Elf
Elf

Before becoming a significant figure in the heavy metal scene, a beloved and appreciated frontman of many legendary bands, Ronnie James Dio did a lot of groundwork with various groups, including the Elf, created by him back in 1967, a first-wave hard rock band, with which he had moderate success, attracting the attention of many insiders and setting the stage for his explosion as a rock icon. Born in the USA to a family of Italian descent, the young Ronald Padavona (later taking the name of Dio from one of his "idols," the Italian-American gangster Johnny Dio) formed his first rock 'n roll group very early on, called Ronnie Dio & The Prophets, with which he composed a few singles, including curiously also a song in Italian, "Che Tristezza Senza Te," a foreign version of one of their songs titled "My Misery."

After various changes in lineup and musical style, he decided to embrace harder and blues sounds, founding at the end of the '60s the Electric Elves, later becoming Elf. The name was chosen for two reasons; the first for the singer's visceral love for fantasy and ancestral stories, the second for the high resemblance of the band members to elves, as they were all slender and small in stature, and jokingly decided to call themselves that and keep the name. Fortune had it that they were noticed at some of their gigs in New Jersey by members of the Deep Purple staff, already at the peak of their career at the time, who took them under their protective wing and decided to help them record an album. Their first record, the present "Elf," was recorded in 1972 and produced by Ian Paice and Roger Glover, respectively the drummer and bassist of Purple, who never hid their admiration for Ronnie's powerful and precise voice, also impressed by his determination and skill in playing the bass, a habit that gradually faded over the years to come.

The rest of the band was composed of excellent musicians, such as Steve Edwards on guitars, Lee Soul on organ and keyboards, and Gary Driscoll on drums, who were later also used a few years later by Blackmore in recording the first Rainbow album in 1975. Great musicians but also poor professionals as, as Dio himself recalled, they were always involved in fights or stupid behaviors that created problems for the band's development. For example, Driscoll, following a fight, ended up with a black eye; before a performance, he wanted to use some eye drops but applied the wrong medication, his eye swelled up, and they had to cancel the evening as the drummer was left completely blind for a few days.

The album is characterized by a very heavy-blues sound; the tracks are mainly based on Edwards' excellent work on the guitar, with a sharp and decisive sound, and the keyboards and piano of Lee Soul, which created bluesy and honky-tonk atmospheres, a very American style, similar to early Aerosmith or Alice Cooper. Ronnie's voice is magnificent, perhaps still a bit raw compared to later albums, those of glory like "Rising" or "Heaven & Hell," still full of pathos, powerful and decisive, capable of fully enhancing the album's tracks. Noteworthy is the gritty blues of “Hoochie Koockie Lady,” with its fast pace and the sublime work of the trusty Lee Soul, “I’m Coming Back For You,” which starts as a ballad and bursts into a rawer and faster rock ‘n roll and the funny “Gambler, Gambler,” the final track that closes a good album, not a masterpiece but powerful and energetic.

The Elf made a couple more albums all more or less oriented in the same style, following Deep Purple around the globe on tour and cutting their teeth on all the world's most important stages until Ritchie Blackmore, eager to leave the band, decided to use the Elf entirely to bring the Rainbow project to life in the mid-'70s. But that’s another story. Still, it remains curious and interesting to listen to the album in question, a valuable document of the birth of one of the most talented and charismatic vocalists in rock history, destined for a glorious career until, unfortunately, his painful passing in 2010 due to an incurable illness.