According to
Syracuse.com, legendary heavy metal singer
Ronnie James Dio, frontman for bands like
RAINBOW,
BLACK SABBATH,
DIO and
ELF, will be posthumously awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award tonight (Thursday, March 6) from the
Syracuse Area Music Hall Of Fame at Dinosaur Bar-B-Que in Syracuse. The award will be accepted by
Dio's son,
Dan Padavona.
"I was a rock fan and a huge fan of his music, especially
ELF and
RAINBOW,"
Padavona told
Syracuse.com. "But most of what I knew was from reading in magazines. It was very surreal."
According to
Dan, he had a somewhat distant relationship with his father growing up after
Dio and
Padavona's mother split when
Padavona was four years old.
"I hope it's a way to get closer to my father in his death than I did
in his life," he said of the award. "I'm sure he'd be very happy that
I'm up there with
Rock (David 'Rock' Feinstein of
THE RODS, who is
Ronnie's cousin) and a few of his closest friends."
Dio was renowned throughout the world as one of the
greatest and most influential vocalists in heavy metal history. The
singer, who was recording and touring with
SABBATH offshoot
HEAVEN & HELL
prior to his illness, was diagnosed with stomach cancer in late 2009.
He underwent chemotherapy and made what is now his final public
appearance in April 2010 at the
Revolver Golden Gods Awards in Los Angeles.
A free public memorial service was held on May 30, 2010 at Forest
Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los
Angeles, attended by more than
1,500 fans, friends and fellow musicians.
In March 2011, it was announced that the surviving members of the final lineup of
DIO would embark on a project with former
JUDAS PRIEST frontman
Tim "Ripper" Owens under the name
DIO DISCIPLES.
Ronnie James Dio, real name
Ronald James Padavona, was born in New Hampshire on July 10, 1942.
He moved to Cortland, New York at a young age, where he began playing
with local acts. A street in Cortland, Dio Way, was named after him in
1988.
He released his first single, with a band called
RONNIE AND THE REDCAPS, in 1959.
His first heavy rock act,
ELF, released three albums and opened for
DEEP PURPLE, where
Dio's voice caught the ear of guitarist
Ritchie Blackmore.
Blackmore recruited
Dio for his own band,
RAINBOW, after leaving
PURPLE in 1975.
Dio recorded three studio albums and one live set with
RAINBOW before exiting in 1978, including
"Rising" and
"Long Live Rock And Roll".
He replaced
Ozzy Osbourne in
BLACK SABBATH in 1980, recording the
"Heaven And Hell" and
"Mob Rules" albums, plus
"Live Evil", before leaving in 1982. He rejoined the group 10 years later for an album called
"Dehumanizer", and again teamed with the group under the
HEAVEN & HELL banner in 2006.
HEAVEN & HELL released an album called
"The Devil You Know" in 2009.
He has also recorded 10 studio albums with his own band,
DIO, including a classic 1983 debut,
"Holy Diver", and an equally renowned follow-up, 1984's
"The Last In Line".
Dio was also behind the
HEAR N' AID project, a collection of metal artists who recorded the track
"Stars" in 1985 to raise funds for African famine relief.
Rock and metal musicians around the world paid tribute to
Dio in the weeks and months following his death.
STONE SOUR and
SLIPKNOT frontman
Corey Taylor shared his feelings with
The Pulse Of Radio
about the fallen metal icon. "When I got that news that he had passed
away, man, it seriously — it broke my heart. It broke it in two. Because
honestly, I just feel like there will never be another
Ronnie James Dio. He had such a pure voice — and still singing his ass off. I just know he'll be missed, and I will miss him as well."
Ex-
VAN HALEN and current
CHICKENFOOT bassist
Michael Anthony also shared his memories of
Dio with
The Pulse Of Radio. "I don't know anybody that didn't grow up listening to his stuff," he said. "You know,
VAN HALEN, we used to do from the first
RAINBOW album, we did
'Man On The Silver Mountain'. I remember one time, the second
VAN HALEN
tour we were doing some festivals in Europe, and we actually played on
the same show as Ronnie's band. Real powerful voice, you know, and
definitely a driving force in hard rock music, that guy was."
Slash told
The Pulse Of Radio that he felt the loss of
Dio very keenly. "He's just somebody I was influenced by," he said. " I played all the
RAINBOW stuff, I played the
DIO stuff, the
SABBATH
stuff when I was in, you know, high school. I don't think that it's
really set in what a, you know, huge figure in rock 'n' roll we lost,
you know. Really major. Probably one of the most influential heavy metal
singers of all time."
