The Ronnie James DIO album-by-album thread

I think it's the best one and it's definitely my favourite of the three... That's not to say the others aren't good because, in fact, every show has plenty to enjoy and at least a couple of excellent performances; even Dusseldorf, the one I rate lowest, has the best Catch The Rainbow of the bunch... After all, we're talking about 1976 Rainbow; an average night for them was still pretty awesome by anyone else's standards...

I just think the Nuremberg show has the band kicking it up an extra notch...

After listening to those three complete shows in comparison to Live In Germany, I find I'd have selected different performances for almost every song... For a laugh, here's my alternative Live In Germany line-up:

- Kill The King (Nuremberg)
- Mistreated (Nuremberg)
- Sixteenth Century Greensleeves (Nuremberg)
- Catch The Rainbow (Dusseldorf)
- Man On The Silver Mountain (Cologne)
- Stargazer (Nuremberg)
- Still I'm Sad (Nuremberg)
- Do You Close Your Eyes (Munich)

 

Great job with this thread. Great stuff. Question: Still I'm Sad - did Dio add his own lyrics to this?

 

They sound like the original Yardbirds lyrics to me. Ritchie did this as an instrumental on the first Rainbow album but for those who don't know it's a cover version of a Yardbirds song. The original Yardbirds song is very interesting as it's done like a Gregorian chant. Very slow and ominous sounding.

 

I've seen the 76 in my hometown Nuremberg. It was a great show, and one of the best live concerts I've ever seen.

 

You sir are one lucky man!
If I had a time-travel machine, the Rising tour is one of the first things I'd go for...

 

The stage lightning and the colored Rainbow were awesome at that time....

I also remember me, when I watched Don Airey at the soundcheck (Down to Earth tour)... the bass sequencer (opening of Eyes of the World) was spectacular.... the hall was shaken from the PA.

 

The Rising tour continued through October 1976, with the band playing Switzerland, Holland, France and Belgium. A two week break followed before they visited Australia, where they'd tour for most of November. By this time the group was fractured; Cozy had attained a status on level with Ritchie and Ronnie, which meant he had a say in financial and artistic matters as well as getting a corresponding cut of the profits, while Tony Carey and Jimmy Bain remained on a wage, something that understandably frustrated the bassist: "Cozy used to say to me whenever I got uptight, 'Cool it, you're only a sideman.' It really got on my case he should say that; I was putting a hundred percent into Rainbow." Blackmore openly admitted: "The other two are not full members of the band yet. I don't think they mind; they're feeling us out as well. I don't think you'd call us one big happy family, but we respect each other as musicians and that's important."

To make matters worse within the group, Blackmore had begun to feel Bain wasn't up to his standards and would sometimes tell him off on stage or complain he was playing out of tune, something that would drive the bass player mad. Adding insult to injury, Jimmy also saw himself on the receiving end of Ritchie's pranks that were now abetted by Cozy. The pair would sometimes overstep the mark (one story goes that the bassist woke up one night to find his hotel bed alight, apparently), but were generally in good humour, even if they sometimes backfired and had consequences, like one occasion Bain remembers: "Cozy scaled the side of this hotel in Germany and he had this fire extinguisher with him and he let it go, but he'd got the floors mixed up! He was supposed to be letting it off in Ian Broad's (tour manager) room, but he let it off in some German salesman room. We were all woken up and ejected from the hotel." It was Cozy and Ritchie's way of letting off steam during the long tour and nobody was safe from the mischief, except for Ronnie, who feels it may have been because Ritchie knew he wouldn't take it: "He couldn't get away with it with me. If he'd had treated me that way, I'd have taken my talent somewhere else. I'm a person and I need support and love." It was Carey (nicknamed "The Rash" by the others) who took the brunt of this sort of thing, as Cozy admits: "Tony was a bit cocky, and if you got like that with Ritchie, that was it. We made his life a misery, to be honest!" But not all of the jokes were mean, there was still room for good humour, like the time when one of Carey's overlong keyboard solos prompted the guys to set up chairs on the other side of the stage and start reading newspapers.

It is a testament to the professionalism of the band (even more so in the case of Carey and Bain) that, despite the tensions and personal problems that had come up, they were still capable of playing as tight as a unit as they were by the end of the tour. The Australian trek was followed by two weeks in Japan, which would mark the end of the Rising world tour. The Japanese fans proved enthusiastic (the first show there, on December 2nd in Tokyo, came to a halt right after the first song to let the worked-up crowd calm down) and the concerts were very successful. It was during these early December dates that they got the news of the passing of Tommy Bolin (the brilliant guitarist who had taken Blackmore's place in Deep Purple), and the band dedicated their performance of Mistreated to him the following night.

Rainbow's show remained as electric as ever for these last few dates of the world tour, with A Light In The Black returning to the set as the encore on a couple of shows, and the band kept on rendering audiences spellbound. With the band still at their peak, a few of the Japanese concerts were recorded.

 

i am human and i need to be loved... just like everybody else does...

 

I wish the Japan shows would come out. I like the sound of the Japan shows better as found on some of the On Stage tracks. The band seems even tighter at this point. I would love to hear Light In The Black too!

 

RAINBOW - On Stage (1977)




- Kill The King
- Man On The Silver Mountain
- Catch The Rainbow
- Mistreated
- Sixteenth Century Greensleeves
- Still I'm Sad


RITCHIE BLACKMORE - guitar
RONNIE JAMES DIO - vocals
JIMMY BAIN - bass
TONY CAREY - keyboards
COZY POWELL - drums


Recorded live during Rainbow's Rising world tour of 1976, On Stage is the confirmation of everything the band had introduced with the Rising album. Their heavy brand of rock comes alive and the band displays not only their technical prowess, but also their tightness and sense of dynamics as a band, bludgeoning the listener with sheer power or soothing with quiet passages all within one song.

The album starts, as did all their shows, with an intro tape taken from the 1939 classic film The Wizard Of Oz and, right after Judy Garland's realisation that "we must be over the rainbow", the band comes in with their own interpretation of Over The Rainbow. It's a short one though, because we're quickly assaulted by Ritchie Blackmore's ferocious intro to Kill The King, a new composition written especially for the live shows. All through this track the rhythm playing is powerful and real tight, something that applies to the rest of hard rocking moments on the album, with the combination of Ritchie's distorted guitar and Tony Carey's Hammond organ making for an effective duo (check out Sixteenth Century Greensleeves for a good example), while Jimmy Bain's no-nonsense bass locks in with Cozy Powell's undying energy on the drums. Cozy beats the hell out of his kit throughout, and uses his double bass drum to propel Kill The King or to bring in some extra power to Man On The Silver Mountain, as well as for showing off with sudden thunderous bursts here and there.

There's another "new" song besides Kill The King, a version of the old Deep Purple favourite, Mistreated. Rainbow puts their own spin on it with their trademark heavyness, giving it a different feel to the original, and generally playing it in a more forceful manner, mostly because of Cozy Powell who, as good a drummer as he is, certainly lacks the subtlety and nuances of Ian Paice's playing. This general "harder" feel is reinforced by Ronnie James Dio's delivery which often sounds as if he's angry and demanding, and it's far removed from David Coverdale's mournful and melancholic take on the same lyrics. I find Rainbow's version excellent, though; Blackmore's playing is absolutely top-notch (check out his inspired, delay-heavy intro) and Dio's vocals are amazing.

Speaking of the vocals, they are (besides Blackmore) the one thing that never fails to amaze me about this record. I believe this must be the greatest, most impressive live vocals ever recorded in a hard rock context. Dio's performance on Mistreated floors me every time, and the combination of technique and power he conjures up for the end section of Catch The Rainbow or the finale of Man On The Silver Mountain make him untouchable. But those are just some examples; the truth is the man excels throughout and has to be heard to be believed.

Dio shares the spotlight with the main man, Ritchie Blackmore, who is also at his very best, playing everything from subtle, gentle runs to scorching, distorted riffs with his guitar sound changing accordingly (his tone during the blues interlude on Man On The Silver Mountain is to die for). Ritchie also uses his guitar to prompt the dynamic shifts within any given song; for examples, look no further than Mistreated, which contains some of his most emotional playing. His soloing abilities were at an all-time high during the tour, and whether using his trademark picking technique or the slide (hear him alternate between the two on Sixteenth Century Greensleeves or Man On The Silver Mountain, where he keeps the slide for a while longer and plays the main riff with it), he's bound to make the listener stand in awe at someone who is, without doubt, one of the best rock guitar players ever. Just listen to the first solo on Catch The Rainbow, pay attention to his dynamic, delicate picking and the tasteful volume swells; how does one improvise that!? The answer is simple: GENIUS.

This is one ace album however I look at it, the only flaw I could point out is that it's too short! A running time of little more than an hour for a double album is sure to leave you wanting more, especially when the music is this good. They could've added Cozy's drum solo on Still I'm Sad (an acquired taste, I'll admit), or maybe another song... which brings up the question: this was the Rising tour, why is there no Rising material on the live album recorded during the Rising tour!?!? Stargazer was played every night, yet it doesn't feature here. Maybe the length of most of the tracks would make for awkward sequencing if they added more, what with limited running time per LP side. The most we get from Rising is when they squeeze in a minute of Starstruck before the end of Man On The Silver Mountain, and it makes it even more frustrating because it sounds absolutely great and it seems like the whole song would've gone down a storm live. Alas!

Love it or leave it, On Stage is what it is... and that's no less than a bloody great live album from one of the greatest ever heavy-rock bands.

 

On Stage... is one of the best LIVE albums. The beautiful played guitar intro on "Sixteenth..." is amazing. The only flw... the guitar/Moog duel between Blackmore and Carey, which sounds outdated today. By the way... I prefer the faster version of "Man on the Silver Mountain" over the original studio recording.

 

rather than post it on the RIP thread, (or make yet another RJD thread), since this one's currently active, i thought i'd mention that today would've been Ronnie's 68th birthday....

Happy Birthday, Ronnie, wherever you are

 

Certainly one of, if not, the most expensive albums. I think I paid £7 for it in 1978. (Made in Japan was £3.65, Live & Dangerous was £3.50, by comparison)

 

On Stage was my introduction to Rainbow back in 1978 (I had recently discovered Deep Purple as well about this time). This version of Rainbow was and is still my favorite overall. They were tight, even though they didn't seem to get along that well. Thanks for the input you've supplied Javimulder, you make some great reading in the thread.

 

On Stage was the first Rainbow album that I bought when it was new. I remember seeing it in the record store and got all excited. I sure played the crap out of it that summer. Great sounding record. I love Mistreated and Kill the King. I now have a WLP vinyl copy in mint condition.

 

I just read this entire thread and Javimulder is indeed a great Threadmaster. Keep it comin' brother.

I have heard very little Rainbow which is wierd because I was a teenager in the 70s and a huge Deep Purple fan. I'm not sure why I never got into Rainbow. I've been sampling several songs on YouTube as they are described here, and I'm sure I'm going to have to add some Rainbow (and other Dio) to my collection.

 

If you don't want to go album by album as an introduction, there are several nice comps available. "The Very Best of Rainbow" picks the best known singles and album tracks, and picks pretty equally from each release. It is interesting to hear the shift from hard rock to AOR. The "20th Century Masters" is a bit too brief, but includes the live version of "Mistreated" mentioned earlier in this thread. "Catch The Rainbow: The Anthology" is a 2-disc set. Disc 1 is probably the best available comp of Dio era Rainbow.

My comp comparison is a little out of place on an "album-by-album" thread, but sometimes "best of" titles are a bargain way of getting an introduction to a new-to-me artist, and generally lead to deeper catalog exploration!

 

Nice cake!

 

Thanks for the info. I may grab a comp first.

 

The last concert of the Rising world tour took place in Tokyo, on December 16th 1976. The following day the band flew home for a well earned break over Christmas during which it was decided to change the line-up. The sackings of bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey were made public in February 1977, allegedly due to "not complementing the style and direction of the founder members". Carey wasn't surprised after all he'd endured, but Bain couldn't understand and confronted Blackmore about it: "When I got fired I was in shock. I went over to see him and he couldn't really give me a reason why he got rid of me. The decision had been made and I guess he thought he had to stick with it." Speaking to the press, Blackmore explained how his reasons for firing Bain were strictly musical: "Jimmy Bain was a great guy, fantastic person, but his bass playing left a little bit to be desired." Carey was an altogether different matter, though: "There were too many personality clashes with him, we just didn't get on. Musically he was very aggressive, but it carried over into his personality. There are certain sacrifices I'll make to have my music played properly, but there's a point at which I have to take other factors into account." Vocalist Ronnie James Dio understood Ritchie's motives and sided with him all the way, mentioning how technical ability is the most important factor in being a member of Rainbow: "We have to face the fact that this band was put together by Ritchie, who was only able to put it together because he was a star. It's up to us to prove that we're up to his level. I consider myself to be as good a singer as Ritchie is a guitar player. That's not an ego trip, because he's always saying that, if he could sing, then he'd want to be able to sing like me." Blackmore explained this policy with his trademark dryness: "As soon as I discover that a musician in my band is not good enough he has to go, because I would expect to be kicked out of a band if I didn't play well."

The plan was for Rainbow to put together a new album in 1977, with the intention of having it ready for release sometime in the summer, so they now needed to find a couple new members to take Carey and Bain's places as quickly as possible. First man in Ritchie's agenda was Craig Gruber (perhaps not surprisingly, considering he'd contributed some highly adept bass playing to Rainbow's first album), but as soon as the ex-Elf was back, the problems started. Gruber later offered his account on what went down: "So I flew back out and rehearsed with them but it’s like dating a crack head, it just doesn’t change. Ritchie’s pulling the same $hit. Ronnie and Ritchie are in different dressing rooms. This f@cking temperamental bull$hit. I was bringing in a lot of musical ideas and directions that Ritchie didn’t want to know about. Automatically I started to get constantly f@cking hit on. It was like, 'Look, Roger (Glover) wouldn’t play it that way. Roger this... Roger that...' I said, 'Well, go f@cking hire Roger!' It was great though, playing with Cozy, because Cozy was an animal."

Gruber's second stint in Rainbow didn't last a month, and he got replaced by Mark Clarke, a former member of Colosseum and Uriah Heep. This change seemed to please Blackmore: "I need somebody who can play things on bass as quickly as I play them on guitar. (Mark is) very good technically, and he's got a strong songwriting ability as well." Ironically, songwriting ability was precisely one of the points that really bothered Jimmy Bain about his being fired: "One of the reasons I was asked to join was because I could write songs, but the only people who got their songs recorded were Ritchie and Ronnie!"

Looking to put the new album together, the band wanted to record once more at Musicland Studios, where they'd already laid down Rising the previous year, but this time the Munich studios were booked solid for months on end, so on top of finding new musicians they now also had the added task of finding a new and suitable recording facility. With time running out and Blackmore under pressure trying to find a new keyboard player, Cozy was appointed as the scout: "I had to take an interest in the business side; they were looking to me to get things together, Ritchie just didn't want to know." While all of this went on, Martin Birch started the mixing process with the live tapes they'd recorded last year, and Ronnie went to London to join old mates Roger Glover and David Coverdale and contribute recording backing vocals for Coverdale's second solo album, Northwinds.

After several time-consuming weeks, the choice was finally made to book the Château d'Herouville near Paris. Cozy settled on those studios because "we liked the drum sound there." They hadn't had much luck finding a suitable keyboard player in the meantime, and eventually Tony Carey was asked back. However, mindful of the problems they'd had in the past, they re-hired Carey exclusively on a session basis, his duties restricted to recording only.

Rainbow eventually commenced recording the new album in early May 1977, again with Martin Birch producing, with the following line-up:

RITCHIE BLACKMORE - guitar
RONNIE JAMES DIO - vocals
MARK CLARKE - bass
TONY CAREY - keyboards
COZY POWELL - drums

 

It was May 1977 and Ritchie Blackmore now found himself in one of those situations he'd wanted to escape from by leaving Deep Purple: to have to go into the studio with little or no material prepared in advance. Stuck with one new member they hardly knew (Clarke) and another one they were at odds with (Carey) didn't help matters and, finding themselves in a beautiful Château in the French countryside in the middle of spring, all made for a situation in which finding motivation for work was difficult, and the band took to various recreational activities instead, as Ritchie explains: "We found after six weeks we'd done hardly anything. Basically we're really lazy, and if we can find a good excuse for not recording, we don't. I suppose the fact that we played football everyday for ten days before we went into the studio didn't help to get things going." The gothic atmosphere of their surroundings also inspired them to have seances quite often, mainly at the instigation of Blackmore, always fascinated by the occult. Ronnie remembers one such occasion: "The tape was always breaking while we were recording, so we had a seance. Someone requested to speak to Chopin, who had owned the Château, and although there was nobody near it, a piano in the room went 'boing!'... everyone fled!" This sort of happenings became everyday games, and there was another one that would leave a lasting impression on them. Ronnie: "Most seances will swear at you or use bad grammar, but this one said 'I am Baal, I create chaos. You will never leave here, don't even try.' We tried again later and the spirit said 'Where's Blackmore? Oh, never mind, here he comes.' The door opened and in walked Ritchie! Even he turned ashen! I thought this was the last seance for me, as soon as it began. 'I am Baal, I create chaos.' I was f@cking out of the room!"

Some recordings were actually taking place among the merriment though, and it soon became apparent the choice of bassist hadn't been appropriate. According to Cozy, Mark Clarke was rather persnickety and hard to work with: "The red light used to go on and he'd go 'Stop, I'm out of tune.' He'd get this tuning key and go 'ding'... he was getting a little uptight, and he'd bend the neck before the start of the take, just enough to put the bass out of tune. So he didn't last very long." Cozy admits, however, that the problems with Clarke were mainly musical, and stemmed from Blackmore: "Basically, it's Ritchie's problem. With Ritchie, the notes and chords and the way he hears the music come from the bass player and keyboards, and if he doesn't like what he hears, it's either play it his way... or leave." Years later, Mark Clarke would sum up his time in the group with these words: "I just remember being there for three months and it just wasn't working out, simple as that. There were no hostilities whatsoever. (Ritchie) has very set ideas and that's fine, that's how he is."

Clarke's technical abilities had impressed Blackmore at the start, but he wasn't the type of bassist he likes to play with. Ritchie likes his bass to be solid, workmanlike and to-the-point, without any unnecessary flourishes and preferably played with a pick. That's probably the reason why, finding himself well into the recording sessions and with only three backing tracks completed, he decided to ask Jimmy Bain to come back. It made sense, since Tony Carey was still around anyway, but Bain sternly declined, still hurting from his dismissal a few months before. With time pressing on and the record company getting increasingly impatient, Blackmore took it upon himself to record the bass parts for the album while they still held auditions trying to find a replacement. These events were seriously delaying the album's progress and that only brought about more tension and a general lack of focus.

By the time July 1977 came around, studio time was running out and the album was still nowhere near finished, so its release was indefinitely postponed. The original plan had been to put it out that summer to tie in with an American tour that would see them playing gigs across the US from July to September, but those dates had to be scrapped, and so financial concerns were added to all the growing pressure the band was feeling; this was especially true for Blackmore, who had been putting a lot of his own money into Rainbow. With all of this brewing underneath something had to give, and poor Tony Carey found all this pressure being passed on to him. In the middle of a mostly unfriendly environment, Carey had become more and more withdrawn, as Cozy noted: "At this time he was going into his room , spending six or seven hours sitting in his room with a pair of cans on, playing his keyboards. By that point he'd already worn out his welcome a little and started to get distant from the band." Having always been the weakest link in the chain, he had his patience sorely tested while Blackmore and Powell still amused themselves at his expense, until the day he had enough and left the Château without telling anyone. He simply fled and exited the band for good. With the benefit of hindsight, Blackmore now admits it wasn't the best of times: "There was too much friction going down, but a lot of that was down to me." Years after the events, Tony Carey looked back on his time with Rainbow: "I was twenty one, everybody else was a hundred and twelve. I was definitely the kid and I caught a lot of flak for being the kid, in many different ways. It was a learning experience for me. A couple of the gentlemen that were in the band with me I still respect and admire today; a couple I don't."

 

July 1977 saw the release of On Stage. With the band again lacking members and the recording sessions for the new album on hiatus (not to mention the next tour still being months away), it couldn't have come at a better time. The live album would help to keep up their profile and buy them some time till they had new material to put out.

Initially a double album, some territories released On Stage as a single LP, omitting either Kill The King or Still I'm Sad, depending on the country.

An interesting variation was the Argentinian issue, retitled "En Vivo" (Spanish for "live") and featuring a much nicer cover picture:

 

I picture a recording engineer with a microphone and hidden speaker somewhere saying 'I am Baal, I create chaos.' and laughing at them shaking in their boots

 

what, you mean you don't believe in ghosts??



they believe in you........ heeheeheeheeheeeeeee.....