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Rainbow
In the Shadow of the Wizard: Rainbow 1975 - 1976
By Jerry Bloom
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Review by Martin Hutchinson.
For fans of ex-Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, this book is a ‘must have’. For the rest of us music lovers, it’s a great look behind the scenes of an embryonic legendary band.
Covering just the first two years of the band, it covers how the band was formed and changes (only two of the five band members appeared on the two albums covered in this period Blackmore himself and singer Ronnie James Dio). It definitely has everything anyone would need, or want, to know about these eventful two years as the band formed and began to consolidate and grow into the phenomenon it eventually became.
The emphasis is firmly on the two main members – Blackmore and Dio, even to the photographs which adorn almost every page. We get a few images of drummer Cozy Powell, but you have to look closely to find images with the rest of the musicians. But that doesn’t really bother me.
What bothers me most is that it’s an expensive book to cover just two years (OK, it IS a Limited Edition), but a lot of the photographs (which most of the money will have been spent on) are not very good quality. Because they are photos taken at concerts, they are mainly grainy and indistinct. But that is my only criticism of this obvious labour of love.
Publisher: Wymer Publishing ISBN: 978-1-912782-41-3 Hardback - A4. 224 pages. Illustrated throughout.
