Ronnie James Dio in Black Sabbath

I got into Sabbath & Dio as a Solo artist via Heaven & Hell, it's a great album and one of my favorites. Wish I would have been able to catch RJD live, but unfortunately that was never to be.

 

I was there too! I was with my wife, who was seven months pregnant with our son.

 

I'm contributing here only because I just did a shoot-out of three different pressings of Heaven and Hell a few days ago--
I did not pay attention to Sabbath when they first appeared on the scene-- the first album didn't really make a commercial dent, as a far as I know, in the Rust Belt back in 1970, but Paranoid certainly did. It was in play constantly in parking lots, 'hippie vans' and wherever blasting music happened. I ignored it. I knew the band had a big following but, like many things in life, musically and otherwise, I disregarded them, to my loss.
I only came to them somewhat recently- 5 or so years ago?-- when I started to buy Vertigo Swirls. I mean you can't buy Vertigo Swirls and not have Sabbath, right? So, I started to listen to them, and really liked the slow, down tempo grind with Ozzy's voice tracing the lead lines. What I concluded--for myself, not as some absolute pronouncement, was that I liked Vol 4 the least, and the first album the best, simply because they were still developing-- Paranoid and Master of Reality are probably more popular today than the first album, and maybe I'm favoring the less commercially successful (at the time) album. I did buy Sabbath Bloody Sabbath UK WWA but I really need to give it more attention-- I sort of neglected it.
I was blown away by Heaven and Hell. It is not the same sound-- it's far more uptempo, Dio's singing is totally unlike Ozzy's and I get why there are factions among fans, but it is, to me (somewhat detached from long time fandom) one of their best albums that I've heard, period. (I have Mob Rules and a few others in addition, but do not have their entire catalog).
"Lady Evil" has a brightness that doesn't go away even on the best pressings I've heard and "Walk Away" isn't as strong a song as some of the others (though it is more involving on the better sounding pressings, so that says something about how music and sonics relate).
I suppose this would be like Robert Plant being replaced by Paul Rodgers mid-Zep-- great singer, but it isn't the same. I do like the down tempo earlier Swirls-- that first album sounds so slow by comparison to Heaven and Hell--but credit this: my suspicion is that band wouldn't have survived without something changing. And rather than attempting to imitate or keep doing what they did, they reinvented themselves. The album can stand on its own as one of the greats, no matter what your view of Sabbath's personnel or what defines the 'real' Sabbath.

 

I've liked all the incarnations of Sabbath - as long as Iommi brought those riffs, I was in.

But when it comes to playing them on my MP3 player, I tag the Ozzy era as "Doom Metal" and the Dio era as "Heavy Metal", purely so there's no crossover whenever I hit shuffle.

 

I’ll never agree with you on this, but I always like your passion & conviction about it.

Also...it’s impossible to say your wrong. It’s your opinion & Dio is legend.

 

Ozzy, Dio both ended up being comical, hard to top Sabbath's first six

 

I have always liked both Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules (I'm one of the few that prefers the latter, actually), moreso than the last two Sabbath albums with Ozzy.

But that said, I've never considered them to be "Black Sabbath" albums. They just don't sound like Sabbath albums to me, and not just because of Dio's vocals. It's everything - the melodies, the sped up tempos, the lyrical themes, they just aren't what I regard as BS. And no it's not that I think Ozzy "defined" Sabbath moreso than the other guys either. E.g, I think Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman are great albums, but they aren't Sabbath albums either.

Again, I think they are both very good albums and have always enjoyed them, it's just that IMO the band should have renamed itself when Dio joined, as the music isn't what I regard as Sabbath music. For better or for worse, Sabbath was Ozzy, Geezer, Ward, and Iomi. Only that combo made Sabbath music.

Ozzy getting booted from Sabbath was great for fans of hard rock/metal music. The original Sabbath had grown old and tired and out of ideas, but thanks to the breakup everyone was rejuvenated, and within a little over a year and half, we got H&H, MR, Blizzard, and Diary.

Four very good to great albums, but none of them IMO Sabbath albums.

 

Dio elevated Sabbath way beyond anything that came before.

 

I could say the same about Never Say Die... doesn’t sound like Sabbath

 

Truth be told, despite having huge respect for them, I've never been much of a fan of Sabbath fan (my favourite album of theirs is Headless Cross with Tony Martin, which is probably a good indication of how far off the reservation I am with my opinions ) But I've always been a big fan of Ronnie, and I really like his work with them. It definitely sounds like a different band to the initial Ozzy stuff, and far more to my taste.

It's funny, but it strikes me how Dio always seemed to produce his best material on his first album with a new venture - I've always thought Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow is by far his best Rainbow album, Heaven and Hell is by far his best Black Sabbath album, and Holy Diver is by far the best album from his namesake band.

 

While I agree that Heaven and Hell is the best Dio-era Sabbath album, I like Rainbow Rising much better than Rainbow's debut album.

 

I never thought about it before, but you are absolutely right. I love all 3 of those albums, but rarely listen to anything he did with those groups after them.

 

If you haven't already, you should really give a listen to Sabbath's Mob Rules with Dio...it's so similar (some might say too similar) to Heaven & Hell that I'm sure you'll like it.

 

Oh I'm familiar with it. I just don't like it as much as H&H. But I know a lot of people like it as much or more.

 

I find all three Dio-fronted Rainbow albums mesmerising.

Rising is one of the few records from which decades of perma-rotation have left the napes equally perma-prickled: despite its notorious bass shyness, Birch's production is otherwise sublime and the attendant crispness and space around all players makes for eternal, blissful analysis/jaw dropped listening.

As with much of mk1 'Sabbath and mk2 'Purple, I invariably, quite naturally, find myself reimagining a 'first listen' reality during which sessions I find myself involuntarily applauding.

For me, mk2 Rainbow is the perfect band and you could churn out a thesis feting each member's contribution but despite the instrumentalists' individual, epoch splitting brilliance, it's RJD's unmatched ear for melody, vocal inflexion and sheer drama that keeps me coming back for more and more and more.

I'm now at a point where even the sonic, murky haze on LLRNR is become an essential character-indcuer, a bit like whatever the fubar-mixing desk is going on during Born Again.

Of course, I reserve a venerated space of mental grace for the debut which is scrawled with various quips by Ronnie himself: one of his signatures is even smudged with what I think may have been his fingerprint (an autograph secured during the Lock Up The Wolves Dio tour) that provides hours of misty eyed, vino-fuelled wistfulness.

Yes, indeed, I play almost anything by Dio and conclude he really was The Man...

 

Saw them at the Hammersmith Odeon on the Heaven & Hell Tour. Amazing. One of the loudest gigs I've been to. I almost threw up during the thunderous drum solo. Never got to see them with Ozzy though. The Dio albums sound so different from the Ozzy stuff, but still top notch.

 

Black Sabbath: 9/10
Paranoid: 8.5/10
Master Of Reality: 9.5/10
Vol. 4: 8.5/10
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 9/10
Sabotage: 9/10
Technical Ecstasy: 1/10
Never Say Die: 1/10

Heaven And Hell: 7/10
Mob Rules: 8/10
Live Evil: 5/10
Dehumanizer: 1/10

Born Again: 9/10

 

Black Sabbath 9
Paranoid 9
Master Of Reality 10
Vol 4 10
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 10
Sabotage 10
Technical Ecstasy 3
Never Say Die 3
Heaven And Hell 10
Mob Rules 8
Dehumanizer 7
Born Again 10

 

Heaven &Hell is my favourite album of all time.
I genuinely think that it's perfect. My favourite rock singer w/the master riff writer and my favourite bass player in one of music's great rhythm sections.
The production from the brilliant Martin Birch is pristine...the artwork is classy.

I would not change a note. My desert island disc.

 

Vol 4
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Sabatoge

I'd put at 12 or 13 just otherworldly stuff for me. Don't know what you call this music. It's all over the place with a menacing experimentation. Tony's riffs keep it heavy Ozzys off key screaming keep it odd and Bill and Geezer just groove. But, the music is all over the place. And Supernaught is just another planet. Love those three so much.

 

A phrase I often repeat when contemplating this type of genius: "(sometimes) you forget."

 

I'd be interested to know what pressings of H&H you listened to, and what you thought of them...I finally got my hands on a Sanctuary remaster last week, but I can't play it until Father's Day (the wife's making me wait until then before I can open it!!! ) so I haven't heard it yet. I also have the original pressing, but it's extremely beat up from playing it a bazillion times back in the day.

 

I saw them in 1980 at Memorial Stadium in Seattle (Black And Blue tour with BOC, just before Geezer bailed mid-tour) . It was so loud that the City banned outdoor concerts at that stadium for the next 15 years or so. Agreed Sabbath was amazing!

 

Actually, Bill Ward left the tour.