Portraits of Rainbow - The Dio Years book is a photographic
celebration of Ritchie Blackmore’s supergroup, formed in 1975 by the
guitarist as he left Deep Purple and recruited four members of the band
Elf, including singer Ronnie James Dio. However, the band really took
off when Blackmore recruited Cozy Powell, Jimmy Bain and Tony Carey and
recorded the seminal album “Rising” in 1976. Sounds writer Geoff Barton
remembers: "I marvelled at the fist-thunderin’ maelstrom depicted on the
cover, a pulse-poundin’ paintin’ by Ken (Kiss, Manowar) Kelly. I also
offered the following description of the album’s musical content: THERMO-NUCLEAR ROCK’N’ROLL!”
Rainbow
were underway and although this less commercial variant of the band
that went on to conquer the rock world in the 1980s was relatively
short-lived it remains, for most fans, the definitive sound and image of
Rainbow with the combination of Blackmore, Dio and Powell creating a
powerful, progressive rock band. It all came to an end in 1979 when
Ritchie decided to take the band in a new, more commercial direction.
The
book features hundreds of classic and unseen, carefully restored, black
and white images of Rainbow at play and playing live at a series of
stunning, unforgettable shows. Legendary writer and journalist Geoff
Barton has written an introductory text based on his professional
experience with Ritchie and the band in the 1970s.
The book is
230mm square, case-bound, 240 pages, printed on luxury 170gsm
matt-coated paper. The book comes with a fold out poster and is
presented in a black slipcase with a gold foil logo.
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