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Sometime in the late afternoon of May 16, I received some devastating news. My wife emerged from our home office and calmly informed me that Ronnie James Dio had passed away. Then the Facebook messages started arriving, followed by the tweets and emails. A man who loomed large over the metal community for more than four decades was no longer with us.

Unfortunately, our June issue had already been sent to the printer when I received the news. As such, we were not able to run a proper obituary last month.

That has been rectified in this issue.

Now, I understand that we here at Performer typically devote our pages to independent artists, or better known artists that embody the DIY spirit. So you may be asking yourself why I’m bothering to mention a singer like Dio.

Dio embodied so much about what’s right with the music industry during his lifetime. He was simply one of the most gracious, generous and respected individuals in the business. You might not expect that from his devil-horned, larger-than-life onstage persona. Offstage, however, he was always willing to stay late to sign autographs, to give interviews to eager young reporters (no doubt answering the same questions for the thousandth time), or to council young musicians that he had taken under his wing on the road.

From his early days with Elf and Rainbow, through his tenure with Black Sabbath and its modern day incarnation Heaven and Hell, Ronnie was an inspiration to millions of headbangers throughout the world (myself included). He also remained humble and kind until the end. Dio’s legacy will not only be that of his great musical catalog, but also his enduring strength of character in an age where those words have little meaning in celebrity culture.

The metal community has lost many great figures over the years: Dimebag Darrell, Randy Rhoads, and more recently Paul Gray. None of these losses, though, will leave a hole as large as that left by Ronnie James Dio.

So here’s to you, Holy Diver. Tonight, I raise my devil horns in your honor.

Benjamin Ricci

Editor

PS – apologies go out to Hüsker Dü, as we mistakenly left out their umlauts in June’s “Tour Stop” section. Typos are not very röck & röll.