Why Randy Rhoads Makes Chris Shiflett Cry | 100 Guitarists Podcast

[@brigham2250]

I didn't grow up in a home where rock music was played but of course I had friends who did. I was 15 years old when a friend dropped the needle on Over the Mountain (around 1981-82). Diary must have just come out. That song changed my life forever. I was addicted to the point that I bought a guitar (of course) and started to learn all I could to play his solos which really grabbed me, spoke to me (his sense of melody and note choice was second to none). And yes, RR's playing can bring tears to my eyes, especially the solos in Tonight. EVH was just a tad behind in my mind and the reason is that while Eddie's playing was awesome and out of this world, Randy's playing spoke to me in a way that was unique. To this day my love of RR has never diminished. His picture is the background for my phone, so he is in my life every day.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Tonight is beautiful song, it should have had a video and been much bigger than it was. genius songwriting

[@mikeylambert1151]

I'm 56 and still get goosebumps and cry when I hear Randy playing.

[@DredgenX]

I went back and listened to Randy's stuff from Ozzy for the first time completely earlier this year, and it really broke me down and made me cry. Randy was truly one of the best to ever hold a stringed instrument. It's heartbreaking we lost him so soon. RIP Randy

[@WyattScott]

boo hoo , man up

[@telecatsermaster]

The famous live version of Mr. Crowley was unreal…

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

he is an all time A leaguer, we post the bootlegs that we can find, and we have the isolated guitar tracks for both albums and EP on the Randy Rhoads legacy page.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

@@WyattScott come on...be respectful, it is no crime for Randy Rhoads playing to get to people like that. We are not talking about some B leaguer here now.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

@@telecatsermaster the Live MR Crowley version or the After Hours versiojn?

[@tkd4uandme]

For me the highlight of Randy’s playing will always be Diary Of A Madman. Amazing composition, with the acoustic parts and some really great heavy riffing. I love his shredding, but his melodic side for tunes like Tonight, and Goodbye To Romance is 2nd to none.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

I call it Diary of a Masterpiece.....it is the Stairway to heaven of metal songs

[@tkd4uandme]

@@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle That is a great way to describe it!

[@ToddTheJoker]

I thought Dee was and still do think it is one of the prettiest pieces of music and I always thought it was so cool and funny when he was recording it he heard a jet flying over and goes "there's a jet"! Such a good guy and brilliant musician and a shame he died so young! it really affected me when I was little!

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Randy was structured in the studio, worked out his stuff. But live he really excelled live and took risks. Randy actually recorded his solos in one take, eddie actually recorded multiple takes and pieced them together...

[@RedBlaze02]

Lots of great points by Chris. Randy progressed rapidly in both QR and Ozzy. True, big jump from the QR I album to QR II. Then with Ozzy his playing continued to progress. Also true, Tribute (Cleveland May 1981) wasn’t the best night, except the two 1980 live tracks (which are great) and the solo (inexplicably spliced in and sped up) from The King Biscuit Flower Hour Montreal July 1981 show, which is so much better. By late 1981 and early 1982, his live solo and the new instrumental section that expanded his solo section were so amazing, and those unfortunately remain unreleased (except Brad Gillis covered the instrumental section). Randy was constantly coming up with more creative and amazing live fills - check out any bootleg of Children of the Grave or Paranoid from early 1982, and definitely check out the King Biscuit show. Ozzy/Epic are sitting on live Randy audio and video that need to be released. Agreed about the vocals though, they often need a lot of touch-ups and may be keeping a lot unreleased. The 1980 Southampton show was going to be released in 2011 (and even pictured in initial promo shots) but it was pulled because they didn’t want to put out anything unreleased with Bob and Lee. Also, there’s Bob Daisley’s Holy Grail tapes that Ozzy won’t release in full. They say the quality isn’t good enough, but it is. Just check out Bob’s site.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Randy Rhoads is an all-time A leaguer

[@dlmyrs]

This was awesome. Thanks for remembering Randy! I went with the Black Sabbath crowd after the break up (long live RJD🤘), but was still a huge Randy Rhoads fan. Long live Randy Rhoads!

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

all time A leaguer

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Randy and Bob produced the first album, Max was the sound rngineer. Diary is arguably the greatest album ever written. Diary of a Masterpiece

[@damonsdeliberatedetour492]

Randy was who got me really into playing and I loved his ability to play very technical. I agree Eddie was a fun off the charts fly by the seat of his pants. Randy had the Classical influence. Both of them made a huge difference but Randy for me just laid it down more fluid for me. Listen to Tonight, Diary of a Madman and Revelation mother Earth!

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Jake E Lee did an interview with Tone Talk before he was shot, and he said no one ever combined classical with Rock as well as Randy has before or since him. Advanced compositional writing skills...

[@JimmyGallowayGuitar]

The tone on Tribute is absolutely pinnacle 80s. Mr Crowley, Revelation, and I Don't Know.... just crushing.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Unforunately that is not indicative of how good that band was and Randy, the unedited version from Cleveland, on youtube is much better, They hacked up his solo and how they never got a live version of Over the Mountain on that album is shocking. They also should have put on You LOoking at Me Looking at You, from the Southampton show.

[@evalonious]

Overlooked is the positive natured lyrics of the two Randy/Ozzy albums. Chris mentioned that Van Halen was party music. Ozzy/Randy was positive and introspective, maybe becoming a better person, finding yourself. My theory is that after the Sabbath break up Ozzy was looking up, and for change. The lyrics of those two Albums are a reflection of that change. Right before he died Randy told Oz that he wanted to quit the band to go back to school, study classical. 😢🎸❤️

[@RedBlaze02]

Great lyrics indeed, by Mr. Bob Daisley, who wrote about 90% of the lyrics on every Ozzy studio album from Blizzard up to and including The Ultimate Sin. Shot In The Dark was a cover of a demo from a band Phil was in and the only song Bob didn’t write the lyrics for.

[@WhitAnderson70]

Randy is the reason why.

[@briangisler1981]

In my opinion the two greatest studio albums ever produced/engineered and recorded on planet earth were blizzard and diary .

[@HereXEG]

Randy is a God. No one I’ve ever heard play with such emotion while playing so precise and technical. SRV and Alex Lifeson were always close behind.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Randy is an all-time time A leaguer...but SRV is nowhere near Randy in writing and playing. It's night and day the playing and writing. Alex is very good ..

[@Darth.Shredder]

IMO the original white Jackson Concorde is the ultimate Randy guitar... Nothing looked like it at the time.. It was his and only his. It was also the first ever Jackson.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

It founded a guitar company, Randy is the guy who told Grover to slap his last name on the headstock

[@Darth.Shredder]

@@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle Yep.

[@andrewbecker3700]

"You Can't Kill Rock n' Roll" and "Believer" best 2 songs.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

YCKRNR is a great song....the intro to that song is one of the best every, he was so melodic. Believer I was never a huge fan of until I heard the isolated guitar track, which we have posted on the Legacy page, in fact we have posted all of the isolated guitar tracks to the two albums and the EP.. Then you hear that crazy rhythm he is playing...

[@andrewbecker3700]

Diary is an album that has to be listened to beginning to end, in order. Blizzard doesn't have the same continuity to the songs. Both great. But Diary is on another level. Peace!

[@frankrichards3089]

Oh I'd put Blizzard really close. Revelation may be the best thing he ever wrote. Mr. Crowley certainly one of his top compositions and solos. The overall engineering is better on Diary, however.

[@andrewbecker3700]

@frankrichards3089 Actually blizzard is a jumbled mess, that didn't impress me as an album. Great songs on it? Yes. Diary is solid all the way. Zero filler, all bangers.

[@frankrichards3089]

My man speaking to live recordings of Randy the best 2 for me: '81 Long Beach '81 Day On The Green. Both great audio. Smokin shit.

[@derangedhermit2879]

? While I can get favoring Diary of a Madman over the Blizzard of Ozz, both of Randy’s Ozzy albums are so particularly brilliant to listen to from the beginning to the end, along Tribute & the After Hours footage & about 50 live bootlegs of mostly the same exact set, I’d love to hear Bob Daisley’s 8 hours of Holy Grail Rehearsal Tapes…🎸

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Blizzard of ozz the eponymous debut punches you in the nuts right away, but it is interesting we ran a poll on the legacy page of the better song opener, and Over the Mountain crushed I Don't Know. I think BOO has the bigger hits, which is why it is the top selling metal debut of all-time. But Diary is a superior album songwriting was, and Randy's playing and write was night and day from the first album. Diary of a Masterpiece

[@lesliefarlow5734]

Randy Rhoads is one of the most influential guitarists ever & along with Scott Ian from Anthrax one of the first Jackson guitar players to my knowledge

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

I would not put Scott in a sentence with Randy Rhoads... Randy is the reason Jackson guitars exists according to Grover.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Ozzy didn't go solo until Randy died, it was a band called Blizzard of ozz. Rhoads is Iommi on steroids

[@BrentJJ]

Love the topic💚🎸

[@jahjah67]

Nice interview. About ‘You Said It All’, it’s not actually live. Apparently it was recorded during a sound check in late ‘80 and the crowd noise was added later.

[@runabout76]

Came to say exactly that. Randy used a modified version of an old QR solo, and the crowd noise is from the show that night.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

the band wrote it during soundcheck as Ozzy was passed out under the drum riser. Randy ended up recording the solo in a sound truck. But they do have that entire show recorded, Southampton, think of how great Mr. Crowley and Suicide Solution sound.

[@derangedhermit2879]

I have almost 50 Randy Rhoads bootlegs & many of the best can now be found here on KZbin where you can hear Randy playing much of the same exact set and getting bored playing way ahead of the beat rebelliously challenging Ozzy & deliberately throwing him off Rhoads improvising embellishing and approaching the music differently from night to night live. The 81’ Bat Head Soup Cleveland show that most of Tribute comes from isn’t even the best of Randy’s playing, it is the best sounding of all the the bootlegs. Reportedly concert from night after the After Hours, audio and visual footage got professionally recorded of the April 29th Rochester NY concert, which exists in Warners Brothers vault, that got filmed by six cameras, along with audio of the entire 1980 Southampton show from the night that the live Mr. Crowley & You Said It All got recorded, & I’d love to hear Bob Daisley’s 8+ hours of Holy Grail rehearsal tapes. Bob Daisley: "I remember the sound truck coming to the gig to record Blizzard of Ozz’s Southampton show in 1980, when Jet Records needed another song that was not on the album, to release on an EP that had not previously been used as a B-Side. They wanted a live version of 'Mr.Crowley' and needed a new song for a B-Side on a 3 song live album called the Live EP, featuring Mr. Crowley, Suicide Solution & and a rare track, that we quickly developed and wrote called 'You Said It All'. I will tell you how that was written, Randy had a basic riff. Randy and I put together a chord structure that afternoon during the soundcheck. Lee got a microphone, as he often sang as we wrote songs, and Lee came up with the vocal melody while Ozzy was asleep under the drum riser. Ozzy’s snoring was his only contribution to that song. Ozzy did absolutely fu¢k all with that song. Nothing. Yet he still gets the credit for it. I took a tape of Lee's melody back to the hotel and wrote the lyrics in the hotel room. It was all done as a big rush under pressure, without Ozzy. Get it done quick, we need this right away you know? Ozzy didn’t bother, he knew we’d just handle it, like usual. We then recorded it at the concert, right before the audience came in. So yeah, it was recorded live, no audience but the audience noise was added later from that night. Because it was a new song, we didn't want to include it in our live set that night, as we had never played it before. And Ozzy had had never sung it before as I had just written the lyrics. He was learning it, while singing it from the lyric sheet and that's how it got recorded. Later on I offered them the eight hours of tapes I had, but I demanded full artistic control over the tapes. So they couldn’t just edit it all and make it seem like it was all Ozzy again. I wanted control over how they were used or how the material was put together and I really didn't want it edited at all because warts and all, it's hours of classic historic stuff, we referenced while writing on the road, that we referred to as the Holy Grail tapes. You can hear us coming up with loads of new ideas, constantly evolving and re-arranging stuff and editing parts. Some parts of the parts we removed are so good that they would’ve eventually ended up being developed into other songs, and that’s why I kept those sessions. And I have all that on tape and I had offered that to them. But Sharon wasn’t interested at the time, she just wanted to pay me off cheap and be like 'here take this and fu¢k off.' And I said no. If I can't have artistic control over all of it and we don't get our royalties, it’s tons of work and you ain't fu¢king getting it for peanuts. They really missed a golden opportunity over greed, that would have provided Ozzy new material, all these year later Randy’s music has been Ozzy’s most successful material. It's classic Blizzard of Ozz stuff and so far, no one get's to hear it. It's been over 30 years now. I mean, it's got mistakes in it; Lee's no singer, his voice is all over the place and Ozzy’s voice cracks and Randy makes mistakes and I make mistakes and Lee makes mistakes, but that's what creating music is all about. We were experimenting and writing. It's classic stuff and I would love for everyone to hear it."

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

we all want to hear the Holy Grail tapes, and we post most of the bootlegs, links, on the legacy page for Randy and B.O.O.T.S. Correct that is the only time the band played You Said it All. The Osbournes continue to lie about stuff like the holy grail tapes. The Southampton CD was going to be released as part of the 30th Anniversary boxset, but when Bob would not sell them the Holy grail tapes they got petty and turned that boxset into the Ozzy and Randy boxset with the picture book, cutting out LEe and Bob. The fact they do not acknowledge it was a band is tragic and an insult to Randy's legacy and memory.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Are you referring to the holy grail tapes that Bob daisley has,. 7-8 hours of him and Randy working and rehearsing songs. The Osbournes pulled the southamp6on CD which is a super recording that was used for the live mr. Crowley EP. We post love bootlegs of Randy and the band on the legacy page.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Chris is talking about the Southampton show that they took live Mr. Crowley and Suicide Solution and recorded You Said It All during soundcheck

[@stepitupandgo67]

I am always amazed that people think Randy's tone was shit, and those are some of the most enormous tones ever!! Max Norman on the desk with the auto double tracking stuff..just, like it or not, nothing sounds like that...a smidge lo fi, but it just worked with ozzy's vox and the band so well to me

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

He had the most unique tone I have ever heard . It seems people either love it or they dislike it. But more people seem to agree his live tone was really good. I could not imagine those albums sounding any better with a different tone, it all came together and was magic. Those albums sound like they should.

[@stepitupandgo67]

@@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle I totally agree. It just blew my mind out when I heard that in the 80s. magic is the word!

[@jonn8163]

SATO absolutely

[@bloodalpha5393]

A friend of mine delivered a VHS tape of three complete shows to Randy’s sister Kathy. The assumption is she hasn’t released it because the Osbourne’s won’t sign the release.

[@bryanmcdermott4204]

There needs to be a Randy Rhoads statue in Knoxville, where he last played. They have one for composer Rachmaninoff, who also had his final performance there (I think). Hmm, it was also the last place Hank Williams was seen alive. Weird stuff in East Tennessee.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Or a statue in Burbank where he grew up.,...

[@WyattScott]

Randy is what made me pick up the guitar in 1985. One of the true innovators along with Hendrix and Eddie.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

you and millions of others. He was absolutely a game changer...Jackson guitars.

[@peteyoung7665]

Randy Rhoads makes me cry because his dead.Such a shame.He could have been so good if he wouldn't have gone on that plane.RIP Randy

[@Darth.Shredder]

IMO Diary is a perfect record. I love Blizzard but Diary just personifies the Ozzy/Randy sound to me. The production is on a whole other level. I already loved Randy's work on Blizzard but Diary made me a complete fanboy. His death wrecked me. Speaking of Blizzard vs Diary... Anyone ever notice the beginning of Randy's solo on Believer is basically the same pattern he did on Mr Crowley? Again, the opening pattern not the entire solo, key, etc.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

I call it Diary of a masterpiece.....arguably the greatest album ever written, even though not all of the solos were what Randy wanted. The sound is more the result of that band Blizzard of ozz, the parts coming together. We all know that now since Chris Impellitteri pointed it out on an interview a few weeks ago. COmpletely different run but a similar pattern.

[@Darth.Shredder]

@@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle I didn't even know Chris Impelliterri was still around, let alone talking about Randy. I noticed the pattern similarities the moment I heard it when Diary was first released. I was already a Randy fan and player.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

We have the isolated guitar tracks for both albums and the E.P. ...some of the songs sound much different without the other instruments.

[@bloodalpha5393]

According to Tommy Aldridge, he had boxes of cassettes given to him by the soundman back then. According to him there’s tapes that are alot better than Tribute.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

Tribute was one of the worst shows they did, the unedited show is called Bats head soup is much better. They butchered his spotlight solo on Tribute ..the unedited show is in youtube , May 11 1981 Cleveland show.

[@Ch4roon]

you are stating the obvious

[@jjrockjaw]

He's a card-carrying member of the Randy rhoads fan club, he's in a huge rock band, he can barely play his instrument.

[@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle]

who isn't? he can play his instrument well enough, he might be the best musician in the band.

[@jjrockjaw]

@@Dave_Wight_The_Rock_Oracle That ain't sayin much