Silver Mountain

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Ritchie Blackmore

Richard Hugh "Ritchie" Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English guitarist and songwriter, who began his career as a session musician as a member of the instrumental band The Outlaws and as a backing musician of pop singers such as Glenda Collins, Heinz, Screaming Lord Sutch and Neil Christian.

Blackmore became a founding member of Deep Purple in 1968, playing jam-style hard-rock music which mixed simple guitar riffs and organ sounds. During his solo career, he established a band called Rainbow which fused baroque music influences and elements of hard rock. Rainbow gradually progressed to catchy pop style hard rock. Later in life, he formed the traditional folk rock project Blackmore's Night transitioning to vocalist-centred sounds. Their latest album, All Our Yesterdays, was released on 18 September 2015.

Early life

Blackmore was born at Allendale Nursing Home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset as second son to Lewis J. Blackmore and Violet (née Short). The family moved to Heston, Middlesex when Blackmore was two. He was 11 when he was given his first guitar by his father on certain conditions, including learning how to play properly, so he took classical guitar lessons for one year.

Ronnie James

Ronnie James (8 October 1917 - 12 June 1977) was a former British Lightweight boxing champion. Born in Swansea, Wales, James had over 130 professional bouts winning 114 of them, 61 through knockout. In 1946 he challenged Ike Williams at Cardiff for the NBA Lightweight title, but lost the contest in the ninth round.

Boxing career

James' first recorded professional fight was on 21 January 1936 against local fighter Sid Williams. James then went on an unbeaten run of 52 contests before being stopped by Dave Crowley at the Empire Pool on 12 January 1936. Although many if the matches in his early career were against fairly inexperienced fighters, several notable opponents were faced; including wins over Welsh champions Boyo Rees and Terence Morgan; a draw with Southern area champion Dick Corbett and a victory against future NBA World champion Jackie Wilson.

After the Crowley contest, James began to face more challenging contests on a regular basis. James fought and lost against Spaniard Baltasar Sangchili, but then knocked out fellow Welshman Phineas John in the eighth round in October 1936. These bouts were followed with another points draw with Corbett. The end of 1936 through to 1937 saw James face a dearth of experienced challengers, before he met Cuthbert Taylor at St Helen's in Swansea. The match was won by James, which was followed by another victory, this time against Douglas Kestrell. The Kestrell fight was followed by a loss to Liverpool fighter Tony Butcher, who came off a twelve-match losing streak to stop James by a technical knockout in the sixth of a twelve-round bout in the Market Hall of Haverfordwest.

Ronnie James Dio

Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona; July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010) was an American heavy metal vocalist and songwriter. He fronted and/or founded numerous groups including Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and Heaven & Hell. He is credited with popularizing the "metal horns" hand gesture in metal culture and is known for his medieval themed lyrics. Dio possessed a powerful versatile vocal range capable of singing both hard rock and lighter ballads; according to Rainbow/Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore upon hearing him sing, "I felt shivers down my spine." Dio sold over 47 million albums throughout his career.

Early years, education and musical training

Ronnie James Dio was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Italian American parents who had moved to Portsmouth from Cortland, New York, where they had grown up. The family resided in Portsmouth for only a short time before Dio's parents returned to Cortland. Dio listened to a great deal of opera while growing up, and was influenced vocally by American tenor Mario Lanza. His first and only formal musical training began at age 5 learning to play the trumpet. During high school, Dio played in the school band and was one of the youngest members selected to play in the school's official Dance Band. It was also during high school that Dio formed his first rock-n-roll group, the Vegas Kings (the name would soon change to Ronnie and the Rumblers, and then Ronnie and the Red Caps). Though Dio began his rock-n-roll career on trumpet, he quickly added bass guitar to his skillset once he assumed singing duties for the group.

Rainbow (rock band)

Rainbow (also known as Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow or Blackmore's Rainbow) are a British rock band led by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore from 1975 to 1984 and 1993 to 1997. A limited number of European appearances have been announced by Blackmore for the summer of 2016. They were originally established with Ronnie James Dio's American rock band Elf, but after the first album, Blackmore fired the backing members and continued with Dio until 1979. Three British musicians joined in 1979, singer Graham Bonnet, keyboardist Don Airey, former Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover, and this line-up gave the band their commercial breakthrough with the single "Since You Been Gone". Over the years Rainbow went through many line-up changes with no two studio albums featuring the same line-up. Other lead singers Joe Lynn Turner and Doogie White would follow, and the project consisted of numerous backing musicians. The band's early work primarily featured mystical lyrics with a neoclassical metal style, but went in a more streamlined, commercial direction following Dio's departure from the group.