Today in 1979 Rainbow released the album Down to Earth London, England Hard Rock (early), Heavy Metal (mid), AOR (later) Status:Split-up Years active: 1975-1984, 1994-1997 Rainbow was a British hard rock band formed by Deep Purple founder and former guitarist Ritchie Blackmore in 1975. In addition to Blackmore, the band originally consisted of former Elf lead singer Ronnie James Dio, bassist Craig Gruber, drummer Gary Driscoll, and keyboardist Micky Lee Soule. Over the years Rainbow went through many lineup changes. The Dio Years The name of the band Rainbow was inspired by the Rainbow Bar and Grill that catered to rock stars, groupies and rock enthusiasts. It was here that Ritchie spent some of his off time from Deep Purple and met Dio, whose band Elf had toured regularly as an opening act for Deep Purple. Rainbows debut album, Ritchie Blackmores Rainbow, was released in 1975 and featured the minor hit Man On The Silver Mountain. Rainbows music was different from Deep Purples. The music was more directly inspired by classical music and Dio wrote lyrics about medieval themes. Dio possessed a versatile vocal range capable to sing both hard rock and lighter ballads. Although Dio never played a musical instrument on any Rainbow album, he is credited with writing and arranging the music with Blackmore in addition to writing all the lyrics himself. Blackmore fired everybody except Dio shortly after the album was recorded and recruited drummer Cozy Powell (formerly of the Jeff Beck Group), bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey. This lineup went on to record the album Rising. For the next album, Long Live Rock n Roll, Blackmore kept Powell and Dio and replaced the rest of the band. Blackmore had difficulty finding a bass player for this record so he played bass himself on all but three songs on this album (Gates Of Babylon, Kill The King and Sensitive To Light). After the release and supporting tour, Ronnie James Dio left Rainbow. He would go on to replace Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer in Black Sabbath and later form his own band Dio. Commercial Success Blackmore continued with Rainbow, replacing Dio with ex-Marbles vocalist Graham Bonnet. Powell stayed and was joined by former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover and keyboardist Don Airey. The first album from the new lineup, Down To Earth, featured the bands first chart successes, All Night Long and Since You Been Gone. On stage Bonnet possessed a powerful voice, but struggled with the bands quieter numbers and lacked Dios range. In 1980, the band headlined the inaugural Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donington in England. This would be Powells final performance with Rainbow. He would go on to play for Michael Schenker, Whitesnake and Black Sabbath. The next album saw yet another line-up change as Bonnet and Powell were replaced by Joe Lynn Turner, and bobby rondinelli respectively. The title track from the album, Difficult To Cure, was a version of Beethovens Ninth Symphony. The album also contained the guitar piece, Maybe Next Time. The Difficult to Cure tour was the first tour in which Rainbow headlined in the US. Rainbows next studio album was Straight Between The Eyes. The band added a new keyboardist, David Rosenthal. The album was more cohesive than Difficult to Cure and had more success in the US. The band, however, was alienating some of its earlier fans with its more aor sound. The single Stone Cold was a ballad and had some chart success. The successful supporting tour skipped the UK completely and focused on the American market. Bent Out of Shape saw drummer Rondinelli fired in favor of Chuck Burgi. The album featured the single Street Of Dreams. The songs video was banned by MTV for its supposedly controversial hypnotic video clip. The resulting tour saw Rainbow return to UK and also to Japan where the band performed with a full orchestra. Hiatus and regroup By the mid-1980s, Blackmore and Glover had reformed the Deep Purple Mark II lineup and Rainbow was disbanded in 1984. A final Rainbow album, Finyl Vinyl, was patched together from live tracks and b sides of singles. The album contained the instrumental Weiss Heim widely available for the first time. After Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple for the final time in 1993, he put together a new version of Rainbow in 1994, this time named Ritchie Blackmores Rainbow. This incarnation of the band included Doogie White (vocals), Paul Morris (keyboards), Greg Smith (bass) and John OReilly (drums). The new band released Stranger in Us All in 1995 and embarked on an extensive world tour to promote it from late 1995 to late 1997. For the tour John OReilly was replaced by Chuck Burgi and then by John Micelli for the US leg of the tour (as well as their final show in Esbjerg, Denmark). The tour proved very successful and a show in Germany was professionally filmed by Rockpalast. It has never officially been released, but has been heavily bootleged (and considered by many collectors to be the best Rainbow bootleg of the era). The live shows featured frequent changes in set lists and musical improvisations that proved popular with bootleggers and many shows are still traded over a decade later. However, fed up with stadium rock, Blackmore turned his attention to Rennaisance and medieval music, a lifelong interest of his. Rainbow was put on hold once again and played its final concert in Denmark in 1997. Blackmore, together with his partner Candice Night as vocalist, then formed the renaissance-influenced Blackmores Night. Polydor Records Ritchie Blackmore – guitar Graham Bonnet – vocals Roger Glover – bass guitar Don Airey – keyboards Cozy Powell – drums (R.I.P. 1998) 1. All Night Long (3:52) 2. Eyes of the World (6:42) 3. No Time to Lose (3:44) 4. Makin Love (4:40) 5. Since You Been Gone (3:20)(Russ Ballard cover) 6. Loves No Friend (4:54) 7. Danger Zone (4:31) 8. Lost in Hollywood (4:50) Total Time: 36:36 All songs by Blackmore and Glover, except Since You Been Gone by Russ Ballard and Lost in Hollywood by Blackmore, Glover, and Powell. Two CD deluxe edition released in 2011 with the following track list: Disc 1 (bonus tracks) 9. Bad Girl [4:51] 10. Weiss Heim [5:15] Disc 2 1. All Night Long (instrumental outtake) [4:43] 2. Eyes of the World (instrumental outtake) [6:52] 3. Spark Dont Mean a Fire [3:52] 4. Makin Love (instrumental outtake) [4:46] 5. Since You Been Gone (instrumental outtake) [4:02] 6. Aint a Lot of Love Left in the Heart of Me [5:00] 7. Danger Zone (instrumental outtake) [5:31] 8. Lost in Hollywood (instrumental outtake) [4:03] 9. Bad Girl (instrumental outtake [5:04] 10. Aint a Lot of Love Left in the Heart of Me (alternate outtake) [5:23] 11. Eyes of the World (instrumental outtake) [6:11] 12. All Night Long (Cozy Powell mix) [3:54] A bootleg version of the rough mix had different song titles and running order: 1. Stone (Bad Girl) 2. The Steamer (Lost in Hollywood) 3. Bluesing (Loves No Friend) 4. Mars (Eyes of the World) 5. The Plod (Making Love) 6. New York (Danger Zone) 7. Once More With Feeling (All Night Long) 8. Sparks Dont Mean A Fire (No Time to Lose) 9. Set Me Free (Graham Bonnet demo) Down To Earth is the fourth studio album by Rainbow, released in 1979. It contains Rainbows first hit single Since You Been Gone, marking a more commercial direction of the bands sound During the writing and recording of Down to Earth, there were some changes in the bands line-up. New members included singer Graham Bonnet, producer/lyricist/bassist Roger Glover and keyboardist Don Airey. Before Bonnet was recruited to replace the previous Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio, Ian Gillan and Peter Goalby of Trapeze were considered for the position. Glover was originally recruited by Blackmore as a producer only, and Jack Green of The Pretty Things and session musician Clive Chaman were tested for the bass player position. Almost all instrumental backing tracks were written by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. During song composition, Bonnet made his vocal melodies though it was uncredited contributions. Down to Earth was the only Rainbow album to feature Bonnet, though he was still part of the band when writing for Difficult to Cure began. Also recorded for the proposed next single, but unreleased due to Bonnets departure, was Will You Love Me Tomorrow. Bonnet had previously recorded this song for his first, eponymously titled, solo album in 1977. Rainbows version was recorded in the studio in May 1980, during rehearsals for the Japanese leg of the Down to Earth tour. It was subsequently played live throughout that tour. youtube/watch?v=Ziuqk8dZwrM
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 16:45:04 +0000