This year, Every Sunday Evening, Album Rock WXYG, The GOAT will be featuring a full album at 8:00 PM from the halcyon musical days of 1976. 1976 was one of the top Years in Album Rock history. Another year of tough choices every week. So many great ones to choose from. After 52 Weeks of featuring so many of the great albums that debuted in 1975, next Sunday we will be moving on to another amazing year of ALBUM ROCK EXCELLENCE, 1976.
Tune in at 8:00 PM, Next Sunday Evening, August 30th for “Rising” (also known as Rainbow Rising),the second studio album by “Rainbow“, released on May 17,1976.
The album features only six tracks, including two epic compositions exceeding eight minutes each on side two.
On their second release, Rainbow not only avoid the sophomore jinx; they hit a home run. After replacing the entire band (except Ronnie James Dio) immediately following the recording of the first album, Ritchie Blackmore and the Rising lineup (Blackmore; Dio; Tony Carey, keys; Jimmy Bain, bass; and the late, great Cozy Powell, drums) had plenty of time on the road touring the first album to get the chops and material together for their second. In particular, "Stargazer" really came together on the 1975 tour and featured stunning keyboard work from Carey. The material is uniformly strong, with "Starstruck" and "A Light in the Black" standing out in particular. Ronnie James Dio turns in a great vocal on the stunningly direct (under three minutes!) "Do You Close Your Eyes." All six songs on the album are up there with anything the band has done, before or since. The playing has a very tight, colorful feel to it, which was lacking a bit on the first record. This album can legitimately be mentioned in the same breath as classic Deep Purple. “Rainbow – Rising” is Ronnie James Dio, Ritchie Blackmore on guitar, Tony Carey on keys, Cozy Powell on drums and Jimmy Bain on bass. In issue 4 of Kerrang magazine “Rising” was voted the greatest heavy metal album of all time, In 2017, it was ranked 48th at Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".
All killer, no filler, with amazing performances all around. Dio's smooth operatic vocals sing some of the most iconic lyrics on tracks like 'Stargazer' and 'Run with the Wolf'. Blackmore's guitar work is once again flawless. Very technical without any hint of being robotic or overly produced. Jimmy Bain's bass work lays down solid rhythm, and let's not forget the amazing drum work by Cozy Powell, whose intro on 'Stargazer' is one of the most recognizable intros in all of Metal and Rock, next to Led Zeppelin's 'When the Levee Breaks' and Judas Priest's 'Painkiller'. If you haven’t listened to this whole album in a while, you are in for a treat.
Tune In and Turn On the evening of Sunday, August 30th at 8:00 PM for The GOAT'S "The Long Play with Al Neff”.
