As the former figurehead of Rainbow, Black Sabbath and his decades-spanning solo band, Ronnie James Dio was one of the finest and most identifiable voices in all of heavy metal. In fact, nowadays it’s hard to imagine the inventor of the ‘devil horns’ doing anything else. But – before Elf and everything else – Dio first entered the music world by singing something very, very different…
“I started playing music when I was five,” the late legend told Alternative-Zine in 2005. “I started as a trumpet player, so that was my musical influence as a kid from that particular point, playing classical music… But I didn’t want to carry on as a trumpet player, I was too fascinated by being a bass player and being in a rock ’n’ roll band.”
