i was flipping through some sites about heavy metal and it seems to me that ronnie james dio was born about the same time as abe lincoln or thereabouts. i first heard of him in the early 80s (last century’s, not his) and it seems he was around with chubby checker. is this the same one who rocked with black sabbath and did ‘rainbow in the dark’? how old is he, anyway?
“Born July 10, 1949 in Portsmouth, NH”, says All Music Guide ( www.allmusic.com ).
According to this article, RJD was born on 7/10/42, which would make him 60 years old. The AMG date is wrong, but RJD has always been very touchy about his age, so it would make sense that his publicists sent AMG the wrong info.
If you think his career began in the 70’s with Rainbow and Black Sabbath, think again – on this site you can download Ronnie Dio songs dating back as early as the late 50’s!!
'Course, that would have been way back when he was still going by his real name, Ronnie Padovana… which I think he was still using when he was with Elf.
KGS, loved the link. I’ll have to go back and do some downloading later when I have more time. Which, with my current schedule, will probably be sometime around the turn of the next millenium.
I had no idea that RJD had been around so long. I always thought that Ronnie and the Prophets was his first real band, and Elf was the first band he did any major recording with.
I think the best work I’ve heard of his was when he was with Elf, but Rainbow’s best work was when he was holding the mic. He was totally the wrong vocalist for Black Sabbath, but I must say that I still think that he has, bar none, the finest voice in all of rock ‘n’ roll.
thanks for the help!
he is a great rocker, i’m just shocked that he got started (bigtime, that is) so late.