Long Live Ronnie James Dio

There have been a few musicians that have died in my time...Cliff Burton, Paul Baloff, Ozzy's career...but none of them have touched me the way I felt on May 16th, 2010 when Ronnie James Dio passed. As far as I was concerned, everything that Dio touched turned to gold. To lose him while he was still so active in the Metal scene...to know that Magica II will never be completed...it is a sad thing indeed.

Whether it is the memories of playing basketball as a kid in my driveway with Sabbath's Live Evil playing from the stereo speakers, hearing We Rock for the first time when a friend's older brother gave us a ride to school in 1984, seeing him on the Sacred Heart tour as my third concert ever, or being amazed at how great he looked on stage in his 60's for the 2007 tour as Heaven and Hell...it is a loss that I will feel whenever I put on one of his many amazing albums.

Back On Black recently started an offshoot of their re-issue label called Rock Classics which will focus more on the older 70's Metal/Rock albums. Looks like they will be doing the early Whitesnake albums, Thin Lizzy, some Deep Purple, and of course the Rainbow catalogue. Each one is limited to 1,000 on colored vinyl, and when they were first available I immediately ordered a copy of Rising. I was so desperate to get a copy that I ordered it from overseas and paid the shipping costs. For Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, I used a little more patience and was able to pick it up from a US seller on ebay.

From the colored vinyl, to the amazing b-side labels, the packaging on these records is amazing. It is just a matter of time until I pick up other two Dio-era Rainbow albums.