Thirty years ago today the Heavy Metal music scene lost one of its most inspiring and acclaimed guitar players. Yep, if you are old enough to remember this event happening, it has been thirty years since Randy Rhoads was killed in a tragic and altogether stupid, unnecessary accident. He was twenty five years old at the time of his death.
While I realize that I am dating myself, I will admit to the first time hearing Randy play was when I was turned onto the “Blizzard Of Ozz” album that had just come out. My Metal and Rock friends used to regularly convene at the local record shops and my neighborhood had two of them. We had Record Factory and the Little Record Store and while the first one was the larger supplier of stuff, the smaller shop always seemed to have the Metal stuff there a little earlier than the others. When you listened to Randy do what he could do on the guitar you were instantly floored. It was so good, and so interesting and for its time so very, very unique. It was another case of the musicians doing something that was not often done at this time, and we had experienced something similar only a few years ago when the first Van Halen album had come out.
Continue reading Remembering Randy Rhoads: Thirty Years Gone (3/19/2012)