Hearing Ronnie James Dio crooning, “Die young, Die Young, Die Young, Die Young, Die Young!” on “Die Young” is kind of like listening the Who’s Roger Daltrey sing, “Hope I die before I get old” in “My Generation.” It’s far too late for Dio or any his Heaven & Hell bandmates to die young, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still rock like teens on a sugar high.
This week, Headbangers ball will air the video premiere of “Die Young,” which Black Sabbath wrote in 1979 for Heaven and Hell, their first album with Ronnie James Dio at the helm.
Of course, Dio, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward were a whole lot younger back then, and, had they been unlucky during one of their many hedonistic binges, they could quite easily have died young. Those times are long gone now, of course, but writer Garry Sharpe-Young has chronicled them thoroughly in his book “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: The Battle For Black Sabbath,” which came out in paperback last July. Recently, Rockdetector.com posted lengthy excerpts from four chapters of the book.
When you’re done reading, check out Dio with Sabbath on “T.V. Crimes”:
