Rare Audio Interview With RONNIE JAMES DIO From 1981 Discovered; "RAINBOW Was Getting A Little Over-Commercialized"
February 6, 2021, 3 years ago
The estate of the late Geoff Nicholls, keyboardist for Black Sabbath, who passed away from lung cancer in 2017 at the age of 72, has discovered, and shared a rare radio interview with Rainbow and Black Sabbath frontman Ronnie James Dio, which can be heard below. A synopsis reads:
"I found a cassette with not much information on the label, and found a great interview with Ronnie on Radio Trent Nottingham by Graham Neale. Recorded on the last leg of the Heaven & Hell tour at Bingley Hall, Stafford, England, 25th January 1981.
This is a home recording as the radio is not fully tuned in and it's on AM frequency. I have edited out the music, a few seconds gap where there was a drop out and tried to edit out as much background noise as possible without destroying the already low quality sound. I have dropped in a Polaroid photo of Ronnie and one of Geoff from the archive. I don't have the facility to edit out picture blemishes at the moment. I hope you enjoy the interview.
The Ronnie, Polaroid I inserted may have been taken in the kitchen of the house in Bel Air or the house in Florida where they stayed while recording Heaven & Hell at Criteria Studios. Also note the the arm of someone holding a Tomato Ketchup bottle in the foreground. It may have been Geoff's arm as anyone who knew him well could tell you that he was a Ketchup addict. He smothered every meal in it."
(Photo by PG Brunelli)
