Ronnie James Dio 1942 – 2010

I’ve always been a fan of rock music in its various forms, as long as those forms included guitars, from Chuck Berry onwards. I love British Rock/Blues in particular, from Eric Clapton, Rory Gallagher, Deep Purple and so on. I craved, however, something heavier, harder, but I could find nothing in the local record shops or on the radio, until I tuned into Radio 1’s Alan Freeman show. Freeman (a.k.a “Fluff”) had a rock show on Saturdays, which was where you could hear something that wasn’t pop or dance. One day he played Tarot Woman by Rainbow. I worked out that the guitarist was Richie Blackmore from Deep Purple, but the things that really struck me about this band was firstly, that they were using a wonderful sweeping synthesizer (played by Tony Carey) and secondly, the tremendously powerful vocals from one Ronnie James Dio – even more powerful than Ian Gillan.

Dio’s bombastic operatic style was later targeted as one of the worst examples of the excesses of Heavy Metal and Progressive Rock, but I didn’t care. It was more than just rhythmic shouting and growling, found in some Heavy Metal singers’ styles, but with melodies that you just couldn’t get out of your head (Children of the Sea, Rainbow in the Dark, Don’t talk to Strangers, etc., etc.) Quite a few Metal bands tried to follow the operatic, melodic route (Uriah Heep, Saxon, Iron Maiden) but their vocalists just didn’t have the combination of range and power that Dio had, and brought to every band he fronted.

It wasn’t only his vocals that he brought to those bands. He also wrote songs with fantastical lyrics that obviously had great appeal to the hoards of fantasy literature fans, who were, of course, in the same demographic as Metal fans. While steering clear of direct Tolkien references, the songs were often fantasy stories, relating a snapshot from the history of an evil regime, or from epic journeys or other such fantasy tropes. The stories in the songs are often cleverly open-ended, giving you a glimpse into a world and it's occupants that makes you want to carry the story on in your head after the song is over, like many good short works of fiction do. Together with the melodies that went with the usually driving rhythms (though he wasn't averse to writing the odd ballad) this made the songs all the more memorable. Some are ringing round my head right now as I write this.

He joined and left existing bands (Black Sabbath, Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow), as well as forming his own (Elf, Dio) and the albums released during his tenure as vocalist are often regarded as the best in the bands’ back catalogue. He had a lot to live up to with Black Sabbath, and who thought that anyone could have followed Ozzy Ozbourne with his sneaky evil voice? Nevertheless, Heaven and Hell, on which he sang, is regarded as one of Black Sabbath’s best albums since We Sold our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll, with such classics as the title track Heaven and Hell, the aforementioned Children of the Sea, and the driving Neon Nights. The only Rainbow albums I really like are the two he was on: Rising, and Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll.

From Tarot Woman I discovered Dio’s other enterprises, with the only disappointment being his latest collaboration with Black Sabbath’s Toni Iommi and Geezer Butler. For some reason they didn’t call themselves Black Sabbath, but took their name from the title of their last success together: Heaven and Hell. Listening to the samples on iTunes, this is very standard Heavy Metal, and though Dio’s voice was as strong as ever (not bad for a bloke in his 60s!) the material just didn’t have the old spark for me. Ah well, it’s a shame not to go out on a high note, and I might just get the Heaven and Hell album out of respect for the single strongest influence in turning me into a ‘metal head’. Do you think they play Dio’s music in Heaven and Hell? All I know is that he'll be missed down / up here, and we'll never hold it against him that he was an American in the British New Wave Metal scene.