Rainbow (band)
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- This article is about Ritchie Blackmore's band. For Paul Stanley's debut band, see Paul Stanley.
| Rainbow
<tr style="text-align: center;"><td colspan="3">Image:Rainbow1978.jpg The Long Live Rock 'n' Roll Line up, from left to right Ritchie Blackmore, Bob Daisley, Ronnie James Dio, David Stone, Cozy Powell </td></tr>
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| Background information
<tr><td>Origin</td><td colspan="2">UK</td></tr><tr><td>Genre(s)</td><td colspan="2">Hard rock/heavy metal |
Rainbow were a British heavy metal/hard rock band formed by former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore in 1975. In addition to Blackmore, the band originally consisted of former Elf lead singer Ronnie James Dio, bassist Craig Gruber, drummer Gary Driscoll, and keyboardist Micky Lee Soule. Over the years Rainbow went through many lineup changes.
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[edit] History
[edit] The Dio Years
The name of the band Rainbow was inspired by a Hollywood Bar and Grill called the Rainbow that catered to rock stars, groupies and rock enthusiasts. It was here that Ritchie spent some of his off time from Deep Purple and met Dio, whose band Elf had toured regularly as an opening act for Deep Purple. In 1974 Blackmore became infuriated at the funk/soul elements being introduced by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, and originally intended to record a solo album to express his ideas that were being surpressed in Deep Purple, and so went into the studio with Elf as a session band. Emboldened by the experience and having a strong rapport with Dio, he decided to leave Deep Purple and form his own band around Elf, effectively taking it over minus their guitarist and renaming it Rainbow. Rainbow's debut album, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, was released in 1975 and featured the minor hit "Man on the Silver Mountain".
Rainbow's music was different from Deep Purple's. The music was more directly inspired by Classical music and Dio wrote lyrics about medieval themes. Dio possessed a versatile vocal range capable to sing both hard rock and lighter ballads.[citation needed] Although Dio never played a musical instrument on any Rainbow album, he is credited with writing and arranging the music with Blackmore in addition to writing all the lyrics himself.
Blackmore fired everybody except Dio shortly after the album was recorded and recruited drummer Cozy Powell (formerly of the Jeff Beck Group), bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey. This lineup went on to record the album Rising.
Blackmore subsequently decided that Bain was substandard and fired him, and the same fate befell Carey shortly after. However Blackmore had difficulty finding replacements he liked. On keyboards he finally went for David Stone, from the little-known band Symphonic Slam. For a bass player Blackmore originally chose Mark Clarke from the band Tempest, but once in the studio for the next album, Long Live Rock 'n' Roll, Blackmore disliked his playing so much that he fired Clarke on the spot and played bass himself on all but three songs on this album ("Gates of Babylon", "Kill the King", and "Sensitive To Light"). For these tracks he finally settled on Bob Daisley. After the release and supporting tour, Blackmore decided that he wanted to take the band in a new direction away from the "sword and sorcery" theme. Dio did not agree with this change and left Rainbow. He would go to replace Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer in Black Sabbath and later form his own band Dio.
[edit] Commercial Success
Blackmore attempted to replace Dio with Ian Gillan, but Gillan turned him down, so ex-Marbles vocalist Graham Bonnet, noted for his powerful voice, was recruited instead. Powell stayed but Daisley and Stone were both fired, replaced by keyboardist Don Airey and former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover. The latter appointment was somewhat ironic as Blackmore had successfully demanded the sacking of Glover from Deep Purple in 1973. The first album from the new lineup, Down To Earth, featured the band's first chart successes, "All Night Long" and "Since You Been Gone". On stage Bonnet possessed a powerful voice, but struggled with the band's quieter numbers and lacked Dio's range.[citation needed] In 1980, the band headlined the inaugural Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England. However this was Powell's last Rainbow gig as he had already given his notice to quit, disliking Blackmore's increasingly pop metal direction. He would go on to play for Michael Schenker, Whitesnake and Black Sabbath. Bonnet subsequently became disgruntled at the domination of Blackmore and Glover and left to go solo.
For the next album Bonnet and Powell were replaced by Joe Lynn Turner, and Bobby Rondinelli respectively. The title track from the album, Difficult to Cure, was a version of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The album also contained the guitar piece, "Maybe Next Time". The Difficult to Cure tour was the first tour in which Rainbow headlined in the U.S. Don Airey then quit over musical direction and was replaced on keyboards by David Rosenthal.
Rainbow's next studio album was Straight Between the Eyes. The album was more cohesive than Difficult to Cure and had more success in the United States. The band, however, was alienating some of its earlier fans with its more AOR sound.[citation needed] The single, "Stone Cold", was a ballad and had some chart success. The successful supporting tour skipped the UK completely and focused on the American market.
Bent Out of Shape saw drummer Rondinelli fired in favor of Chuck Burgi. The album featured the single "Street Of Dreams". The song's video was banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip.<ref>Blackmore's Night - Ritchie Blackmore Bio</ref> The resulting tour saw Rainbow return to UK and also to Japan where the band performed with a full orchestra.
| (1975) | |
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| (1976-1978) | |
| (1978) | |
| (1979-1980) | |
| (1980-1981) | |
| (1982) | |
| (1983-1984) | |
| (1984-1993) |
Band split |
| (1993-1996) | |
| (1996-1997) |
[edit] Hiatus and regroup
By the mid-1980s, Blackmore and Glover had reformed the Deep Purple "Mark II" line-up and Rainbow was disbanded. A final Rainbow album, Finyl Vinyl, was patched together from live tracks and B-sides of singles. The album contained the instrumental Weiss Heim widely available for the first time.
Blackmore left Deep Purple in 1993 and formed a new Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. The band released Stranger in Us All in 1995 and embarked on a lengthy world tour.
The tour proved very successful and a show in Germany was professionally filmed by 'Rockpalast'. It has never officially been released, but has been heavily bootleged (and considered by many collectors to be the best Rainbow bootleg of the era). The live shows featured frequent changes in set lists and musical improvisations that proved popular with bootleggers and many shows are still traded over a decade later.
However, fed up with stadium rock, Blackmore turned his attention to Renaissance and medieval music, a lifelong interest of his. Rainbow was put on hold once again and played its final concert in Esbjerg, Denmark in 1997. Blackmore, together with his partner Candice Night as vocalist, then formed the renaissance-influenced Blackmore's Night.
[edit] Discography
LPs:
- Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975) #11 UK, #30 US
- Rising (1976) #12 UK, #48 US
- Long Live Rock 'N' Roll (1978) #7 UK, #89 US
- Down to Earth (1979) #6 UK, #66 US
- Difficult to Cure (1981) #3 UK, #50 US
- Straight Between the Eyes (1982) #5 UK, #30 US
- Bent Out of Shape (1983) #11 UK, #34 US
- Stranger in Us All (1995)
Live:
- On Stage (1977) #7 UK, #65 US
- Finyl Vinyl (1986) #31 UK, #87 US
- Live in Germany (1994)
- Live in Europe (1996)
- Live in Munich 1977 (2006)
- Rainbow Live At Cologne SportHalle (2006)
- Live In Germany 1976 (30th Anniversary Edition Box) - Japanese Import 6CD boxset (2006)
Greatest Hits:
- The Best of Rainbow (1981) #14 UK
- The Very Best of Rainbow (1997)
- 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Rainbow (2000)
- Pot of Gold (2002)
- Catch the Rainbow: The Anthology (2003)
Singles:
- Man On The Silver Mountain (1975)
- Catch The Rainbow (1975)
- Starstruck (1976)
- Stargazer (1976)
- Kill The King (1978)
- Long Live Rock 'N' Roll (1978)
- Gates Of Babylon (1979)
- Since You Been Gone (1979)
- All Night Long (1980)
- I Surrender (1981)
- Can't Happen Here / Jealous Lover (1981)
- Stone Cold (1982)
- Power (1982)
- Can't Let You Go (1983)
- Street Of Dreams (1983)
- Hunting Humans (Insatiable) (1995)
- Ariel (1995)
[edit] Further reading
Rainbow Rising - The Story of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow; Roy Davies (Helter Skelter, 2002)
[edit] References
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