Rainbow

Long Live Rock'n'Roll Story

by Jerry Bloom
Wymer Publishing / ISBN 978-0-9557542-2-7 / Released: June 5, 2009





Having recorded the previos two albums in a combined period of barely over a month. Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow's third studio album took almost a year to make.

Recorded at the Strawberry Studios in the haunted Chateau d'Herouville near Paris, it was the last album to feature singer Ronnie James Dio, and saw the band struggle to cope with in-wranglings, sackings, sudden departures and intervention from the spiritual world.

Along with recollections from the band and crew, Ritchie Blackmore biographer Jerry Bloom deatisl the full story behind the making of his 'landmark' album that included the classics songs Kill The King, Gates Of Babylon and Long Live Rock'n'Roll.

Fans of Ritchie Blackmore and Rainbow should aware of the fact that whenever a new publication comes out from the hand of Jerry Bloom (the man behind the More Black Than Purple magazine) you can expect a must buy item that is very detailed and full of known but also always some unknown facts untill now. Every Rainbow fan should have a copy of the fascinating unauthorised Biography on The Man In Black "Black Knight" written by Jerry.

Also highly recommended is the excellent "The More Black than Purple Interviews" which came out late 2007 and contains many exclusive interviews with Rainbow members like Don Airey, Graham Bonnet, Tony Carey, Mark Clarke, Bob Daisley and 3 different in-depth ones with Ritchie himself.

Now we have this CD sized booklet on the recording of Long Live Rock'n'Roll. Most likely the album that took the longest struggle of all Rainbow albums. The first part is about the making of the album. Die hard fans might know most of the story, still it has some great details. The departure and auditions of members. Ever heard of Joe Vescovi? Do you know Craig Gruber returned to Rainbow? It's all in here!

There a track by track analysis, the story about the artwork, what the press said about the album and some colour photos (you might have seen before on the fanclan site). We won't give away too much. It's a small booklet, only 54 pages. We would have loved a much bigger book. more pages, more photos, more everything. Still the full story is in here. It fits next to the CD on the shelf. And it's again an excellent read. All we can say is: Another must buy for every Rainbow fan!!


Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)