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Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns<\/p>\n
The godfathers of so much that excelled about British rock in the decade that followed their original 1976 demise \u2013 Gillan<\/a>, Whitesnake<\/a>, Rainbow<\/a>, Black Sabbath<\/a> \u2013 perhaps the greatest gift Deep Purple<\/a> bequeathed the world was to help bring forth the exquisite talent and indomitable spirit of American singer Ronnie James Dio<\/a>.<\/p>\n The original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock 249, in May 2018<\/p>\n Before Ritchie Blackmore worked with Ronnie Dio, the guitarist had envisaged what eventually became the first Rainbow album as little more than a side project; a one-off solo escapade inspired by Purple\u2019s rejection of a new Blackmore piece he titled 16th Century Greensleeves \u2013 the kind of stomping pomp-rock hauteur that Purple had once considered their music fortress, but now, in the wake of the white-soul groove Glenn Hughes<\/a> and David Coverdale<\/a> were more keen on exploring, was distinctly old hat.<\/p>\n As Blackmore said in 1983: \u201cI left because I\u2019d met up with Ronnie Dio, and he was so easy to work with. He was originally just going to do one track of a solo LP, but we ended up doing the whole LP in three weeks, which I was very excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n Or as Dio would later put it: \u201cI was always a dreamer type of kid. I immersed myself into fantasy situations by reading science fiction and things that would let my imagination run somewhere. I think there\u2019s a tremendous kinship between science fiction and the mythological era, and I applied all of that to my lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n Well he did after joining up with Blackmore, anyway. Before that, Ronnie Dio<\/a> occupied a lot of different musical spaces \u2013 and times.<\/p>\n Rainbow in Los Angeles, 1975 | Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The only child of a poor immigrant Italian family, Ronald James Padavona was born in Upstate New York on July 10, 1942 \u2013 although for most of his career he insisted he\u2019d been born in 1949. As the newly installed frontman of Rainbow, he may have been ballsy enough to stand in front of thousands and conduct musical lightning, but Dio the fledging rock star didn\u2019t like Rainbow fans knowing he was already 33 by the time he\u2019d been given the opportunity to do so.<\/p>\n Mainly it came down to respect, such a vital component in the self-esteem of Italian-American culture. Ronnie Dio was a man with impeccable manners, generous with his time, funny and kind. Unless you showed him disrespect. He never forgive Ritchie Blackmore for not giving him equal billing in Rainbow.<\/p>\n Still furious years later, he told me how \u201cwhen we first got together it was agreed the group would be called Ritchie Blackmore And Ronnie James Dio\u2019s Rainbow. But when the first album came out, there it was: \u2018Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s Rainbow<\/a>\u2019! What was that about?\u201d<\/p>\n Raised as a Roman Catholic, Ronnie James Padavona\u2019s real religion was music. He had already learned to play bass, piano and trumpet long before he knew he could sing, and joined his first band, the Vegas Kings when he was 15.<\/p>\n Showing the same gritty determination to lead by example that would characterise his whole career, he\u2019d soon swapped the bass for a microphone as the group metamorphosed into first Ronnie & The Ramblers and then Ronnie And The Red Caps; hit YouTube and you can still find young Ronnie fly-me-to-the-moon-ing in tux and bow tie.<\/p>\n Unlike learning to play an instrument, it just seemed to be something that was there immediately \u2013 a gift.<\/p>\n Ronnie James Dio on how he found his voice<\/p>\n There was no denying that incredible voice, though. Singing just came naturally. \u201cUnlike learning to play an instrument, it just seemed to be something that was there immediately,\u201d he told me, \u201ca gift\u201d. Playing the trumpet gave him an edge, he recalled. \u201cPartly to do with knowing how to breathe, partly to do with the fact that the trumpet has its own voice, its own way of phrasing.\u201d<\/p>\n By the late 60s he\u2019d also changed his name, after a notorious mafia figure, Johnny Dio, \u201cbecause it sounded cool\u201d, the band becoming Ronnie Dio And The Prophets. It wasn\u2019t until \u201967 and the summer of love that he grew his hair, stopped shaving, started smoking dope and formed his first rock band, the Electric Elves \u2013 later shrunk to Elf<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ronnie James Dio (left) and Elf, circa 1972 | Credit: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n On stage Dio would stand there banging a cowbell, the band pulling out all the stops with covers of Black Dog, War Pigs, Aqualung\u2026 or when the mood took them and the audience demanded hits, he\u2019d give them Lennon<\/a>\u2019s Imagine, The Beatles<\/a>\u2019 Can\u2019t Buy Me Love\u2026 anything to keep the party going and the paid gigs coming in. Until the band began writing their own stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the first band we had which tried to make it with its own original material,\u201d Dio told me. It was also the first time the singer really got noticed, when Elf was signed to a new record label formed by English rock goliaths Deep Purple. Ian Paice and Roger Glover produced Elf\u2019s first, eponymously titled album, and in 1974 they were invited to support Purple on a US tour.<\/p>\n So far, so good. What\u2019s less known is how much closer \u2013 in loose-lipped style \u2013 Elf were to original good-time Gillan-era Purple than to the kind of medieval metal of Dio-era Rainbow.<\/p>\n \u201cThe kind of songs I wrote in Rainbow all had a more Renaissance-style aspect to them,\u201d Ronnie would tell me. \u201cRitchie and I had always seen Rainbow as being musically a meeting between heavy rock and heavy classical sorts of themes. What I wrote wasn\u2019t poetry, but it was written to say something more than \u2018Baby I love you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Ronnie was originally just going to do one track of a solo LP, but we ended up doing the whole LP in three weeks.<\/p>\n Ritchie Blackmore<\/p>\n Listening to tracks like Self Portrait from their 1975 debut Ritchie Blackmore\u2019s Rainbow, you could hardly argue with that. Described by Blackmore as like \u201ca cross between Bach\u2019s Jesu, Joy Of Man\u2019s Desiring and Hendrix<\/a>\u2019s Manic Depression\u201d, Dio clearly means it when he sings lines like, \u2018Paint me a picture of eyes that never see\/With flashes of lightning that burn for only me\u2019.<\/p>\n Contrast that, though, with Black Swampy Water, the opening track of the third and final Elf album, Trying To Burn The Sun, released the same year: \u2018Uh, back in the wood\/Where it\u2019s good\/Well I saw me a child\/She was wild\/Like a lady going all out.\u2019 This was set to a good-timey Stones\/Faces barrelhouse groove. It\u2019s a great, fun track, actually, well sung, well played, but about as far from Bach as Turner and his Overdrive.<\/p>\n Rainbow in Los Angeles, circa 1975 | Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns<\/p>\n Yet it was Elf \u2013 minus guitarist Steve Edwards \u2013 that Blackmore co-opted to play on that first album. Indeed you can hear the Elf steamroller going full pelt on classic Rainbow tracks like Man On The Silver Mountain<\/a>, and you can hear how much wiser-time soul they injected into the dreamy Catch The Rainbow. But that was Ronnie Dio. Someone who\u2019d learned to roll with the punches and always knew exactly what he was doing.<\/p>\n Doug Thaler was the keyboard player in the Electric Elves from \u201967 until a car crash in \u201971 that left guitarist Nick Pantas dead and Thaler in hospital for months. He recalls a pre-fame Dio as \u201csomeone who was always very driven.<\/p>\n He had been trying for success for a lot of years before he finally got his break with Rainbow. By the time Elf got their deal with the Purple label, Ronnie had already released half a dozen singles on half a dozen labels. He was very frustrated. I think he was worried he\u2019d missed his chance.\u201d<\/p>\n Thaler confirms that it was only after Dio began working with Blackmore<\/a> that he developed his penchant for writing about there being \u2018no sun in the shadow of the wizard\u2019, as he did on Rainbow classics like Stargazer. \u201cHe only became a heavy metal guy after he\u2019d spent time touring with Purple and started in with Rainbow. But Ronnie was a great guy. He was one of those people that if he met you in a club he\u2019d remember your name for the rest of his life. He was a great guy to hang out with, a guy\u2019s guy.\u201d<\/p>\n On stage, Dio took the same highly personal approach to building his relationship with the audience.<\/p>\n Ronnie was a great guy. He was one of those people that if he met you in a club he\u2019d remember your name for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n Doug Thaler<\/p>\n As he told me: \u201cWhen I stand on stage and sing, I like to imagine I\u2019m looking into the eyes of every single person in the audience, that I\u2019m singing specifically for them. And when I\u2019m introducing a song, I never shout, I simply speak to them as though we were having a private conversation.<\/p>\n “Partly, it\u2019s because I\u2019ve always hated frontmen that simply shout and leer at an audience, treating them as though they were one big blob. I\u2019ve always thought that was so rude. And mainly it\u2019s because I take what I do very seriously. Don’t get me wrong, I like to have fun up there. But I really do mean every word I sing or say. And I want people to know that.\u201d<\/p>\n Rainbow in 1977 | Credit: Fin Costello\/Redferns<\/p>\n It was the second Rainbow album, though, Rainbow Rising, that catapulted the band into the annals of rock history. Released in 1976, just weeks after MkIII Purple\u2019s final show in April, and featuring what is now considered the quintessential Rainbow line-up \u2013 all Dio\u2019s former Elf sidemen replaced by rock veterans, drummer Cozy Powell<\/a>, bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey \u2013 Rainbow Rising set the benchmark by which heavy metal albums would be judged throughout the rest of the 70s.<\/p>\n Certainly it was one of the best albums Dio would ever sing on. \u201cYeah, I\u2019d agree with that,\u201d he said nonchalantly. Unfortunately, with the line-up fracturing again (neither Bain nor Carey survived the cull) before the recording of a follow-up could begin, the band\u2019s potential was never fully explored.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a shame, but that\u2019s the way Ritchie liked to work, in order to keep things fresh,\u201d Dio told me, straight-faced. Then once the tape recorder was turned off, what \u201can asshole\u201d Ritchie was.<\/p>\n People still tell me how surprised they were when I left the band shortly after. The truth is, I was kinda surprised myself.<\/p>\n Ronnie Dio<\/p>\n \u201cPeople still tell me how surprised they were when I left the band shortly after. The truth is, I was kinda surprised myself,\u201d Dio joked years later. As he confessed: \u201cUltimately, it was Ritchie\u2019s choice, yes. But it was also mine, in that I knew I couldn\u2019t give him what he wanted.<\/p>\n![\"Classic](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/9642471e2c1d87dd330caf8eb4b51453.jpeg\"\/)
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