Kerrang! Radio Spotlight: Ronnie James Dio

For the first time in Kerrang! Radio Spotlight history, all this week we’re paying homage to just one individual – the legendary and inimitable Ronnie James Dio! Three years to the week since his untimely passing from stomach cancer at the age of 67, we’re immersing ourselves in the iconic music of the heavy metal Messiah from his early days in Elf and Rainbow to his time fronting Black Sabbath and Heaven & Hell plus, of course, his own band Dio.

Loz & Keith, Kate, Jake and Matt will be bringing you a smorgasbord of epic tunes all this week from the great man’s six-decade spanning career and also asking YOU to share your memories about the great man.

8. After Tenacious D recorded the musical homage ‘Dio’ on their self-titled 2001 debut album, an impressed Ronnie James invited Jack Black and Kyle Gass to appear in Dio’s 2002 video ‘Push’ where they performed a tongue-in-cheek cover of Black Sabbath’s biggest song with Ronnie at the helm ‘Heaven and Hell’. Four years later Dio starred as himself in the comedy rockumentary ‘Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny’.

9. On 17th January 2007, Ronnie James Dio became the latest legend to be inducted into the Rock Walk of Fame at the Guitar Centre on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles. Rather than do the normal palm handprint at the ceremony, Dio instead immortalized his trademark devil sign (sign of the horns) for all time in concrete.

10. Armed with one of the finest voices in the history of rock music, Dio maintained that he never once took singing lessons. Instead he attributed his incredible talent to playing the French horn and trumpet when he was a young child – instruments that taught him to pattern his breathing.

!11. Some fans have speculated that when Dio’s logo is turned upside down, the letters spell out the sinister words ‘DIE’. Ronnie James Dio denied this was intentional saying the similarity was “purely incidental.”

12. Dio (the band) adopted a demon-like creature called Murray as their iconic mascot. Just like Iron Maiden’s Eddie, Murray appeared on a string of Dio’s album and single covers in various incarnations together with their live shows. His most notorious outing was on Dio’s 1983 debut album ‘Holy Diver’ where the Satanic Murray is depicted lashing a catholic priest with a metal chain.

13. Ronnie, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice formed Heaven & Hell (named after the Black Sabbath album and song of the same name) in 2006 shortly after the release of the compilation ‘Black Sabbath - The Dio Years’. The three new songs it contained - 'Shadow of the Wind', 'The Devil Cried' and 'Ear in the Wall' – spurred Ronnie and Tony on to make a full album which eventually became 2009’s acclaimed ‘The Devil You Know’. A few minor collaborations aside, the record proved to be the legend’s final swansong.