Rainbow
1,501 Shouts - 9,754,530 Scrobbles
Biography
The brainchild of former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, Rainbow quickly developed into one of the '70s most successful heavy metal bands behind charismatic front man Dio. Together, the duo would produce a string of acclaimed albums which are still considered classics of the genre. But the group would change their musical approach numerous times following the singer's departure, eventually confusing and alienating much of their audience. Releasing eight albums during it's decade long run, the band finally came to an end when Blackmore's Night departed to rejoin his old Deep Purple comrades in a full-fledged reunion in 1984. And while the impact of Rainbow's influence has faded with the intervening decades, theirs was a crucial chapter in the development of heavy metal and hard rock.
Read More...Disillusioned and fed up with the chaotic state of Deep Purple in the mid-'70s, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore made the stunning announcement in May of 1975 that he was quitting the group he had founded and led for over seven years in order to start from scratch. Teaming up with up-and-coming American vocalist Dio, Blackmore's Night built Rainbow around the singer's former band Elf, minus their guitarist David Rock Feinstein. Featuring bassist Craig Gruber, keyboard player Mickey Lee Soule, and drummer Gary Driscoll, the group's 1975 debut Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow was quickly embraced by European fans and yielded their first hit single, "Man on the Silver Mountain." Blackmore's Night and Dio were dissatisfied with the album's sound, however, and decided to re-vamp Rainbow (by then sufficiently established to do without Blackmore's Night's name) by drafting bassist Jimmy Bain, keyboard player Tony Carey, and former Jeff Beck Group drummer Cozy Powell. It was with this lineup that they entered Musicland studios in February 1976 to record the landmark The Rising Tied opus -- once voted the greatest heavy metal album of all time in a 1981 Kerrang! magazine readers' poll. Capturing Blackmore's Night and Dio at the peak of their creative powers, The Rising Tied chronicled both the guitarist's neo-classical metal compositions at their most ambitious, and the singer's growing fixation with fantasy lyrical themes -- a blueprint he would adopt for his entire career thereafter. Following its release, the band embarked upon a successful world tour, culminating in a sold out European jaunt which spawned a best-selling live album entitled 13 Ways To Bleed On Stage, released in 1977.
By the time they returned with the equally acclaimed Long Live Rock 'n' Roll album in 1978 (featuring bassist Bob Daisley and keyboard player David Stone), Rainbow had established themselves as one of Europe's best-selling groups and top concert draws. But the volatile relationship between Blackmore's Night and Dio had already begun to deteriorate, as the American-born singer became increasingly frustrated of standing in the guitarist's shadow -- even in his own country, where the group was now fully committed to breaking big. To make matters worse, Blackmore's Night had been so impressed with "Long Live Rock'n'Roll"'s success as a single, that he began to consider altering the band's sound in order to pursue a more mainstream hard rock approach (a direction which Dio wanted no part of). A chance meeting with Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath (only recently divorced for good from unreliable front man Ozzy Osbourne) helped the singer make up his mind, and Dio officially quit Rainbow in early 1979 to join the Sabs.
Finding a suitable replacement for the charismatic singer proved a serious dilemma, and when Blackmore's Night eventually recruited former Marbles vocalist Graham Bonnett, his decision came with an all-around re-tooling of Rainbow's sound, not to mention, once again, the band's membership, which now included former Deep Purple cohort Roger Glover and keyboard player Don Airey. With the release of 1979's Down To Earth, gone were the mystical themes and epic metal compositions, replaced by a more streamlined commercial hard rock style. But despite containing two of Rainbow's biggest singles, "All Night Long" and "Since You've been Gone" (the second, written by former Argent singer Russ Ballard), the album sputtered in stores, selling far less than the group's previous, Dio-fronted efforts. Bonnett also failed to meet Blackmore's Night's lofty expectations on stage, and after a single, disastrously drunken performance at the inaugural Castle Donington Monsters of Rock Festival in the summer of 1980, the singer was unceremoniously given the boot.
Once again strapped for a vocalist, Blackmore's Night found his man in American singer Joe Lynn Turner, who along with new drummer bobby rondinelli signaled a true career rebirth for Rainbow. Wishing to shed the group's overblown, Dio-associated Euro-metal sound of days past once and for all, the new Rainbow lineup was made to order for another bid at widespread acceptance in America. The first product of this new direction, 1981's well received Difficult To Cure helped the group regain some of their momentum and yielded their highest-charting single ever, another Russ Ballard-penned track entitled "I Surrender." In fact, the record's title track -- a sprawling, ten-minute metallic blitzkrieg through Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 -- was the only throwback to Rainbow's highbrow metal origins. Released in 1982, Straight Between The Eyes failed to chart any successful singles, however, and the band's appeal began to nose-dive, along with Blackmore's Night's increasingly uninventive, risk-free song writing. 1983's Bent Out Of Shape (featuring new members in keyboard player David Rosenthal and drummer Chuck Burgi) fared no better, and after accepting the fact that Rainbow's best days were behind them, Blackmore's Night finally relented to take part in the long-rumored and hoped for re-formation of Deep Purple's classic Mark II lineup. Typically, the guitarist refused to go out quietly, and Rainbow were backed by a full symphony orchestra for their final March 1984 performance in Japan.
A posthumous live release, entitled Finyl Vinyl, was compiled in 1986, and though he would briefly resurrect the Rainbow moniker after quitting Purple for the second time in 1994 (even recording an album called Stranger in Us All), this incarnation would be short-lived. Blackmore's Night was last heard from performing with his purported fiancé Candice Night in the medieval folk duo Blackmore's Night. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi
Top Tracks
Total plays on Last.fm over the last 6 months-
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.89 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes1.29 USD- Ringtone
Man On The Silver Mountain - (4:38) - 42,964 playsLyricsI'm a wheel, I'm a wheel, I can roll, I can feel
And you can't stop me turning
'Cause I'm the sun, I'm the sun, I can move, I can run
But you'll never stop me burning
Come down with fire
-
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital1.29 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes1.29 USD- Ringtone
Since You Been Gone - (3:20) - 37,770 playsLyricsI get the same old dreams same time every night
Fall to the ground and I wake up
So I get out of bed, put on my shoes and in my head
Thoughts fly back to the breakup
These four wall are closing in
-
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.89 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
Catch The Rainbow - (14:46) - 39,552 playsLyricsWhen evening falls
She'll run to me
Like whispered dreams
Your eyes can see
Soft and warm
-
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.89 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes1.29 USD- Ringtone
Stargazer - (8:26) - 36,228 playsLyricsHigh noon, oh, I'd sell my soul for water
Nine years' worth of breakin' my back
There's no sun in the shadow of the wizard
See how he glides, why he's lighter than air
Oh, I see his face
-
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
I Surrender - (4:01) - 29,107 playsLyricsI surrender to your heart babe
Do anything that you want me to do
Please be tender I'm in your hands girl
This is a feeling I never knew
You know I tried to make it on my own
- Kill The King - (4:29) - 29,260 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.89 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Starstruck - (4:07) - 22,525 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- The Temple Of The King - (4:40) - 27,487 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Gates Of Babylon - (6:48) - 20,644 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- All Night Long - (3:50) - 19,113 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Tarot Woman - (6:02) - 16,070 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Run With The Wolf - (3:41) - 14,442 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Long Live Rock 'N' Roll - (7:07) - 15,978 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Sixteenth Century Greensleeves - (3:32) - 14,654 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.89 USD
7digital0.99 USD
Juno1.49 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Still I'm Sad - (3:53) - 15,345 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.89 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Do You Close Your Eyes - (2:58) - 12,084 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.89 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Rainbow Eyes - (7:32) - 14,282 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Self Portrait - (3:17) - 12,716 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
- Street Of Dreams - (4:26) - 13,344 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital1.29 USD
iTunes1.29 USD- Ringtone
- Black Sheep Of The Family - (3:22) - 11,152 plays
- Download This Track
Amazon MP30.99 USD
7digital0.99 USD
iTunes0.99 USD- Ringtone
From Radio.com
-
Deep Purple, Rainbow,The Beatles, Van Halen,The Rolling Stones And Tom Petty.
April 14, 2011 -
Miss You Cozy Happy Birthday
December 29, 2010


Deep Purple
Dio
Whitesnake
Uriah Heep
Elf
Black Sabbath
Joe Lynn Turner
Accept
Yngwie Malmsteen
Judas Priest