Rainbow – Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow – 1975
A few months before the last Deep Purple album of the 70s (and the first without Blackmore, an album that Ian Gillan, who did not sing on it, would decree not really a DP album) Blackmore came out with his new band and a new album.
And that’s where this Listening Post starts its true converging…
See, when Deep Purple was on tour their opening band was a group called Elf. THe lead singer of that band was the diminutive Ronnie James Dio. Dio, who would later from Black Sabbath, first joined forces with Purple’s Blackmore to front his band and the result was Rainbow.
And this was their first record. The first time we would really hear what Blackmore was all about without Jon Lord’s organ to challenge him or supplant him.
A blues-rocker with semi-mythological overtones starts off the album and it’s not that bad. “Man on Silver Mountain” is not a total surprise, given all that I’ve read about the Holy Diver himself. It only makes sense that, as the co-writer/lyricist, whatever Dio’s obsession were would get in to the music. Trouble is, while it’s not a bad track, it’s no “Fireball”. It’s barely a “Stormbringer”.
Songs like “Black Sheep of the Family” are harmless if forgettable, whereas something like “Catch the Rainbow” is just terrible AND forgettable…I hope…
Probably the most unforgivable thing about Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow isn’t how “bad” it is. It’s how dull, uninventive and boring the whole thing is.
If Purple and Sabbath were the stuff that Spinal Tap was made of, I can hear the roots of Tenacious D all over this record.
Grade: D+
ASide: Man on Silver Mountain
BlindSide: Self Portrait
DownSide: Catch the Rainbow, Temple of the King
