Black Sabbath Biography
Black Sabbath has been so influential in the development
of heavy metal rock music as to be a defining force in the style. The group took
the blues-rock sound of late '60s acts like Cream,
Blue Cheer,
and Vanilla
Fudge to its logical conclusion, slowing the tempo, accentuating the bass,
and emphasizing screaming guitar solos and howled vocals full of lyrics
expressing mental anguish and macabre fantasies. If their predecessors clearly
came out of an electrified blues tradition, Black Sabbath took that tradition in
a new direction, and in so doing helped give birth to a musical style that
continued to attract millions of fans decades later.
The group was formed by four teenage friends from Aston,
near Birmingham, England: Anthony "Tony" Iommi (b. Feb 19, 1948),
guitar; William "Bill" Ward (b. May 5, 1948), drums; John "Ozzy"
Osbourne (b. Dec 3, 1948), vocals; and Terence "Geezer" Butler (b. Jul
17, 1949), bass. They originally called their jazz-blues band Polka Tulk, later
renaming themselves Earth, and they played extensively in Europe. In early 1969,
they decided to change their name again when they found that they were being
mistaken for another group called Earth. Butler
had written a song that took its title from a novel by occult writer Dennis
Wheatley, -Black Sabbath, and the group adopted it as their name as well. As
they attracted attention for their live performances, record labels showed
interest, and they were signed to Phillips Records in 1969. In January 1970, the
Phillips subsidiary Fontana released their debut single, "Evil Woman (Don't
Play Your Games With Me)," a cover of a song that had just become a U.S.
hit for Crow;
it did not chart. The following month, a different Phillips subsidiary, Vertigo,
released Black Sabbath's self-titled debut album, which reached the U.K. Top
Ten. Though it was a less immediate success in the U.S. -- where the band's
recordings were licensed to Warner Bros. Records and appeared in May 1970 -- the
LP broke into the American charts in August, reaching the Top 40, remaining in
the charts over a year, and selling a million copies.
Appearing at the start of the '70s, Black Sabbath embodied
the Balkanization of popular music that followed the relatively homogenous
second half of the 1960s. As exemplified by its most popular act, the Beatles,
the 1960s suggested that many different aspects of popular music could be
integrated into an eclectic style with a broad appeal. The
Beatles were as likely to perform an acoustic ballad as a hard rocker or
R&B-influenced tune. At the start of the 1970s, however, those styles began
to become more discrete for new artists, with soft rockers like James
Taylor and the Carpenters emerging to play only ballad material, and hard
rockers like Led
Zeppelin and Grand
Funk Railroad taking a radically different course, while R&B music
turned increasingly militant. The first wave of rock critics, which had come
into existence with the Beatles, was dismayed with this development, and the new
acts tended to be poorly reviewed despite their popularity. Black Sabbath, which
took an even more extreme tack than the still blues- and folk-based Led
Zeppelin, was lambasted by critics (and though they eventually made their
peace with Zeppelin,
they never did with Sabbath). But the band had discovered a new audience eager
for its uncompromising approach.
Black Sabbath quickly followed its debut album with a
second album, Paranoid,
in September 1970. The title track, released as a single in advance of the LP,
hit the Top Five in the U.K., and the album went to number one there. In the
U.S., where the first album had just begun to sell, Paranoid
was held up for release until January 1971, again preceded by the title track,
which made the singles charts in November; the album broke into the Top Ten in
March 1971 and remained in the charts over a year, eventually selling over four
million copies, by far the band's best-selling effort. (Its sales were
stimulated by the belated release of one of its tracks, "Iron Man," as
a U.S. single in early 1972; the 45 got almost halfway up the charts, the band's
best showing for an American single.)
Master of Reality, the third album, followed in August
1971, reaching the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic and selling over a
million copies. Black
Sabbath, Vol. 4 (September 1972) was another Top Ten million-seller. For Sabbath
Bloody Sabbath (November 1973), the band brought in Yes
keyboard player Rick
Wakeman on one track, signaling a slight change in musical direction; it was
Black Sabbath's fifth straight Top Ten hit and million-seller. In 1974, the
group went through managerial disputes that idled them for an extended period.
When they returned to action in July 1975 with their sixth album, Sabotage,
they were welcomed back at home, but in the U.S. the musical climate had
changed, making things more difficult for an album-oriented band with a heavy
style, and though the LP reached the Top 20, it did not match previous sales
levels. Black Sabbath's record labels quickly responded with a million-selling
double-LP compilation, We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll (December 1975), and
the band contemplated a more pronounced change of musical style. This brought
about disagreement, with guitarist Iommi
wanting to add elements to the sound, including horns, and singer Osbourne
resisting any variation in the formula. Technical
Ecstasy (October 1976), which adopted some of Iommi's
innovations, was another good -- but not great -- seller, and Osbourne's
frustration eventually led to his quitting the band in November 1977. He was
replaced for some live dates by former Savoy
Brown singer Dave
Walker, then returned in January 1978. Black Sabbath recorded its eighth
album, Never
Say Die! (September 1978), the title track becoming a U.K. Top 40 hit before
the LP's release and "Hard Road" making the Top 40 afterwards. But the
singles did not improve the album's commercial success, which was again modest,
and Osbourne
left Black Sabbath for a solo career, replaced in June 1979 by former Rainbow
singer Ronnie
James Dio (b. June 10, 1949). (Also during this period, keyboardist Geoff
Nichols became a regular part of the band's performing and recording
efforts, though he was not officially considered a band member until later.)
The new lineup took its time getting into the recording
studio, not releasing its first effort until April 1980 with Heaven and Hell.
The result was a commercial resurgence. In the U.S., the album was a
million-seller; in Britain, it was a Top Ten hit that threw off two chart
singles, "Neon Knights" and "Die Young." (At the same time,
the band's former British record label issued a five-year old concert album,
Black Sabbath Live at Last, that was quickly withdrawn, though not before making
the U.K. Top Five, and reissued "Paranoid" as a single, getting it
into the Top 20.) Meanwhile, drummer Bill
Ward left Black Sabbath due to ill health and was replaced by Vinnie
Appice. The lineup of Iommi,
Butler, Dio,
and Appice
then recorded Mob
Rules (November 1981), which was almost as successful as its predecessor: In
the U.S., it went gold, and in the U.K. it reached the Top 20 and spawned two
chart singles, the title track and "Turn up the Night." Next on the
schedule was a concert album, but Iommi
and Dio
clashed over the mixing of it, and by the time Live
Evil appeared in January 1983, Dio
had left Black Sabbath, taking Appice
with him.
The group reorganized by persuading original drummer Bill
Ward to return and, in a move that surprised heavy metal fans, recruiting Ian
Gillan (b. Aug. 19, 1945), former lead singer of Black Sabbath rivals Deep
Purple. This lineup -- Iommi,
Butler, Ward,
and Gillan --
recorded Born
Again, released in September 1983. Black Sabbath hit the road prior to the
album's release, with drummer Bev
Bevan (b. Nov 25, 1946) substituting for Ward,
who would return to the band in the spring of 1984. The album was a Top Five hit
in the U.K. but only made the Top 40 in the U.S. Gillan
remained with Black Sabbath until March 1984, when he joined a Deep
Purple reunion and was replaced by singer Dave
Donato, who was in the band until October without being featured on any of
its recordings.
Black Sabbath reunited with Ozzy
Osbourne for its set at the Live Aid concert on July 13, 1985, but soon
after the performance, bassist Geezer
Butler left the band, and with that the group became guitarist Tony
Iommi's vehicle, a fact emphasized by the next album, Seventh
Star, released in January 1986 and credited to "Black Sabbath featuring
Tony
Iommi." On this release, the lineup was Iommi
(guitar); another former Deep
Purple singer, Glenn
Hughes (b. Aug 21, 1952) (vocals); Dave
Spitz (bass); Geoff
Nichols (keyboards); and Eric
Singer (drums). The album was a modest commercial success, but the new band
began to fragment immediately, with Hughes
replaced by singer Ray
Gillen for the promotional tour in March 1986.
With Black Sabbath now consisting of Iommi
and his employees, personnel changes were rapid. The
Eternal Idol (November 1987), which failed to crack the U.K. Top 50 or the
U.S. Top 100, featured a returning Bev
Bevan, bassist Bob
Daisley, and singer Tony
Martin. Bevan
and Daisley
didn't stay long, and there were several replacements in the bass and drum
positions over the next couple of years. Headless
Cross (April 1989), the band's first album for I.R.S. Records, found veteran
drummer Cozy
Powell (b. Dec 29, 1947, d. Apr 5, 1998) and bassist Laurence
Cottle joining Iommi
and Martin.
It marked a slight uptick in Black Sabbath's fortunes at home, with the title
song managing a week in the singles charts. Shortly after its release, Cottle
was replaced by bassist Neil
Murray. With Geoff
Nichols back on keyboards, this lineup made Tyr (August 1990), which charted
in the Top 40 in the U.K. but became Black Sabbath's first regular album to miss
the U.S. charts.
Iommi
was able to reunite the 1979-1983 lineup of the band -- himself, Geezer
Butler, Ronnie
James Dio, and Vinnie
Appice -- for Dehumanizer
(June 1992), which brought Black Sabbath back into the American Top 50 for the
first time in nine years, while in the U.K. the album spawned "TV
Crimes," their first Top 40 hit in a decade. And on November 15, 1992, Iommi,
Butler, and Appice
backed Ozzy
Osbourne as part of what was billed as the singer's final live appearance.
Shortly after, it was announced that Osbourne
would be rejoining Black Sabbath.
That didn't happen -- yet. Instead, Dio
and Appice
left again, and Iommi
replaced them by bringing back Tony
Martin and adding drummer Bob
Rondinelli. Cross
Purposes (February 1994) was a modest seller, and, with Iommi
apparently maintaining a Rolodex of all former members from which to pick and
choose, the next album, Forbidden
(June 1995), featured returning musicians Cozy
Powell, Geoff
Nichols, and Neil
Murray, along with Iommi
and Martin.
The disc spent only one week in the British charts, suggesting that Black
Sabbath finally had exhausted its commercial appeal, at least as a