Ronnie James Dio in Black Sabbath

Hilarious!
Considering the state Ozzy was reported to be in there was a lot of room for doubt.

 

Well, before Rhoads, reports were that Ozzy would be teaming up with Gary Moore, so I guess I never expected Ozzy to do as you did.

As an aside, Ozzy formed a band circa 1976/1977, and the guitarist was another whiz player (but more jazzy), Baz Dunnery from Necromandus. I didn't know about this until more recent years, but I don't think Ozzy was ever one to think he was going to leave from a band with Tony Iommi and not be ready for school.

 

Sorry, I wasn't that tuned-in. All I knew was that Ozzy was booted for being a hopeless waste case, so I wasn't expecting much. I don't think that Ozzy and Gary Moore would have necessarily set the world on fire either - just having a good guitar player isn't a guarantee of success. Things have to come into place, and it's undeniable that things came into place remarkably well.

 

Well as great as he was, Gary Moore wouldn't really have worked as well either. I personally love his hard rock stuff, but he didn't have the writing ability that Randy had. I mean 'Rockin' Every Night' and 'Nuclear Attack'...awesome as they are they are no 'Crazy Train' or 'Over the Mountain' in the riff department. And then Diary of a Madman..forget it. Moore never would have come up with something like that. Plus let's face it, Gary Moore was not a good looking guy, and Randy Rhoads was.

 

Randy Rhoads was the second coming of Mick Ronson, but about x1000 times more talented.

 

We'll never know. Ozzy also stated that Gary Moore was "too good for him" and he wanted to find a different type of player and do something that would get back to basics. Maybe with Rhoads he was able to do that on some level, but Rhoads was a very technical player. Maybe Ozzy just changed his mind...?

I personally doubt that Gary Moore and Ozzy would have come up with as strong of material, but we can't know. Also I think it's interesting to keep in mind that Heaven And Hell got released, and there can be no question that Blizzard Of Ozz was influenced by it. I don't think it was out when Ozzy was working with Gary Moore, but even if it had been I agree that Ozzy and Randy was almost written in the stars. Dio and Iommi the same.

 

I wasn't even an Ozzy fan, and yet I heard lots of my friends (musicians and non-musicians alike) talking up what an incredible player Rhoads was. There's no doubt that he was a big part of the attraction at that time, both in record sales and in concert attendance. Absolutely no doubt whatsoever. I wouldn't be able to put a percentage on it (not that anybody could, anyway), but Randy was a big part of the interest in Ozzy's solo career in the early going.

 

I've loved the first two Dio Sabbath albums since High School. It seems I got into both Ozzy-era Sabbath, Dio-era Sabbath and DIO (band) all around the same time. I got into the Dio-era Rainbow albums a bit later.

 

A. Ian Gillian
B. Ian Gilligan
C. Ian Gollum

 

I realize people were enamored with Randy Rhoads'
guitar style, but sorry... did he do musical arrangements? Scoring? Producing? Play anything but guitar? Then he was no Mick Ronson.

 

Well, I'm pretty certain he did do arrangements and was capable of doing scoring. He was a very capable, trained musician, probably a lot more so than a lot of heavy metal guitarists. Dying in a plane crash does sort of limit your options though.

 

i was at the cross purposes tour, i think at aragon ballroom, Martin is a great singer. Morbid angel opened???? I think, i was pretty ripped by the end of the opening act, so sabbath could have actually sucked, but from what i remember, the show was amazing and tight.
Martin is a great vocalist ! respect due.
sometimes a voice, just don't fit the band. Martins did !

seventh star is Iommi's beast, isn't it?
either way, like Motorhead, there is not much from Sabbath i don't like.

give em a listen, you may find hidden gems !

I buy off the wall stuff, sometimes i hit pay dirt, sometimes i give em to friends.


either way DIO was an absolute amazing songwriter/lyricist.

 

Ronnie also sang over Tony's greatest riff, Voodoo...

 

Both killer...and both better than Ozzy.

 

No, as @dkmonroe points out he didn't have the opportunity. I just talking from a purely guitar playing standpoint. I'm sure he could have.

Man, I sound like a huge Rhoads fanboy and I'm really not. He wouldn't even crack my top 20 guitar heroes. Iommi would though. Eddie Van Halen would too.

 

Randy's guitar playing mos def put Ozzy and these albums over in a big way. Randy was a guitar god even then and people were talking about him as much Ozzy (who was getting press mostly for being crazy). When the news that Randy died hit, fans and the public were shattered (as was Ozzy - he shaved his head bald).

 

Yeah, the one thing that pisses me of about Ronnie was his annoying way of singing over the guitar solo (coincidental I'm sure).

 

Yes, I realize he life was cut tragically short. Ronson was one of his influences though, and he often gets overlooked for how much he actually did in his career.

 

My understanding was that Ozzy was searching for guys after Rhoads died in the plane crash and Gary Moore was one of the guitarists considered. Moore declined. Again, not to sound like a Rhoads fanboy, but Rhoads' talent level was so high Ozzy's management was having trouble finding veteran players that were comparable in terms of ability. I believe he checked in with Michael Schenker but he wanted too much money. He finally settled on Bernie Tormé to finish up the tour dates. I believe Brad Gillis came in after Tormé (I might have the sequence wrong there). I think Mike Varney finally suggested Jakie Lou Williams as a replacement.

 

No, this was the second time. Ozzy and Gary Moore were going to work together before Rhoads ever came into the picture but it fell through.

I don't know about old school guys but it seems to me there was no shortage of guys who could copy Rhoads as the years progressed and Ozzy had different guys come in. His leads were based to a fairly high degree on patterns, so once you figure out the pattern, you're halfway home.

 

Oh for sure, the newer wave of guys could handle Rhoads stuff no problem (I'm in the school of thinking Jakie Lou Williams aka Jake E. Lee was an absolutely phenomenal player), but when Ozzy was looking for a veteran to finish up the tour he was running into some difficulties finding someone. I remember reading an interview where he asked one studio head or somebody like that if he knew of a good guitarist and they guy recommended Ray Gomez! Gomez is a very good player, but his style wouldn't fit Ozzy's music in the least. And that was a big problem: finding someone who could fit the bill for what Ozzy was playing. There weren't a lot of guys out there at the time of Randy's death playing the way he did.

 

Sabbath w/ Dio; Ozzy w/ Rhoads. It couldn't have happened at a better time for them. 1980 was the breakthrough year for the NWOBHM. Not only were their careers revitalized, but metal and hard rock were too.

Between 80 and 81, those four albums sound like the touchstones for half the power and progressive metal that's come down the pike.

 

For those who weren't there, Blizzard did make Randy Rhoads a guitar god overnight. And as I've always said, the quickest way to become a legend is to die.

I've always wondered about different collaborations I'd love to hear; some of them rather oddball. For example, I always wanted to hear Eno produce Motorhead.

Ronnie James DIO and Randy Rhoads, what might have been...

 

I see the cliche of "well now we get twice as much music!" when bands splinter into two camps. (lately it's been about both Gallagher brothers putting out solo albums this fall) The Sabbath/Ozzy split is one of the very rare occasions when this resulted in both camps simultaneously releasing music that stood up next to their earlier work.

 

Good point. I think the same about Van Halen and David Lee Roth after they split. The first two Van Hagar records and two albums Roth made with Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan being great records, although perhaps not quite up to the level of classic Van Halen.