Metal fans everywhere are lifting their devil horns tonight in tribute to Ronnie James Dio, who died early Sunday following a year-long fight with stomach cancer. Click here to read the Associated Press obit. Ol' Ronnie always seemed to be in someone else's shadow in the public eye, starting with Ritchie Blackmore in Rainbow and then Ozzy Osbourne after he replaced him in Black Sabbath. But true metalheads (like the Tenacious D guys who gave him his due in their movie) knew he was one of the definitive voices of metal. Word was he was also one of the classiest and most likeable fellas who ever frequently sang about the devil. I personally gained big respect for the little giant at a particularly low point of his career, when I saw him play a musty old metal bar in Austin, Texas, in about 1997 with a crowd of 700 or so. Not only did he sing his ass off like he was still in front of 10,000 people, he also dressed like it, wearing a full-body, shiny spandex suit. Whether he was in denial or simply didn't care about being with the times, there was something timelessly cool about it.