A previously unreleased Ronnie James Dio song from 2010 which features guitarist Doug Aldrich will be included on an upcoming collection of never-before-heard and obscure DIO recordings
The unreleased song was originally written for DIO‘s “Magica II” LP, the planned sequel to 2000’s “Magica” album that was never completed due to Ronnie James Dio‘s passing in 2010. The previously released “Magica II” track called “Electra” appeared on the 2012 compilation record “The Very Best of Dio Vol 2”.
Ronnie James Dio‘s widow and manager Wendy Dio recently sat down with Tucson rock radio station KFMA Rock 102.1, and discussed the upcoming collection, saying (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I’m working on — which won’t be out until next year — but I’m working on an album of things that Ronnie… either unreleased stuff or things that people haven’t really heard lately, things that were kind of obscure. So I’m working on putting that together. And we do have an unreleased track that Doug Aldrich was working [on] with Ronnie just before he passed away. And that song will be on there.”
In a 2017 interview with Roppongi Rocks, guitarist Doug Aldrich said about his working with Ronnie James Dio: “I have a demo of Ronnie, an unreleased song nobody’s ever heard. I offered it to Wendy and, I don’t know, maybe she forgot about it, but I said ‘I have this song. It’s really haunting.’ It was during [the] time he wrote ‘Electra’. I just played on it. We were kind of bouncing around some of his ideas and working on some of them. Before we did ‘Electra’, he had this other one that he said, ‘Can you put a solo on this?’ and he gave me the track.
“I had put a solo on it and then, when I brought it to his house, he goes, ‘No, no, no. I’ve got this new idea called ‘Electra’.’ We didn’t even listen to it. I don’t even think he ever heard the solo because we were so focused on trying to get one song done to promote the tour that we were gonna do. I was still a member of WHITESNAKE [at the time], but I said to him, ‘If you work it out with David [Coverdale, WHITESNAKE frontman], I would love to go out on the road with you.’ Because he had asked me to go. He worked it out and then he got sick.
“But there is this one track that is haunting, because the lyrics are… And he doubled his voice, it’s just really trippy. At some point, it will have to come out. I got it. I got the mix. I actually have the recording session, which has got Ronnie playing bass, Ronnie playing rhythm guitar and vocals. And then a drum machine. One day.”
Ronnie James Dio died from stomach cancer in May 2010. He was 67 years old.
Wendy previously confirmed in a July 2021 talk with LiveSigning that there were “about three songs” that Ronnie James Dio completed prior to his passing that may eventually get released. She said: “Actually, there are about three songs that Ronnie was… Ronnie was working on a song with [former DIO and RAINBOW bassist] Jimmy Bain before Jimmy passed away. That was one. Craig [Goldy, former DIO guitarist] were working together on a song; they were working on some material and stuff, and it got pushed to the side. And I think the last thing Ronnie was working on was with Doug Aldrich, and they were working on a song.
“All things are in a vault,” she explained. “I have to go into the vault… We are taking the necessary steps — we are having it all itemized and categorized. And Wyn Davis, who was Ronnie‘s engineer, who loved Ronnie to death and Ronnie loved working with him. He’s the only person I really trust to do that. So he’s going there, going through the stuff, and he will listen to those songs and tell me if those are what Ronnie would approve. Because Ronnie was a perfectionist, so it has to be something that Ronnie would put out.
“We’re not gonna shove something out because it’s got Ronnie‘s name on it; that’s not what Ronnie would want, and I would never do that to Ronnie. But if the lyrics are there and Ronnie sang the parts, we can always have the band go in and play the music. But we have to make sure that it’s sung properly.”
“Dio: Dreamers Never Die”, the incredible documentary on the life and career of Ronnie James Dio, will get a DVD and Blu-Ray release this September.
