Tonight the news reached me of the death of one of my favorite rock singers ever, Ronnie James Dio. Once the singer with Rainbow, later with Black Sabbath and own band Dio, then with a revamped Black Sabbath, which they had to call Heaven & Hell.
Ronnie was a great singer. He wrote great melody lines, which often were not easy to sing. Surely not a shouter or screamer. This guy really could sing.
I met him on a couple of occasions during the Rainbow days. He was such a nice person.
There are many songs related to Ronnie. The stand out classic for me is Rainbow’s Catch The Rainbow, but he delivered also unforgettable tunes like Man On The Silver Mountain, Stargazer, Gates Of Babylon (all with Rainbow), Heaven and Hell (with Black Sabbath) and ofcourse the great Holy Diver album with his own band).
I remember seeing him at a Rockpalast broadcast with Heaven And Hell last year, thinking: what a way to rock at this age.
Sadly a stomach cancer came up, a hard thing to deal with.
I remember Ronnie. Hope you catch the almighty Rainbow.
I totally agree with you. After I heard the sad news I listened to my favourite Rainbow tracks (Mistreated, Catch the rainbow, both liveversions) with volume on 10….
Hi,
Thanks for your kind words.
Ronnnie surely was a major influence when I started singing in rockbands from 1980 onwards. I had met him on a couple of occasions after Rainbow gigs, which was before I started a Rainbow Fanclan in 1979.
His incredible singing techique and his ability to write such great melody lines really struck me.
A good melody is the most important part of a song. That’s what I learned from Ronnnie. And that still goes with the songs on B.Loose. The melody of the title song owes a lot to Ronnie.
With love from me to you,
Kazz