old fantasy themes, moving away from the more modern ideas expressed through the last two studio albums, which had generally proven unpalatable to many Dio fans, and led to sliding record sales. For this album, Craig Goldy would return, to replace the departed Tracy G, and Jimmy Bain would again take up the bass duties.

Magica - Dio - 2000 (Spitfire)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-DioMagica.jpg

With a new label, and disappointing record sales for both Strange Highways and his most recent album, Angry Machines, Ronnie decided it was time for a change. The new, science-fiction themed lyrics had not really worked, and the whole sound of the band was in danger of descending into a bad parody of Black Sabbath, so Ronnie declared this album would be a concept album, follow a storyline, and be much more progressive metal than previous albums. With some past members returning, it became one of Dio's most successful later albums, and was largely seen as their comeback.

It opens with a computer voice intoning the introduction, less than a minute which goes under the name of “Discovery”, then keyboards and heavy guitar usher in “Magica Theme”, and right away you're punching the air and exclaiming YESSS! THIS is what Dio is all about, and it's great to hear them finally getting back to basics and giving us something to anticipate. Great guitar intro from the returning Craig Goldy, then “Lord of the Last Day” gets all heavy and grungy again, but with more keyboard backup this time to keep it from getting too bogged down, while “Fever Dreams” has a lot more energy and excitement about it, and low, humming synth is used to very dramatic effect while Goldy channels Gilmour on The Wall before “Turn to Stone” gets going.

No, it's not the old ELO song, fool! A good upbeat rocker, with Ronnie sounding more on song than he has for years in my opinion. The computer voice seems to link the songs, making comments and reports at the end of some of them, and “Feed My Head” is preceded by one such, and is itself a powerful but mid-paced rocker, with some more great solos from Goldy and not so much of the keyboard work this time. “Eriel” follows something the same line, the deeper, muddier tone of slow songs from previous albums somehow lightened this time around, mostly by some fine keyboard work courtesy of Scott Warren.

“Challis” is a real uptempo metal rocker in the style of “classic” Dio, with great guitar solos, Ronnie singing his heart out and smooth keyboard fills from Warren. It's followed by a heavy guitar-led ballad, “As Long as it's Not About Love”, then an almost Irish jig opens “Losing My Insanity”, with some flutes and fiddles before the song bops along at a fine pace, with a lot of energy and enthusiasm. Things continue well with “Otherworld”, very dramatic, ominous and with some fine strings or possibly synthesiser strings, till we run into “Magica (reprise)”, less than two minutes long but some of the best music on this album since “Magica Theme”, and it's followed by “Lord of the Last Day (reprise)”, another short track but I would have preferred the previous one to have been the closer.

Technically, neither are the last track, as that's eighteen minutes plus of Ronnie relating the story of Magica, with no music, and it's called “Magica Story”, but as there's no music to speak of it's not really worth including in the review here, but worth listening to if you didn't get the idea of the concept behind the album, and also interesting to hear Ronnie's voice when he's not singing.

Like many bands, and indeed, many rock bands, Dio's lineup constantly shifted and changed, and after some differences of opinion between he and Goldy, the guitarist left the band (again) and was replaced for their ninth album with Doug Aldritch.

Killing the Dragon - Dio - 2002 (Spitfire)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...gTheDragon.jpg

Continuing the return to form that had been seen on Magica, Dio produced what I consider to be one of their best later albums, right up there with Holy Diver. Keyboards again feature heavily in the mix, and this time Ronnie takes elements from the ideas that informed Angry Machines and successfully melds them with the older themes like those from Magica and Rainbow's Rising, to create what was pretty much the best of both worlds on his penultimate studio album. The opener, and title track, leaves you in no doubt as to what to expect, and new guitarist Aldritch is eager to prove his chops, racking off solo after solo.

Then, just when you think he's going back to the old formula, with another heavy cruncher as the second track, “Along Comes a Spider” rocks along at a good pace, a real bopper, with some really sharp guitar riffs and powerful drumming, then “Scream” is a heavy cruncher, but more along the lines of “Egypt” or “The Last in Line” than some of the really heavier tracks that characterised some of the more recent albums. Then we're off and blazing again with another fast rocker - something that has been missing from the last few Dio albums - with “Better in the Dark”, featuring some blistering fretwork from Aldritch.

That familiar “Kashmir” sound returns for the simply titled “Rock and Roll”, really punchy and anthemic, a real powerhouse, then “Push” kicks everything back up into high gear as it hurtles along, followed by “Guilty”, which keeps up the pressure, a little less frenetic and a little more grungy admittedly, but still a great song. “Throw Away the Children” is a big, heavy, crunching pounder sung with a lot of passion and fervour by Ronnie, with a superb guitar solo in the middle, and following in the footsteps of Pink Floyd and Richard Marx, Ronnie enlists the aid of a children's choir on the chorus, giving the song added impact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIP4Gkgoh0k
“Before the Fall” gets things rocking again, with a really proggy keyboard solo by Scott Warren that recalls the heyday of Rainbow, and “Cold Feet” closes the album well on a mid-paced rocker with a very catchy hook, the underlying and overpowering message here: Dio are back!



Master of the Moon - Dio - 2004 (Sanctuary)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...rOfTheMoon.jpg

To have been followed, in due course, by volume two, and three, of Magica, this was in the end the final album released by Dio. It marked the return of Craig Goldy on guitar, as well as Jeff Pilson on bass, this being the first time the two had played together on a Dio album. It opens with the prophetic “One More for the Road”, a fast hard rocker that continues the return to form seen on Killing the Dragon, with another slow cruncher following in the shape of the title track, with some grinding guitar from Goldy, bringing us into “The End of the World”, another hard cruncher with some deep, throaty bass from the returning Pilson. “Shivers” is a more mid-paced hard rocker, while things slow down for the intro to “The Man Who Would Be King”, then it ramps up on the back of Scott Warren's powerful organ, probably the first I've heard his keyboards on this album up to now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipGuzP2pw0
It's very much in the vein of “Egypt”, a slow, stomping beat that plods on like a golem, but with some great melodic ideas. Some unwelcome vocoder work as “The Eyes” begins, and unfortunately it continues through the track, giving the unsettling idea of a rock track mixed with pop or dance. Yeah, I hate vocoders. Good song though: another slow one, very heavy but so far I find this album lacking the immediacy and spontonaeity of Killing the Dragon. The guys do a passable “Iron Maiden chant” at the end of this song though, which is fun to hear.

Things finally speed up again for “Living the Lie”, but then it's back to the rock crunchers for “I am”, marching along with fierce determination until “Death By Love” presses down hard on the pedal again and the Dio machine goes rocketing off for one last time, Ronnie namechecking a few older songs in this one, album titles too. We end then on a metal cruncher, growling guitars and thumping bass taking “In Dreams” to its position as the last ever Dio track recorded, and the album closes strongly enough.

For the final Dio album I find this a little lacking. Of course, Ronnie had no idea he would not get to record another after this, but it is a pity that it doesn't provide a stronger, more representative example of the music Dio could produce, and as a swansong - even if unintended - by the band, it's a little weak.

After the release of Killing the Dragon the band went on tour, and from that tour came two live albums, a year apart. In 2005 they released Evil or Divine: Live in New York City, which pretty much essentially reproduces the tracklist on the Inferno live album, with the addition of a few tracks off the last album and one off Magica, and a few bits and pieces here and there.

Evil or Divine: Live in New York City - Dio - 2005 (Spitfire)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...EvilDivine.jpg

Of far more interest was Holy Diver Live, released the following year. On this album, the band performed the entire album Holy Diver in sequence, and the second disc of the live set was basically taken up by mostly Rainbow and Sabbath material Ronnie recorded while with them, such as “Sign of the Southern Cross” and of course “Heaven and Hell” from Sabbath, as well as “Tarot Woman” and “Gates of Babylon” from his Rainbow days.

Holy Diver Live - Dio - 2006 (Eagle)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...yDiverLive.jpg

At least there are no medleys with Rainbow songs this time, but you would still wonder why the only songs he took from the Black Sabbath era (or, at least, were included on the album) were those two, as there were better songs he could have chosen. Nevertheless, this basically is the last live Dio album, other than one which would be released in 2010 but recorded in the late eighties.


Ronnie then linked up again with Black Sabbath members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, and reunited with his former Dio/Sabbath bandmate Vinny Appice once again. The four entered the studio in 2007 to work on their first project together since 1992, a compilation of the work of Ronnie with Black Sabbath. While I normally don't take note of compilations, this one is worth looking at as it features three new songs which were essentially the first ones written by the new band which would come out of this collaboration, and result in a full album and tour.