Dio

Ok, interesting story here. Way back in 1983, I was browsing through the record store and came across an album which had on it a stupendous image of a gigantic horned beast tossing a chained priest into the ocean. The album was, of course, by "Dio". Now, at the time I wasn't even remotely into heavy metal and had never heard the name of Ronnie James Dio before, of course I knew of the bands Rainbow and Black Sabbath but not that Dio had been their lead singer. Well, a few days later this awesome heavy song came on the radio called "Rainbow in the Dark", and me & my brother were trying to guess what band it was, and I said, "I wonder if it's Dio?" Guess how tripped out we were when the D.J. announced who it was! Something in the music conjured up that image of the beast & the chained priest, and it drew my senses tremendously. Dio was the first REAL heavy metal band I got into, which of course let soon to greater & darker things...

Here's something I bet you didn't know (I sure didn't)...Dio has been recording music since 1956! That would mean he's at least sixty years old!!! You never would know it to look at the guy. Dio is also one SHORT little fucker, too! And like every other artist, there's a Dio tribute album available...
"Ronnie Dio & the Prophets: The Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Early Years" (2CDR compilation; mp3 source)
    disc one:
    Ronnie & the Red Caps (1957-1959)
  1. "Lover" (2:49)
  2. "Conquest"--instrumental (2:34)
  3. "An Angel is Missing" (2:33)
  4. "What'd I Say" (2:18)
    Ronnie Dio & the Prophets (1961-1967)
  5. "The Ooh Poo Pah Doo" (2:09)
  6. "Love Pains" (1:45)
  7. "Swingin' Street" (1:59)
  8. "Gonna Make it Alone" (2:18)
  9. "Mr. Misery" (2:45)
  10. "Our Year" (2:37)
  11. "Love Potion #9" (1:58)
  12. "Say You're Mine Again" (1:57)
  13. "Where You Gonna Run to Girl" (2:22)
  14. "Smiling by Day (Crying by Night)" (2:21)
  15. "Dear Darlin' (I Won't Be Coming Home)" (2:04)
  16. "Walking Alone" (2:28)
  17. "The Way of Love" (2:32)
  18. "Walking in Different Circles" (2:15)
  19. "10 Days to Brenda" (2:02)
  20. "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" (2:36)
    disc two:
    "Dio at Domino's" (2/24/63, Cortland, NY)
  1. "Follow Me" (1:52)
  2. "Blue Days, Blue Nights" (2:11)
  3. "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (3:51)
  4. "Red Top" (2:16)
  5. "An Angel is Missing" (2:30)
  6. "Irresistible You" (2:20)
  7. "I Told You So" (2:28)
  8. "Everybody's Got a Dance to Do But Me" (3:13)
  9. "Don't Take Your Love from Me" (3:43)
  10. "Johnny Blue" (2:15)
  11. "Great Balls of Fire" (2:06)
  12. "Love Pains" (1:52)
    The Electric Elves (1967)
  13. "Hey Look Me Over" (2:05)
  14. "It Pays to Advertise" (2:43)
    The Elves (1969-1970)
  15. "Walking in Different Circles" (2:31)
  16. "She's Not the Same" (2:27)
  17. "Amber Velvet" (2:52)
  18. "West Virginia" (2:29)
Oh man, this is some seriously scary shit. I compiled this set myself with mp3s downloaded from the Dio: Early Years website, and two things are apparent right away. First, all the songs are taken from EXTREMELY old & scratchy 45 RPM crappy vinyl singles, so the surface noise is quite extreme, sometimes overwhelming the music completely. Second, the music itself is a loooong way from the heavy metal Dio we all are familiar with, or even the down-home boogie woogie blues of Elf, Dio's pre-Rainbow band. We're talking skiffle, doo-wop, R&B, lounge, and typically 50's/early 60's rock'n'roll, running the gamut from Buddy Holly to Dean Martin. Any Dio fan whose familiarity ends with "Rainbow in the Dark" or "Mob Rules" is in for a serious shock indeed!!!

"Lover" is sung by a different lead singer, but the b-side instrumental "Conquest" does feature young Ronnie on trumpet. "Dio at Domino's" is a full-length LP recorded "live" at Domino's Restaurant in Dio's hometown...yes, it's a pizza restaurant. :) The surface noise isn't so bad on those particular tracks, at least. Oh, by the way, a good number of these songs are cover versions, though I'm not exactly positive which are which -- the obvious ones are "Great Balls of Fire", "What'd I Say", "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" (an unreleased single), "Love Potion #9" (NOT sung by Dio, apparently!) and "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (now THAT one's a trip to hear Dio singing!!) But many others do sound like Tin Pan Alley standards, especially "The Way of Love", which bears an uncanny resemblance to Frank Sinatra!!!

By 1967, Ronnie & Friends changed their name to reflect their change in style from AM pop to Beatles-era psychedelia. The "Elves" moniker referred to the unusually short stature of the band -- at 5'4", Ronnie Dio literally TOWERED over the other members! No joke!!! Later, they dropped the "Electric" part of their name, and by 1972, shortened it further to just plain Elf. By that time, 15 years had passed since Ronald Padovana had cut his first single. And it was just beginning.


"Holy Diver"
  1. "Stand Up and Shout" (3:15)
  2. "Holy Diver" (5:54)
  3. "Gypsy" (3:39)
  4. "Caught in the Middle" (4:15)
  5. "Don't Talk to Strangers" (4:53)
  6. "Straight Through the Heart" (4:32)
  7. "Invisible" (5:26)
  8. "Rainbow in the Dark" (4:15)
  9. "Shame on the Night" (5:20)
As I already said, this is the ULTIMATE Dio album, setting up the themes he would drive into the ground later on--rainbows, wizards, darkness, the child gone astray, and the word "never" repeated three times at least once in each song. This and the next three CDs feature the "classic" lineup of Ronnie James Dio with his old Rainbow partner Jimmy Bain on bass, drummer Vinnie Appice who he stole from Black Sabbath, and guitarist Vivian Campbell who seems to have come out of nowhere.

Oh, and did I mention the version of "Holy Diver" that Pat Boone does on his In a Metal Mood album? No? Well it's not worth mentioning anyway...


"The Last in Line"
  1. "We Rock" (4:35)
  2. "The Last in Line" (5:48)
  3. "Breathless" (4:09)
  4. "I Speed at Night" (3:26)
  5. "One Night in the City" (5:14)
  6. "Evil Eyes" (3:38)
  7. "Mystery" (3:55)
  8. "Eat Your Heart Out" (4:02)
  9. "Egypt (The Chains Are On)" (7:02)
An impressive follow-up, with a couple faster songs and more evil themes. The video for "The Last in Line" is absolutely phenomenal! (Having the advantage of being made when videos were more than just a way to sell a product.) You remember, the delivery boy who mistakenly takes the elevator to hell, and at the end Dio helps him escape...pretty cool. There's a few groaners here (such as "Mystery") but they don't sound so bad these days, believe me!

You know, sometimes I *do* wonder how much this kind of music influences your mind. I was never impressed with the song "One Night in the City", but in the 12 years since owning this album, I've had something of a recurring fantasy (hard to explain), and when I finally listened to the lyrics of the song, they matched that fantasy exactly, right down to the characters' names! Kind of trippy, and disturbing in a way.


"A Special from the Spectrum" (CDR bootleg; 8/24/84, Philadelphia)
  1. "Stand Up and Shout" (4:39)
  2. "Don't Talk to Strangers" (5:41)
  3. "Mystery" (4:18)
  4. "Egypt (The Chains Are On)" (3:53)
  5. "Drum Solo" (3:58)
  6. "Heaven and Hell" (11:48)
  7. "The Last in Line"
    "Heaven and Hell Reprise" (total=7:28)
  8. "Rainbow in the Dark" (4:51)
  9. "The Mob Rules" (5:00)
  10. "We Rock" (5:20)
Audio bootleg ripped from the official live video of the same name. Professional soundboard quality, but the transfer is a bit dodgy, with some noticeable dropouts in the first song (as if the videotape was crinkling in the VCR.) Just your typical Dio show, with a couple obligatory Black Sabbath songs. "We Rock" was used for the music video that got lots of airplay around that time.


"Sacred Heart"
  1. "King of Rock and Roll" (3:49)
  2. "Sacred Heart" (6:27)
  3. "Another Lie" (3:48)
  4. "Rock 'n' Roll Children" (4:32)
  5. "Hungry for Heaven" (4:10)
  6. "Like the Beat of a Heart" (4:24)
  7. "Just Another Day" (3:23)
  8. "Fallen Angels" (3:57)
  9. "Shoot Shoot" (4:20)
I wasn't too impressed with this album when it came out. "Hungry for Heaven" was in the movie Vision Quest several months earlier, and already Dio sounded like he was running out of ideas. Just how many times can you say "never, never, never" in each song?


"Intermission" (live EP)
  1. "King of Rock and Roll" (3:41)
  2. "Rainbow in the Dark" (4:42)
  3. "Sacred Heart" (6:23)
  4. "Time to Burn"--studio track (4:25)
  5. "Rock 'N' Roll Children (medley)" (9:40)
    • Long Live Rock 'N' Roll
    • Man on the Silver Mountain
  6. "We Rock" (4:55)
A quickie live EP plus one unreleased studio track, which I owned on crappy vinyl for a long-ass time and finally bought the expensive import CD. It sure would be nice if they re-released this with a shitload of bonus tracks, namely the live songs that appeared as b-sides to Dio's early singles (which, by looking below, you will see I have quite a solid collection of...)


"Dream Evil"
  1. "Night People" (4:06)
  2. "Dream Evil" (4:26)
  3. "Sunset Superman" (5:45)
  4. "All the Fools Sailed Away" (7:10)
  5. "Naked in the Rain" (5:09)
  6. "Overlove" (3:26)
  7. "I Could Have Been a Dreamer" (4:42)
  8. "Faces in the Window" (3:53)
  9. "When a Woman Cries" (4:43)
This album came out at the time when MTv's now-defunct Headbanger's Ball was getting me into heavier music a la King Diamond, Helloween, Exodus, etc. It stood up pretty well, I think. Vivian Campbell got booted out (did a tour with Whitesnake, and eventually wound up in Def Leppard) and was replaced by some guy from Giuffria (Guiffria? Jeoffria? Can never remember how to spell that damn name...) Not sure if that had anything to do with it but the sound here is a lot simpler and fresher than Sacred Heart. Nowadays it sounds real dated, but I still like "Naked in the Rain" and "All the Fools Sailed Away" a lot.


"Lock Up the Wolves"
  1. "Wild One" (4:02)
  2. "Born on the Sun" (5:39)
  3. "Hey Angel" (4:59)
  4. "Between Two Hearts" (6:27)
  5. "Night Music" (5:05)
  6. "Lock Up the Wolves" (8:30)
  7. "Evil on Queen Street" (6:01)
  8. "Walk on Water" (3:42)
  9. "Twisted" (4:44)
  10. "Why Are They Watching Me" (5:00)
  11. "My Eyes" (6:34)
For this CD, Dio fired the entire band and formed a new lineup, featuring a 17-year-old guitarist and drummer Simon Wright of AC/DC. Even low-profile keyboardist Claude Schnell got the boot in favor of Jens Johanssen of Yngwie Malmsteen fame. What followed was a less-than-stellar effort, not AWFUL, just plain bad. "Wild One" packs a bit of a punch, and the epic title track is nice and slow and doomy, but both of those songs pale in comparison to the genius of Ronnie's previous work. The rest is just filler.


"Diamonds -- The Best of Dio"
  1. "Holy Diver" (5:51)
  2. "Rainbow in the Dark" (4:15)
  3. "Don't Talk to Strangers" (4:53)
  4. "We Rock" (4:32)
  5. "The Last in Line" (5:44)
  6. "Evil Eyes" (3:36)
  7. "Rock 'N' Roll Children" (4:31)
  8. "Sacred Heart" (6:24)
  9. "Hungry for Heaven" (4:09)
  10. "Hide in the Rainbow" (4:04)
  11. "Dream Evil" (4:24)
  12. "Wild One" (4:01)
  13. "Lock Up the Wolves" (8:30)
So, why would any person spend $16 on a CD for just one song? Because, it would have cost almost twice as much to order this German import online! You shouldn't even ask...although I suppose I could have waited for the Iron Eagle soundtrack (where "Hide in the Rainbow" is from) to come back in print, but who wants to do that? Oh, and another example of Genius in Packaging: "Sacred Heart" is listed as "Sacred Children"!


"Strange Highways"
  1. "Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost" (4:13)
  2. "Firehead" (4:06)
  3. "Strange Highways" (6:54)
  4. "Hollywood Black" (5:10)
  5. "Evilution" (5:37)
  6. "Pain" (4:14)
  7. "One Foot in the Grave" (4:01)
  8. "Give Her the Gun" (5:58)
  9. "Blood from a Stone" (4:14)
  10. "Here's to You" (3:24)
  11. "Bring Down the Rain" (5:45)
The band went on hiatus for four years while Ronnie teamed up with his old Black Sabbath mates for what can now accurately be called "The Black Sabbath Nostalgic Reunion, Part One." Unfortunately, this album was an even bigger disappointment than Lock Up the Wolves -- the only decent song here is "Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost", which actually rocks quite nicely, due in no small part to ripping off King Crimson's "20th Century Schizoid Man". The rest SUCKS!!! I mean, it's really BAD..."Hollywood Black" is okay, I suppose, but songs like "Pain", "Give Her the Gun", and "Here's to You" make me wonder if Ronnie was so pissed off at how the reunion turned out that he took it out on his listeners, deliberately crafting songs that are too ugly and stupid to even listen to. I wasn't even gonna bother purchasing this steaming turd of a record, and only got it because I found a cheap used copy to act as a collection-filler.


"Inferno: Last in Live"
    disc one:
  1. "Intro" (1:36)
  2. "Jesus, Mary & Holy Ghost" (3:27)
  3. "Straight Through the Heart" (5:47)
  4. "Don't Talk to Strangers" (6:02)
  5. "Holy Diver" (4:59)
  6. "Drum Solo" (4:01)
  7. "Heaven and Hell" (7:29)
  8. "Double Monday" (3:18)
  9. "Stand Up and Shout" (4:08)
  10. "Hunter of the Heart" (5:15)
    disc two:
  1. "Mistreated/Catch the Rainbow" (10:11)
  2. "Guitar Solo" (3:38)
  3. "The Last in Line" (6:54)
  4. "Rainbow in the Dark" (4:56)
  5. "The Mob Rules" (3:37)
  6. "Man on the Silver Mountain" (2:11)
  7. "Long Live Rock and Roll" (4:14)
  8. "We Rock" (5:40)
Although I've all but given up on Dio as a studio artist, there's no question that he's still a great performer live. Especially on this 2CD set, where Dio obviously realizes that the only stuff his fans want to hear is his early stuff, his GOOD stuff!! The only songs from his post-Wolves period are the opener "Jesus, Mary & the Holy Ghost" (an AWESOME song, and the only decent one from Strange Highways) and two tracks from Angry Machines. ("Double Monday" is okay, but "Hunter of the Heart" blows chunks.) Of the rest, Ronnie delivers FIVE songs from Holy Diver, two from The Last in Line, plus a few classic Black Sabbath and Rainbow songs. One thing I wonder, however...why is "Mistreated" included?? THAT'S not a Dio song, he was NEVER in Deep Purple!! Yeah, I know he sang it a lot on Rainbow's tours, but STILL....

I should also mention that I was damned lucky to get this CD at all -- you see, even though it was released in the fall of '98, it suddenly went out of print less than a year later!! So I wound up scouring all the record stores in the L.A. area, and finally at one place told them of my dilemma, and the manager said, "Oh, somebody just traded in a copy..." YESSSS!!! And only $8.99, too...how do ya like THEM potatoes, eh?? :)


"Magica"
  1. "Discovery" (0:54)
  2. "Magica Theme"--instrumental (1:17)
  3. "Lord of the Last Day" (4:04)
  4. "Fever Dreams" (4:38)
  5. "Turn to Stone" (5:20)
  6. "Feed My Head" (5:39)
  7. "Eriel" (7:23)
  8. "Challis" (4:01)
  9. "As Long As It's Not About Love" (6:28)
  10. "Losing My Insanity" (5:05)
  11. "Otherworld" (4:57)
  12. "Magica - Reprise" (1:53)
  13. "Lord of the Last Day - Reprise" (1:45)
  14. "Magica Story"--spoken word (18:26)
Finally, a brilliant return to form for Ronnie James & Co. Well, maybe "brilliant" is an overstatement but it's certainly Dio's best studio album since Dream Evil. It's a concept album based on some weird fantasy adventure story with evil wizards, ancient spellbooks, etc. The last track features Dio reading the story included with the liner notes, which even hints at a sequel...hmm...



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