When attending a 48 hour charity "Radiothon" at the radio station KLOS, Jimmy Bain (Rainbow, Dio) and Vivian Campbell (at that time still in Dio, later to play in Whitesnake and Def Leppard) noticed that the representation of heavy metal stars was scarce. In the light of the success of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and USA for Africa's "We Are the World", they forwarded the idea to Ronnie James Dio, also attending the Radiothon, and they decided to make a similar project exclusively built on artists from the heavy metal scene. Together the three co-wrote the song "Stars." On May 20 & 21, 1985, 40 artists gathered at the A&M Records Studio in Hollywood, California to record the 'Stars' album. The project included members of such bands as Dio, Quiet Riot, Iron Maiden, Mötley Crüe, Twisted Sister, Queensrÿche, Blue Öyster Cult, Dokken, Night Ranger, Judas Priest, W.A.S.P., Rough Cutt, Journey, Y&T, Vanilla Fudge/King Kobra, and the parody band Spinal Tap. Ronnie James Dio had intended for the song and album to be released shortly after its recording, but contractual issues with the different artists' record labels delayed the release until January 1, 1986, somewhat diminishing the impact of its release. Nonetheless this song helped to collect in excess of $1 million for famine relief.

HEAR 'N AID (1986) VERTIGO (CDR)

This is one of the very few albums I only own a CDR of, yet. It is virtually impossible to find an original copy of this compilation album, as it was only released on CD in Japan. I used to own both the video, and a 12" EP with the song "Stars" on, but it's nice to have it on CDR, at least. During the 80's it became "popular" to do these all-star albums, raising money for various noble causes. This is the first one to come from the metal community. Hear 'n Aid was put together by Ronnie James Dio, Jimmy Bain and Vivian Campbell (all in Dio), setting out to raise money for famine relief in the third world. It was sort of the heavy metal equivalent to Band Aid. They brought in many proficient names from the metal circuits, and together they recorded the song "Stars", released it first as a single, and then on 12" EP and this compilation. Later on they also released a 30 minute home video, with footage from the recording of the song, and the music video. "Stars" actually got some heavy rotation on the music channels on TV back in 1986. My favorite part of the song is the loooooooooooong guitar-solo. It's great to see what the different players brings to the table. The rest of this compilation features various songs from contemporary artists. The strange thing about the track list is that most of the bands that are represented are artists not on the "Stars" song. They are also represented with songs recorded live, and many of them are only available on this compilation album. It is a real hassle trying to find where most of these lie songs are from, as there is no details offered in the liner notes.

Fun fact: There was a second planned song to benefit a charity that Ronnie has been involved in for years (Children of the Night), that benefits runaway children. This was to be a song called "Throw Away Children". However, due to various reasons the project never materialized, the song ended up appearing on the 2002 Dio album, 'Killing the Dragon'.

The band Powergod did a cool cover of it on their 'Bleed For The Gods' tribute CD.