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Jun 2008

Birmingham, England

Vertigo, Warner Bros., Sanctuary, I.R.S., Reprise, Epic

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Metal Band

Band, heavy guitar riffs, drums! heavy metal

Heavy Metal

Black Sabbath are an English rock band from Birmingham, England. Formed in 1968 by Ozzy Osbourne (lead vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass guitar), and Bill Ward (drums & percussion), the band has since experienced multiple lineup changes, with a total of twenty-two former members. Originally formed as a heavy blues-rock band named Earth, the band began using tuned-down guitars, changing their name to Black Sabbath and releasing multiple gold and platinum records in the 1970s.

As one of the most influential heavy metal bands of all time, Black Sabbath helped define the genre with releases such as 1970's quadruple-platinum Paranoid. Black Sabbath has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide, and were ranked number one on MTV's Greatest Metal Bands countdown. Ozzy Osbourne was fired from the band in 1979, and while initially replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio, Black Sabbath would see a revolving lineup in the 1980s and 1990s that included vocalists Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Ray Gillen and Tony Martin. The original lineup reunited with Osbourne in 1997 and released a live album, Reunion, which spawned the Grammy Award winning single "Iron Man" in 2000, thirty years after the song's initial release on Paranoid.

Currently, the early 1980s line-up featuring Iommi, Butler, Dio, and Vinny Appice are touring under the moniker Heaven and Hell, a title taken from the 1980 Black Sabbath album of the same name.

Following the breakup of their previous band Mythology in 1968, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward sought to form a heavy blues band in Aston, Birmingham, England. The group enlisted bassist Geezer Butler, and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, who had played together in a band called Rare Breed. The new group was initially named The Polka Tulk Blues Company, and also featured slide guitarist Jimmy Phillips and saxophonist Alan "Aker" Clarke. After shortening the name to Polka Tulk, the band changed their name to Earth, and continued as a four-piece without Phillips and Clarke.

Earth played club shows in England, Denmark, and Germany, with sets consisting of cover songs by Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, and Cream; as well as lengthy improvised blues jams. In December 1968, Tony Iommi abruptly left Earth to join Jethro Tull. Although his stint with the band would be short-lived, Iommi made an appearance with Jethro Tull on the The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus TV show. Unsatisfied with the direction of Jethro Tull, Iommi returned to Earth in January 1969. "It just wasn't right, so I left", Iommi said. "At first I thought Tull were great, but I didn't much go for having a leader in the band, which was Ian Anderson's way. When I came back from Tull, I came back with a new attitude altogether. They taught me that to get on you got to work for it".

While playing shows in England in 1969, the band discovered they were being mistaken for another English group named Earth, and decided to again change their name. A movie theater across the street from the band's rehearsal room was showing the 1963 Boris Karloff horror film Black Sabbath. While watching people line up to see the film, Osbourne noted that it was "strange that people spend so much money to see scary movies". Butler wrote a song titled "Black Sabbath" after a dream he had about the world's end. Making use of the musical tritone, also known as "The Devil's Interval", the song's ominous sound pushed the band in a darker direction, a stark contrast to the popular music of the late 1960s, which was dominated by flower power, folk music, and hippie culture. Inspired by the new sound, the band changed their name to Black Sabbath in August 1969.

With more than 100 million albums sold worldwide, Black Sabbath is arguably the most influential heavy metal band of all time. The band helped to create the genre with ground breaking releases such as Paranoid, an album that Rolling Stone magazine said "changed music forever", and called the band "the Beatles of heavy metal". Time Magazine called Paranoid "the birthplace of heavy metal", placing it in their Top 100 Albums of All Time. MTV placed Black Sabbath at number one on their Top Ten Heavy Metal Bands. VH1 ranked Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" the number one song on their 40 Greatest Metal Songs countdown. All Music Guide's William Ruhlmann said:

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 emphasising 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 at

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