Heavy Metal has lost an icon. Hell, music has lost an icon.
I saw him perform 2 years ago with Heaven and Hell and he was absolutely brilliant, his voice was still fantastic after all these years. He'll be missed.
RIP
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First post in an RIP thread, this one stings me huge, one of my favorite metal performers of all time.
Huge loss to the metal community as well. Top 3 as far as great Metal voices. I always wondered how awesome this guy would have sounded in front of Iron Maiden, not to take anything away from Dickinson, who is equally awesome. But Dio just has such unbelievable control of his voice in the higher octaves.
"Live for today tommorow may never cooome!!"
Man did you ever Ronnie. The clip below has him performing at 65 years old, and even though he dropped an octave or two in his later years, he still schools any up and comers.
RIP Ronnie.
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Damn, what a voice @ 65. What the hell is wrong with today's rock generations? Nobody has voices like this these days.
Everybody sounds like Nickelback. Absolutely no range or power. Growl and single octave singing subsituted for actual singing ability.
That clip could be used as a heavy metal lesson, as someone noted in the youtube thread.
I agree, and the same can be said for the whole band. Get rid of the hair dye, and all of those guys would look like any other grumpy old man out there. Yet even though half of them qualify as senior citizens, they can still rock with the best. Such a testament of how spoiled us Metal fans that grew up in the 70's and 80 were, to be able to hear guys like these fresh, and at their peaks.
Don't forget he's the guy who started doing the finger "devil-horns" salute that we all do when we hear a classic rock song playing somewhere. RIP
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We may curse our bad luck that it's sounds like its; who's sounds like whose; they're sounds like their (and there); and you're sounds like your. But if we are grown-ups who have been through full-time education, we have no excuse for muddling them up.
When I think about the voices of Heavy Metal in that era there is Dio and the also rans. The first time I heard Dio was when he was called Ronald Padavano in the band Elf. I had never heard a voice like that before. The self titled album is awesome. It was by far the most requested album at my house parties.
I was lucky enough to have seen him twice. Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell tour and a second time as frontman for Richie Blackmore's Rainbow where they were sandwiched between Scorpions and headliner Pat Travers band.
Thanks for some great memories Ronnie.
damn, this sucks. I've been listening to him for 30 years. Saw him finally two years ago with Heaven and Hell, but really wish I could have seen him sing Holy Diver live.
crappy.
Always amazed by how much voice he had in a 4' 10", 100 lb body, or there abouts.
I completely forgot about Elf. Good memory jog, there coaster.
Chech out Ronnie James in this charity collaboration.
Thanks alot Hack, just got home with a new laptop because of playing that. Be warned, only 1980's VCR's are capable of handling that amount of awesome.
I knew this project existed, but never dared to click the youtube link in fear my computer couldn't handle the sheer awesomeness of so many monsters of metal appearing on the same screen at once. Dio started the problem, and my laptop seemed to heat up a bit, then it my sound card started to overload with Rob Halford. Kevin DuBrow caused a noticeable data streaming issue and then the real problems started with the shot of the whole group belting out the chorus. This caused the battery to melt, and the backlit keyboard to fail... I was on wall power only at this point.
I seemed to hold stable until the we were introduced to Dave Murray and Adrian Smith playing the rhythm portion causing the chassis of to start to melt, but I was close to the end and figured I'd try to make it all the way, there was no turning back....then the final blow came, a clear, concisive shot of Blacky Lawless gesturing and dare I say staring down the viewer through the camera. At this point all my laptop burst into flames, short circuiting all of the power within in 3 block radius of my home, and leaving me with second and third degree burns...... it was worth it.
This should only be viewed on VHS tape, on a 21" oak console TV, watch at your own risk!
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