Ronnie James Dio is credited with many metal innovations. He was the first rock star to "throw the horns," a tradition carried on to this day. His vocal style has been adopted, parodied, and outright stolen by countless others, initiating a trend later known as power metal. His most salient contribution to metal, and to music in general, was his subject matter. If the words "heavy metal" make you think of dragons, fire, and swords, thank Ronnie James Dio. "The Man on the Silver Mountain" was Dio's first strike. Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple had already proven that heavy metal songs could be about more than partying and girls, occasionally eschewing the genre's American blues roots for more decidedly English subjects. Rainbow, led by Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore, took this premise and made it the band's calling card. Dio's creative influence would continue to grow; as Rainbow would later leave the D&D stuff behind, Dio's tenures in Black Sabbath and his solo band would be chock full of nerdy goodness. The song was an instant classic for many reasons. Its main riff is vintage Blackmore, and possibly better than his own "Smoke on the Water." The lyrics are as vague as they are poetic, at first appearing to be about the sun, then transforming the protagonist into the day itself, then the titular man on a mountain that would probably be of great value in the current economy. It doesn't quite reach the level of fantasy metal imagery that would pervade Dio's later work, but it's a staple of hard rock radio, and with good reason. Horns up, nerds.
Check out "The Champ" by my alter ego, Greg Forrest, in Heater #12, at http://fictionmagazines.com.
I used to do a mean Glenn Danzig impression. Now I just hang around and co-host The Workprint podcast at http://southboundcinema.com/.
