How Did You Discover Randy Rhoads.....?

[Zakk Daniels]

I first discovered Randy from Black Sabbath. I was totally into Ozzy and then I heard Crazy Train on the radio and thought it was Sabbath. I then heard the DJ say that it was Ozzy's Blizzard of Ozz. I remember thinking when I was listening to the song that Tony Iommi was AWESOME on the song. It turns out it was Randy Obviously!! It was 1981 and I was 13. From that moment on I knew who was the ALL-TIME BEST Guitarist!!

[JR97]

I discovered Ozzy back when Blizzard came out and Crazy Train hit the radio. I was probably 10 or 11 at the time. Being raised in very conservative Salt Lake City, I was a little bit scared of Ozzy. KISS was Knight's in Satan's Service, AC/DC was Anti-Christ/Devil's Children, and one look at the cover of Blizzard and I was told Satan is alive and well.

So having said all of that, when the DJ announced he was about to play an Ozzy song, I immediately hit record on my boombox because I wanted to see what Satan sounded like. LOL. But I was immediately hooked by the catchy Crazy Train riff and blown away by the solo. The weird laugh at the end freaked me out, though.

I was a drummer back then, but vowed to learn RR licks when my hands were big enough play the guitar. When I was about 14 I finally bought my first electric guitar and attempted to learn every note off of Blizzard and Diary.

I don't do the electic guitar thing much anymore. But my acoustic set includes Dee, an arrangement of Mother Earth, and an arrangement of Diary. It's great when one or two people in the audience recognize those because they always bring a huge smile.

[rice_pudding]

i turned on the T.V. one day and was greeted by a show called the Osbournes. At first i was uterly confused by the whole thing but i grew to love it and it became compulsive viewing i suppose you could say. One day i decided that maybe i should check out this ozzy guys music, so i bought essential Ozzy and was instantly hooked, i'd found the kind of music i loved.

initialy i like ozzys newer stuff but i gradualy began to prefer the older material, which was when i recognised it featured the playing of a certain Mr Rhoads. I knew nothing about music or guitar playing back then, but after repeated listenings of crazy train, i could tell there was something uniquely special about randys playing. (Even not knowing what a scale was i could tell he was a musical genius ) I bought some more ozzy albums including tribute and it totaly blew my socks off. By that point i was convinced randy was the best thing i'd heard in my life (and he probably still is).

around about this time i decided to learn to play guitar. I dont remember the exact reason but i know it had something to do with randy. I think maybe i wanted to learn to play so that by speaking the same language as randy i could understand how he was so good. i started tinkering with my dads old acoustic and ended up getting an electric guitar for christmas a couple of months later. Driven by a desire to follow randys footsteps, i comited myself fully to the instrument, knowing that to even come close to such talent would require a phenomenal amount of work (far more than the average guitarist puts in).

i sat down on boxing day 2004 and played for three hours straight and i haven't stopped since.

music has improved every aspect of my life from academic pursuits to everyday events. im much happier now than when i was adicted to video games years beforehand. (although i am now addicted to playing guitar ) so thanks randy for getting my sorry ass hooked on music and setting such a high standard that i have to work hard at it or else live with the shame of being crap.

p.s. it just so happens that my older cousin who started playing guitar two yars before me and is now studing music in London was also influenced by you know who... interesting huh?

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sorry for such a long post but you could call this my tribute to randy, after all i quite possibly wouldn't be alive today had i not discovered his music... oh and well done if you actualy read all this you deserve a cookie or summit

[lil_miz_rhoads]

I first heard of randy when i was looking up ozzy osbourne videos. And one of the paragraphs under it said im suprised randy rhoads didn't... then i got on google and looked at pics of him and then i read about him and the sad part is i found out that he was dead. i swear i cryed in my room for an hour over it because i wanted to meet him REALLY bad. But it wasn't all in one day i knew about him for a year. back when i was 9. now im 11 so its been 2 years since ive had a huge crush or whatever on him.

[Mike541x]

On my friends Myspace. He had a list of guitar heroes of his and I looked at the very bottom and I saw a picture of Randy and the PDV. I though it was a cool guitar. THe first thing that came to my mind was that I thought he played for a Hair Metal band . So I looked up the guitar players on his Myspace and not much of them impressed me. So finally once I got to the bottom (Which happened to be Randy) I typed him up on youtube and saw Laughing Gas. I thought he was good. Then I saw a video of him playing Mr. Crowley in After Hours and I was blown away. So I researched him more and found out what happened to him and was shocked. Since then I always wondered why all the great musicians are the ones to go.

[Cpt Matt Sparrow]

I started buying records when I was about 8. I loved film music and just loads of stuff. I bought a record a week.

A friend of the families son was also as much into his record collection as much as me except he was 8 years my senior and I looked up to him.

He got me interested in heavy music and Black Sabbath. Then I heard Ultimate Sin and Speak Of The Devil. I admired and still admire Ozzy vocals..an amazing heavy metal singer!!
The Tribute was of great curiousity to me straight away. I loved the picture and the font of the letters. It looked like a really serious album and I just had a funny feeling it was going to really gerat quality music.

Therefore I Don't Know was the first song I heard.

Next came the Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary Of A Madman. By a long way the Tribute tone is my favourite Randy tone too. I am glad I heard it first.

[Rippin Rod]

I remember that everytime we played Flying High Again I got into some kind of trouble. Of course back then, everytime me and my firends were hanging out, we got in trouble. And, all we ever listened to was Ozzy. Man, those were the days!

[NicDots]

I remember hearing Iron Man when I was like in the 5th grade and really liking it. I also remember seeing Ozzy's Behind the Music a year later, and really liking Ozzy personally and more of his stuff with Sabbath, but still didn't really get into Randy, although I knew who he was.
Later, I remember hearing an "Ozzy block" on the radio. They did Paranoid, and then The Wizard and then Crazy Train. I really didn't like Crazy Train at all, I remember.
But then I remember later in school that year, I had a guitar magazine out and was flipping through it. I just adored Hendrix then (I had no idea about anyone else, truthfully. ). Some guy introduced me to RR then, lending me some of his CDs (the old 1995 versions, actually) and then it FINALLY clicked when I heard Mr. Crowley.
Took me a while, but I got there!

[NoQuattro]

I remember the first time I heard Crazy Train. It seems like that is usually the first work of Randy's that most people hear. Anyway, the intro has to be one of the most if not THE most recognizable riff in all of rock and roll. I remember listening to the song and anticipating hearing the solo after hearing Randy's first blistering fill as well as the second chromatic ascending fill, which to this day still raises the hair on my arms.

The first time I heard that solo, I was absolutely blown away. It starts off full of energy and never relents. The one thing in that solo that made me "hooked" on Rhoads is the final ascending run in F#. At that time, I recall thinking that is the fastest and cleanest I have ever heard anyone play. That very moment, I began to idolize Randy.

So, needless to say, I bought an electric guitar, read every single thing I could about Randy, and started playing his music. I have been ever since, 11 years later. Randy was incredible, simply put. Had he lived, he was going to be the greatest.

[Shadow]

It's sorta of a tosh up 'cause the era times are so closed together: but I would say I seen the late legendary Rhoads in the band QUIET RIOT first but I'd heard his Classic trademark sound in OZZY Osbourne band. I'm abit confused with if he was ever in LITA Ford band 'cause I thought he also participated in that Classic band, as well. Peace.

[Stiltzkin]

I'm abit confused with if he was ever in LITA Ford band 'cause I thought he also participated in that Classic band, as well. Peace.

he wasn't.

but Lita was working with Ozzy at one point though ...

[Randy Perry]

First time I heard Blizzard of Ozz... I hated it. I bought the tape when it came out and I didn't even get through Crazy Train when I turned it off and sold the tape to my sister for $5.00. A few weeks later she was listening to Goodbye to Romance... it was the coolest music I'd heard. When she told me what it was... I wanted my tape back. I think I went out and bought the record.

[G]

I went to school with Randy, Drew & Kelly. I listened to them practice every day over at a friends house (near Drew's house) I also worked at the Cabaret when they would play there. I actually have year books from Junior high with pictures of Randy.

[frank]

i have the 1970 highlander g. what do you have?

[rrhoadsfan86]

my stepdad had a tape of, we sold our souls for rock n roll by Sabbath, which got me into Ozzy, and I was walking around a store one day and saw Blizzard of Oz on the rack, bought it and BAM! I was a fan from that day forward.