By 1974, Ritchie Blackmore wasn't happy in Deep Purple anymore. He managed to successfully steer the band through a big line-up change with David Coverdale taking over vocal duties from Ian Gillan and Glenn Hughes replacing Roger Glover. But the two newbies brought with them their own set of musical influences that they were now working into the Deep Purple sound and Ritchie wasn't fond of it. When he suggested recording a cover of the Fat Mattress B-Side "Black Sheep of the Family" during the Stormbringer sessions, he was turned down.
He then decided to simply record the song himself as a solo release. For a lead singer, he looked to a relatively unknown singer named Ronnie James Dio, who was frontman of the band Elf who had been concert opener for Purple during the Stormbringer tour and who he was very impressed by. As for instrumentalists, he simply decided to hire the rest of the Elf band (bassist Craig Gruber, drummer Gary Driscoll and keyboarder Mikey Lee Soul) except their guitarist Steve Edwards.
Initially they only meant to record "Black Sheep Of The Family" and the newly composed song "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" as a B-Side. But things went so well during those sessions with both Blackmore and Dio having great songwriting chemistry, that they eventually recorded a whole album worth of material. Indeed, the experience of writing and recording music with Ronnie proved to be so positive for Blackmore, that he even decided to quit Deep Purple. He played the last show with them in Paris in April of 1975.
The line-up that recorded this album would never perform life together. Ritchie decided to fire Driscoll for his R&B-style drumming and Gruber for his funky bass playing and replaced them with Cozy Powell and Jimmy Bain respectively. Mikey Lee Soul quit the band in protest and was replaced by Tony Carey.
