By 1983 Ronnie James Dio’s career had already enjoyed not one but two remarkable creative peaks. As singer with Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, in 1976 Dio helped concoct the amazing Rainbow Rising – a milestone album in the annals of heavy rock, where the thermo-nuclear magniloquence of the Man In Black’s guitar playing was in perfect synch with Ronnie’s flamboyant lyrical musings and exalted tones.
Four years later, in 1980, Dio almost singlehandedly rescued Black Sabbath from the depths of post-Ozzy oblivion. Cynics said the appointment of the man born Ronald Padovana as the band’s new vocalist was doomed to failure. But that was before they heard the results of that unlikely (not to say unholy) alliance: Heaven & Hell. With Dio at the helm, the Sabs’ growling metal machine became something altogether more sleek and streamlined. As mighty as it was mystical. As brooding as it was bombastic.
