Wow, heartbreaking news indeed. Though was never what I'd call a "fan", I have a deep respect for his era of metal, and it's always sad to hear of a true talent's passing, esp. when they're taken before their time.

His many admirers and fan will see to it he's never forgotten.

The coolest thing about the dude was he always seemed to be involved with the heavy metal scene, whether it was encouraging younger artists or staying on top of what was going on in the genre. I think one of the best examples is he heard that Bjorn from In Flames was a huge Rainbow and Dio era Black Sabbath fan. So when Heaven and Hell was doing a festival which featured In Flames on the bill, Dio made a point to take Bjorn out to dinner and chat with him for a bit about In Flames and just about music in general. Over the years it seems that everyone has classy things to say about Ronnie and he absolutely killed live on stage. I've seen few other artists with such passion about what they did.

Raises his glass in salute to a wonderful talent . we will miss his unique style and talent.

\m/ RJD \m/

He will be terribly missed and there will truely be no one like him ever again with such love and devotion to the genre. When i heard the news i was unfortunately not around any metal friends so when i said Ronnie James Dio had passed they were like "Whose that?". Immediately i listed a few songs and pulled out my mp3 player to better enlighten them. Christ, kids these days lol.

I don't think a lot of people realize he was the vocalist on the Rainbow track "Man on the Silver Mountain" which they used on the Coors Light commercials for a couple years. His genre of music doesn't really get much radio play aside from satellite radio, so I can understand a lot of folks not knowing who he was.

that's true, I only knew him for a few songs but mostly cameos before i started to listen through the internet/satellite. Despite all that, everyone should at least know holy diver ffs i mean other than radio its been in a million 80's movies and so on lol.

May his power and voice resound through the halls of Valhalla for all eternity.