Randy Rhoads

I’ve just described my favorite band – Quiet Riot, so now it’s high time to write about Randy Rhoads, (he founded Quiet Riot).

Dec 6, 1956
Randall William Rhoads was born at St.John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California.
1962 or 1963
It is when he is six years old or seven years old.　He began a guitar lesson with Musonia Music School which mother (Delores) managed.
1968
When he was 12 years old, it had interest in Rock Guitar.　Then, the guitar which he played for the first time was harmony rocket.
He took the lesson of the guitar from Scott Shelly of the teacher of School.

http://www.rrclub.com/ebiography.html

Quiet Riot – Picking Up The Pieces

Randy Rhoads Polka Dot Flying V

In 1976, he founded Quiet Riot. He was a school guitar teacher and band’s member at the same time. He had recorded 3 official albums with QR.

In 1979 he started playing with Ozzy Osbourne. Apparently, when Ozzy heard Randy Rhoads performance, he immediately decided to hire him. The result of co-operation was releasing “Crazy Train” single and “Blizzard of Ozz” album. “Crazy Train” is one of the most recognized and popular Ozzy Osbourne’s song.

Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train

But, in my opinion the most valuable “memento” is “Dee” track. This song was dedicated to Rhoads’ mother.

Randy Rhoads/Ozzy Osbourne – Dee

He was developed custom-built guitar – Jackson’s Flying V:

Many other guitar companies have copied the Flying V design, most adding “personal touches” to avoid legal entanglements with Gibson. Among these other V’s is the Jackson Rhoads model, custom built for Randy Rhoads in 1981 (It was originally to be called the Concorde, but after Rhoads’ death it was named as tribute). As the very first Jackson guitar and colloquially known as the “Shark Fin”, it featured an asymmetrical cut among other differences from Gibson’s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Flying_V

He created his own style, Randy was one of the precursors two-hand tapping technique, he tried to merge classic guitar music with heavy metal. When his career was developing, he had died in plane crash on March 19, 1982.

Randy Rhoads’ last show was played on Thursday, March 18, 1982 at the Knoxville Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee. The next day, the band was headed to a festival in Orlando, Florida. After driving much of the night, they stopped on the property belonging to Jerry Calhoun, owner of “Florida Coach,” in Leesburg, Florida. On it, there was a small airstrip lined with small helicopters and planes, and two houses. One belonged to the tour bus driver, Andrew Aycock, and the other was owned by Calhoun. Aycock talked the band’s keyboardist, Don Airey, into taking a test flight in a ’55 Beechcraft Bonanza F-35. By some accounts the manager, Jake Duncan, was also on this first flight. The joyride ended, and the plane landed safely. Then Aycock took Rhoads and hairdresser/seamstress Rachel Youngblood on another flight. Airey persuaded Rhoads to go on the second flight, despite his fear of flying. Rhoads apparently agreed to go for two reasons: the seamstress had a heart condition so Aycock agreed to do nothing risky; also, Rhoads wanted to take an aerial photo as one of his hobbies was photography. During the second flight, attempts were made to “buzz” the tour bus where the other band members were sleeping. They succeeded twice, but the third attempt was botched. The left wing clipped the back side of the tour bus, tore the fiberglass roof then sent the plane spiraling. The plane severed the top of a pine tree and crashed into the garage of a nearby mansion, bursting into flames. Rhoads was killed instantly, as were Aycock, 36, and Youngblood, 58. All three bodies were burned beyond recognition, and were identified by dental records. It was later revealed in an autopsy that Aycock’s system showed traces of cocaine at the time; Rhoads’ toxicology test revealed only nicotine. The NTSB investigation also determined that Aycock’s medical certificate had expired and that the biennial flight review, required for all pilots, was overdue.

Rhoads’ funeral was held at the First Lutheran Church in Burbank, California. He is interred at Mountain View Cemetery in San Bernardino, California, where his grandparents are also buried.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Rhoads#Death

Randy Rhoads had recorded 2 albums with Quiet Riot, and 3 with Ozzy Osbourne ¹. In 1987 Ozzy released album dedicated to Randy Rhoads “Tribute” ². Quiet Riot prepared in 1993, album “Randy Rhoads Years” with songs unreleased before. ³

Despite his short life, he had large influence on another guitarists. He was placed 85th on “Rolling Stone Magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists”, and 4th on “Guitar World Magazine’s 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists”⁴

The Randy Rhoads Guitar Collection

Discography LP