Rainbow – Rising - Mott the Dog's Rock Music Reviews

2,183

5 Stars

*The Smash and Grab album cover for Rainbow Rising.*

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After Blackmore’s first Rainbow album he fired everybody except the wonderful pipes of the diminutive Ronnie James Dio, as he had the charisma necessary to pull it off on stage, and had already forged a writing partnership with Blackmore, matching his tales of ancient times, wizardry, and magic to Blackmore’s riff’s.

To complete the new lineup, Blackmore called upon the services of long time cohort, powerhouse drummer Cozy Powell. Powell was just coming off a surprising year as a pop star after a string of drum orientated Top 10 single hits. Before this, Powell had been with Britain’s other bad boy guitarist Jeff Beck. Tony Carey, an undoubted keyboard genius, was whisked away from his undistinguished country band from L.A ‘Blessing,’ and gave Blackmore the musical sparring partner he had been missing since leaving Jon Lord from his Deep Purple days.

*Rainbow in 1976, from left to right: Tony Carey – Keyboards, Cozy Powell – Drums, Jimmy Bain – Bass Guitar, Ritchie Blackmore – Lead Guitar, Ronnie James Dio – Vocals.*

Then Ritchie Blackmore went to see his old mate Ricky Munro (they had played together in a band called Mandrake Root in Germany in 1967 – a bit of trivia for all you Harry Potter fans) at the Marquee, where he was playing with a band called Harlot, liked his bass player Jimmy Bain and promptly asked him to join Rainbow. This completed Rainbow and finished off Harlot.

So, all back to the studio and this time not only did they come out with a bunch of great songs, but they sounded like a band. The band was now just known as Rainbow, dropping the Blackmore reference, and simply calling the album Rising. The album cover depicted a giant fist smashing its way out of a mountain surrounded by castles grasping a rainbow in its grip. The picture is pretty appropriate to how the music sounds.

*The full artwork for Rainbow Rising. A muscular fist smashing through and grabbing the rainbow out the sky, then rising through the sky.*

Laying down new templates for hard rock, the album starts with ‘Tarot Woman.’ First, Carey softens you up with a spacey keyboard intro before Blackmore comes in with one of his customized battering riffs. Bain and Powell come in on top to hammer the song into your brain. This all before Dio has a chance to sing the first verse. Both Blackmore and Carey get the chance to show their chops on their solos before dueling out to bring the song to its close.

‘Run with the Wolf’ is a typical Blackmore call to arms, which would get any army on its feet. To hear a drummer at his absolute best, you just have a listen to Cozy Powell on this album. This is followed by ‘Do you Close Your Eyes,’ here in a 3-minute version, which shows some of Ritchie Blackmore’s more modern influences. With its Yardbirds feel, this song was often extended out to 15 minutes in their live set.

*Ritchie Blackmore takes out his petulance on his guitar*.

The last two songs go into the category of all time classic hard rock epics. Especially ‘Stargazer,’ clocking in at over 8 minutes in length, won by a country mile as the most popular Rainbow song on the Rainbow website for fans. The band is allowed full reign to show off their prowess. Blackmore pulls off a solo that was to overshadow anything he had ever previously done, and with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra in full flow supporting the 5-piece band, the sound is nothing short of exhilarating.

The climax of the set is brought to a thrilling conclusion by over eight action packed minutes of ‘A Light in the Black’ with some sensational dueling between Carey and Blackmore. Some more powerhouse rhythm work from Bain and Powell while Dio shows us all the way home.

Most fans would hold up Rising as their favorite Rainbow album after they went on to have some commercial successes with singles. (It had all gone a bit bubblegum for this dog by then. Horrible stuff always sticks to your boots.) Ritchie Blackmore is obviously a very fussy and difficult man to get along with (as he proved in Bangkok in 1991), but when he got it right, it is worth it – he did on Rising. Rising remains one of the greatest milestones in heavy rock.