IIMC was my introduction to Rainbow – somehow, my rock education was left incomplete in Delhi – bet I bunked that lecture to go eat at parathewale galli ? !  One of my abiding memories of Old Hostel common room is the turntable playing Rainbow’s “Temple Of The King” every time I walked past – for some reason that was the only song that was playing whenever I went by ?. I’m still trying to figure out who from C22 was the Blackmore/Rainbow fan – c’mon you guys, fess up! It’s an outstanding ballad by one of the hardest rocking bands of all time. To be honest, it’s not even their best song – I think it’s not even in their top five. But for me, this is the song that will always be Rainbow!

What do you do when you’re the leader of one of the greatest rock bands ever and have written (possibly) the greatest guitar riff of all time? Well, if you’re Ritchie Blackmore, you quit Deep Purple as you’re unhappy about their musical direction, and, you start from scratch to build another great rock band. So in ’75 that’s what he did, setting off to record some solo stuff with Dio and his band (Elf) as session musicians. However, when he heard Dio belt out some vocals he decided, on the spot, to do a full album with them. That was the debut “Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow” album that has brilliant songs like “Temple of The King”, “Man On The Silver Mountain”, If You Don’t Like Rock and Roll” and “Still I’m Sad”. Their music took off – how could it not with Blackmore on lead guitar and, Dio on vocals (duh!) – and they became an overnight sensation drawing audiences all over the US and Europe, quickly acquiring a reputation as one of the best live acts of the late 70s / early 80s.

“Temple of The King” is a mysterious song – Dio’s lyrics hark back to the early 70s when everyone was smoking interesting things and looking for mystical meanings. It was also the time that Tolkein’s “Lord Of The Rings” was a huge seller (remember Led Zep mentioning  Gollum in “Ramble On”?) and I suspect there might have been some LOTR influence here as well. It’s a song about a spiritual journey, touching on Blackmore’s interest in medieval times and music. Two interesting factoids to zap you – Blackmore got the idea for the song while watching a yoga show on TV (yoga = spiritual journey!)  ?. And, he wanted the opening lyric “Once upon a time in the year of the fox”  to be “Once upon a time in the year of the badger”..?. Thank God  Dio found that too difficult to sing !

For some reason Blackmore just wasn’t content with one line-up – in the eight years that Rainbow were a band, Blackmore was the only constant. The line-up changed every 12-24 months – it was almost as if Ritchie wasn’t happy with just one colour Purple – he had to have the whole rainbow (see what I did there? ?). Dio left after two albums to become the lead singer of Black Sabbath The varying line-up produced some fantastic rock music – without a shadow of a doubt Rainbow are worthy of being talked about in the same breath as Deep Purple. And quite appropriately, Rainbow disbanded when Blackmore decided to reunite with the Deep Purple Mark II line-up in 1984.