Randy Rhoads

The classical-minded prodigy who gave heavy metal a conservatory education

Randy Rhoads grew up in Santa Monica and spent his childhood inside Musonia, the North Hollywood music school run by his mother, Delores. She gave him a grounding in piano and theory, while early electric guitar lessons came from local teacher Scott Shelly. By his teens Randy was a teacher at the school himself, and seeing Alice Cooper in concert in 1971 convinced him that theatrical hard rock was where he belonged. The combination of formal training and rock-and-roll ambition would shape everything he later recorded.

In 1973 Rhoads co-founded Quiet Riot, which became one of the most popular club bands on the Los Angeles circuit. The group signed with CBS/Sony in 1976, but its first two albums were issued only in Japan, leaving the band stuck at local fame while peers broke nationally. Rhoads used those years to refine a flashy, disciplined style built around precise tapping, fast scalar runs and a showman's sense of visual flair, often wielding his polka-dot Flying V on stage.

In late 1979 Ozzy Osbourne, newly fired from Black Sabbath, was searching for a guitarist in Los Angeles, and a brief audition was enough for Rhoads to get the job. He flew to England that November, and the resulting Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981) revived Osbourne's career. Songs such as Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley paired heavy riffs with baroque harmony and carefully composed solos, and Rhoads became a magazine favourite almost overnight.

Even while touring arenas, Rhoads kept taking classical guitar lessons wherever the band stopped and talked about eventually studying music formally. On 19 March 1982, the day after a show in Knoxville, he was killed in a light-aircraft crash near Leesburg, Florida, at just 25. The 1987 live album Tribute kept his reputation growing, Rolling Stone and guitar magazines routinely rank him among the greats, and in 2021 he was honoured by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The 10 greatest Randy Rhoads solos

1. 1
   Mr. Crowley

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1980
2. 2
   Crazy Train

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1980
3. 3
   Over the Mountain

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1981
4. 4
   Flying High Again

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1981
5. 5
   Revelation (Mother Earth)

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1980
6. 6
   I Don't Know

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1980
7. 7
   Diary of a Madman

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1981
8. 8
   Believer

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1981
9. 9
   Dee

   Ozzy Osbourne · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1980
10. 10
    Slick Black Cadillac

    Quiet Riot · solo by Randy Rhoads · 1978

The sound

Rhoads approached metal like a composer. His solos were usually worked out in advance and double-tracked in the studio, giving them a thick, orchestral sheen. He borrowed harmonic minor and diminished ideas from classical music, played rapid pedal-point figures, and used two-handed tapping and aggressive tremolo work for fireworks. His tone came from humbucker guitars driving a cranked Marshall with an MXR Distortion+ in front, producing a tight, singing sound with a pronounced midrange. Just as distinctive was his sense of dynamics: he could move from a delicate nylon-string miniature to a snarling riff within one album side.

• 1974 Gibson Les Paul Custom (Alpine White) (guitar) His main guitar through the Quiet Riot years and much of the Ozzy era.
• Karl Sandoval polka-dot Flying V (guitar) Custom V-shaped guitar that became part of his visual identity on the Blizzard tour.
• Jackson Rhoads prototypes (guitar) The offset-V design he developed with Grover Jackson, later a long-running production model.
• Marshall Super Lead 100-watt head (amp) The core of his live and studio sound with Osbourne.
• MXR Distortion+ (effect) His primary drive pedal, pushing the Marshall into a saturated lead tone.
• Gibson Les Paul 'Black Beauty' (guitar) A 1950s Les Paul he also used alongside the white Custom.

Covers

• Iron Man, originally by Black Sabbath He keeps Tony Iommi's lumbering riff intact but sharpens the lead lines with his own flash.
• Children of the Grave, originally by Black Sabbath A galloping, faster take that shows how well he could inhabit Sabbath's catalogue.
• Paranoid, originally by Black Sabbath Used as a high-energy encore, with a solo far busier than the original's.
• Glad All Over, originally by The Dave Clark Five A glam-flavoured update of the British Invasion hit from Quiet Riot's Japan-only debut.
• Afterglow (Of Your Love), originally by Small Faces A heavier reading of the Small Faces ballad from the band's second Japanese release.

Timeline

• 1956 Born in Santa Monica, California
• 1971 An Alice Cooper concert sets his musical direction
• 1973 Co-founds Quiet Riot in Los Angeles
• 1976 Quiet Riot signs with CBS/Sony
• 1977 Quiet Riot's debut album is released in Japan only
• 1979 Wins the guitar spot in Ozzy Osbourne's new band and flies to England
• 1980 Blizzard of Ozz is released
• 1981 Diary of a Madman is released
• 1982 Dies in a plane crash in Leesburg, Florida, aged 25
• 2021 Honoured by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Facts

1. His mother Delores ran the Musonia music school, where Randy both studied and taught.
2. His first electric guitar was an Ovation Tornado.
3. Quiet Riot's first two albums with Rhoads were released only in Japan.
4. He got the Ozzy Osbourne job after a very short audition in Los Angeles in 1979.
5. The instrumental Dee was named after his mother.
6. He kept taking classical guitar lessons in different cities while on tour.
7. His offset-V design with Grover Jackson became one of Jackson Guitars' best-known models.
8. He was only 25 when he died in 1982.
9. The pilot and the tour's makeup artist were also killed in the 1982 crash.
10. Rolling Stone ranked him 21st on its 2023 list of the greatest guitarists.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Randy Rhoads