The possibility of a reunion of the lineup which created the Black Sabbath album Heaven and Hell in 1980 was first announced on the Spanish site Rafabasa on September 28, 2006; however with Appice in place of Ward the line-up is now that which recorded the 1981 album Mob Rules. Dio had previously announced that he and Iommi had written a new track for a proposed Black Sabbath box set consisting of music from the two periods in which he was present in the band. This set, Black Sabbath: The Dio Years, is a single-CD release featuring three new tracks, ‘Shadow of the Wind’, ‘The Devil Cries’ and ‘Ear in the Wall’. The reunion was officially confirmed by an announcement on Tony Iommi’s official website. None of the new tracks feature keyboards but Scott Warren of Dio is the project’s touring keyboardist. The group did a world tour in 2007, and released a live CD/DVD recorded in New York called Live from Radio City Music Hall Heaven & Hell’s first full-length studio album is called The Devil You Know and was released by Rhino on April 28, 2009. The band embark on another world tour beginning in May 2009. The band had several festival dates lined up for 2010 despite singer Ronnie James Dio’s diagnosis with stomach cancer in December 2009. All of these dates were cancelled in April 2010 due to Dio’s ill health, although it was not apparent whether he was suffering from a setback or just hadn’t recovered as quickly as everyone had hoped. However, on 16th May 2010 an official announcement from his wife and manager, Wendy Dio, shocked music fans the world over announcing her husband’s death from stomach cancer. He was 67 years old. |
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