Padavona.com - Ronnie Dio's Early Years

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Ronnie James Dio
July 10, 1942 - May 16th, 2010


Welcome to the website that tributes the early career of Ronnie James Dio. Among the pages here, you'll find the [never complete] history of Ronnie's career up to, and including, Elf, a page full of as many mp3 downloads as I can find of all this music, various photos I've found and that have been sent to me, lyrics, interviews, and more. I hope you enjoy browsing this website as much as I've enjoyed creating and maintaining it.

Ronnie James Did: A Biography of a Heavy Metal Icon by James Curl
Hey everyone, this looks like a must-have for die-hard Dio fans. It includes interviews with early bandmates, photos, etc. Looks like it details a lot of his early years and should have some fantastic information in it. Here is the Amazon link to purchase.

Dio's Lost Decade
Check out this academic paper written by Glenn Pillsbury. Great stuff! Here's the link.

New Hosting!
For many, many years, Genady at Angen.net has hosted all the music files for free. Unfortunately, and totally understandably, he is having to shut down his hosting. It didn't take long for someone to offer free hosting for this entire website (I'm losing my own web hosting soon). HUGE thanks to Glenn Pillsbury for offering to host the entire website, music files and everything.


New Show!!
I'm really excited about this one. It's amazing that new (to us) music from those early years of Ronnie's career is still surfacing. John Stark of the group Pierre and the Citations recording a Ronnie Dio and the Prophets show on New Year's Eve 1965. He apparently did so with a tape deck he received at Christmas. And the quality is surprisingly great! Dave Parisi got that music and cleaned it up a bit, then allowed me to post it here on the site. The show took place at the Jacinta Lounge in Endwell, NY. So do you want to hear it all? Well, here you go:

           Ronnie Did and the Prophets - Live at the Jacinta Lounge (Dec 31, 1965)

Facebook - I decided to create a Facebook page for this website (link to the right). I did this for two purposes. First, it will help me more easily manage images. Second, it will be easier for people to leave comments/questions about this site. For those with Facebook, anyway. You can still contact me through the Contact page (link to the left).

What Is My Connection to Dio, and How Did I Come to Make this Site? I’m often asked about my connection to the early days of Ronnie (am I from the Cortland area, did I ever see the Red Caps in concert, etc.) and how I got everything for this site. So, I decided to post the story here on the site. Enjoy, because it’s riveting stuff.

Other places to visit

CNY Music Archives - Mike Donohue offered to let me grab some old photos he had on his CNY Music Archives Facebook page, but I'd rather just send you straight there. This link will hopefully take you straight to the images.

History of Syracuse Music by Ron Wray - Check out this blog for some great information. You'll have to search for the stuff directly related to Ronnie and his bands, but my understanding is that Ron Wray knew most/all the members of The Elves/Elf well.

Photos - All photos have been moved over to my new Facebook page. Clicking on the Photos link to the left will take you to the albums.

Tributes - Back when Ronnie died, I found (or was sent) some online tributes to him. Click here to read them.

Links
Ronnie James Dio - Official Site
RonnieJamesDio.org
El Templo del Rey (Spanish Dio site)
Tapio's Dio Pages
Black Sabbath Online
Deep Purple Appreciation Site
The Rainbow Fanclan Legacy
The Temple of the King
Metal 80
Dio Message Board