Rainbow Band

Rising is the second studio album by the British hard rock band Rainbow, released in 1976. In issue 4 of Kerrang! magazine (cover-dated October 1981), Rising was voted the greatest heavy metal album of all time. In 2017, it was ranked 48th at Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time". Rising peaked at number 48 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. In the UK it would peak at number 11. The first CD issue had a slightly different mix to that of the original LP, including, for example, a longer delay before the band entered after Carey's opening solo in "Tarot Woman", a longer play-out on "Run with the Wolf", and the track "Stargazer" had the vocals mixed without the delay, the extra synthesizer deleted and some of the phased sounds deleted. When remastered in 1999 the original vinyl mix was restored.

On their second release, Rainbow not only avoid the sophomore jinx; they hit a home run. After replacing the entire band (except Ronnie James Dio) immediately following the recording of the first album, Ritchie Blackmore and the Rising lineup (Blackmore; Dio; Tony Carey, keys; Jimmy Bain, bass; and the late, great Cozy Powell, drums) had plenty of time on the road touring the first album to get the chops and material together for their second…

In June 2016, legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore made his much-anticipated return to rock music as Ritchie Blackmor' s Rainbow played three concerts in Europe, two in Germany and one in England. Recordings from the two German shows at Loreley and Bietigheim make up this live album Memories In Rock. The setlist, combining classic tracks from both Deep Purple and Rainbow, was exactly what the fans had wished for…

With Joe Lynn Turner on board, Rainbow tried one crossover record and one no-frills hard rock record – which meant that Bent out of Shape, their third album with Turner, provided a fine opportunity to get a little arty. Not that the band has turned into Genesis or even returned to the mystical pretensions of its early work; they have merely broadened their horizons…

The departure of Ronnie James Dio gave Ritchie Blackmore a chance to reinvent Rainbow, which he does to a certain extent on Down to Earth. Adding former Deep Purple colleague Roger Glover as bassist and Graham Bonnet as vocalist, Blackmore tones down some of the excess of the Dio years, particularly in terms of fantastical lyrics, and turns to straight-ahead hard rock, only occasionally adorned by prominent synthesizers…

Tommy Igoe's Birdland Big Band is the hottest big band in New York.