Rainbow

It must have felt like something of a coup for the little-known Scottish singer/songwriter Chris Rainbow to get teamed up with one of America's hottest production teams of the early '70s. Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff had been crucial in transforming the work of Stevie Wonder on albums like Music of My Mind and Talking Book, and were also known for their pioneering Moog albums under the name of T.O.N.T.O.'s Expanding Head Band…

Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore resurrected the beloved hard rock band Rainbow in 1995 for the album Stranger in Us All. The new lineup – technically named Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow – was not an all-star who's who of hard rock like the groundbreaking original version with vocalist Ronnie James Dio or the radio-targeted AOR version with vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. All incarnations of Rainbow, even the mid-period lineup fronted by bellower Graham Bonnet, are generally revered in hard rock circles. In its own way, Rainbow's music was just as influential as the music Blackmore made during his years in Deep Purple.

Guitarist Ritchie Blackmore resurrected the beloved hard rock band Rainbow in 1995 for the album Stranger in Us All. The new lineup – technically named Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow – was not an all-star who's who of hard rock like the groundbreaking original version with vocalist Ronnie James Dio or the radio-targeted AOR version with vocalist Joe Lynn Turner. All incarnations of Rainbow, even the mid-period lineup fronted by bellower Graham Bonnet, are generally revered in hard rock circles. In its own way, Rainbow's music was just as influential as the music Blackmore made during his years in Deep Purple…

Active as a solo recording artist between the years of 1975-1981, Chris Rainbow wrote and recorded three very highly regarded albums, Home Of the Brave (1975), Looking Over My Shoulder (1978) and this release, his third full length recording, White Trails (1979), as well as a collection of singles throughout his valued career. Chris Rainbow also worked extensively adding vocal contributions to artists' work of the calibre of The Alan Parsons Project, Culture Club, Elaine Paige and Toyah Wilcox, as well as producing albums for the likes of Scottish Gaelic rock group Runrig.

Perhaps the first example of "dragon rock" – a style perfected by bands like Iron Maiden and Dio in the early to mid-'80s – was Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, a rather pretentious 1975 collection from the guitarist's first post-Deep Purple project. Fittingly enough, a young Ronnie James Dio provides the goblin-like frontman presence required by the increasingly Baroque Blackmore. The young Dio is at his best when he fully gives in to his own and Blackmore's medieval fantasy leanings, in hard-rocking tracks like "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" and "Man on the Silver Mountain." The dark, trudging doom rock of "Self Portrait" most clearly showcases what they were capable of. The album's ponderous lyrics are occasionally punctuated by poetic phrases such as "crossbows in the firelight."

Perhaps the first example of "dragon rock" – a style perfected by bands like Iron Maiden and Dio in the early to mid-'80s – was Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, a rather pretentious 1975 collection from the guitarist's first post-Deep Purple project…