Music N' More: Rainbow (band)

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Rainbow (band)

This is a fairly well known band. Started by Ritchie Blackmore, formerly of Deep Purple, this band has had a revolving door on members.

History
-Formed in 1975
-The band lasted from 1975-1984 and then 1994-1997. The reason there was a sizeable gap between the years is because in 1984 Deep Purple had reunited to record Perfect Strangers and The House of Blue Light. Unfortunately, old tensions never die. Ritchie Blackmore and singer Ian Gillan once again started fighting. This went on until about the early 1990s
-The name was inspired by the famous Rainbow Bar & Grill in Los Angeles, where Ritchie was living at the time.
-How the band started is in 1974, Ritchie was incredibly annoyed at the heavy soul/funk direction that Deep Purple had taken, thanks to then singer David Coverdale and then bassist Glenn Hughes both being fans of soul and funk music. His annoyance with this type of music, which he dubbed "shoeshine music" had started around the time of Stormbringer. That's why to this day that is his least favorite Purple album. It reminds him too much of that era.

-Another thing that became a thorn in Blackmore's side was that his fellow bandmates were not interested in including a cover song on Stormbringer. The song of choice was "Black Sheep of the Family" by Quatermass. During the subsequent tour to support the new album, the opening band had been an American band called Elf. Blackmore was shocked by their vocalist, Ronnie James Dio. He had approached Dio about forming a band together. Once they got talking, they both discovered a lot in common, one thing in particular being a love of medieval and Renaissance culture and history. Before long, a whole album worth of songs had been created. Initially the band's debut album was titled Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, but then on the second album it was shortened to just Rainbow. To let everyone know that it was a group of people working together and not just everyone working to the marching orders of one person. And, of course, Blackmore got his cover song on this album. "Black Sheep of the Family" made it on the debut album shown below

-It was in 1978, around the time of Long Live Rock 'n' Roll that the relationship between Dio and Blackmore was not only becoming volatile, it was becoming deadly to the great chemistry in the band. Dio felt that he was standing in the shadow of Blackmore, like he was the star attraction of the band, even in America, where Dio is from. Not only that, Dio's then girlfriend Wendy was whispering things into his ear about how Ritchie had appeared on the front of Circus Magazine by himself and how good he was, essentially starting rumors. Unfortunately, tensions began to rise later on. When Dio approached Blackmore about it, Blackmore was adamant that the whole band be on there. This led to tensions between Dio and Blackmore, resulting in Dio leaving.

-Of course, Dio would go on to greater things-joining Black Sabbath in 1979 to prepare for production of 1980's Heaven & Hell.

-The next singer would be Graham Bonnet, who would only last one album, Down to Earth. Blackmore was more or less insistent that everyone in the band have long hair, but Graham had short, almost razor cut hair. It was even hinted that Blackmore wanted people to stand guard over Bonnet to keep him from getting his hair cut. Of course, Bonnet managed to slip away and get the haircut and when Blackmore seen it on stage, Bonnet said, with a laugh, that his jaw nearly hit the floor in shock. Bonnet soon was fired afterwards. This album produced two major singles: "All Night Long" despite accusations of being a song sexist towards women and "Since You've Been Gone", which was written by former Argent band member Russ Ballard.

-Rainbow had even come under fire for their song "All Night Long", which was deemed discriminatory towards women and sexist. To combat that, ever the practical joker, Ritchie appeared on magazines wearing stockings and a garter belt, commenting that "he can just as easily be one of the girls".

-Bonnet, sadly, didn't last long. He was drunk when the band played at the prestigious Monsters of Rock festival at Castle Donnington. He was soon fired afterwards. Then in comes New Jersey resident Joe Lynn Turner. His somewhat operatic vocals appealed to Blackmore, who wanted to take the band in an even more commercial pop-rock direction, which the band had accomplished with Graham Bonnet singing "Since You've Been Gone".

-With Turner up front singing, the band had managed to break America with albums like Straight Between the Eyes, Bent Out of Shape and Difficult to Cure. With Turner up front on vocals and new drummer Bobby Rondinelli, this signaled a rise from the ashes for Rainbow. 1981's Difficult to Cure helped the band alienate themselves from the past days of Dio's European fantasy-based lyrics into a more radio-friendly sound. Once again, Russ Ballard was helping them out, with a song he wrote called "I Surrender". Another single that seems to go over well from this album is "Can't Happen Here", a fast-paced song with a driving guitar rhythm

-The band had effectively broken up in 1984 when it was announced Deep Purple was reuniting. The band had come together to record two albums: The House of Blue Light in 1987 and Perfect Strangers in 1984. Unfortunately, old tensions between Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore soon reawakened. This time it was because Ian's voice was starting to go faulty. Ritchie describes Ian's voice as being "absolutely dreadful".

-Unfortunately, by the time 1983 came around, they had completed Bent Out of Shape and it appeared to all that the best days had long since passed. But, today there are fans rediscovering these albums and becoming fans of all their albums.
-Between 1975-1984 and 1994-1997, the band released eight albums, each with a slightly different lineup and sound. Each album that changed lineups ever so slightly had either kept their die hard fans or completely alienated them with a sound other than what they liked. The first two albums with Dio on vocals, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and Rising, had lyrics deeply rooted in medieval, fantasy.
-When Ritchie rejoined Deep Purple, things had gone okay for a while but the old tensions starting rising. Ritchie quit for good in 1994, being replaced by former Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse. Steve is still in Purple to this day, trying to play like Blackmore while also maintain his own style of playing.

-Rainbow released one final album, Stranger in Us All in 1994. This would be the last album to use the moniker Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. He would then go on to perform more medieval-type music with his fiancée Candice Isralow (Candice Night) in the duo Blackmore's Night. To this day, Ritchie is not interested in releasing whole albums worth of work. He's more interested in just releasing songs as singles. Blackmore's Night did manage to headline the Monsters of Rock festival in Germany in 2015

Discography
Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975)
Rising (1976)
On Stage (1977)
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1978)
Down to Earth (1979)
Difficult to Cure (1981)
Straight Between the Eyes (1982)
Bent Out of Shape (1983)
Stranger in Us All (1995)

Members both past and present