As chronicled here on ESG, as a youngster I ate, drank, slept and bleed Led Zeppelin, I was a walking encyclopedia, tour dates, studio sessions, vacations, kids, cars, wives, girlfriends you name it!
If that was how I was with Zeppelin than I shot-up, snorted and chain- smoked Black Sabbath!!!
You see Sabbath was always harder to grasp, they weren’t magazine cover boys, they kept their partying and debaucher on the down low, and frankly though still a working band at the time I discovered them, Ozzy was on the outs and popular-popularity had waned, but the music, oh that shit is timeless. They have their radio songs, "Paranoid"," Iron Man", even "Sweet Leaf" saw heavy rotation but give me "Hand of Doom"," A National Acrobat", "The Wizard"!
As relayed in one of my first ESG posts, it began with that Paranoid cover, first glimpsed in the faint light of my brother’s room in the holiest of holies, his record collection. The cover was cool/weird (the pink and purple sword wielding dude all fuzzy ’n shit). But that inside picture is still one of my favorite images of the band. Ozzy on the right side of the gate fold with his hands on his hips and that big cross, Bill, Geezer, and Tony on the other side just looking into the camera as if to say, “let’s party”! No mad-dog stare, make-up or spandex, just dudes that could rock you into a coma…Kick Ass!
I became obsessed with their stuff, my brother had copies of Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, Technical Ecstasy, Never Say Die, Masters of Reality, & Sabotage these along with Paranoid became my nightly sojourn into mysticism, earthly vices and plain weirdness. ( You may notice that the essential first album is absent from this list, I didn't get my hands on it until 7th grade when a new kid joined our class and turned me on to it! He had a friend who taped it for him, this friend of a friend turned out to be my brother from another mother, our very own MR. 666!)
Lyrically and vocally I think BS and Ozzy are both greatly under appreciated, when Ozzy plainly and painfully sings, " Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry..." you feel his pain or "I've lived a thousand times…I found out what it means to be believed” pair this with Iommi’s bluesy solos and crunching riffs, Bill Ward’s intricate beats with mind-blowing fills that created a swirl around the unmistakable-remarkable bass lines of Butler and we are talking about writers and players of the utmost degree!
Lyrically and vocally I think BS and Ozzy are both greatly under appreciated, when Ozzy plainly and painfully sings, " Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry..." you feel his pain or "I've lived a thousand times…I found out what it means to be believed” pair this with Iommi’s bluesy solos and crunching riffs, Bill Ward’s intricate beats with mind-blowing fills that created a swirl around the unmistakable-remarkable bass lines of Butler and we are talking about writers and players of the utmost degree!
Black Sabbath are credited with development of the whole Metal genre and while their sound was different, de-tuned, slow ( some songs) and heavy, I think they were more of an off -shoot of the hard/psychedelic rock that was being played in England and stateside, post summer of love on through the early 70s.
Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge, Alice Cooper, MC5, Blue Cheer, Deep Purple, some Zeppelin, The Stooges, Amboy Dukes of course Uriah Heep are just a few examples off the top of my head that were loud, fast or slow, heavy and strange!
The ingredient that makes Black Sabbath a more likely candidate for creating Heavy Metal was probably less about playing ability and more about image.Unsolicited advances and appreciation from the Neo-pagan circles, the detuned guitar, a result of Iommi’s factory accident that took his finger tips, (de-tuning made the strings easier to bend). The album covers with fairly obvious nods to the darker side of the human condition and perhaps a carefully cultivated P.R. machine that saw a niche’ in the very crowded music scene that needed to be filled.
There is also the Devil’s Interval a.k.a. the tri-tone, the augmented fourth or diminish/flat fifth…, a tone, cord progress that many a Sabbath song uses; intro. riff of “Paranoid” or “Into the Void” are prime examples. Lyrics for sure helped add to this demonic image on, “N.I.B.” the song’s protagonist is The Devil in love with a human! That Iommi andButler
There is also the Devil’s Interval a.k.a. the tri-tone, the augmented fourth or diminish/flat fifth…, a tone, cord progress that many a Sabbath song uses; intro. riff of “Paranoid” or “Into the Void” are prime examples. Lyrics for sure helped add to this demonic image on, “N.I.B.” the song’s protagonist is The Devil in love with a human! That Iommi and
And so as an impressionable 11 year old a fervor was created in me only matched by my devotion to LZ, Black Sabbath became part of my live. As the 80s began Ozzy was out Dio was in, Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules are two of my favorite records ever, Dio’s writing is in my wheel house, wizards, witches and Knights that stuff has always been a favorite subject of mine. Bill is on H&H but gone for Mob but Tony and Geezer were obviously inspired and the playing is some of their best work. Dio left, Ward came back and Ian Gillan of Deep Purple fame entered for the vastly underrated Born Again. Gillan may very well have been the best pure vocal the band ever had, the album is dark and heavy but this line up was short lived, after this I lost track...Geezer even left for a while leaving Iommi to create Sabbath without his right..er left hand man!
I finally saw Black Sabbath in 1999 on their reunion tour ( Pantera and Incubus ( the metal band) opened) words alone cannot do them justice, suffice it to say they were KICK ASS!
When the lights went down and "War Pigs" began…oh shit… I started to cry! I mean crying like a happy kid on Christmas! Fittingly my big brother was right next to me, fist in the air singing along… the circle was complete.
When the lights went down and "War Pigs" began…oh shit… I started to cry! I mean crying like a happy kid on Christmas! Fittingly my big brother was right next to me, fist in the air singing along… the circle was complete.
So where am I going with all this? Tony Iommi’s Birthday! Happy Birthday Tony! Thanks for Kicking Ass!
Born Feb. 19th 1948 in Birmingham, England! Like many of his contemporaries he was influenced by the delta Blues and jazz players (such as Django Reinhart), but developed his own style that has in turn influenced countless players in every genre. Here is some stuff I’ve found along the way…
Did you know Tony was actually engaged to Lita Ford!?!
Never married....so Tony has been were many, many men have been before...including Nikki Sixx....yikes!
Tony's mustache can bench press a Ford!!!
Tony was a member of, get this, Jethro Tull! yep for a short time.
I don't know if this fact makes Tull cooler or Sabbath less cool...what am I saying Tull could never be cool!
( I do like Iron Maiden's Cross-Eyed Mary cover, though...)
I guess the band wasn't big enough for two Flute players..that is because Tony is Sabbath's resident Flutist!
not tony
"let's party"
early and awesome
This looks like a hall or the VFW! crazy man...
tony's sleeves couldn't handle his awesomeness so they took off!
His 'stache couldn't handle his awesomeness either!
where there's smoke.....there's Satan?
geezer,bill, tony and ozzy actually tearing a hole in the space-time continuum!
Did you know Tony was actually engaged to Lita Ford!?!
Never married....so Tony has been were many, many men have been before...including Nikki Sixx....yikes!
Tony's mustache can bench press a Ford!!!
Tony was a member of, get this, Jethro Tull! yep for a short time.
I don't know if this fact makes Tull cooler or Sabbath less cool...what am I saying Tull could never be cool!
( I do like Iron Maiden's Cross-Eyed Mary cover, though...)
I guess the band wasn't big enough for two Flute players..that is because Tony is Sabbath's resident Flutist!
A Rolling Stones interview; Tony about the recording of Master of Reality 1971….
“Iommi: John Bonham, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones came down to the studio and jammed with us when we were finishing the album. We were friends with John Bonham -- he was "local" -- but Bill would never let Bonham play his drums. He was afraid he'd break them. That time we let him, and he did! There's probably a tape of it somewhere.”
Oh! Shit bags! A tape somewhere!
I think the California Jam stuff is really cool Here are a couple...we'll start fittingly with War Pigs
.
The Vid I had on here has been removed by "the Man" on youtube...
Check out the Paris 1970 show on youtube or better yet buy the cd that is out there...
post script
I saw this cute chick at school a couple of weeks ago, probably 20/21 with a black t-shirt on, in little white letters across her boobs it said..." Listen to Black Sabbath"....I think I can do that!
The Tank
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