RONNIE JAMES DIO - The Metal Legend Returns Home
August 30, 2007, 16 years ago
The following story is courtesy of Theithacajournal.com:
You don't get to the top of the heavy metal heap without a lot of talent and a lot of hard work. Case in point: RONNIE JAMES DIO, long known as one of the genre's leading singers though stints with RAINBOW, BLACK SABBATH and his own band DIO.
The Cortland native grew up playing various venues around Central New York, relying on a blue-collar ethos to build his music career.
“There wasn't a whole lot of opportunity — everything was in New York City, and to go there was pretty foreign thing for people from Cortland, Ithaca and Binghamton, Whitney Point, Dryden to do in those days,” says Dio in a phone interview earlier this week from Los Angeles.“You cut your teeth in those places, and once you went to New York you usually were pretty well prepared, because there were a lot of places to play back then. Unlike today, where there are hardly any places for a young band to learn their craft at all.
“So it was a great place to grow up, not only from a musical standpoint, but also for the people,” he continues. “People from upstate New York are real solid. They're like people from Chicago or Cleveland. They got one attitude: they work hard and they try to enjoy life to the max.”
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