Rising (Rainbow album)

Rising
Cover painting by Ken Kelly
Studio album by Rainbow
Released	17 May 1976
Recorded	Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany, February 1976
Genre	Heavy metal
Length	33:28
Label	Oyster/Polydor
Producer	Martin Birch
Rainbow chronology
Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (1975) Rising (1976) Long Live Rock 'n' Roll (1978)

Rising (also known as Rainbow Rising)^[1] is the second studio album by the British hard rock band Rainbow, released in 1976. In issue 4 of Kerrang! magazine, Rising was voted the greatest heavy metal album of all time.

History

Band leader Ritchie Blackmore retained only Ronnie James Dio from the previous album line-up, and recruited drummer Cozy Powell, bassist Jimmy Bain and keyboard player Tony Carey to complete the roster.^[2] Recorded in Munich in less than a month, the album was overseen by rock producer and engineer Martin Birch. The band was originally billed as Blackmore's Rainbow in the US.^[1]

The album showpiece, the 8-minute and 26 second piece "Stargazer", which features the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, originally had a keyboard intro, as evidenced on the 2011 Deluxe Edition's "Rough Mix" version.

Few of the album tracks made it into the band's live set: "Stargazer" and "Do You Close Your Eyes", written prior to the inaugural US tour in late 1975, featured in all the 1975 and 1976 shows, while "A Light in the Black" was dropped early in the 1976 tour, although it was reintroduced into the set during the Japanese dates. "Starstruck" was played in shortened form usually as part of "Man on the Silver Mountain".

2016: fortieth anniversary

May 17, 2016 was the fortieth anniversary of the release of this album and probably the reason that Rainbow decided to play three concerts this year. The promotional poster displaying the iconic fist and rainbow taken from the album shows evidence of this.

On this years anniversary a few artists reacted to this event. Saxon's Biff Byford called it a "great album",^[3] Destruction's Schmier named it an "amazing album" and "Ronnie James Dio’s big album",^[4] Snowy Shaw called it "a masterpiece and pretty much a milestone" and claimed that it "introduced a more Dungeons and Dragons type fantasy heavy rock to the masses."^[5] Judas Priest's Rob Halford called it "a significant record" and a "thrilling album" and he also claimed that "it plays as well and sounds as well and feels as good now as when it first came out. That shows you how important and how valuable that music still is."^[6] Also this year, five Iranian rockers joined forces with Iranian rock and metal music journalist and producer, Mohsen “Stargazer” Fayazi to pay tribute to this event and covered the “Stargazer” song, which they could not publish due to copyright issues.^[7][8]

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[9]
Rolling Stone	(mixed)[10]
Sputnikmusic	[11]

Rising peaked at number 48 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. In the UK it would peak at number 11. The original vinyl release was a gatefold sleeve, with a generic Polydor inner-bag.

The first CD issue had a slightly different mix to that of the original LP, including, for example, a longer delay before the band entered after Carey's opening solo in "Tarot Woman", a longer play-out on "Run with the Wolf", and the track "Stargazer" had the vocals mixed without the delay, the extra synthesizer deleted and some of the phased sounds deleted. When remastered in 1999 the original vinyl mix was restored.

According to AllMusic, Rising captured "Blackmore and Dio at the peak of their creative powers...(it) chronicled both the guitarist's neo-classical metal compositions at their most ambitious, and the singer's growing fixation with fantasy lyrical themes – a blueprint he would adopt for his entire career thereafter."^[9]

2011 Deluxe Edition

After several reschedulings, the album was finally released in Japan on 5 April 2011 as a 2 SHM-CD (Super High Material CD) Deluxe Remastered Edition. This limited edition reissue will only be released in a cardboard gatefold sleeve (mini LP-style paper jacket) featuring the "high-fidelity" SHM-CD manufacturing process (compatible with standard CD players) and is part of a two-album Rainbow cardboard sleeve reissue series featuring Rainbow Rising and Down to Earth. Both feature the unique-to-Japan obi strip and an additional insert. The 2011 Deluxe Edition has gone Silver in 2013 in the UK.^[12]

Track listing

All tracks written by Ritchie Blackmore and Ronnie James Dio. 

2011 Deluxe Edition

Personnel

Rainbow

• Ronnie James Dio – vocals
• Ritchie Blackmore – guitar
• Tony Carey – keyboards
• Jimmy Bain – bass
• Cozy Powell – drums

with

• Munich Philharmonic Orchestra – strings, horn
• Fritz Sonnleitner – concert master
• Rainer Pietsch – conductor

Production

• Produced and mixed by Martin Birch
• Recorded at Musicland Studios, Munich, Germany, February 1976

Charts

Album

Certifications

Cover versions

• A portion of "Stargazer" was covered by German heavy metal guitarist Axel Rudi Pell during the 2002 Shadow Zone tour and can be heard in the medley on the first disc of the live album Knights Live (2002).
• Chicago metal band Bible of the Devil covered the song "Starstruck" on a 2004 split EP with The Last Vegas.^[22]
• Dream Theater covered the song "Stargazer" on the album Black Clouds & Silver Linings (2009).
• Faroese folk metal band Týr covered the song "Stargazer" as well on their album The Lay of Thrym (2011).
• German thrash metal band Paradox included a cover of the song "A Light in the Black" as bonus track on the album Tales of the Weird (2012).
• The 2014 tribute album to Ronnie James Dio "This Is Your Life" featured covers from "Starstruck" by Motörhead and Biff Byford and a medley of the songs: "Stargazer", "Tarot Woman", "Kill the King" and "A Light in the Black" called "Ronnie Rising Medley" by Metallica.

In other media

The song "A Light in the Black" was featured in the 1994 movie S.F.W. The song is played when Cliff 1st enters his bedroom after he comes home for the first time in 36 days.

Accolades

References