Songoftheday 6/15/12 - Every night I have the same old dreams about you me & this inbetween...

Rainbow - "Stone Cold"

from the album Straight Between The Eyes (1982)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #40 (one week)

Weeks in the top-40: 1

Today's song of the day is by the British rock outfit Rainbow. Started by guitar man Ritchie Blackmore from Deep Purple, who split from the band over its dabbling into R&B in its rock, the original incarnation featured future Black Sabbath ftontman Ronnie James Dio. Their first effort, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow became their first top-30 album in the US, and almost hitting the top-10 in England, but as a whole the band was an artsy-fartsy classical-rock act. After that, Blackmore's tyranny over the band caused member shifts like I've never seen in a band, even changing vocalists twice before settling with Jersey-born Joe Lynn Turner at the start of the 80's. The singer before that, Graham Bonnet, who would go on to sing with the Michael Schenker Group, carried the band as Blackmore veered them more in a mainstream direction, and gave them their first British pop top-10 hit, as well as their first minor American hit, with "Since You've Been Gone", from the band's fourth studio album Down To Earth, in 1979. That album that followed, Difficult to Cure, was the first with Turner, and its first single "I Surrender" became their biggest UK hit ever, make #3 in 1980.

At this point, all pretentions of the classical-rock based blues sound were gone, and the pop gleen of their sound coaslesced on 1982's Straight Between The Eyes, which scored Blackmore his first top 40 hit with "Stone Cold"...

The disdain of R&B sure reversed itself in this song, especially in the dark, funky beginning (I credit bassist Roger Glover for that). The song was a big hit in the States, becoming their first and only #1 song on rock radio, while the album matches their debut album's success in America.

After replacing the drummer, Rainbow plugged on for one more album after that (Bent Out Of Shape) which gave them another big US rock hit (the #2 "Street Of Dreams") before disintegrating in 1983, with Blackmore and Glover rejoining Deep Purple for another ten years. In 1993 He left DP again and reformed Rainbow with a totally new lineup in 1994, releasing one album that tanked in the US and Britain (though went top-10 in Sweden) before disbanding and Blackmore releasing solo material more in his classical-influenced vein.

Up Tomorrow: Rocky takes the charts by storm.