On this day in 1981 Bruce Dickinson joined Iron Maiden

On this day in 1981, Bruce Dickinson joined UK rock band Iron Maiden. He is known for his wide-ranging operatic vocal style and energetic stage presence. Dickinson began his career in music fronting small pub bands in the 1970's. In 1979, he joined British new wave heavy metal band Samson, with whom he gained some popularity and performed on two studio records. He left Samson in 1981 to join Iron Maiden, replacing Paul Di'Anno, and debuted on their 1982 album The Number of the Beast.

The release saw Steve Harris (the founding member and bassist) adopt a different approach to writing, which would cater more for new vocalist Bruce Dickinson. The album's producer Martin Birch remarked, "I simply didn't think [former vocalist Paul Di'Anno] was capable of handling lead vocals on some of the quite complicated directions I knew Steve wanted to explore ... When Bruce joined, it opened up the possibilities for the new album tremendously."

According to several interviews Dickinson was heavily involved in writing several of the album's songs, and in particular the tracks "Children of the Damned", "The Prisoner" and "Run to the Hills". However, due to his previous band Samson's ongoing contractual issues, Dickinson could not legally have any writing credit.

Listen to Iron Maiden's classic track 'Run To The Hills' as separated with  DeMix Pro 3.0  here: