Rock group Black Sabbath can lay claim to initiating the sub-genre of ‘heavy metal’ with its high-volume, down-tuned, dark-themed, crashing guitar-and-drum sound, over which the singer has to compete. Sabbath was formed in 1968 in Birmingham by local 19- and 20-year-olds John ‘Ozzy‘ Osbourne (1948-2025, vocals), Tony Iommi (1948-, lead guitar), Terence ‘Geezer’ Butler (1949-, bass guitar) and Bill Ward (1949-, drums). They lasted ten years with perhaps their best output being their second album (as so often happens), ‘Paranoid’ (1970), the title track having reached no.4 in the UK charts.
The rock-and-roll lifestyle saw their demise, but Osbourne went on to have a successful career as a media personality and a solo artiste, managed by his wife, Sharon (1952-), who had grown up in the music business and married Osbourne in 1982. The public saw a glimpse of their ups and downs in the reality TV show ‘The Osbournes’ (2002-05).
Osbourne’s first solo single, ‘Crazy Train’ (1980) became his signature tune. He was nicknamed the ‘Prince of Darkness’ but several of his songs are anti-war. Another nickname was ‘The Madman’ with songs such as ‘Bark at the Moon’ (1983). Sabbath have occasionally reunited and headlined quite a few of Osbourne’s ‘Ozzfest’ tours from 1997 to 2018 around the USA, UK, Japan and Europe.
(Images: Black Sabbath mural in Birmingham photographed by A J Paxton at geograph.org.uk, Ozzy Osbourne by Keith Burkett at Flickr.com / both CC BY-SA 2.0)
