I was watching the crawl on my local news station, and a short sentence rolled by announcing the death of Heavy Metal singer Ronnie James Dio from stomach cancer. I then did a search on Goggle, Bing, and Yahoo for more information. My search resulted in conflicting reports from several Heavy Metal dedicated websites like Heavy Metal Underground have been flip flopping confirmation of his death.
Ronnie James Dio (real name Ronald James Padavona) was born July 10, 1942 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He was an only child from an Italian family. He made his mark in 1979 when he joined Black Sabbath replacing Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer. He then went on to form other bands and come out with hits like 'Rock and Roll Children.
Ronnie was married twice, first to Loretta Berardi around the mid 60's. They have an adopted son Dan Padavona. After divorcing Berardi (year of divorce unknown), he married Wendy Galaxiola, who also served as his manager.
UPDATE: It has now been confirmed that Ronnie James Dio hass passed away from stomach cancer. This is a statment by his wife Wendy on his website:
Message from Wendy Dio
Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.
- Wendy Dio
You can leave your condolences on Facebook
Rock on Ronnie!!!