Martin Popoff, author of biographies on RAINBOW, BLACK SABBATH and DIO had this to say on the passing of immense metal legend Ronnie James Dio.

“Heavy metal has just lost its king, Ronnie James Dio. Sure, there will be more famous figures in hard rock that will pass, and the mainstream media will write about it and get it slightly wrong. But metalheads pride themselves on sussing out who is authentic, hard-working, pure of heart, creative and just the best to hang out with in any headbanging situation. And that was Ronnie. Despite his unparallel legacy, he was one of us, a headbanger.

One quick find memory of many. I remember being backstage with "Metal" Tim Henderson quite a time ago, one of the first times I met Ronnie, and through he comes, there he is right in front of us. A quick few words later, he’s off, and Tim and I just look at each other stunned and say, 'OK, did Ronnie James Dio just ask us if we had every thing we needed, and could he go get us a beer?!' It’s a little thing, but that was Ronnie. Time and time again after that, he made you feel like we were all in this together, the subconscious undercurrent being that we were all warriors defending a maligned music and given that we were all part of this embattled army, we had to treat each other with respect.

But as Henry Rollins would say, it’s the work. Once Ronnie had worked his way through 45s in the late ‘50s and THE ELECTRIC ELVES and ELF, well, he bound onto the metal scene and never stopped impressing a demanding heavy metal audience, yes, with his down-to-earth, upstate New York kindness but also with his regal voice, authoritative songcraft and lyrics of comfort for the misfit and downtrodden.

Indeed, in terms of material, rock-solid legacy, when all is said and done, I think most studiers of the form would agree that Ronnie was instrumental, alive and in command through no less than six of the most classic and timeless heavy metal albums of all time, namely Rising, Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll, Heaven And Hell, Mob Rules, Holy Diver and The Last In Line. And happy, hard-working, taking-nothing-for-granted Italian that he was, in between all that, Ronnie built a fortress of a catalogue that proved time and time again that he was heavy metal tried and true, earnest in forging quality metal with messages of sympathy and empathy being the life-rich bonus between the grooves. I have to chuckle about how being heavy was rarely something he felt he had to, ahem, trumpet. If you brought it up, he’d toss off with a laugh, something about not wanting to make wimpy music. But the thing with Ronnie, action spoke louder than his always gracious words – he just kept building a bricks and mortar bunker of weighty, anchored metal, and kept doing it until he was stricken. Teenager through to 67, the work ethic and more spectacularly, that roaring golden voice, never wavered.

Like I say, there will be more famous hard rockers taken from us, but no more famous a metalhead. Ronnie’s loss, in our – in his – community, is as big and as crushing as it gets, and this huge void is felt both because of the man’s accomplishments and because of his unanimously beloved stature in the eyes of the entire metal community.”