Ronnie James Dio

 

This is about the heavy metal singer popularly known as Ronnie James Dio (don’t forget the JAMES!).  Originally named Ronald Padavona.  He changed it to RJD in 1961 as his career was getting started.

Recently I finally listened to Masters of the Moon, his tenth and final solo album.  We’ve seen him in concert as a solo artist, with Black Sabbath, and with Heaven & Hell.  Elf & Rainbow were before we were old enough to go to concerts.

While he was in various bands before Elf, these were not quite the same music (aside from the Elf precursor bands, which did not release any full albums).  I lack even the curiosity to track it down to listen to, but we can laugh at him in short hair and a suit like everyone else back then.  I doubt he was flashing the Devil Sign at audiences back then – or even in Rainbow.  

Elf.  Three albums, S/T (1972), Carolina County Ball (1974), and Trying To Burn The Sun (1975).  These have a far different flavor than his later work, though I’ve only listened to the first one; #2 and 3 are not on Spotify, and the first one didn’t impress me enough to buy the other two.  The lineup of the third album, aside from the guitarist, became the first lineup for Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. 

I don’t hear anyone really spreading the Gospel of Elf, so it seems this band gets its attention by way of morbid curiosity for those of us who want to hear what he was doing before Rainbow.  Oddly, I have heard Elf cover “War Pigs”, long before Live Evil.  It’s standard 70s blues-rock, what you’d expect to hear from Free or Rory Gallagher.  Competently executed with a familiar voice, but beyond that, more of a curiosity than something you’d keep going back to over and over again.

Rainbow.  Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (1975), Rising (1976) and Long Live Rock’n’Roll (1978).   Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, upset and frustrated that his own band became too Soul Train-y thanks to Glenn Hughes and David Coverdale (“shoeshine music” is how he described it) on Stormbringer, quit after that tour.  As ELF had been opening for them, he simply hired them as his backing band – for the first Rainbow album.

By Long Live Rock’n’Roll, Blackmore decided he wanted to move in a more commercial direction and sell zillions of albums – his next singer was Graham Bonnet (Down To Earth).  Dio left the band and eventually hooked up with Black Sabbath, who were missing a singer after they fired Ozzy Osbourne in April 1979. 

These Rainbow albums actually have somewhat of a prog flavor to them, certainly compared to Down to Earth and the subsequent Joe Lynn Turner (looks like Blackmore has a thing for three-name singers – can we call him “Joe Turner?”) albums.  Blackmore loves classical music and blends that in from time to time.  However, I wouldn’t call Rainbow a prog band, and for obvious reasons it sounds more like Deep Purple than any other band. 

Black Sabbath (Part 1).  Heaven & Hell (1980), The Mob Rules (1981), Live Evil (1982).  While Ozzy was starting his solo career with Randy Rhoads, Tony & Geezer got to work with RJD.  Bill Ward started off as the drummer, then leaving, to be replaced by Vinnie Appice.  These are my favorite RJD albums, with my favorite RJD songs:  “Neon Knights”, “Children of the Sea”, “Heaven & Hell”, “Lonely Is the Word” + “Voodoo” and “The Sign of the Southern Cross” (I still can’t stand “The Mob Rules”). 

 When it came time to mix Live Evil, the live album recorded on the Mob Rules tour, the band members accused each other of bumping up their relative contributions in the mix, so Mr. Dio left in a huff of pride and decided to go off on his own.

Solo Career (Part 1).  Holy Diver (1983), The Last In Line (1984), Sacred Heart (1985), Dream Evil (1987), Lock Up The Wolves (1990).  He started off with Vivian Campbell for the first three, Craig Goldy taking over during the Sacred Heart tour and playing on Dream Evil, and Rowan Robertson for the last one.  The rhythm section of Jimmy Bain (bass) (Rainbow) and Vinnie Appice (drums) (Black Sabbath) continued up until Lock Up the Wolves, at which point he had Teddy Cook on bass and Simon Wright, well associated with AC/DC, on drums. To me they all sound exactly the same.  It’s generic heavy metal with fairly pretentious lyrics.  With Dio calling all the shots, no one was going to tell him not to do anything, and thus they fall short of the two Black Sabbath albums – or even the Rainbow albums. 

Black Sabbath (Part 2).  Dehumanizer (1992).  Black Sabbath had recently released TYR with singer Tony Martin, and done a brief tour supporting that album, when they managed to patch things up with Dio and reunite.  “Thank you, Mr. Martin, your services are no longer required.  Buh-bye!”  That reunion lasted for one album and a tour supporting it, which we saw at DAR Constitution Hall in August 1992 in Washington, DC.  Due to their cancellation of the June 1986 show in Paris on the Seventh Star tour, this was the first time my brother and I were finally able to see Black Sabbath in concert.  The set included material from Dehumanizer, of course, but also from Heaven & Hell, The Mob Rules, and a handful of Ozzy/Sabbath songs. 

The tour wrapped up in Costa Mesa, California, right at the same time Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears tour ended nearby.  Ozzy agreed to come on for an encore, but Dio refused to play the concert, so Rob Halford (of Judas Priest) took over for the main set.  Dio’s explanation seems to be that he was only contracted to play up to the show before that one, but that begs the question of why he refused to play that one and earn a little bit more.  Logic suggests his pride was hurt, he left to resume his solo career again, picking up where he left off.

Solo Career (Part 2).  Strange Highways (1993), Angry Machines (1996), Magica (2000), Killing The Dragon (2002), Master of the Moon (2004).  Tracy G (?) on guitar for the first two, Craig Goldy for Magica and Master of the Moon, and Doug Aldrich on Killing the Dragon.  Bass duties switch from Jeff Pilson (Dokken) and Jimmy Bain (who is on Magica and Killing The Dragon); drums were Vinnie Appice for the first two, Simon Wright for the remaining three.  People give Ritchie Blackmore grief for his perpetually changing Rainbow lineups; Jimmy Bain himself scoffed, “our banjo player kept shooting himself in the foot firing players left and right.”  But it looks like Dio had the same problem.  On the other hand, his wife Wendy is often described as playing a similar role as Sharon Osbourne, managing him (as well as other metal acts).  Who made the personnel choices?  No idea, and not particularly concerned either.

In any case, these are five more albums which sound exactly the same, and sound essentially the same as the previous five: generic metal, generic metal guitar solos, and the same pretentious lyrics. 

Heaven & Hell.  The Devil You Know (2009).  It seems the bridges with Tony & Geezer weren’t entirely burned.  However, Iommi’s dispute with Ozzy about the rights to Black Sabbath ensured that this reunion would be called something other than Black Sabbath.  They picked this name, put out another album, and toured it.  If the prior three albums were “Black Sabbath” then so was this, in all but name. 

For some reason I don’t really care much for Dehumanizer and The Devil You Know, compared to Heaven & Hell and The Mob Rules.  I don’t know what happened in the first ten year gap, or the second 17 year gap. 

Live Appearances.  We were too young to see the Heaven & Hell or The Mob Rules tours with Black Sabbath, but we did manage to see him on his solo tour for Sacred Heart, at the Zenith in Paris, on May 5, 1986.  Someone tossed a banner at him, interrupting him while singing, prompting him to respond, “thanks, dick!”  As noted earlier, we managed to catch Black Sabbath on the Dehumanizer tour in DC, on August 7, 1992.  Then Dio again on his solo tour for Strange Highways, at a small club in Springfield, Virginia, Boots – better known as Jaxx, and far smaller than the indoor arena the Zenith in Paris – on September 21, 1994  The last times we saw him on stage were all with Heaven & Hell, Merriweather Post Pavilion (May 18, 2007), Nissan Pavilion (August 7, 2008), and Merriweather again (August 23, 2009).  He passed away from cancer on May 16, 2010, so that ended his concert appearances and album releases, though I understand his hologram (???) has been making appearances.  Jedi Dio?  Who knows.

Of the material he did, from Elf through Heaven & Hell, the only albums I really like and enjoy are Heaven & Hell and The Mob Rules.  Elf is … interesting, but not particularly enjoyable.  Rainbow is like a pretentious version of Deep Purple for me, “Rainbow Eyes” being my favorite.  Still, it’s enjoyable in itself, more so than his solo material.  I have all three Dio-Rainbow CDs (plus Live in Munich 1977), and Down To Earth through Stranger In Us All on CD.

As for his solo albums…   All ten sound pretty much the same to me.  Whether the guitarist is Vivian Campbell or Craig Goldy, it’s the same each time.  Some riffs, a technically astute but unmemorable guitar solo, and lyrics invariably invoking a rainbow at some point (for which I suppose we can blame Blackmore).  He’s like a prog singer, but backed up by a generic heavy metal band.  It’s like James LaBrie of Dream Theater took over from Vince Neil in Motley Crue. 

Deep Led Black Matrix

 

I recently finished listening to Whoosh!, the latest album by Deep Purple, which finishes up my listening quest of a particular sort.   About a year ago I compiled a table of all the studio releases by Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, in order of release.  It’s interesting the way they dovetail with each other.

Deep Purple (Mark I) was the first, with Shades of Deep Purple in 1968.  Ironically, they’re also the most recent, with the aforementioned Whoosh!, although Rod Evans and Nick Simper are long gone; the current lineup has Steve Morse on guitar, Don Airey on keyboards, Roger Glover on bass, Ian Gillan on vocals, and the other Ian (Paice) on drums, now the only member to have been with the band from start to finish.  Led Zeppelin, formed by Jimmy Page from the ashes of the Yardbirds, were next, releasing the self-titled Led Zeppelin album in 1969.  Finally Black Sabbath brought us their first album on Friday, February 13, 1970 (though the US release was in June of that year).  Of the three, Purple’s self-titled album was their third, not their debut.  And the fourth LZ album, although not having a real title, per se, is commonly referred to as LZ IV, as they already had a self-titled album.   

Here are some nuggets, not exactly secrets.   Unlike the other two, Led Zeppelin had only one lineup – when John Bonham died in September 1980, it was game over for the band.  I’ve included the two Page-Plant albums and Celebration Day, but not Outrider, the Plant solo albums, or Them Crooked Vultures (John Paul Jones’ supergroup collaboration with Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and Dave Grohl of Nirvana & Foo Fighters).  I’ve also omitted Rainbow (Blackmore and some DP alumni), Whitesnake (Coverdale and some DP alumni), Gillan/Ian Gillan Band, as well as compilation albums.  However, both Born Again and Seventh Star (with Gillan and Hughes) make the cut.  Also, Heaven & Hell is essentially Black Sabbath with Dio (The Mob Rules & Dehumanizer lineups), and The Dio Years includes three new tracks.  For live albums, I put them in sequence according to when they were recorded, not when they were released (e.g. The Song Remains The Same).  Bootlegs are too numerous to count…

So here it is, year by year.  Just to be cute and lazy, I’ll omit the band names, see if you can recognize who made which albums – it shouldn’t be hard for the veterans amongst us:

1968     Shades of Deep Purple, Book of Taliesyn (Mark I).

1969     Led Zeppelin (S/T = self-titled), Deep Purple (S/T, third of three Mark I albums), Concerto for Group and Orchestra, Led Zeppelin II

1970     Black Sabbath (S/T), In Rock, Paranoid, LZ III

1971     Fireball, Master of Reality, LZ IV

1972     Machine Head, Vol 4, Made in Japan (Live)

1973     Who Do We Think We Are, Houses of the Holy, The Song Remains the Same (Live), Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath

1974     Burn, Stormbringer

1975     Physical Graffiti, Sabotage, Come Taste The Band

1976.    Presence, Technical Ecstasy

1978     Never Say Die

1979     In Through The Out Door

1980     Heaven And Hell

1981     The Mob Rules

1982     CODA, Live Evil

1983     Born Again

1984     Perfect Strangers

1986     Seventh Star

1987     House of Blue Light, Eternal Idol

1988     Nobody’s Perfect (Live)

1989     Headless Cross

1990     TYR, Slaves and Masters

1992     Dehumanizer

1993     The Battle Rages On

1994     No Quarter (Live)

1995     Forbidden

1996     Purpendicular

1997     Reunion (Live)

1998     Walking Into Clarksdale, Abandon

2003     Bananas

2005     Rapture of the Deep

2007     Live from Radio City Music Hall (Live); Black Sabbath: The Dio Years; Celebration Day (Live)

2009     The Devil You Know

2013     Now What ?!, Thirteen

2017     The End: Live in Birmingham (Live), Infinite

2020     Whoosh!           

Not As Good < > Not Good

 

Oftentimes people sometimes confuse the two.  I suppose many of us who are married, and had several different romantic partners over the ages, might acknowledge that the person they settled down with was not their optimal sexual partner – but the person who was, had other issues (e.g. infidelity or general personal incompatibility) which made the current partner the overall optimal one.

 Moving away from relationships, this features for several musical groups.

 GRATEFUL DEAD.  The band began in San Francisco in 1965 and remained active until Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995.  After that time, the surviving band members reformed for several tours, playing the classic material with no new material recorded or released after Jerry died.  Veteran Deadheads will tell you that Jerry’s health issues in 1986 mean that the ’86-’95 version was never quite as good as the ’65-’86 version. 

 A colleague of mine had seen them multiple times before 1986 and never after that.  I invited him to join me for the 2020 show of Dead & Company – Jerry’s place taken by John Mayer, and original members Bobby Weir, Bill Kreutzman and Mickey Hart still on stage, bassist Phil Lesh still alive but too old to tour anymore – at Jiffy Lube Live.  Initially he dismissed this out of hand, but after listening to official recording of the 2019 show, he changed his mind.  [Update 2021: While the 2020 show was canceled due to COVID, we managed to see the show in August 2021, and both enjoyed it immensely, Jerry Garcia's absence notwithstanding.] 

 I’m not in a position to compare Dead & Company with pre-86 Grateful Dead.  My sole experience with Jerry-era Dead was two shows at RFK, 1992 and 1995.  I would say the subsequent shows I saw were comparable enough in quality to make the shows worth attending.

 AC/DC.  Bon Scott died in February 1980, soon replaced by Brian Johnson.   The first two Brian Johnson albums, Back in Black and For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) were top quality and just about as good – in my opinion – as the Bon Scott albums.  After that, the quality dropped dramatically.   Listening to the current album, Power Up, it’s occurred to me that musically, the band is still OK.  The “weakest link” is Johnson’s vocals, accurately described as “Marge Simpson”.  Of all the available singers, Brian Johnson is the best they can find?  Fortunately the band plays Bon Scott material and plenty of songs from Back in Black.  But later material from Blow Up Your Video through Stiff Upper Lip seriously straddle the distinction between “not as good” and “not good”. 

 Black Sabbath.  For their part, Sabbath have their classic Ozzy Osbourne era, followed by two excellent albums with Ronnie James Dio, then a slew of albums which aren’t nearly as impressive.  However, I listened to Eternal Idol and Headless Cross, both with singer Tony Martin, and found them enjoyable enough.  Not quite up to Heaven & Hell or Vol 4, but enjoyable enough.  I’m revisiting TYR right now, and will tackle Cross Purposes, Forbidden, and 13 in the coming weeks.  I can’t say there’s any Black Sabbath album, with any singer, I’d describe as “not good”.  Moreover, on the Cross Purposes tour, they pulled out “Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath”, “The Wizad”, “Into the Void”, and the full “Symptom of the Universe”, including the second acoustic part.  I’ve heard bootlegs from the ‘70s with Ozzy, and even then they weren’t playing the full song.  So give them some credit for putting on an awesome show, even if it wasn’t even Martin’s own material.

 Van Halen.  I haven’t heard the Gary Cherone album (Van Halen III), nor the fourth Sammy Hagar album (Balance), and of course I have heard all the David Lee Roth albums – offhand, I don’t recall much about A Different Kind of Truth, the only post-Hagar DLR album.  I prefer the DLR material, but Hagar’s stuff is good enough to qualify as “not as good” instead of “not good”.  Having said that, also prefer Hagar on his own and with The Circle (with Vic Johnson and Jason Bonham) or Chickenfoot (with Joe Satriani and Chad Smith).  I can’t say I’ve heard anything by Hagar I could call “not good”. 

Wishbone Ash.  Here's a band that's been around since the early 70s.  The classic lineup, for the first four albums, S/T, Pilgrimage, Argus, and Wishbone IV, was Andy Powell (guitar/vocals), Ted Turner (guitar/vocals), Martin Turner (actually not related to Ted) (bass/vocals), and Steve Upton (drums).  After IV the various band members left, leaving Andy Powell the only original member.  The classic lineup reunited in the late 80s for Nouveau Calls, but soon Powell was left by himself again, at this point I don't know why.  By the time I got into them and was looking to see them live, (2000), Powell remained the only original member of the band.  I chose to see the band anyway, and lo and behold, it was a worthwhile experience.  Of course, Powell's lineup plays plenty of classic tunes, and the current group puts out new material of competitive quality.  Maybe not as good as the first four, but certainly "good enough". 

Never Say Die!

It’s not here because I only now discovered this album, or because I bought a new and amazing remaster that changes the game completely.  In fact, I stopped upgrading our original Paris (FNAC) purchased vinyl to 180 grain at Sabotage, so our vinyl version of this album is the one we bought in high school in the 1980s.  I do have a remastered CD (2004 Universal/Sanctuary).

I’m commenting on this because this was on my DP/LZ/BS queue and it came up to listen to.  It’s the last (#8) of the original slew of Black Sabbath albums with Ozzy Osbourne, and its tour was the last with Ozzy, Van Halen being the up and coming band opening for them.  My impression is that it’s generally held in bad repute by 1) non-fans who don’t really like Sabbath and only willing to say good things if the album, e.g. Paranoid, is so obviously musically significant that they would look like idiots if they ignored or criticized it; and 2) Black Sabbath fans who prefer Ronnie James Dio over Ozzy Osbourne.  For them, Heaven & Hell trumps any of the Ozzy albums, even Paranoid or Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath (my favorite).  Us Sabbath fans who do prefer Ozzy to Dio (like me) generally concede it’s a substandard album, but listening to it again, sober on the treadmill, I’ve come to some fresh conclusions.

First off, Bill is drumming like crazy here.  Moreover, the solos on even some of the otherwise less memorable songs is still blazing.  So whatever else might have been going badly for them at the time – e.g. Ozzy leaving and then coming back, refusing to sing any Dave Walker material – when it came time to press RECORD and PLAY THE MUSIC they stepped up and got the job done.  Were they coked up?  Strung out?  Hung over? Who knows.  Somehow they did it.

Actually, I should add a third category of NSD haters: the band itself.  Bill Ward seems to be the only one who defends it, and given his performance I’m not surprised.

Second, the prior albums were so good, that this album was doomed to suffer by comparison.  Only the Beatles seemed to rise to the occasion of consistently outdoing themselves – coming from a fan who prefers the White Album to Dr. Pepper (and I know others who prefer Abbey Road). 

Third, while I hear some jazzy stuff in there – particularly “Air Dance”, which is actually my favorite track, “Junior’s Eyes” being #2 – it still rocks.  In a sense, they wound up like Budgie, pushing in some non-rock directions to break up the monolithic mold of the prior doomy albums.  They recorded the album at Sounds Interchange in Toronto (the Canadian capital) and Rush Jr. aka Max Webster were recording Mutiny Up My Sleeve at the same time.  Kim Mitchell mentions this, though no one in the Black Sabbath camp seems to mention Max Webster.  Then again, Tony was also hanging out with Frank Zappa, who accompanied them on the tour, so perhaps yet another famous mustache-and-SG guitarist had his own influences which no one seems to acknowledge.  Frank Sabbath?  Perish the thought.

Fourth, listening to this not immediately after Technical Ecstasy (#7), but with the benefit of a few proto-Whitesnake albums by David Coverdale, returning to Sabbath was actually more of a relief and welcome rather than a disappointment.  So I may have been more predisposed to be favorable than previously.

The bottom line is that if you listen to it on its own, without trying to compare it to the prior or later albums, you might actually enjoy it.