I'm a huge music fan, I love listening to music, and I like a lot of different genres, like blues, jazz, rock, metal, even some pop, like Toto. It's because of this, that it's difficult for me to say "This is the greatest singer ever" since I like a lot of them, and there are a lot of good singers in the world, like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Brad Gelp, Steven Tyler, Robert Plant, Louis Armstrong, etc. So, I'm going to write about
Ronnie James Dio, who, in my opinion, is one of the greatest singers, not just in metal, but in music.
He was the singer of a lot of bands, like
Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio, and
Heaven and Hell. He had a strong, consistent voice, that could hit high notes, and also low notes. He could sing heavy, dark songs, but he also could sing slow, soft ballads. He also popularized the famous maloik, or Devil Horns hand gesture. I think that one of the most important facts about why I like him so much as a singer, is the stability of his singing vo
ice throughout his career, that spanned four decades. I mean, he could sing as good in 2010 as he did in 1985, and that it's also impressive, because he started singing professionally in the late 50s, although he gain recognition in the mid-70s. His voice was a huge influence in heavy metal singers, and his albums in the different bands he was part of, are considered classics in heavy metal, such as Rainbow's Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Rising, and Long Live Rock 'n Roll; Black Sabbath's Heaven And Hell, Mob Rules and Dehumanizer; Dio's Holy Diver, The Last In Line, Dream Evil, Magica, and Killing The Dragon (Although he had more albums that are also pretty good); and finally, his last project before his death, Heaven And Hell, a band consisting in the Heaven And Hell-line up of Black Sabbath, there for the name, that only released one album, The Devil You Know, that has the power of all the others albums, even they were over 60 years old.
Dio died of a stomach cancer on May 16, 2010.
RIP
RONNIE JAMES DIO
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