Before he went solo, Ronnie James Dio had already worked with two guitarists etched onto heavy metal’s Mount Rushmore. But players can also learn plenty from the oft-overlooked shredders who anchored his solo band

Vivian Campbell (left) and Ronnie James Dio perform onstage at the Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan on November 2, 1985.

By the time Ronnie James Dio left Black Sabbath in 1982, he'd already worked with two guitarists indelibly etched on heavy metal’s Mount Rushmore as founding fathers of the genre.

On the same night that he first met Sabbath's Dark Lord of the Riff, Tony Iommi, at LA's infamous Rainbow Bar and Grill in 1979, the two wrote the monolithic Children of the Sea, sparking the potent partnership behind the following year’s classic, Heaven and Hell.