Artist: Dio
Title: “Stand Up And Shout – The Anthology”
Label: Rhino Entertainment
Release Date: 5/27/2003
Genre: Heavy Metal/Hard Rock
Rating: 5/5

If you call yourself a Heavy Metal fan and you don’t have a reasonably strong background on the career and accomplishments of singer Ronnie James Dio, then I feel your proclamation will be called into question. Historically, the lead singer began with Elf, his Honky Tonk Blues band and eventually joined forced with Ritchie Blackmore in Rainbow when the axe slinger had grown discontent about Deep Purple. Together they would break musical ground and after a couple of great recordings he would move on to replace Ozzy Osbourne in the legendary Black Sabbath. From Sabbath it seemed the tale was only beginning as he would begin a meteoric solo career that was nothing less than prolific when it came to song writing and impact on the Heavy Metal genre. This Anthology from Rhino Entertainment takes us on a trip through all of the facets of Ronnie’s career and comes off as one of the most expansive and detailed releases of its type based on the material it features. The album begins at the beginning with a few tracks from Elf and while this is not much in the way of Metal as opposed to Blues-influenced Honky-tonk Rock – I am pretty certain that many of Dio’s fans has never even heard this stuff before it was placed here. It’s decent stuff and while never my preference I enjoyed finding out just how versatile Dio actually was at such an early stage of his career. The inclusion of Elf makes this as much an education as it makes it an enjoyable music experience.
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