Dio Black Sabbath

No. Rainbow moved upon the moods of Ritchie Blackmore. With Dio as singer, the first album was an extension of Elf, an American hard rock band, except with Blackmore as superb guitarist, replacing
"Rods" Feinstein. Second album with Dio was a double live set, notable for excruciatingly long and slow blues jam leftovers from Deep Purple. Third and fourth albums, "Rising" and "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll" upped the voltage and drama for a heavy Goth sound which Dio would take into his solo career.

Then Rainbow went in a more hit song direction, started placing radio and MTV friendly stuff on records. It's good listening and still heavy but smoother and more chrome streamlined than the Dio edition and not at all like Judas Priest.

One of the funniest things I ever read: This guitar magazine used to have a "listening booth" thing like Downbeat & Wire used to have (& presumably still do.) Around '87, they had Dio guitarist Viv Campbell in the booth to listen to a few tracks. One of the tracks was Black Sabbath's '82 live version of "Paranoid", featuring R.J. Dio himself on vocals. No joke: Campbell's comment was something like "I like the song but not this version...that singer's lousy, whoever he is!" I'm not sure how much longer his tenure in Dio (the band) was...

I think "Stargazer" is Dio's greatest vocal performance.

Strange, the 2004 Sanctuary remasters are nowhere to be found. It seems they were a limited edition, possibly an import. Amazon lists Mob Rules for $35 used and Heaven And Hell isn't even available. However the The Rules Of Hell box set both albums and more. Is it worth it for the live album and the double live?

Yes. The box set comes pretty cheap (I got it for $40) considering what you get.

I've still got food coma from lunch. I meant double live and the 90s album. It's $34 used on Amazon.

that live album by dio-era sabbs rocks pretty hard, if that's what comes in the box set, get it.

mob rules and heaven and hell, along with the abovementioned live album, are perfectly respectable black sabbath albums, and as a teen i liked them much better than the previious few ozzy/sabs albums (though it would be interesting to hear them all again now)

Like every proper Sabbath album up until Dio's departure (including some live stuff) is fucking gold.

Coincidentally I was just listening to Master Of Reality a moment ago...

I've never owned 'Dehumanizer' but i've been meaning to pick up a copy ever since seeing them last year, when they opened with "(After All) The Dead" -- a GREAT doom track from that record. (well, ok, technically they always open with "E5150", hehe). I've still never heard that record but i remembered a portion of the lyrics and ran home and googled it. It sounded so good live. Unfortunately, they didn't play it this year in their abbreviated set on Metal Masters (but they did do "I" again.) They also didn't play that new tune "The Devil Cries" from the 'Dio Years' comp, another doomy track that sure sounded great live last year...

I like rainbow rising better than either of the sabbath dio albums.

I was at the Radio City show, they opened E5150 into After All. Dehumanizer's pretty good.

Oh yeah, I meant to ask if anyone had seen the Metal Masters tour. I wanted to go two weeks ago, but was still recovering from a broken ankle. How was Dio/Sabbath compared to Judas Priest, Testament and Motorhead?

"It seems like Dio's overall output only has maybe 4 good albums, tops? "

Richie Blackmore is a witch during his solos, but often in Rainbow he seems to just lazily lay back and not play much rhythm guitar or if he does it is pretty pedestrian. I think there is about a good album out of the three Rainbow records. Blackmore seemed to be really pushed a whole lot more when he had another musician like Jon Lord working with him. I like the first two Dio solo albums when Vivian Campbell was the guitarist, there are a few tunes there that are quite good. Dio seemed to really go pop metal after the first two albums.

That said, the two Sabbath records tower over most of Dio's other stuff.

Richie Blackmore is a witch during his solos, but often in Rainbow he seems to just lazily lay back and not play much rhythm guitar or if he does it is pretty pedestrian.

crazytalk, on rainbow rising he chugs like 15 locomotives

kill the kiiiiiiiiiing, shoot him dooooooooowwwn (etc)

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/blackmore_hat.jpg

cease your infernal voguing, wench
and freeth my hand from this lantern

haha that pic is kinda rad you have to admit

in many ways

I predict conical hobbit hats will be all the rage this fall

heading to I love style for 2nd opinion

they are busy with their talketh about gossip girl so I am leaving them alone

Dio's a damn good vocalist but to me Heaven and Hell is like having sex with a girl with one leg. It's good but something's missing.

The Blackmore pic's fantastic.

Dio's a damn good vocalist but to me Heaven and Hell is like having sex with a girl with one leg. It's good but something's missing.

― Officer, I Just Shot Seven People (Bo Jackson Overdrive), Friday, September 12, 2008 4:07 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i suspect you have never had sex with a girl with one leg or heard heaven and hell!

I've heard Heaven and Hell. It's pretty meh compared with, oh, I don't know....Paranoid, Volume IV, Black Sabbath, or Masters of Reality.

but "Die Young" is pretty nice. "Lonely is the Word" suuuuuucks and rips Stairway too though...

I just picked up the two disc Live at Radio City Music Hall 2007 thing they put out. It's pretty exceptional. It feels like a group of seasoned musicians excited to be playing together again.

lots of metalheads really rate the dio era, but i just can't get into it at all, sorry. :/

Dio puts an effort into his singing, but he's consistently missed the point about Sabbath.

"The clarity is provided in the first four releases."-Cisneros

The remarkable thing about Dio Sabbath is that it's one of the rare instances in which a popular band changed singers and, instead of trying to force the new vocalist to adapt to their old style, adjusted their sound to fit the strengths of the frontman while retaining the integrity of the band.

"Dio puts an effort into his singing . ."

Oh c'mon, even as a casual listener, I'd never mistake RJ for a man giving it less than 150%.

dio sabbath is its own animal. not as emotional or as seminal as ozzy sabbath, but still fucking awesome.

"The remarkable thing about Dio Sabbath is that it's one of the rare instances in which a popular band changed singers and, instead of trying to force the new vocalist to adapt to their old style, adjusted their sound to fit the strengths of the frontman while retaining the integrity of the band."

IRON MAIDEN

finally got around to picking up Mob Rules and Heaven and Hell. Mob Rules seems to be the better of the two - Dio brings a smile to my face.

they are both awesome IMO, mob rules is more of a "deep cuts" record but heaven and hell has more hits.

i should get dehumanizer sometime

LOOK OUT!

New album being recorded this year. Based on the three new songs included on the Dio Years compilation, should be awesome.

yeah, based on those new songs the new one should be great.

"i should get dehumanizer sometime"

Absolutely. It's great.

Heaven and Hell > Mob Rules > Live Evil > Dehumanizer (which still has some GREAT tracks)

I haven't heard the 3 new tracks and Heaven & Hell has never played any closer to Portland than SF or Vancouver BC. Wish they would!

"LOOK OUT!" is my favorite thing for a singer to shout. definitely better than "YEAH!" and just edges out "UH!"

You know below is a pretty impressive run of albums. I can't think of any other hard rock or metal singer that had a run like this across 2 bands let alone 3.

Rainbow
Rising
Long Live Rock N Roll
Heaven and Hell
Mob Rules
Live Evil
Holy Diver
The Last In Line

I still have never heard that Rainbow live album with Dio, it's probably pretty good too.

That's about as good a run as you can have.

might as well put this here. seek this album out if you wanna hear Iommi magic on a heavy funky rock track that isn't a sabbath track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQOrs5HkJ_w

killer solo at about the 5:45 mark. sounds waaaaaaaaaaay cooler and bigger on vinyl. needless to say.

some grim vocals on that song

Dehumanizer fucking kills, holy cow

I love Dehumanizer. It's like Sabbath meets Metallica and Megadeth. I feel pretty fortunate I got to see this line-up on their last two tours before Ronnie's death. I saw the original line-up in 99 and didn't have much desire to see them again.

The two times I saw Dio, 98 in a suburban "entertainment center", and with Heaven & Hell in an arena, each time he was such a great front man, I went from think Dio was fine to being a true believer. He made that little room feel like the biggest venue on earth and the basketball arena like a club show. I would rank him as one of the very best live performers I've ever seen.

I'm talking Iggy or Prince level working a room, it was amazing

http://riotfest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ronnie-james-dio-1024x575.jpg

I've never thought much of Dio other than that he came off as kind of corny... so I've spent the last few days listening closely to the stuff he did with Sabbath, and I don't think those 4 (5 accounting for Ward) made a wrong turn anywhere down the line. It was incredible to listen to albums with decade plus gaps between them suffer no loss of energy, ability or songwriting. They just worked well together. Really a lot of fun to (re)discover after all this time.

So, how tall is Dio?

I mean, he started in a band called Elf, and, reportedly, Don Arden quit over having Sabbath fronted by a 'dwarf'

5'4 according to Google, but that's not including the stack heels

Four inches shorter than John Lennon.

It's not exactly dwarfy though. Apparently Gerry Marsden is 5 ft 1

Turn up the night!!!!

Short enough that in 98 when I saw him on a not particularly high stage with a big crowd of tall dudes in front of me I can't say I actually laid eyes on him a lot

my uncle told me a story about literally bumping into lil dio after a rainbow concert but i think he might be lying

There's a song on Dehumanizer, "Sins of the Father", which begins with a very untypical-for-Dio singsong modal major-key melody. What it does resemble, though, is the kind of melody that solo Ozzy specialized in. Knowing Dio's opinion of Ozzy, this is surely not a tribute, but could it be a parody? Or just Dio taking an Iommi riff and making the best of it?

One of the top comments on this YouTube: "Most ozziest performance by dio on any of the three albums he was with them"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xODnaNBov88