Ronnie James Dio, born Ronald James Padavona on July 10, 1942, was an iconic heavy metal vocalist known for his powerful voice and mystical stage presence. Dio is celebrated for his work with bands like Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and his own band, Dio. He is credited with popularizing the “devil horns” hand gesture, which became synonymous with heavy metal.
After replacing Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath, Dio revitalized the band with albums like Heaven and Hell (1980). His fantasy-themed lyrics and operatic voice made him a defining figure in metal. Dio’s career spanned over five decades, and his influence on the genre is profound.
Ronnie James Dio had some titanic shoes to fill the minute he decided to join Black Sabbath. He had already been known for making the most grandiose hard rock known to man with Rainbow, and now he was being asked to take over for Ozzy Osbourne, the man who single-handedly pioneered what a metal frontman was supposed to be. No pressure, right? While Dio slid into his spot magnificently, he thought that songs like ‘Smoke on the Water’ taught him all he knew about what it meant to create a rock classic.
Then again, anyone who’s ever walked into a guitar store in the past 30 years has probably heard enough of ‘Smoke on the Water’ than anyone really needs to. Aside from other go-to tracks like ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and ‘Wonderwall’, the Deep Purple classic has become the bane of every guitarist’s existence from the minute it was released.
If most fretboard fanatics are tired of it, you can imagine how bad Dio’s bandmate, Ritchie Blackmore, felt about it. He had been the one who came up with the riff back when he was in Deep Purple, so half the reason why Rainbow was formed was to get away from the name recognition that he got from being a member of the group.
Whereas Deep Purple were going for a more bluesy flavour with David Coverdale added to the lineup, Rainbow seemed to be ripped out of the 16th century based on the music they played. As opposed to Dio making the kind of songs that had to do with an evil woman or hard rock bombast, his lyric sheet seemed ripped straight out of a JRR Tolkien text, complete with dragons and wizards to boot.
Despite the fact that Rainbow would probably refuse to play ‘Smoke on the Water’, Dio had to admit that it was a great riff, telling Rhapsody Blog, “Ritchie wrote a riff that we can all play — so simple, but it is a magnificent riff. I just think it’s one of the ultimate classic songs of all time, and when I hear it, I hark back to that time in my life — it’s important to me.”
It’s not like Dio’s is wrong about it being so easy to play. The meat of the riff is just four simple notes, and since a handful of them are just the open strings of the guitar, it’s not hard to see why a lot of people choose it as the first song to get under their fingers. Although there’s a lot of dressing around it, most of the piece circles back to that simplistic riff, but that might be the reason why it works so well.
Since you don’t have to worry about doing anything complex, ‘Smoke on the Water’ almost speaks the caveman side of the brain that just makes you want to nod your head rather than think too hard. If you want details, it’s there in the lyrics and the tasty solo, but if you want to reach the masses, you have to reel them in with a riff like this.
It’s not like Dio’s other outfits didn’t take notice, with his stint in Black Sabbath and his turn as a solo star containing songs that only needed a handful of chords to get people jumping. Metal has a reputation now for having some of the most technically gifted players of all time, but in the genre’s Stone Age, all you needed was a few notes and the right rhythm to warp people’s minds.
