“Such a superb voice”: Tony Iommi on the album that made him love Ronnie James Dio

Posted On April 14, 2025April 14, 2025

Not every band is meant to be the Three Musketeers whenever they play together. It’s nice when everyone is geared towards that common goal of being one of the biggest and best rock acts in the world, but there are also many times when someone says something the wrong way and derails the entire infrastructure of the group. While most Black Sabbath came down to the way Tony Iommi played guitar, they were bound to have a few bumps in the road when Ozzy Osbourne decided to leave the group.

At the same time, it was becoming clear that ‘The Ozzman’ and the rest of the group couldn’t work together any longer. Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die weren’t terrible by any means, but listening to every one of those records, you can hear the growing pains in full force, with Osbourne sounding checked out on a handful of tunes and even getting drummer Bill Ward to sing some of the tunes that Osbourne refused to sing.

When he finally left in the early 1980s, though, the last thing the band needed to do was get an Osbourne clone. They had been through that kind of singer, and since Iommi was bringing more depth into their music with every album, he needed someone who could support that kind of music, and Ronnie James Dio seemed to fit the bill perfectly when he came on board after working with Rainbow.

And looking at how Dio wrote, his words were almost tailor-made for what Iommi was doing. The lion’s share of the previous albums had lyrics written by Geezer Butler, but when first working on the track ‘Children of the Sea’, that kind of cinematic fantasy approach that Dio brought to everything meshed perfectly with how Iommi constructed his riffs, almost like watching a movie play out in real-time on tunes like ‘Heaven and Hell’.

But that was the kind of music that Dio could already write in his sleep. Since he had already turned in time working with Ritchie Blackmore in Rainbow, songs like ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’ were the first time that the world got introduced to that booming voice, telling a story that may as well have taken place in medieval times.

Rising usually holds a special place in fans’ hearts as Dio’s ultimate collaboration with Rainbow, but according to Iommi, the debut was all he needed to hear when thinking about potentially playing with him one day, saying, “I had heard the first Rainbow album because you’d always be interested in what was about at that time. And straight away, I liked it. I thought, ‘He’s got a great voice.’ I never thought for one minute that we’d end up in the same band together. But he had such a superb voice. Top notch.”

Whereas most of Sabbath’s early songs relied on being incredibly bluesy based on Osbourne’s vocals, Dio had a far more elastic voice that could go into different realms. Osbourne did eventually get a more refined voice thanks to Randy Rhoads, but when listening to Sabbath play on Mob Rules, they became an unstoppable force behind the scenes until Dio left for his own solo outfit.

While there was some animosity through the years between Dio and Sabbath, hearing them be on good terms towards the end of his life on the album The Devil You Know was the perfect way to send him off. Iommi may not have anticipated losing his friend so soon, but it’s better to remember him by the music that he made with him and the music that made the guitarist love him in the first place.

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