In February 1979, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow gathered together at Chateau Pelly de Cornfeld, a 13th-century castle in the foothills of the French Alps. Picture-postcard Geneva was a short drive over the border, the snow-capped Alps ranged across the horizon. It was to this storied, idyllic spot that the band had come to make their fourth album.
Down To Earth would end up being a very different-sounding record to its three predecessors. But then this version of the band was nothing like even the one that had made Rainbow’s previous album, Long Live Rock ’N’ Roll less than two years previously. Apart from Blackmore, drummer Cozy Powell was the sole survivor of those sessions.
