‘Since You’ve Been Gone’: Graham Bonnet Sings A Rainbow

During their hot spell as hitmakers on the U.K. singles chart, Rainbow never quite rang the bell in the same way in America. For all their success on the album charts and at rock radio, the band didn’t automatically cross over to pop airplay.

Their scorecard included just one Top 40 appearance, and even then, only just, with 1982’s No.40 single “Stone Cold.” On November 17, 1979, Ritchie Blackmore and the band appeared on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time with “Since You’ve Been Gone,” which had peaked at No.6 in the U.K. on October 13.

The song (sometimes listed as “Since You Been Gone”) was written by former Argent member and hit composer Russ Ballard, who had recorded the first version of it, on his 1976 album Winning. Rainbow’s cover became the definitive version, but it wasn’t the first interpretation. Clout, the South African band who had an international hit with “Substitute” — not the Who song — did it on the 1978 album that also contained that song. The Illinois hard rock band Head East recorded it in 1978, too.

Playing with Marbles

Rainbow’s version, produced by Roger Glover, featured vocals by the band’s frontman of the time, Graham Bonnet. The English rock singer had previously recorded in his own right and had visited the British charts fully 11 years before, as the singer with the Marbles on their Top 5 hit written by the Bee Gees, “Only One Woman.”

Listen to the Rock This Way playlist.

Other new entries to the US chart that week included Kenny Rogers’ country crossover “Coward Of The County,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “Don’t Do Me Like That,” and Herb Alpert’s “Rotation.” Sadly, in the week before Christmas, the Rainbow track ran out of steam at No.57. The fourth studio set that it came from, Down To Earth, had a 15-week run on the Billboard 200, reaching No.66.

Buy or stream “Since You’ve Been Gone” on Rainbow’s Down To Earth album.