This page contains news about Ronnie James Dio related things. The information here comes from various different sources I consider reliable, but I cannot guarantee that all the information presented here would be flawless. I've done my best to filter out all the unfounded rumors, or marked those rumors clearly as rumors.
After a 3 year vacation, a ton of updates in the discography and tour date sections. Go to check them out. A summary what has been updated can be found in the Update section - 51 additions from Rainbow, 12 from Black Sabbath/Heaven And Hell, 36 from Dio and 26 others. More will come in near future (maybe sooner than in 3 years time, but predicting the future is always challenging).
My good friend Genady Perchenko has helped me to host this site on his server for almost 20 years. I can't tell how grateful I am for this; he has been a huge supporting force here. However, as he's shutting down his server now, I had to move this site elsewhere. From now on this site will be hosted on a server here in my home country Finland.
Exactly 250 items (singles, LPs, CDs, 8-track tapes etc) added to the discographies and some updates to the past tour dates as well. Some interesting discoveries too! Thanks to Ron Wray, who is an old friend of Ronnie's and who knows everything about the history of Syracuse music, I became aware of two previously unknown Ronnie James Dio connections.
First one of these is this: Back in November 1960 Bobby Comstock released "Your Big Brown Eyes" on Jubilee label. Ronnie plays trumpet and sings backing vocals on this single. Dio collectors were already aware of another Bobby Comstock release featuring Ronnie on bass ("Run My Heart"/"I Can't Help Myself") dating to December 1963 - which was also released a year later in India of all the places!
The second discovery was very surprising, as it went to the very top of the US Billboard charts for three weeks. This song was also an international hit - the single was released in North America, Japan, Australia and various European countries - after initial research on this, my guess is that there are probably dozens of different pressings of this single. The band was "The Angels" and the song was "My Boyfriend's Back". Ronnie's contribution was the bass track on this single. This one was released on LP too, as well as on various compilation and sampler albums.
Oops.
Tons of past tour dates from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s added, plus tons of ticket stub pics, gig ad pics, tour pass pics and so forth included on the tour date pages. More than a handful of discography additions too, including a previously unknown acetate from 1963 (Bad Man In Town / Jezebel), lots of Japanese CD promos, Rainbow test pressings, Zimbabwean records and even some recent reissues.
I've got at least three hundred other additions on the way, but so that I could get at least one release of my pages out this year, I decided to draw a line right here. Maybe a new update even quicker than I did this one.
As you probably know, a year ago on this day Ronnie died. I don't know about you, but I sure know what I'll be doing today: I will listen to whole bunch of Dio albums today, as well as relive the past tours within my head. Warm memories of good times.
Tons of new Dio related releases have showed up since the last update of my pages (June last year!). I'm not sure if I remembered all, and I haven't added all of these to the discography yet either.
Ronnie's band members from Dio - Craig Goldie, Simon Wright and Scott Warren - will be doing a four-week European tour this summer under name Dio Disciples. They will have James LoMenzo on bass as Rudy Sarzo was unable to do the tour because of his other commitments with Blue Oyster Cult. There is also a US tour in plans with Rudy on board. The band will have two vocalists with them, Tim Ripper Owens and Toby Jepson. Or three, as for the last four gigs on the tour Ripper Owens will be replaced by Doro Pesch.
Here are the European dates for them:
From June 11th onwards until 28.06.2011 they will have The Rods as their opening band, featuring Ronnie's cousin David Rock Feinstein on guitars and vocals.
This page is maintained by Tapio Keihänen,
E-mail: dio@iki.fi.
URL: http://www.dio.net/news/,
the front page http://www.dio.net/.