Rock on!

In February 1968, two cousins, Ronald James Padavona and David Feinstein, woke up in side-by-side hospital beds.

Also bandmates in The Electric Elves, the two were returning to Cortland after a show in Connecticut the night before. But a drunk driver hit the van carrying the band and all of their equipment, leaving bassist and vocalist Padavona, guitarist Feinstein, keyboardist Doug Thaler and drummer Gary Driscoll bruised and shaken. Guitarist Nick Pantas was killed.

“I woke up in a bed next to Ronnie and after a few days I said, ‘What are we gonna do?’” Feinstein says. “We lost the band, lost all our equipment and we were all hurt pretty bad and it would be months before we could get back, but Ronnie said, ‘We’re gonna put this band back together.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna put this band back together.’” Feinstein, who was originally a drummer, had to learn rhythm as well as lead guitar parts to make it work, but the band, which moved among names including The Electric Elves, The Elves and finally Elf, started gaining in popularity, especially Padavona, who was becoming more widely known as Dio.

For those unfamiliar with Ronnie James Dio, you may recognize the name once you hear the voice. Front man of bands including Ronnie and the Redcaps, Ronnie Dio and the Prophets, Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath and the band Dio, his is one of the most recognizable and powerful voices in the history of metal. But beyond the strength of his pipes and the depth of his musicianship lies another connection that makes Dio even more cherished in Central New York: The legendary artist was raised in Cortland.

So when Terry LeRoi, lead singer of local metal band Titanium Black, heard of Dio’s death from stomach cancer on May 16, 2010, it wasn’t a hard decision to design a tribute concert. Titanium Black already had a show scheduled for later in the month at The Fusion Room, 3705 Brewerton Road, North Syracuse, so LeRoi figured they could play all Dio songs that night. But how could the band pull together 90 minutes of Dio so quickly? Simple—invite more musicians.

The event grew to a showcase of about 10 local musicians who gathered and rotated on and off the stage to pay tribute to the fallen star. It went over so well that they decided to duplicate the event in November at Metal ’Cuse, also at Fusion, and this time Feinstein brought his band The Rods. Proceeds from the event benefited the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund and the show was packed.

Now, a year after Dio’s death, LeRoi has planned a repeat event, this time featuring 27 local musicians who will perform 26 Dio songs. “It’s been a little project to try and coordinate that many people,” LeRoi admits. “But it’s fun and these guys are all schooled. They’ve been playing in bands for years and everybody knows what they have to do.”

The lineup formed naturally, according to LeRoi, who simply posted a note about the tribute on Facebook and soon had musicians coming to him, asking how they could get involved. The result is a killer lineup of some of the best local players from a variety of bands, all of which share a love and respect for Ronnie James Dio.

The show, called “Lock Up the Wolves,” after the 1990 Dio album, will be held at the Lost Horizon, 5863 Thompson Road, on Saturday, May 14. The cover is $5 for 21 and up and $10 for those under 21 and all proceeds will be donated to the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund. Zadoc and the Nightmare and Capricorn Black will open the show at 9 p.m., followed by the tribute band at 11 p.m. LeRoi expects the music will go right up until 2 a.m.

“It’s gonna be a long set,” LeRoi says, “a long show.” But considering the material Dio produced throughout his five-decade career, slimming the show down to only 27 songs is an impressive feat.

Dio Mio

Dio began his career as a classical trumpet player, one talented enough to be offered a scholarship to the Juilliard School. But rather than accepting, Dio began performing with doo-wop group Ronnie and the Redcaps, who released their first single in 1958. In 1961 the band became Ronnie Dio and the Prophets, when Ronnie took the stage name Dio.

Just after that, in 1962, local music historian and then-deejay at WOLF-FM, Ron Wray first started noticing the pint-sized artist when he heard the Ronnie and the Redcaps song “An Angel is Missing,” and began playing it on WOLF. He met Dio soon after and would continue to watch his career expand from local club artist to international superstar.

Ronnie Dio and the Prophets split in 1967 and Dio’s new blues-rock band became The Electric Elves. Although Wray was intrigued with Dio already, when the group began performing as Elf, Wray knew he had found something special. In 1972 Wray heard that the band would be releasing a self-titled album and WOLF would be promoting it. He often attended shows for the station and went to a Deep Purple concert at the Onondaga County War Memorial in 1972, but not to see Purple; he was there for Dio.

“I’ve heard a lot of albums in my time,” Wray says. “But when they came out and played that album {Elf}. . . only about three albums in my whole life have really knocked me out. That one did. I thought, ‘This is great.’” Wray came back to the station ecstatic about Elf and the new album and anxiously awaited the promoter’s delivery. “It was funny in those days,” Wray remembers. “They gave you records by ‘importance.’ Blood, Sweat and Tears was at the top and then the rest and it got to the bottom of the pile and I go, ‘Where’s the Elf album?’ And the promoter says, ‘Well, come out to my car.’” Had Wray not asked, he never would have received. The case of Elf (Epic) records might have stayed in that car and the album might not have blown up in Syracuse as it did.

Although Ronnie used his actual name, Ron Padavona, on the album, rather than his rock-god moniker, he continued to draw attention. Elf performed at venues in Syracuse like the Yellow Balloon, now the Lost Horizon, and opened for Fleetwood Mac at downtown’s Loew’s State theater (now the Landmark Theatre) in 1973 and the J. Geils Band at the Onondaga County War Memorial in 1974. “The clubs were exploding wherever we put these guys,” Wray says.

But things changed when Feinstein left the band in 1973. He was replaced by guitarist Steve Edwards and the band became more piano-rock oriented, featuring Mickey Lee Soule on keys. Craig Gruber joined the band on bass so Dio could concentrate on vocals, but Elf would soon take a new form. “Ronnie called me down one night and we sat in his living room and he said, ‘I’m gonna tell you a secret,’” Wray says.

That secret? Elf was about to team up with Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist of Deep Purple. When Elf went to New York City years earlier in 1972 to audition for Clive Davis, president of Columbia Records at the time, Roger Glover and Ian Paice from Deep Purple were also there and looking into producing other bands. When they heard Elf at the audition and Davis offered to sign the band, Glover and Paice asked to be producers.

“We went down to Atlanta to record the album and then toured a bunch with Deep Purple,” Feinstein explains. “Since the two of them {Glover and Paice} produced it, it only made sense to tour with them and at the time, they were the biggest band in the world.”

In 1975, Dio, Soule, Gruber and Driscoll joined Blackmore and released their debut, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow (Polydor). Their album was followed by two more featuring Dio, Rainbow Rising (Oyster) and Long Live Rock’n’Roll (Polydor) as well as a live album, On Stage (Oyster). Dio demonstrated his vocal versatility with Rainbow and helped write and arrange with Blackmore as well as compose all of the lyrics himself.

But Dio’s ever-changing career took another turn when he left Rainbow in 1979. “Ronnie had an ego and Ritchie had an ego,” Wray shrugs. “That’s the band business.”

Holy Sabbath

Following the breakup, Dio got in touch with Sharon Arden, whose father, Don Arden, was a major promoter in England. He was managing a band called Black Sabbath. At the time, Arden was dating Soule, but later she would become Sharon Osbourne, rock matriarch. Through Don Arden, Dio began working ever closer with Sabbath’s guitarist Tony Iommi.

Sabbath was breaking up, making it an opportune moment for Dio to step into the picture. He joined in 1979 as Ozzy Osbourne left and the band released Heaven and Hell (Warner Bros.) in 1980. As Sabbath’s front man, Dio not only rose even higher among the metal ranks of rock, but also popularized the sign of the evil eye, or malocchio, a gesture passed down by his Italian grandmother. Today, the legendary two-fingered “metal horns” still emerge from crowds of rock fans worldwide.

In 1982, disagreements among the members of Sabbath led to another split which saw Dio and drummer Vinny Appice form their own band, aptly named Dio. For the first time in his career, the singer-songwriter finally had complete control over a band. Although it was a risk to leave Sabbath, the switch worked to Dio’s advantage as the band became the longest-lasting of his career despite numerous lineup changes.

But Dio never forgot Central New York.

He played the War Memorial with Sabbath in May 1982 and played it again with Dio during the Sacred Heart Tour in 1985. “I talked to Ronnie after a show in 1984 and he said the next tour would be even bigger and better,” Wray says. “That next tour, Sacred Heart, had a 30-foot-tall fire-breathing dragon. It was monstrous and it did breathe fire. He had guys shooting lasers at each other and everything. But he was just happy to play Syracuse.”

But most of the year Dio was performing around the world, a total of 51 different countries, according to Wray. A monument in Kavarna, Bulgaria, was even erected in his honor. “I laugh about that,” Wray says. “How come they have a monument there and we can’t get one here?” Dio was recognized with a street in Cortland, Dio Way, in 1988, awarded the “Metal Guru Award” by Classic Rock magazine in 2006 and named “Best Metal Singer” at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards in 2010 among other honors. He was the oldest recipient of the Golden Gods Award at the ripe age of 67.

But even at 67, Dio never slowed and certainly never stopped until his failing health left him no choice. Between 1982 when Dio the band formed and 2010 when Dio the man died, the band released 10 albums and toured relentlessly.

Dio also rejoined members of Sabbath under the name Heaven & Hell and toured with the group in 2007 and 2009. He was slated to tour with Dio, the band, for the first time in two years in the fall of 2009; but that November he received a diagnosis: stomach cancer.

He remained strong into 2010 through nine bouts of radiation treatments and even gave interviews from the hospital talking about how excited he was to get back out on the road.

“He always had a positive attitude,” Feinstein says. “He was in pain, but we never thought he wouldn’t beat it.” But on May 16, Wendy, Dio’s wife and manager, announced that he had died. “I got a phone call from Dave {Feinstein} and was shocked,” Wray says. “He had seen him just two weeks before out in L.A. because they were mastering the last tracks that Ronnie had done.”

Those last tracks were recorded in Feinstein’s personal studio in Cortland, where he still records, solo and with The Rods. Dio had been back in Cortland in 2008 to visit his mother, Anna Padavona, who had been sick.

When there, he called Feinstein to ask if there was anything they might work on while he was in town.

“When I look at it, this was a gift,” Wray says, “a blessing that after all these years these two guys never disconnected. Musically, they were ready to go in and do this again and just watching them in the studio—Ronnie could write something right there, write a song, look at it, get his little recorder out and sing it. Right smack on the spot, perfect the first time. It was very unusual.”

Dio’s last song, “Metal Will Never Die,” is featured on Feinstein’s solo album, Bitten by the Beast, and was released by Dio’s label, Niji, in November 2010. Another song, “The Code,” is on The Rods’ album Vengeance (Niji) and is set to be released this month.

Today, his legacy lives on. In addition to the event at the Lost Horizon on Saturday, on July 10, Dio’s birthday, a benefit concert at the J.M. McDonald Sports Complex, 4292 Fairgrounds Drive, Cortland, is also being planned by Feinstein to benefit the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout Cancer Fund and a music scholarship fund at Cortland High School in Dio’s name as well as pay tribute to the man. Details are still being determined, but Feinstein’s goal is to make Dio Day an annual event.

The tribute this Saturday also reflects the home-grown attachment to Dio that resonates both with the mix of local talent and the crowd.

“I’ve been singing his music for 25 years,” LeRoi says. “Every band I’ve ever been in, I’ve always sung some kind of Ronnie Dio song. I don’t know if it’s the pronunciation of the dialect around here, because we’re both from Central New York or something else, but it’s always been easier for me to sing his stuff. I found when I was 16—‘Oh, I can sing Ronnie Dio stuff.’ I just started like that and the music is powerful and has great lyrics and I’ve always sung a Ronnie song.”

LeRoi will sing more than a dozen songs throughout the 26-song set, but will make room for other vocalists and musicians on the stage as well. Notable musicians participating in the event include Tamaralee Shutt, vocalist of Salt City Jazz Collective, Ninety One, the Stan Colella Orchestra and her own band Kanjira; Bill Blanchard, keys for Alter Ego, Pop Rox and Glyphix; Darren Scott, guitarist for Brace; Matt Caustic, singer of Caustic; Wayne Johnson, guitar and vocalist of Caroline Blue and Scott Dixon, general manager and talent buyer at the Lost as well as singer of Township Rebellion, Mouth Party and Reefer Sutherland.

“It’s so unique,” LeRoi emphasizes, “a collaborative tribute where everybody pitches in.”

The event, which LeRoi hopes will draw 400 people, is designed to drive that point home. For a talent as far-reaching and versatile as Dio’s—an artist capable of songwriting, singing any style and playing instruments including trumpet and bass, all while remembering his roots and remaining dedicated to his fans until the end—the collaboration seems fitting.

“Ronnie would spend four hours to make sure he signed his autograph for everyone,” Wray notes. “I never saw him turn down an interview or autograph ever. He was always the last to leave and was on the road 250 days a year. All through his years, that never really changed.” Wray sits back and reflects: “What a tremendous talent. I was blessed to have him be a part of my musical life.”

Paying tribute: Terry LeRoi, lead singer of Titanium Black, honors the memory of Ronnie James Dio with the hard rock metal horns and the concert planned for Saturday, May 14, at the Lost Horizon.

Local hero: Ronnie James Dio (left, foreground) and Ron Wray (wearing glasses) reveled at the 1988 renaming of his childhood street in Cortland to Dio Way. His parents Pat and Anna Padavona flank Dio and his son Danny in this undated photo (center). He and Wray formed a lifelong friendship (below, left), and Wray has marveled at Dio’s patience in signing autograph after autograph (below, right).