pantera

The Heavy-Metal Texas USA-based outfit Pantera, Spanish for 'Panther', started out as a local club cover-band in 1981, consisting of vocalist Lee Glaze, guitarist Darrell 'Diamond' Abbott, bassist Rex 'Rocker' Brown and drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott.

Two years later the foursome released their debut album "Metal Magic" which was supported with their first national tour alongside Dokken and Quiet Riot.
"Projects In The Jungle" followed in 1984 and a year later was released "I Am The Night", the last album on which Glaze appeared.
The remaining members spent the next years looking for a new vocalist, finally in 1988 Pantera returned to action with Philip Anselmo on vocals and released their fourth album, "Power Metal".
Two years later, the band, emerged with a radical change in direction releasing the Atco Records debut "Cowboys From Hell", the record was supported by tour dates in America and Europe.
The band's audience continued to grow and their sixth effort, "Vulgar Display Of Power", crashed into the top 50 of The Billboard 200 Albums chart, by the time this record sold in excess of 2 million copies in U.S. alone.
After the founder member Diamond Darrell decided to change his name to Dimebag Darrell, the group released the next album, "Far Beyond Driven", which arrived in the spring of 1994 and shot to #1 on The Billboard Top 200 chart, the record was also well received in the U.K. where climbed into the top 3 of the National Albums chart; its single, the cover of Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan", reached the #21 on Active Rock chart.
1996's "The Great Southern Trendkill" was another commercial success, the album hit #4 on Billboard's Top 200 list and made top 20 in Britain.
In the following years the group released two live albums and frontman Anselmo started his own projects.
Pantera returned in the top 40 of Active Rock chart in the second half of 1999 when released, as a single, the cover of Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever", a song taken from the soundtrack of the movie "Detroit Rock City".
In March of 2000 the group re-emerged with a new studio effort entitled "Reinventing The Steel" which reached the #4 slot on The Billboard Top 200 chart, it included the Mainstream Rock top 30 hit "Revolution Is My Name".

At the start of 2003 the Abbott brothers announced their new project, New Found Power, that was later re-christened Damageplan.

On 9 December tragedy struck the band; just before Damageplan took the stage at a club in Columbus, Ohio a young man shot Dimebag Darrell with a handgun a number of times at close range; three other people were killed including the band's head of security.