With so many legendary figures from the past, nostalgia is very common in Rock and Roll.
Ronnie James Dio 's career while he was still alive or discovered his music after he passed away, there's no doubt that he was one of the great voices of Rock.
Best known for his work in the band Dio , for his brief but very memorable participation in Rainbow, or even for his time with the band considered the creator of Heavy Metal, Black Sabbath , Ronald James Padavona first caught the attention of Hard Rock fans with the band ELF .
It was while singing with ELF that the diminutive Ronnie James Dio, with his gigantic voice, made Ritchie Blackmore believe that there could be life beyond Deep Purple.
Dissatisfied with the musical direction his band was taking, Blackmore found in Dio the ideal partner to start a new band and leave Deep Purple in the past, at least for a while.
Dio's first involvement in a prominent Hard Rock project came with the song "Love Is All," from the project The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast (1974), produced by Roger Glover, who had just been fired from Deep Purple.
The project also featured other well-known voices such as Ian Gillan, David Covardale , and Glenn Hughes , and eventually became a TV special.
“Love Is All” features one of Dio's most impressive vocal performances, although it sounds more like a Beatles song than the great metal classics that made him a legend. It's worth checking out!
What very few people know is that Ronnie James Dio began his musical career in the 1960s with high school friends, singing and playing bass with the band Ronnie and The Rumblers , which changed its name to Ronnie and The Red Caps and later to Ronnie and The Prophets.
Except for Dio's already fantastic voice in 1961, the band bears no resemblance to the work that forever marked Hard Rock and Heavy Metal after Rainbow in 1975.
The music they made was more that classic Doo-Wop from the pre- Beatles . You can't say they were great compositions. The band never went very far, like The Platters and other bands from the same period, despite having released some albums and played many shows.
It's funny to see the photos with Dio and the rest of the band in suits and with pompadour hairstyles in true Rockabilly style.
Elvis Presley reigned supreme, but even a quick listen reveals that Dio was a vocalist far above average.
Doo Wop eventually became a musical style of the past and did not survive the following decades. Fortunately for us, Ronnie James Dio ended up exploring other paths and left his mark on music as one of the greatest voices in Rock to this day.
Take our quiz about Dio and see how much you know about this music legend!
