Any Rainbow fans here?

[Brownsound]

I just love old Rainbow. Some of the stuff is just classic. Richie is pretty tasty and his tone is unigue.

[billhart22]

One of the great bands. Rainbow was one of those bands that passed in a relative flash. Before Rainbow, Deep Purple played some mighty awesome stuff, other than the commercial crap that was on the AM radio and up and coming Underground FM stations way back when..

Not to change the subject, really, but Cactus was alot like Rainbow in the fact that it was an offshoot with Carmen Appice, which was the drummer with the Vanilla Fudge.

Great choice in music, Brownsound.

Bill

[David B]

I liked "All Night Long" & "Stone Cold". Didn't they have a few other hits as well?

[Turdus]

Only the Dio stuff, and in particular "Rising", and "Long Live Rock and Roll". I thought everything past that was kinda dull in comparison.

[jwhitcomb3]

I was a Rainbow fan. They were an interesting band to follow. Besides Blackmore, you never knew who was going to be around from album to album. You could tell that they never really had a band chemistry...it was Blackmore's show and was sometimes scattershot. They seemed to veer randomly from gothic to pop-metal. I liked songs from each of their albums but don't think they ever made a great album.

I saw them live once around 1980...I think it was the "Down To Earth" tour, with the Pat Travers Band opening. Good show!

-Jonathan

[RacerX]

Blackmore is probably my favorite guitarist, I still listen to the early Purple stuff and the Rainbow vintage with Dio was great! I could not really get into the later Rainbow stuff aside from Richie's playing.

Think I'll spin a little Rainbow today!

Mark.

[elduave]

I dug Rainbow pretty hard during the JL Turner era actually. My peak of admiration was the Straight Between The Eyes times. Probably because that's when I saw them and it was one of my early concert experiences. I dug some of the Dio stuff too but mostly Turner. All that said, I'd say Down To Earth with Bonnet was one of the best records...

[princeofdarkness56]

Long Live Rock & Roll and Man on the Silver Mountain were great. Saw them a few times in the day. Blackmore can really play but I hear he is almost impossible to get along with in a band setting. He plays some very odd acustic stuff now. really wish he would plug back in.

[Submariner85]

Stone Cold is my favorite. I like some of the Ronnie James Dio stuff too. I used to burn up Stone Cold when I was like 18.

[billhart22]

jwhitcomb and racerx nailed Rainbow's history. The fact was that they could not solidify and you never knew who was going to be playing with them. They never did have a great and renowned album. Everybody knew about them and loved the different players that played in the band, but they were never really standing out front. Back in those days, though, half the fun of music was discovering really good groups that none of your friends had ever heard of.

I was a disc jockey at the time (when they still had disc jockeys) and some friends of mine brought me over the Black Sabbath album.....man...it made my skin crawl the first time that I heard it. It sounded evil, but I loved it and started playing it on the radio and people either loved it, or just thought the devil himself had taken possession of the music world. Now, you can watch Ozzy in his house on T.V. cleaning up dog poop. Times really change..

It was the same with Judas Priest...my best friend found their very first album before anybody else even knew who they were....We wore the grooves off of it before Judas Priest was even known.

Discovering new groups, before anybody else was at least half the fun of music.

Bill

[biffrythm]

Blackmore's playing is awesome, but I never cared for Dio's dungeon and dragon lyrics.

Blackmore always finds the best drummers to be in his bands, though.

Someone mentioned Cactus earlier... how about Sir Lord Baltimore and Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Remember them?

[Brooks]

I still listen to the early Purple stuff and the Rainbow vintage with Dio was great! I could not really get into the later Rainbow stuff aside from Richie's playing.

+1. i made myself a "dio 76-81" cd (w/ rainbow & sabbath stuff only), it rawks. most of the dio stuff after sabs (as a band leader) was just too goofy, even for me (yes, that is possible).

[Disturber]

Rainbow was the first real rock band I saw live.

Straight between the eyes tour, with Roger Glover

on bass.

Rainbow had great pop songs & and I can

actually still enjoy listening to a song from them

now and then, compared to Deep Purple

who's music deffinately has not aged with

beauty. Can't stand 'em.

[wgarces]

I saw Judas Priest in '78 right when Hell Bent for Leather came out and it changed my life! That's why I'm so screwed up! Only kidding folks! Back then my entire world consisted of Priest, Sabbath, Rainbow, UFO and then this "new" band came along called Motorhead. I'm still not the same! Hey, BillHart22, so you're into V's and (early) Judas Priest? Now there's a guy that knows what he's talking about!

[wgarces]

I just love old Rainbow. Some of the stuff is just classic. Richie is pretty tasty and his tone is unigue.

Brownsound knows the deal, too! He plays through Marshall JMP's! Hey Brownsound, check out this website,

http://www.davidbrayamps.com/ You might like what you hear!

[edgar_allan_poe]

Loved them...Blackmore smokes. The Strat through a Marshall Major is one of the hardest tones to get. People struggle getting that Blackmore tone because they have the misconception that there is gain...there isn't. Listen closely and you will hear how clean he actually played. Amazing stuff and totally unique.

IMHO his best singer was Joe Lynn Turner. Songs like "I surrender", "Stone Cold", "Can't Happen Here", "Spotlight Kid", "Jealous Lover", and "Street of Dream" are all classics. I thought Turners voice was the perfect compliment to Blackmore's guitar. He was far and away the most versatile of the Rainbow singers. Dio and Bonnet had some classics and were great, but Joe Lynn Turner was the man. I also loved the album he did with Yngwie.

[Rockola]

I like Street of Dreams era stuff with Joe Lynn Turner. Reminds me of boobies from Chapel Hill.

*sigh*

S.

[billhart22]

wgarces -

I am contemplating an answer for you...I am not ready to respond yet...I am really pondering so many things that I want to share...it is only because I have a lot to say...You are #1 on my answering list, but I want to do it right...so stand bye.

Damn, now I am motivated..especially talking about guys that could and still play the guitar...The guys that where shooting for beyond infinity.

As to POE...I have questions that maybe you could help me answer....In "Strange Kind Of Woman", in the part that sounds like the Beatles.....(instrumental)...how was it done??? This has baffled me forever..

Even the opening notes are extremely hard for me to reproduce...any info there?? Ya, there are notes, but making them happen like the original is insane to me..

Thanks,

Bill

[kurtsstuff]

I loved Rainbow.....We used to cover "Man on the silver mountain" (dio era) and it was such a kick in the ass to play..... '_

[Steve Haynie]

I discovered Rainbow when I saw Long Live Rock And Roll on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. I immediately had to buy the album and I became a Dio fan from that point on.

[Guest teefus2]

kill the king (dio) and man on the silver mountain (dio) rawk. i bought a weird, import rainbow greatest hits double disc set quite a ew years ago. it is really comprehensive.

[Hamer_SS_guy]

I was totally into Rainbow when I started playing, I really liked the stuff when Cozy Powell was still behind the drumset. Also I was a big fan of Cactus, guitar player Jim McCarty and later Werner Fritzschings were great, good stuff. I did buy Jeff Beck Group's ROUGH AND READY and ORANGE albums because of Cozy Powell's drumming in Rainbow which made me check out other albums he played on. Well, the circle closes as Powell got replaced by Appice who just came from Cactus. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, great band, Chris Glen and Ted McKenna later went on to work with MSG (Rainbow's Graham Bonnet on vocals) and DP's Ian Gillan.

I wasn't that much into Joe Lynn Turner's vocals, the Difficult to Cure was okay, and there were some nice songs on Straight Between the Eyes, but I didn't like the live stuff (especially with the two female background singers). When Turner later joined Deep Purple he also didn't fit well to the older songs (at they played "BURN" again). Never got into Yngwie Malmsteen beyond his first album though. The Alcatrazz live album was horrible, and once I heard Malmsteen play "I Surrender" (w/Turner) I was done with him. The 90's Rainbow stuff left me cold.

[Guest JackButler]

I dig ALL Rainbow..but am partial to the Dio and JLT stuff..Bonnet's vocals grate on me after a little while..everything he's done, including Alcatrazz and the Impelleteri stuff too.. saw some old write ups on Bonnet and he was in another life time aspiring to be a pop singer..almost new wavish kind of stuff..weird..lol...

don't forget Blackmore's reel to reel deck used as a booster/line driver thing.. that was genius!

Something about all the guys that came outta those camps around Blackmore.. Purple, W.Snake, Rainbow..I love that sound.. the swagger or it all.. not to mention some phenomenal players.. a lot of that stuff along with Hendrix formed some HUGE influences on me as a young player and I still find myself delving back into it and finding little nuances everytime.

[wgarces]

On the current Whitesnake tour, they open their shows with "Burn". Coverdale is amazing!

I thought Blackmore used the reel to reel for delay. He used it as a line driver?

Graham Bonnet, ughhh! Where'd he come from? They should've left him there!

[billhart22]

I agree - MTV used to be a religion, playing great Rock and Roll......now it is enough to gag a maggot!

Bill