from the LP Rising, Polydor Records, 1976After spending seven years conquering the world as guitarist for Deep Purple, the band he co-founded and largely helped become famous thanks to his thunderous riffing, the infamously moody Ritchie Blackmore decided it was time to scrap things and start all over again with a new band behind him; apparently, after the departure of Purple’s original singer Ian Gillian he felt increasingly disrespected by the remaining band, so he left. Blackmore had taken a liking to the band that opened for Deep Purple on their last few tours, a crew from Buffalo, NY called Elf, so he promptly took it upon himself to fire their guitarist and absorb the rest of the band as his own, including now legendary (but then unknown) vocalist Ronnie James Dio---thus, Rainbow was born. Living in the age of gay pride that we do, it’s difficult to contemplate a heavy metal band deciding to call themselves “Rainbow” (shit, even “Rainbow From HELL” for that matter), but back then it was an apt name, both due to the rocker bar in LA from which they took inspiration, but also because, in ’76, kids were still ingesting a lot of acid and seeing rainbows all over the place. Dio wisely left for the opportunity to front Sabbath after one more record, and his creepy yet loveable little mug has been with us ever since; what happened to Blackmore? He’s probably off somewhere doing what he does best: firing musicians.
