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The warrior and the owl

Ken Kelly, the artist responsible for the iconic Rainbow Rising cover, has passed away at the age of 76. He also had created many other album covers, most notably for Kiss and Manowar, as well as artworks depicting fantasy, and sword and sorcery heroes. A number of musicians responded to the news, including His Blackness […]

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A King Has Gone

A track from the upcoming Michael Schenker Group album Universal is intended as a tribute to Ronnie James Dio, in particular to his performance on Rainbow Rising. The track is called A King Has Gone and features Helloween frontman Michael Kiske on vocals, and two of the Rainbow alumni — Bobby Rondinelli and Bob Daisley […]

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Going radio friendly

Louder Sound has a story of how a cover of Since You Been Gone became the first ever Top 10 hit for Rainbow. Russ Ballard admits he got his recording of Since You’ve Been Gone all wrong, bur Rainbow gave the song a tough exterior and sent it up the charts Having quit the band […]

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Bible Black

News from the branch of the family tree rarely visited on these pages. In the early 1980s Gary Driscoll and Craig Gruber (of Elf and the first Rainbow album fame) were in a band called Bible Black. Their album The Complete Recordings 1981-1983 will be released on April 14 via the freshly inaugurated Louder Than […]

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Complete circle

Don Airey was interviewed for the Rolling Stone Unknown Legends series. It’s a long form interview, with a lot of ground covered — from the humble beginnings in a cruise ship house band to the next Purple gigs, once again on a cruise ship. And everything in between. So how did the Rainbow period start? […]

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A potential supergroup

Another bit of history appearing in the venerable Music History for Those Who Are Able to Read blog. It is an article from Sounds magazine, originally published on April 17, 1976. The article is an overview of several hard rock bands that were “new” at the day, with Rainbow among them. Ritchie Blackmore`s Rainbow Ritchie […]

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Twinkle, twinkle

Take a heavy rock song and turn into a lullaby? We could totally see how this could be done to Temple of the King, but Stargazer, Heaven and Hell, or The Last in Line? Surely not. Until someone did…

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Chewing up and spitting out

Another Rainbow related interview in the Rolling Stone’s Unknown Legends series — this time it’s an in-depth conversation with Bob Daisley, covering his career from a 3 year old listening to his parents’ Frank Sinatra records to the present day and pretty much everything in between. And that’s a lot of everything. Bob has stories […]

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City of heavenly sin

A cover of Rainbow Gates of Babylon done by a neoclassical metal band Lost Symphony with guest musicians, including Dave Abbruzzese (of Pearl Jam fame) on drums.

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Something epic is about to happen

Our favourite opera singer continues fangirling over Ronnie James Dio with her analysis of Rainbow’s Gates of Babylon.

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