Rainbow (band)

Rainbow
Rainbow live in Oslo , Norway (1977)
General information
Genre (s)	Hard rock , heavy metal
founding	1975, 1994, 2015
resolution	1984, 1997
Founding members
guitar	Ritchie Blackmore
singing	Ronnie James Dio (until 1978, † 2010)
bass	Craig Gruber (1975, † 2015)
Drums	Gary Driscoll (1975, † 1987)
Keyboard	Mickey Lee Soule (1975)
Current occupation
guitar	Ritchie Blackmore
bass	Bob Nouveau (since 2015)
singing	Ronnie Romero (since 2015)
Drums	David Keith (since 2015)
Keyboard	Jens Johansson (since 2015)
former members
Keyboard	Tony Carey (1975-1977)
bass	Jimmy Bain (1975–1977, † 2016)
Drums	Cozy Powell (1975–1980, † 1998)
bass	Mark Clarke (1977)
bass	Bob Daisley (1977-1978)
Keyboard	David Stone (1977-1978)
singing	Graham Bonnet (1979-1980)
bass	Roger Glover (1979-1983)
Keyboard	Don Airey (1979-1981)
singing	Joe Lynn Turner (1980-1983)
Drums	Bobby Rondinelli (1980-1982)
Keyboard	Dave Rosenthal (1982-1983)
Drums	Chuck Bürgi (1982-1983)
bass	Greg Smith (1994-1997)
singing	Doogie White (1994-1997)
Drums	John O'Reilly (1994-1997)
Keyboard	Paul Morris (1994-1997)

Rainbow ( English for rainbow is) a British band that in 1975 by Ritchie Blackmore was established that after leaving Deep Purple launched a solo project. He engaged the singer Ronnie James Dio and three other musicians from the recently disbanded rock band Elf from New York City , whom he knew through some tours together . Blackmore called his new main band first Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow , later Blackmore's Rainbow and since 1977 Rainbow .

Rainbow continued the hard rock Deep Purples, but mixed it with elements from medieval music and in the 1970s set the style for the speed and power metal that appeared a few years later . In the 1980s, Rainbow played increasingly more commercial mainstream hard rock and stadium rock.

The band was disbanded by Ritchie Blackmore in 1984 due to the upcoming reunion of Deep Purple, re-established by him in 1994 and disbanded again in 1997 in favor of Blackmore's Night . In 2015, however, concerts were announced again with a new line-up for 2016. Rainbow has sold 28 million albums worldwide and is one of the most successful rock bands of the 1970s and 1980s.

Band history

At the end of 1974 Ritchie Blackmore suggested to his band Deep Purple that they cover the song Black Sheep of the Family (originally by Quatermass , 1970). Since this was rejected by his bandmates, he decided to record the song as a solo project . For the recording he recruited the New York band Elf around singer Ronnie James Dio , who had already appeared several times as opening act for Deep Purple. As the B-side for this single, Dio and Blackmore wrote the song Sixteenth Century Greensleeves (based on the famous Greensleeves ), which they said they liked even better, and the idea arose to record an entire album with this line-up. This plan was also implemented in March 1975 in the basement of the Arabella House in Munich , where the Musicland Studios were located. While Blackmore's colleagues were gathered up in the hotel and preparing for the tour, Blackmore recorded his solo album in the hotel's basement. In April 1975, the tension between Blackmore and his colleagues from Deep Purple erupted to the effect that Blackmore left the band. In any case, dissatisfied with the development of Deep Purple after the entry of Glenn Hughes and David Coverdale , he now had the opportunity to finally emancipate himself from the band with his solo album. The first Rainbow album was released in August 1975 under the title Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow .

The Dio era

The band Rainbow emerged from the solo project Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow , with Blackmore replacing all band members with the exception of Ronnie James Dio before their debut was released. He continued this practice throughout Rainbow's existence, so that hardly any line-up existed longer than an album and a tour. The second line-up of Rainbow consisted of Dio and Blackmore of Cozy Powell (drums), Jimmy Bain (bass) and Tony Carey (keyboards) and is considered by many fans as the classic line-up. This line-up recorded the second album Rising in February / March 1976 , which, like the first, was recorded in the Munich Musicland studio . The Munich Philharmonic also took part in the recordings . The songs on this album set standards in the genre: Stargazer , Tarot Woman and A Light in the Black stood out due to Dio's vocal performances, extraordinary song lengths of 6 to 8 minutes, the use of an orchestra, and solo performances by keyboard and guitar.

After the release of the second album, the band went on their first tour in 1976/1977, on which the live album On Stage was recorded, which was released in 1977; The opening act on this tour were the then quite unknown AC / DC . The recordings originally made for this album in Germany turned out to be unsuitable for the LP format because the songs were too long, so Rainbow played some songs a little shorter on the Japan tour, especially for the album. The recordings of the Germany tour were only released in 1990 on a double CD called Live in Germany . In 1977 the third album Long Live Rock'n'Roll was recorded , now with Bob Daisley on bass and David Stone on keyboards , which was released in 1978. Due to the increased popularity of the band, singles from this album were also able to reach higher positions in the charts for the first time (see discography ). Unlike Rising , most of the pieces had typical single lengths, but with the oriental-looking Gates of Babylon , which sprawled in the solo part, and the ballad Rainbow Eyes, there were also two extra-long pieces with which the vinyl sides each ended.

In the end there were tensions within the band again in this line-up. Blackmore saw Rainbow as his own project. However, Dio could not get by with Blackmore's temperament and self-centeredness and so left the band in 1978.

The transition

First, singer Graham Bonnet got into the band in 1979 . Bonnet was a distant cousin of the Bee Gees and had already been successful a few years earlier in the duo The Marbles with the hit Only One Woman . With him, Roger Glover came into the band, who had previously played with Blackmore in Deep Purple. Glover also took on the role of producer. The keyboardist Don Airey , who had already made a name for himself at Colosseum II and was supposed to travel across the cream of the hard rock world after his Rainbow days ( Michael Schenker Group / MSG , Gary), was also part of the party Moore , Ozzy Osbourne and later Deep Purple ).

With this line-up, the album Down to Earth was released in 1979 , which - unlike its predecessors - with Since You Been Gone (written by ex- Argent guitarist Russ Ballard ) and All Night Long also contained two hit singles. In addition, there were the usual long solo dialogues between guitar and keyboards in Eyes of the World , which was again influenced by the Orient, and the hard Lost in Hollywood . All in all, also due to Bonnet's vocals, the record was still as hard as usual (or definitely harder than Rainbow's first album), on the other hand, the production seemed smoother than the previous albums, which was also due to Roger Glover's bass. Compared to the previously rhythmically strongly varying Daisley, which sometimes anticipated the other instruments, this one stood out as being very beat- and root-heavy.

Ultimately, the first approaches to the mainstream sound, which was quite clearly used in the following albums, were already recognizable here.

The eighties

During the recording of the upcoming album, Graham Bonnet was replaced by the American Joe Lynn Turner . Blackmore hoped to have success in the US market with an American singer. The three albums Difficult to Cure (1981), Straight Between the Eyes (1982) and Bent Out of Shape (1983) were recorded with Turner - again with an otherwise changing line-up . The music on these albums developed partly in the direction of radio-compatible mainstream rock, for whose composition Blackmore more often relied on the help of well-known commissioned songwriters such as Russ Ballard . From this time comes I Surrender (by Difficult to Cure ), the band's most successful song, which reached number 3 in the UK singles charts and was composed by Ballard. Another special feature of this phase was the title song of Difficult to Cure , which is an instrumental arrangement of the final movement Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th Symphony .

Although the band now reached higher chart positions in the USA, the hoped-for big breakthrough in America did not materialize. Blackmore was once again dissatisfied with the overall situation and tried unsuccessfully to get Ian Paice ( Purple drummer) and Ian Gillan to join. After the last concert of the bent-out-of-shape tour in March 1984 in Tokyo Blackmore broke the band for the time being and reformed with Roger Glover successful Mk II duty system of Deep Purple.

The legacy of Rainbows

After leaving Rainbow, Ronnie James Dio first went to Black Sabbath for two albums , where he replaced Ozzy Osbourne as singer and as (co-) songwriter brought about a significant change in style. The result was the two albums Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules , which were much more melodic and less raw than the albums with Osbourne on the microphone and were clearly influenced by Rainbow. After tensions with guitarist Tony Iommi Dio got out even with Black Sabbath and started with the equally significant influence of Rainbow band Dio a successful solo career, whose career he only for a short re-entry in Black Sabbath in 1992 with the album Dehumanizer interrupted. In 2007 the Black Sabbath line-up reformed with Dio as the singer under the name Heaven and Hell and made several festival appearances. Ronnie James Dio died in 2010.

Graham Bonnet sang in various bands after leaving, including a. at the Michael Schenker Group . In 1984 he founded the band Alcatrazz , in which one after the other a. a. the declared Rainbow admirer Yngwie Malmsteen and Steve Vai played.

In the late 1980s there was renewed tension among the members of Deep Purple, with the result that singer Ian Gillan left the band in 1989. At Blackmore's suggestion, Joe Lynn Turner became a singer with Deep Purple. Together with bassist Roger Glover , Deep Purple consisted mostly of the last Rainbow line-up. So the 1990 album Slaves and Masters sounded very much like Rainbow's Turner phase. However, since this album was untypical for Deep Purple and disappointed the fans, Blackmore was overruled and Gillan brought back. Turner then recorded albums with various bands and projects, mainly solo or with the band Brazen Abbot .

After the renewed tension in the band Blackmore in 1993 had caused Deep Purple to leave, he put together a completely new band with the old name Rainbow in 1994 . In 1995 the album Stranger sung by Doogie White was released in Us All , which was followed by a world tour. After the last Rainbow concert in 1997 in Esbjerg ( Denmark ) founded Blackmore took place, along with his partner and later wife Candice Night who had sung on the last Rainbow album in background, the project Blackmore's Night , which focuses on music Renaissance focused.

The importance of Rainbow for the development of Heavy Metal and many of its varieties, especially Power Metal , is now undisputed. The Rising album in particular still exerts an important influence on hard rock and metal musicians to this day. For example, named Yngwie Malmsteen his first band after the Rainbow album Rising . His current band operates under the name Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force . In addition, Malmsteen is known for “collecting” former Rainbow members. For example, Cozy Powell, Joe Lynn Turner, Bob Daisley and Doogie White were members of Malmsteen's band at different times.

Another reunion / re-establishment in 2015

In autumn 2015, several concerts with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (with a new edition of the Monsters of Rock festival ) were announced for 2016 . In addition to Blackmore, the line-up consists of singer Ronnie Romero (also singer with CoreLeoni , Lords Of Black), keyboardist Jens Johansson (Stratovarius), bassist Bob Nouveau (Bob Curiano) and drummer David Keith (Blackmore's Night). According to Blackmore, his wife Candice Night found videos of singer Ronnie Romero and his Spanish rainbow tribute band "Rising" on the Internet and suggested that Blackmore listen to them. According to Blackmore, the discovery of Romero had only triggered the idea of ​​a reunion.

The dates were:

• June 17, 2016 Loreley open-air theater - Sankt Goarshausen
• June 18, 2016 fairground at the viaduct - Bietigheim-Bissingen
• 25 June 2016 Genting Arena - Birmingham

The first two concerts were published in autumn 2016 as a compilation under the title Memories in Rock - Live In Germany in CD and DVD format.

Membership overview

The band history of Rainbow, which was characterized by numerous changes, is shown below based on the line-up.

Musical style

The first Rainbow record was stylistically more or less a mixture of the last two albums of the now disbanded band Elf - which had been almost completely taken over - and the (atypically gentle) Deep Purple album Stormbringer . With the second album, however, that changed. Mainly responsible for this was the entry of the drummer Cozy Powell and the keyboardist Tony Carey . The double bass game of Powell raised the tempo of the songs noticeably so for that time very fast songs like A Light In The Black or Kill The King were possible. Tony Carey, on the other hand, was a competent keyboardist whose style of playing made the keyboard a full-fledged instrument. The keyboard was now also used for solo interludes and not just for atmospheric, two-dimensional accompaniment. The concerted way of playing both solo instruments was also outstanding. Compared to the guitar / keyboard “duels” between Blackmore and Jon Lord at Deep Purple before, the solo parts of both instruments mostly flowed into each other in Rainbow to create a common whole instead of competing with each other.

Carey also used modern synthesizers at the time to set the band's keyboard sound apart from the Hammond organ (see Deep Purple or Uriah Heep ), which was often used in hard rock at the time . All in all, Rainbow used many musical means in the Dio era, which were only taken up again later in the field of Speed / Power Metal .

Rainbow weren't just limited to a pre-form of heavy metal, they also provided a platform for Blackmore to worship medieval music. The song Sixteenth Century Greensleeves from the debut album was an adaptation of the popular folk song Greensleeves from the 16th century . The use of orchestral instruments was also striking. On the album Rising , the Munich Philharmonic , conducted by Rainer Pietsch , was engaged for some of the songs ; on Long Live Rock'n'Roll , the Bavarian string ensemble under Ferenc Kiss fulfilled the same purpose. On the one hand, these classical ensembles backed "harder" songs like Stargazer with chords from the whole orchestra, on the other hand they created a folk- like atmosphere in ballads like Rainbow Eyes .

Dio's texts are also special. Completely contrary to the trend of the time, they dealt with mystical sagas and medieval fairy tales, whereby Dio “forced” them to a large extent into a rhyme (“Sleep with the devil and then you must pay / Sleep with the devil, the devil will take you away "- from Gates of Babylon ). Dios theme can be summarized with the English term Sword and Sorcery . With his departure, the style of the band changed overall.

After Dio's departure, but especially with the entry of Joe Lynn Turner, the following albums - both in terms of lyrics and instrumentation - gradually became more poppy, as the band, which had celebrated their greatest successes in Europe so far, also wanted to conquer the American market. Rainbows hard rock became more and more conventional, and the lyrical themes also adapted to the standards of the time (love, politics, rock star life, status symbols, etc.).

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1975	Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow	-	-	-	UK11 silver (8 weeks)UK	US30 (15 weeks) US
1976	Rising	DE38 (4 weeks) DE	-	-	UK11 silver (22 weeks)UK	US48 (... weeks) US
1978	Long live rock 'n' roll	DE26 (6 weeks) DE	-	-	UK7th silver (12 weeks)UK	US89 (11 weeks) US
1979	Down to Earth	DE19 (9 weeks) DE	-	-	UK6th gold (37 weeks)UK	US66 (15 weeks) US
1981	Difficult to cure	DE13 (22 weeks) DE	-	-	UK3 gold (22 weeks)UK	US50 (16 weeks) US
1982	Straight Between The Eyes	DE21 (8 weeks) DE	-	-	UK5 silver (13 weeks)UK	US30 (23 weeks) US
1983	Bent out of shape	DE25 (9 weeks) DE	-	-	UK11 (6 weeks) UK	US34 (21 weeks) US
1995	Stranger in Us All	DE36 (8 weeks) DE	-	CH40 (2 weeks) CH	-	-

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

Live albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1977	On stage	DE28 (5 weeks) DE	-	-	UK7th silver (10 weeks)UK	US65 (9 weeks) US
1986	Finyl vinyl	-	-	-	UK31 (4 weeks) UK	US87 (10 weeks) US
2006	Live in Munich 1977	DE73 (1 week) DE	-	-	-	-
2013	Black Masquerade - Rockpalast '95	DE14 (2 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-
2016	Monsters of Rock - Live at Donington 1980	DE54 gold (1 week)DE	-	-	-	-
	Memories in Rock - Live in Germany	DE11 (3 weeks) DE	-	CH56 (1 week) CH	-	-
2017	Live in Birmingham 2016	-	-	CH83 (1 week) CH	-	-
2018	Memories in Rock II	DE26 (2 weeks) DE	AT37 (1 week) AT	CH48 (1 week) CH	-	-

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More live albums

• 1980: Monsters of Rock
• 1990: Live in Germany 1976
• 2006: Live in Düsseldorf 1976
• 2006: Live in Cologne 1976
• 2006: Live in Nuremberg 1976
• 2015: Denver 1979
• 2015: Long Island 1979
• 2015: Live in Japan 1984
• 2016: Boston 1981

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1981	The best of rainbow	-	-	-	UK14th gold (17 weeks)UK	-
2015	A Light In The Black 1975-1984	DE39 (1 week) DE	-	-	-	-

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More compilations

• 1997: The Very Best of Rainbow (UK:silver)
• 2000: The Millennium Collection: The Best of Rainbow
• 2002: Pot of Gold
• 2002: All Night Long: An Introduction
• 2003: Catch the Rainbow: The Anthology
• 2003: Winning Combinations: Deep Purple and Rainbow
• 2009: Anthology 1975-1984
• 2014: The Singles Box Set 1975-1986
• 2014: Since You Been Gone: The Collection

EPs

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1981	Jealous lover	-	-	-	-	US147 (4 weeks) US

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1977	Kill the King On Stage	-	-	-	UK44 (3 weeks) UK	-
1978	Long Live Rock 'N' Roll Long Live Rock 'N' Roll	-	-	-	UK33 (3 weeks) UK	-
	LA Connection Long Live Rock 'N' Roll	-	-	-	UK40 (4 weeks) UK	-
1979	Since You Been Gone Down to Earth	-	-	-	UK6 (10 weeks) UK	US57 (8 weeks) US
1980	All Night Long Down to Earth	-	-	-	UK5 silver (11 weeks)UK	-
1981	I Surrender Difficult to Cure	-	-	-	UK3 (10 weeks) UK	-
	Can't Happen Here Difficult to Cure	-	-	-	UK20 (8 weeks) UK	-
1982	Stone Cold Straight Between the Eyes	-	-	-	UK34 (4 weeks) UK	US40 (12 weeks) US
1983	Street of Dreams Bent Out of Shape	-	-	-	UK52 (3 weeks) UK	US60 (10 weeks) US
	Can't Let You Go Bent Out of Shape	-	-	-	UK43 (2 weeks) UK	-

More singles

• 1975: Man on the Silver Mountain
• 1975: Temple of the King
• 1975: Still I'm Sad
• 1976: Starstruck
• 1981: Difficult to Cure
• 1981: Magic
• 1981: Jealous Lover
• 1982: Power
• 1982: Death Alley Driver
• 1986: Bad Girl
• 1995: Ariel
• 2017: Land of Hope and Glory
• 2018: Waiting for a Sign
• 2019: Black Sheep of the Family
• 2019: The Storm

Web links

• Rainbow at AllMusic (English)
• Rainbow at Discogs (English)
• Rainbow at laut.de
• Rainbow on MusicBrainz (English)
• Fan page

sources

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK1 UK2 US