Ronnie James Dio has been in the music business for a very long time now. In 1972 he recorded the self-titled debut album with the band Elf. But he had made some recordings even before that. Those records are very hard to find these days. Elf recorded two more records, titled "Carolina County Ball" (also known as "L.A. 59") and "Trying To Burn The Sun".

Elf were touring with Deep Purple when Richie Blackmore "discovered" Ronnie. Richie wanted Ronnie to sing in his new band, Rainbow. They released "Richie Blackmore's Rainbow" in 1975. The next album, called "Rising" was released the year after. The last studio recording Ronnie did with Rainbow was "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll". It was released in 1978.

After the Rainbow-years, Ronnie joined Black Sabbath. They released "Heaven And Hell" in 1980 and "Mob Rules" in 1982 and the live-album "Live Evil".

Dio was formed in 1982 when Ronnie and Vinnie had "got tired of" Black Sabbath. In 1983 they released their first record - "Holy Diver". Vivian Campbell played the guitar and Jimmy Bain played the bass. The album was very well received and Dio toured around the world. "Holy Diver" contains classics such as the title track, "Rainbow In The Dark", "Stand Up And Shout", "Don't Talk To Strangers". In 1984 they released their second album, "The Last In Line". On this album they had a separate keyboard player, Claude Schnell. This album did very well too.

The third album, "Sacred Heart" came out in 1985. This was the last release with Vivian on the guitar. He was replaced by Craig Goldy who played on the live-ep "Intermission". Goldy came from the band Giuffria. This record also included a new studio recording titled "Time To Burn". Vivian later joined Whitesnake for some touring, and then he has been playing with bands like Riverdogs, Shadow King and now Def Leppard.

The first full-length album with Craig was "Dream Evil, released in 1987. After this album Dio took a recording break because of member changes. "Lock Up The Wolves" was released in 1990. The band was: Ronnie on vocals, Rowan Robertson on the guitar, Teddy Cook on the bass, Simon Wright (former member of AC/DC) on the drums and Jens Johansson (former member of Ynwie J. Malmsteen's Rising Force) on keyboards.

Unfortunately the album did not go too well, and when Ronnie got the oppurtunity to reform Black Sabbath he agreed. They released "Dehumanizer" in 1992. They also had one track, "Time Machine", appearing in the motion picture "Wayne's World". Black Sabbath started a tour, but when Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler agreed to support Ozzy Osbourne at two gigs, Ronnie had enough and quit.

Soon after this Dio was reformed. The members were Ronnie, Vinnie, Tracy G (from World War III) on the guitar and Jeff Pilson (from Dokken) on the bass. They released "Strange Highways" in 1993. The next album "Angry Machines" was released in 1996 with the same members appearing on it. Dio did a great world tour on this album. Jeff did not appear on the tour, so the bass was handled by Larry Dennison, and the keyboard was handled by Scott Warren. This tour was recorded and out came the double live-album "Dio's Inferno - The Last In Live". This album contains material from Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and even an old Deep Purple classic - "Mistreated". After the release of "Inferno", Dio kept on touring in the States and later alson in Europe.

During this tour Vinny was replaced by Simon Wright on most of the dates, because Vinny played with Black Sabbath on their re-union tour with Ozzy Osbourne.

Before the recording of new album Magica started Tracy left the band. He was replaced by former Dio-guitarplayer Craig Goldy. Tracy continues with his own project Driven.

Larry "Bones" Dennison have been replaced by old Dio bassplayer Jimmy Bain.

There are rumours that Elf will re-unite for a tour and maybe an album. The future will tell ...

Dio did tour Scandinavia in November on a tour called "Monsters of the millenium" together with Manowar, Motorhead and Swedish band Lion's Share. On this tour Dio had Chuck Garric (L.A Guns) on bass. Jimmy will be playing on the album though.

Magica was released in March 2000. The album is a concept-album. It is all written by Ronnie and Craig. After the release of the album Dio started touring immediately in the USA. The tour continued almost all over the world for about one year. They also appeared  on Sweden Rock Festival 2000. In 2001 they did another "Monsters of the millennium"-tour, this time with Ratt and Alice Cooper.

Right now Dio is in the studio again, recording a new CD. The working title of the new release is "Killing The Dragon". Craig Goldy will not play guitar on this album due to family-responsibility. His replacement is Doug Aldrich, formerly of Lion, Hurricane, Bad Moon Rising and Burning Rain among others. The album is planned to be released in May on Spitfire Records, followed by a tour with Scorpions and Deep Purple in the USA.

Killing The Dragon was released in May 2002. Dio is now on tour. Band containing: Ronnie James Dio, Doug Aldrich, Jimmy Bain, Simon Wright and Scott Warren. Check them out in a place near you!