Ronnie James Dio

deakle

deakle

Experienced
So I just finished watching a live recording of Heaven and Hell performing. Ronnie James Dio was a legendary vocalist. I had the honor of seeing him live on the Last In Line tour with Viv Campbell. What a pairing. I saw the movie Heavy Metal in a theater and that was the first time I heard Mob Rules and Ronnie’s vocals. His opening scream/growl on that song would make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. The greatest thing about Ronnie was that he was real. What he did in the studio, he could also pull off live. I would put him in the same league as Freddie Mercury. He did not have the range that Freddie had, no one did, but he was just as an accomplished vocalist. Any other Dio fans out there?
 
100%!

He was a powerhouse and he totally delivered live as well as in the studio.

I love all of his work from Rainbow to Sabbath to Dio. Somewhere around here I've even got an original Elf album on vinyl :)

He is my favorite vocalist from the '70s+ era singers.

To my mind, Chris Cornell was the next generation version of RJD.
 
deakle said:
I saw the movie Heavy Metal in a theater and that was the first time I heard Mob Rules and Ronnie’s vocal
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Likewise. I then bought both the soundtrack AND the sabbath album on cassette.

Fun fact: Dio was supposed to sing on the following but he was not well, so instead, it's his cousin Shawn Albro!


Here's Dweezil's note:
As a kid I grew up in the Heavy Metal era. Metal was the most popular music in the world for a brief moment in the early to mid 80's. It began to be lampooned towards the end of the decade and in 1988 my dad wrote the hilarious lyrics to "Dragon Master." On the side of the stage at a soundcheck in Sweden he handed me the handwritten lyrics and said, "you should write the music to this." I eventually did and the song appeared on my Via Zammata album ... I got this guy Shawn Albro to sing it, and he's actually cousins with Ronnie James Dio, one of the greatest metal singers of all time.
 
Admin M@ said:
Likewise. I then bought both the soundtrack AND the sabbath album on cassette.

Fun fact: Dio was supposed to sing on the following but he was not well, so instead, it's his cousin Shawn Albro!


Here's Dweezil's note:
As a kid I grew up in the Heavy Metal era. Metal was the most popular music in the world for a brief moment in the early to mid 80's. It began to be lampooned towards the end of the decade and in 1988 my dad wrote the hilarious lyrics to "Dragon Master." On the side of the stage at a soundcheck in Sweden he handed me the handwritten lyrics and said, "you should write the music to this." I eventually did and the song appeared on my Via Zammata album ... I got this guy Shawn Albro to sing it, and he's actually cousins with Ronnie James Dio, one of the greatest metal singers of all time.
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I remember DZ talking about this story when the album was released. :)
 
Ronnie Dio is my all time favorite hard rock/metal singer by a wide margin. His albums with Rainbow are a high watermark of "hard rock goodness" in my world. His expression, vocal control, nuanced phrasing and delivery, technical ability, etc. are all top notch. He is soooooo emotive and expressive...

Two songs that stand out for me are "Stargazer" and "Gates Of Babylon" (Gates also has one of Blackmore's coolest solos in it IMO too! Hmmm, as does Stargazer heh); those are vocal performances for the ages.

And ya, he could do it all live too; when I saw "Heaven And Hell" he was ~67 years old (!!!!) and he nailed everything...all of the epic vocals for those Dio-era Sabbath he just masterfully performed, without dropping the keys, changing the melodies to make them easier, not getting "the crowd" to sing by constantly pulling the mic away and pointing it outwards... he brought it and made me love and respect him even more.

A giant among giants...it doesn't get better then RJD in my world...!

If you listen to fools......the mob rules....🤟
 
Yeah, Dio is an all time favorite to say the least.
It's funny, I just read this thread and then went and looked at a news feed and the first thing I see is Billboard's 'The Top 75 Movie Songs of All Time' and the first thing that came to mind was Kickapoo rofl. The first time I watched that I sat straight up like NO WAY =D !!! and played Dio's section over about 10 times before going on to watch the rest.
 
unix-guy said:
100%!

He was a powerhouse and he totally delivered live as well as in the studio.

I love all of his work from Rainbow to Sabbath to Dio. Somewhere around here I've even got an original Elf album on vinyl :)

He is my favorite vocalist from the '70s+ era singers.

To my mind, Chris Cornell was the next generation version of RJD.
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Carolina County Ball? I had it on vinyl too.
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I had the pleasure to see him in Barcelona. With Black Sabbath, and with his band
Dio.jpg
 
I saw Dio at Madison Square Garden with Craig Goldie on guitar. It was the first time that I heard Man on a Silver Mountain and I was blown away by all the great songs that I didn’t know that he did. Unfortunately, the crowd was pretty wild and pissed Dio off. People smuggled in fireworks and were lighting them off into the crowd. I thought some of them were part of the show until I saw a guy near the front row get hit in the face with an exploding firework (and not a small one). Then I saw lots of seat cushions being ripped off and thrown towards the stage.
Dio scolded the crowd and didn’t come back to do an encore. Regardless of the shenanigans, it was still a great show.
 
unix-guy said:
I was actually enjoying the bass on both tracks. Very nicely mixed!
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The bassist on "Mask of the Great Deceiver" was Paul Goddard from Atlanta Rhythm Section. The bassist on "To Live for the King" was Gary Gilbert and the album was recorded in Kerry's home studio. Sorry for geeking out on the details. Kerry used to live nearby and we became good friends during that time. He had a lot of great stories!
 
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