Biography
Formed 1967, Birmingham, England
Mixing equal parts of bone-crushing volume, catatonic
tempos, and ominous pronouncements of gloom and doom
delivered in Ozzy Osbourne's keening voice, Black
Sabbath was the heavy-metal king of the Seventies.
Despised by rock critics and ignored by radio
programmers, the group sold over eight million albums
before Osbourne departed for a solo career in 1979.
The four original members, schoolmates from a
working-class district of industrial Birmingham, first
joined forces as Polka Tulk, a blues band. They quickly
changed their name to Earth, then, in 1969, to Black
Sabbath; the name came from the title of a song written
by bassist Geezer Butler, a fan of occult novelist
Dennis Wheatley. The quartet's eponymously titled 1970
debut, recorded in two days, went to #8 in England and
#23 in the U.S. A single, "Paranoid," released in
advance of the album of the same name, reached #4 in
the U.K. later that year, it was the group's only Top
Twenty hit.
The single didn't make the US, Top Forty, but the
Paranoid LP, issued in early 1971, eventually sold four
million copies despite virtually no airplay. Beginning
in December 1970 Sabbath toured the States
relentlessly. The constant road work paid off, and by
1974 Black Sabbath was considered peerless among
heavy-metal acts, its first five LPs all having sold at
least a million copies apiece in America alone.
In spite of its name, the crosses erected onstage, and
songs dealing with apocalypse, death, and destruction,
the band members insisted their interest in the black
arts was nothing more than innocuous curiosity (the
sort that led Ozzy Osbourne to sit through eight
showings of The Exorcist), and in time Black Sabbath's
princes-of-darkness image faded.
Eventually, so did its record sales. Aside from a
platinum best-of, We Sold Our Soul for Rock �n' Roll
(1976), not one of three LPs from 1975 to 1978 went
gold. Osbourne, racked by drug use and excessive
drinking, quit the band briefly in late 1977 (former
Savoy Brown- Fleetwood Mac vocalist Dave Walker filled
his shoes for some live dates). In January 1979 he left
again, this time for good. Ronnie James Die, formerly
of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, replaced Osbourne.
Although Dio could belt with the best of them, Sabbath
would never be the same. Its first album with Dio,
Heaven and Hell (1980), went platinum, its second, Mob
Rules (1981), gold. But thereafter, the group's LPs
sold fewer and fewer copies, as Black Sabbath went
through one personnel change after another. III health
forced Bill Ward out of the band in 1981; Carmine
Appice's brother Vinnie took his place. Friction
between Iommi and Dio led the singer to quit angrily in
1982, he took P with him to start his own band, Die.
Vocalists over the years have included Dave Donato;
Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan; Glenn Hughes, another
ex-member of Purple; Tony Martin; and Dio again.
By 1986's Seventh Star, only Iommi remained from the
original lineup. He had to wince when Geezer Butler
teamed up with the phenomenally successful Osboume in
1988, though the bassist did return to the fold three
years later. Despite bitterness expressed in the press
between Osbourne and Iommi, the original foursome
reunited in 1985 at the Live-Aid concert in
Philadelphia, and again in 1992, at the end of what was
supposedly Osbourne's last tour. Throughout 1993 word
had it that Osbourne, Iommi, Butler, and Ward would
tour, but by year's end Osbourne had backed out,
allegedly over money. The indefatigable Tony Iommi went
right back to work with Butler, rehiring vocalist Tony
Martin and adding former Rainbow drummer Rob
Rondinelli.
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