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A King Has Gone
A track from the upcoming Michael Schenker Group album Universal is intended as a tribute to Ronnie James Dio, in particular to his performance on Rainbow Rising. The track is called A King Has Gone and features Helloween frontman Michael Kiske on vocals, and two of the Rainbow alumni — Bobby Rondinelli and Bob Daisley as the rhythm section. Tony Carey also recorded a Moog synth piece titled Calling Baal that is a separate track that serves as an intro to A King Has Gone on the album (we think something Tarot Woman-esque).
The album will be released on May 27 via Atomic Fire Records. It will feature Ronnie Romero as a main vocalist, who will also join the MSG on the upcoming tour.
Thanks to Sonic Perspectives and Gary Poronovich for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
A great track dedicated to the greatest hard rock heavy metal singer ever. There is not one singer that can ever be at the level Ronnie James Dio was. He is the man on the silver mountain.
May 3rd, 2022 at 11:25It sure sounds Rainbow’ish – albeit in a very pedestrian way.
And the lyrics (probably by Kiske, they certainly sound like something a German speaker would have wreaked) are a bit too fan fiction for me.
I do like Romero’s tribute to Dio on his (Romero’s) new solo album, he (very faithfully) covered something not quite so obvious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_iypNdvHqA
I like Ronnie being remembered once in a while for something else than just scaly dragons, dark dungeons and reckless wizards spinning to their death.
May 3rd, 2022 at 11:58We couldn’t get Bob Daisley to rewrite the lyrics by any chance? Sheeesh, corny or what. However in many ways it represents Dio’s solo outings, mediocre & not akin to the dark side at all. We also know that he needed to work with the dark lords in Blackmore & Iommi. They set the scene for his wonderful lyrical prose & melodies. The Dio era was poor indeed for me & coincidentally was also present with the hair metal era.. At least he is remembered for the Rainbow & Sabbath material & Heaven & Hell represented a fine coda to his life being cut short, as tragic as that was. Cheers.
May 4th, 2022 at 00:06Well said.
May 4th, 2022 at 10:44@ MacGregor
Disagree. Not all oft Dio’s solo offerings were timeless gems – but the same goes for his songs with Rainbow or Sabbath. Whereas Holy Diver and Last in Line are still up there with the best this genre has to offer.
May 5th, 2022 at 09:57Where most artists sort of spread their wings as their career progresses, Dio narrowed himself down from the versatile Elf to Rainbow to Black Sabbath to his own solo outings. The circles became ever smaller. I thought that unnecessary, he had a voice that could have offered so much more.
That is not to say that his later work with either Dio or Heaven & Hell did not offer any gems anymore, but his voluntary self-relegation into a fantasy world of bone-crunching lava-thick riffs over sluggish rhythms became samey to my ears.
May 5th, 2022 at 13:02