Positive Liberty

On Vivian Campbell, his former guitarist who now plays for Def Leppard.

Like a lot of great rockers, Dio has somewhat of an attitude. But he is one of the greats. In his mid-60s, he still has his voice! I’d much rather see him with Sabbath live than Ozzy because Dio as a superior vocalist (from a purely technical sense) tends to give more professional performances in his old age (Ozzy tends to “phone in” his performances).

Ozzy has produced some great music — and the formula that’s made him millions is 1) having a cool sounding voice, even if not great from a technical sense; 2) having an ear for good songs and good performers; 3) surrounding himself those great musicians who write and perform great songs for him (notably Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bob Daisley, Randy Rhodes and Zakk Wylde); and 4) having a very shrewd business sense that comes from his wife. He’s not a musical genius and has hardly written any of the songs for which he is notable. It’s ironic; not writing his songs contributed to Osbourne’s longevity. Most songwriters, for instance Paul McCartney, have only so many great songs in them. If you constantly rely on other folks for your songs, have the eye and ear to seek them out and the $$ to attract them, you can almost guarantee not running out of decent material.

Back to Dio. Here is a great performance he did with Deep Purple and an Orchestra, Sitting in a Dream.

And for the Christians who read my work, here is Dio singing about Jesus. He did that for Kansas’ Kerry Livgren after Livgren became a born-again Christian and released an inspirational solo album. Not an official video.

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