Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (Japanese Edition)by Rainbow

This was the first solo effort for Ritchie Blackmore after his successful run with Deep Purple, and he also recruited the great vocalist Ronnie James Dio from Elf. Along with Cozy Powell on drums and Tony Carey on keyboards -who was with Ozzy Osborne and also did some solo work of his own. With this great partnership we get the FM classic -Man On The Silver Mountain- which could easily fit in to any Deep Purple album. The sound of the distinctive guitar chords of Ritchie and the voice of Ronnie, you knew this was destine for rock history. The songs -Self Portrait and Black Sheep Of The Family-are head on rockers. Catch The Rainbow - is probably the closest thing to a love song they would do, and this song is beautiful and haunting and the dreamy guitar just flows through the song like a mystical trance, simply great! The great rocker -Snake Charmer is a good Metal classic and I think this album put some influence in to bands like Iron maiden and the 80's Metal Wave. The medieval type songs-Temple Of The King and Sixteen Century Greensleeves conjuror up visions of dragons and Kings and Queens and the song writing team of the two is a magical tale spinning in your head. The song -If you Don't Like Rock and Roll- with it's tribute to 50's style rock- says it all ! It's Too late Now-If you don't like rock and roll -that is. The song -Still I'm Sad- is a six string delight you can hear Ritchie's fingers making magic on this rocking instrumental. Not a bad song on this disc and this is where we are blessed with the likes of (R.I.P.)Ronnie James Dio and the living legend Ritchie Blackmore they take you on a classic rock journey that you will never forget.