Ronnie James Dio, Legend of Metal, Dead at 67
Ronnie James Dio, a legend of heavy metal, died yesterday from stomach cancer at the age of 67. It’s a terribly sad end for one of the genre’s true innovators. Dio popularized the “heavy metal horns” sign:
… and never stopped performing. I saw Dio about two years ago on the Heaven and Hell tour, reuniting with Vinnie Appice, Tony Iommi, and Geezer Butler, the lineup for that album. Ronnie is my dad’s age, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from the way he leaped around the stage. The guy had the energy of a much younger man, but was well aware of his advanced years. At one point during that show, which had a significant population of dads who grew up on Black Sabbath and Dio themselves bringing their teenaged kids for their first taste of arena metal, Ronnie invited the audience to sing along on Voodoo by “following the bouncing Dio”, a reference to sing-alongs in old age homes.
When I was on tour with Uncle Fucker, we’d roll into pretty much every town blasting either Dio or Waylon. It got to the point where our banjo player was ready to take the cd away for good, and so we’d take a break for a few days, and sometimes just a few hours.
During high school, I was never a huge fan of Dio, but times were different: the hardcore/metal crossover hadn’t really begun yet, but even then, Dio was from the old school of metal, singing incomprehensible songs about demons, dragons, mysticism, and stuff that had nothing to do with my teenaged political awakening to Reagan, the USSR, and the impetus to smash the state. But maybe that was the point of Dio’s body of work: escape and escapism.
I’ll close this tribute to Dio, one of the kings of heavy metal, with a double-shot of what’s perhaps his best-known song, Holy Diver. Here’s the original:
…and here’s an update by Killswitch Engage, with a cameo by Ronnie:
Goodbye Ronnie James, and safe travels wherever you are.
