If you told me you would pay me $100K to name just one song this cat sang, I would still be broke. Unless I could use the internet. I knew him more for what his pop culture contributions so that was enough for me to mention this news on here.
Heavy metal rocker Ronnie James Dio passed away after losing his battle with stomach cancer yesterday. He was 67-years-old.
I most recently remember him for his brief cameo in "Tenacious D and Pick of Destiny". The name looked familiar, but I couldn't place where I had seen it before. It gradually came to me when I realized that Dio was a name I had seen on the rocker shirts in high school. He was among one of the heavy metals bands that some of my peers from that era worshiped.
What I didn't realize until just recently was that he had became the lead singer of Black Sabbath after Ozzy Osborne left. That still wouldn't have helped my bet from earlier though. That's a band where I only know the name because of the outrageous front man associated with it. I may have been into some of the rock hair-bands of the day, but Black Sabbath was never my cup of tea.
Something I did find interesting is Rio is credited with popularizing the "devil's horn" hand gesture in metal culture. The same one that I often see Sigmas using as their hand sign. Not sure if "popularizing" it is the same as being the one who originated it. At any rate, since that often caused folks to associate that music with the devil, that's not exactly something I would want to highlight on my resume. But I'm just a little funny that way I guess.
Rest in....well, it may not be very peaceful if you really were a believer in your "popularization", but you probably want it that way so maybe it's still resting for you. Anyway...goodbye, Dio.
