Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow

Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow is the debut studio album by American/British rock band Rainbow, released in 1975. Recording During studio sessions in Tampa Bay, Florida on 12 December 1974, Blackmore originally planned to record the solo single "Black Sheep of the Family"- a cover of a track by the band Quatermass from 1970 – and the newly composed "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves", which was to be the B-side. Other musicians involved included singer/lyricist Ronnie James Dio and drummer Gary Driscoll of blues rock band Elf, and cellist Hugh McDowell of ELO. Satisfied with the two tracks, Blackmore decided to extend the sessions to a full album. The other members of Elf, keyboardist Micky Lee Soule and bassist Craig Gruber, were used for the recording of the album in Musicland Studios in Munich, West Germany during February and March, 1975. Though it was originally planned to be a solo album, the record was billed as Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, and later progressed as a new band project. Blackmore and Dio did promotional work for the album. Shortly after the album was released, Soule quit the band, while Gruber and Driscoll were sacked. This first line-up never performed live, and the live photos used in the album art are of Blackmore while with Deep Purple and of Elf playing live. The last track of the album, "Still I'm Sad", is an instrumental cover of a song by the Yardbirds from their 1965 album Having a Rave Up with the Yardbirds. A version featuring vocals subsequently appeared on Rainbow's live album On Stage and their 1995 studio album Stranger in Us All.