Today the metal world mourns the greatest of losses. Ronnie James Dio. It’s a sad day for anyone who enjoys music, medieval-themed anything, and the greatest vocals of all time.
Every time Ronnie James Dio spoke, an angel was shot with a handgun. By a devil that was playing a ripping guitar solo. In a minor-key. Ronnie James Dio was metal’s media darling, for over thirty years, playing a pivotal role in shaping the sound that spawned countless other metal bands, comedy parodies, and the devil horns, so widely accepted now at rock shows.
Though Dio has gone on the demon in the sky, his musical legacy will live on. Every time someone throws up the horns. Every time that somebody tries to play the keyboard solo from Rainbow In The Dark. Not only was Ronnie James Dio a phenomenal singer, a groundbreaking vocalist, and a living breathing embodiment of everything that metal stood for – by all accounts, he was a lovely man. And it’s a tragedy that we’ve lost him to stomach cancer.
A lot has been and will be said about Dio. But to be a man — an only child from a not-very-well off Italian family, who never had a single singing lesson in his life, who developed his vocal technique from playing the french horn and built an entire metal empire is a eulogy in of itself. Words are wasted. Dio’s legacy will live in the hearts of anyone with ears and budding curiosity.
Rest in peace. He was 67.
Comments
Titus
May 17th, 2010 - 8:56:37 AM
I will miss him. Glad that the 2 times I saw him were this past year with Black Sabbath. Now I am comforted knowing he is with Cozy Powell in the Pleroma. Its getting offly loud in Heaven.
1