Ronnie James Dio was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire U.S.A., on July 10, 1940. Hesoon moved to Cortland, New York and was raised there. That was where he started his musical career with the Vegas Kings. He played trumpet, bass, and some vocals. After that came Ronnie and the Rumblers, Ronnie and the Redcaps, and Ronnie and the Prophets. Ronnie and the Prophets produced at least seven singles before splitting up.
Ronnie formed the Electric Elves, a gritty rock band with honky-tonk influences, in 1967. David Feinstein, Ronnie's cousin, was involved as well. The Electric Elves guitarist, Nick Pantas, died in a car crash in 1970. That same year, the band's name was changed to Elf. Elf released a couple of albums, and caught the attention of Roger Glover of Deep Purple. Roger wanted to produce Elf's songs. In 1973-74, Elf was support to Deep Purple's tours.
Ritchie Blackmore, who had recently left Deep Purple, got together with Ronnie and eventually formed a band. The band changed from Elf to Rainbow. During this change, guitarist Steve Edwards was ousted from the band.
Rainbow was very successful and released several high quality albums. Ritchie and Ronnie suffered from musical differences, and after Rainbow's succesful spell, their albums were not received as well.
In 1978, Ronnie left Rainbow, and played with Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. Ronnie greatly built onto the success of Black Sabbath. During that time, the band released such hits as Heaven And Hell and Mob Rules. But, once again, musical differences forced Ronnie to quit.
Ronnie began working on a solo project in 1983, which turned into the band Dio. The band included former Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain, former Black Sabbath drummer Vinnie Appice, former Sweet Savage guitarist Vivian Campbell, Claude Schnell on keyboards, and Ronnie on vocals. Ronnie did all the songwriting himself.
Dio's debut album, Holy Diver (1983), was an instant hit, and thrust Dio into the mainstream heavy metal scene. Their second album, Last In Line, was probably the biggest hit of their career. (1984) Sacred Heart (1985) came next.
In 1986, Vivian Campbell quit Dio. Craig Goldie, formerly of Giuffria, took Vivian's place. Vivian eventually went on to join Def Leppard. Both Ronnie and fans were upset that Vivian had left the band, and many say that Dio's music has never sounded the same since.
1986's Intermission and 1987's Dream Evil were not as successful as Dio's previous albums, but still maintained a large heavy metal audience.
Ronnie was the only original member of the band in the 1990's. Dio's members were constantly changing during the '90s, proceeding through such albums as Lock Up The Wolves, (1990) Strange Highways, (1994) Angry Machines, (1996) and Inferno: Last In Live. (1998) In 2000 Ronnie returned to Black Sabbath breifly to record the album Dehumanizer.
Dio released Magica in 2000, a concept album about the struggle between good and evil. (a theme that shows up in many of Dio's songs) The bands latest album, released in 2002, was Killing The Dragon.
After 20+ years of rocking, Dio is still releasing albums and touring extensively.
Bio written by: FreedomNOW |
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