Rainbow Rising

It all started when Ritchie Blackmore wanted Deep Purple to record a song from a band called Quatermass.  The song’s name – Black Sheep in the Family.  Deep Purple took a pass on the song, so Ritchie recorded it with another band.  In 1974, Deep Purple recorded the Stormbringer album.  He had no use for the funk and soul music favored by David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes [who replaced Ian Gillan and Roger Glover in 1973, respectively].  Having expressed his distaste for what he called “shoeshine music,” Ritchie left Deep Purple in 1975 to form Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow.  Blackmore’s band was Elf [minus their guitar player] and included singer Ronnie James Dio.  This band recorded Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, which included the aforementioned Black Sheep in the Family.  It also included the AOR classic Man on the Silver Mountain and the moody ballad Catch a Rainbow.  

After recording the album, Ritchie sacked the entire band [except Dio].  In their places, Blackmore hired Cozy Powell [drums], Jimmy Bain [bass], and Tony Carey [keyboards].  The new Rainbow toured, and then they recorded an album – Rainbow Rising.  Rainbow Rising is a short record – six songs at just over 33 minutes.  But the elements of the Rainbow sound – Ritchie Blackmore’s classically-tinged lead guitar, Cozy Powell’s relentless drumming, Ronnie James Dio’s superhuman vocals – they’re all here.  The first four songs are just that – songs that have nothing to do with each other.  But the final two songs, which occupy all of what used to be Side 2 – Stargazer and A Light in the Black – tell a story.  Musically the songs take on a bit of a baroque character.  This can be attributed to Ritchie Blackmore having taken up learning the cello.  He wrote some of the songs using a cello – he wanted to try a new, unfamiliar tool for songwriting.

The songs:

Tarot Woman – Tony Carey starts things with a spacey 1:15-long synthesizer opening, after which Ritchie Blackmore starts playing a riff for about 20 seconds, when Cozy Powell comes storming in.  Ritchie and the Bain/Powell rhythm section gallop along while Dio sings about a mysterious woman he doesn’t want anything to do with.  At 3:20 Ritchie starts a jaw-dropping minute-long solo that’s equal to anything he did with Deep Purple.

Run With the Wolf – Werewolves!  Dio felt the need to write a song about werewolves.  This song and Starstruck are short, catchy tunes which would have been at home on a Deep Purple album.  Perhaps rocking songs like these would have made Stormbringer easier to listen to.

Starstruck – Here’s the story of RJD [or perhaps Ritchie Blackmore] being unable to shake off a stalking groupie who “wants a souvenir.”  No matter where he goes, there she is [If I'm away from home and think I'm all alone, she's there, somewhere… I could fly to the moon, but she'd soon find a way to be there…].

Do You Close Your Eyes – This is the only real clunker on Rainbow Rising.  Luckily for us, it’s also the shortest song [3:02].  The tune is good, but the lyrics are just plain bad.  For years, Ronnie James Dio said he wouldn’t write songs along the line of “hey baby, let’s make love under a tree.”  And yet, here’s a song the expresses almost that exact sentiment – Do you close your eyes when you making love, yeah, yeah /Making sweet love to me, yeah… Please…I expect much better from RJD. 

Stargazer – The story of an evil wizard who enslaves those around him.  For nine years this evil wizard forces his people to build him a tower made of stone so that he can watch the stars and so that he can fly [High noon, oh I'd sell my soul for water/Nine years' worth of breakin' my back].  This wizard is omnipresent - There's no sun in the shadow of the wizard… The task of building the wizard’s tower is all-consuming [In the heat and the rain with whips and chains, just to see him fly, so many die/We built a tower of stone with our flesh and bone just to see him fly/Don't know why, now where do we go?] When all is done, the wizard climbs the completed tower.  Ritchie’s solo is like listening to the guy climb to ever-increasing heights until the wizard gets to the top.  But when he tries to fly, he falls to his death instead.  Ritchie’s slide down the neck of his guitar is the wizard falling to his death.  When he was in Deep Purple, Ritchie was wary of playing with orchestras, but on Stargazer Rainbow is accompanied by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.  Their arrangement gives the song a bit of a haunting, Eastern character.  The Rainbow/orchestra combination works very well.  Without a doubt, Stargazer is Rainbow’s crowning achievement.

A Light in the Black – The wizard from Stargazer is dead, but those whom he enslaved can’t believe their sudden emancipation [All my life it seems, just a crazy dream, reaching for somebody's star/ Can’t believe it all, did he really fall? What to do now I don’t know…].  The only thing to do is to go home, wherever “home” is.  They’ve been at the task of building the wizard’s tower for so long they don’t know what to do or how to feel [Breathed the air before, heard the thunder roar, never knew it was for me /Always looking down, lost and never found, eyes that looked but not to see…] Instrumentally, this song is like a Deep Purple song.  Tony Carey takes a one-minute mind-bending synth solo, Ritchie matches him note-for-note for about 30 seconds, then takes his own solo [4:06 – 5:43], then Tony Carey matches Ritchie note-for-note until Dio’s vocals come back.  The Blackmore/Carey interplay is like a lot what Ritchie did with Jon Lord in Deep Purple.  While Tony Carey and Ritchie are performing their musical gymnastics, Cozy Powell is hammering away while his double-bass drums sound like Rommel’s Panzers rolling across Africa.

Rainbow Rising was released in May 1976.  Rainbow would tour the rest of 1976 with the line-up that created Rainbow Rising.  But after 1976 turned to 1977, Jimmy Bain and Tony Carey would be out of the Rainbow picture.  The core of Ritchie Blackmore, Cozy Powell, and Ronnie James Dio would record one more album together – Long Live Rock and Roll [1978].  Afterwards, Ritchie decided he wanted Rainbow to sound like Foreigner.  When that happened, Dio split.  But Dio wouldn’t be unemployed for long.  He soon joined Black Sabbath and made Heaven and Hell [1980], but that’s another story.  Rainbow Rising is an essential part of any Ritchie Blackmore or Ronnie James Dio collection.  It is good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Deep Purple In Rock, Machine Head, and Burn.