The Man on the Silver Mountain, a Tribute to Dio

Musically, 2010 hasn't been a good year for me so far. A couple months ago, Scorpions (a.k.a. the single greatest band in the history of music) announced that they are retiring. This will be their last tour, the latest album their last one. It was some sad news, but then yesterday I got some worse news.

Heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio died of stomach cancer yesterday afternoon.

It's kind of weird when stuff like that happens. When famous people die and feel sorry for them. We don't know these people on a personal level, but we invite their work and their creations into our lives to the point where it feels like we do know them. Usually when a famous person dies, I say "how sad," say a prayer for their family, and move on. Even if I am familiar with their work, it's not like it really affects me.

Being a big Dio fan, the news has made me quite a bit sadder than I expected it might. I'm not depressed or anything, but the man has been one of my favorite musicians for years. So his passing has hit closer to home than most celebrity deaths.

Dio was born in New Hampshire but moved to Cortland, New York, as a child. He was in tons of bands growing up and in his teen years, but got his first big break in the blues-rock band Elf in the late sixties. It was through this band when he met Ritchie Blackmore, the guitarist from Deep Purple, and the two created Dio's first real successful band, Rainbow, which he stayed with for about half of the decade.

Meanwhile, another band by the name of Black Sabbath had been going through some problems. After some lackluster albums and touring, Sabbath was having a hard time keeping the creative juices flowing (plus, there was little too much other stuff flowing, if you catch my drift.) With the tension building up, the band decided to axe their lead vocalist, Ozzy Osbourne. A void in the Sabbath lineup, and Dio and Blackmore starting to have their own creative differences, it was a ripe opportunity for Ronnie, and in 1979, Dio became Black Sabbath's frontman.

The new Sabbath released two successful albums with Dio, Heaven and Hell and The Mob Rules. To fans, the Dio Sabbath is considered just as good as the Ozzy Sabbath, and his songs are still staples of the band. Dio's role only lasted a couple years, however, as the band had a falling out during the recording of a live album and Roniie and Vinny (the drummer) left to form their own band.

The result was Dio, a band named after Ronnie himself. The band's first album, Holy Diver, was a huge success and yielded Dio's two most famous songs, Holy Diver and the portrait of headbanging awesomeness, Rainbow in the Dark. The album was followed up by The Last in Line, Sacred Heart, and Dream Evil albums throughout the eighties. In the 90's, Dio had a brief reunion with Black Sabbath, then spent the next twenty years bouncing back and forth between the two bands. He made multiple albums with both acts, with varying degrees of success.

A couple years ago, he reformed with Black Sabbath and they changed their name to Heaven and Hell after the lineup's most successful album. This was mainly to avoid confusion with the Ozzy years. They released a new album in April of 2009. Then in November, he announed to the world that he was battling stomach cancer.

Ronnie James Dio lost that battle on Sunday, May 16th, 2010.

For me, I was a fan of Dio before I even knew I was. I'm too young to have known the man's music in its heyday. Growing up, my parents always listened to classic rock and oldies. These songs were ingrained in my head from childhood, and I learned to love them. I didn't know the bands, but I knew the songs, and Dio certainly had his place in the local classic rock rotations. I knew his songs and loved them, even if I didn't know his name. This, by the way, is the same pattern that introduced me to many of my favorite bands. I loved Rock You Like a Hurricane long before I knew who sang it.

When I hit my teen years, I really started to listen to music more. Paid attention more, and really started to develop my tastes. I tried out different genres, but it was always rock that I came back to. Good, solid rock, and those songs that I loved from the radio. I "discovered" Dio when I was about forteen. I turned on the TV one day and saw his band performing Holy Diver. I instantly fell in love. Having heard the song before, I made a mental note of the band's name so I could find the song later.

I started to research Dio, having been exposed to their greatness, and was pleasantly surprised to find the number of awesome songs in their repertoire that I'd already been listening to for years. Searching for one song and finding multiple situations which to say "hey, I know that song!" is great. With a name to fianlly put to the sound, it gave me the opportunity to find not only the music that I already enjoyed, but opened the gate for me to discover the rest of the catalogue of what would become one of my favorite musicians ever.

Although I've ventured across pretty much his entire library, the only Dio album I actually own is Stand Up and Shout: The Dio Anthology, a two-disc compilation spanning his career from Elf all the way to mid-90's Strange Highways. I got it almost as soon as it came out, and I played the crap out of it. It rarely left my CD player in the months after I got it. At one point I had every lyric on the album memorized, had read every word in the liner notes multiple times. To this day, it's one of my most listened-to albums, rivaled only by Scorpions.

My fanfare for Dio's music eventually died down a little. I listened myself bored of that album, and started discovering new bands. My religious beliefs have also made me reconsider some of the music I listen to. In spite of all of this, I have never lost my love and respect for Dio and his music. The man was a monster of metal, I've loved his music for years, and spent hours upon hours listening to Dio, and I've enjoyed every second of it.

Ronnie James Dio, you were a master of your craft. Loved my me and millions of others for decades. You've entertained the world. You gave us some of the best songs in the history of music. You even popularized the horn symbol that gets thrown up at concerts all over the world. No blog I write could ever give you justice.

Rest in Peace, Ronnie James Dio. May your music live on.
And on. And on.