Bands on both sides of the Atlantic were bidding for territory and this term "heavy metal" has been around since the earlier part of the decade.Countless guitarists were experimenting on a new sound as modern rock music started to flourish on this decade of flower power,Vietnam war and political turmoil.Eric Clapton was said to have been experimenting with feedback and distortion as far back as 1964 with his first band the Yardbirds.But the first song ever to feature a guitar feedback was that of the Beatles',with the song "I Feel Fine" released on that same year in 1964.
The first recorded use of the fuzz box by the way was in 1961 with the Ventures' instrumental piece "2000 Pound Bee".Various artists like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones have also used distortion on their respected songs namely "Paperback Writer" "Think For Yourself"[where Paul McCartney connected his bass on a fuzz box] and one famous song by the Stones called "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction".In the US,bands like Blue Cheer and Iron Butterfly were known to be the very first heavy metal groups.
Who invented heavy metal? Nobody knows,but as far as rock music's concern,theres one strange band from Birmingham,England who had put a rather scary theme on the genre.Who says you can find horror theme only in the cinemas? Rock music has it and it was presented first by this band who were variously called Rare Breed,Polka Tulk and Earth.They decided to put the name BLACK SABBATH on one of their finest songs and thus named the band afterwards.
Black Sabbath is composed of Frank a.k.a. "Tony" Iommi on guitar,Terence "Geezer" Butler on bass,Bill Ward on drums and John "Ozzy" Osbourne on vocals.The latter member,would later be known as one of the leading godfathers of heavy metal.Purely nasal,Sabbath's sound contains only one riff and as Geezer Butler had said,"you don't need a degree in music to learn our songs".If you have horror films in the cinema,the Sabs certainly is the horror sub-genre on what the kids were crazy about-rock n'roll.
The band at first was rejected by fifteen record companies until a label called Vertigo signed them up and the first Sabbath album escalated the charts.
The band's self-titled debut album was released in 1970 and was distributed in the US through Warner Bros Records.The debut was an instant smash hit.Sabbath was considered the first band to ever put a horror theme to their music,though many of their contemporaries were also in that genre like the Doors and the late sixties-era Rolling Stones.
The noise of Sabbath onstage is primarily initiated by their lead singer Ozzy Osbourne,purely nasal and annoying,he would pretend to be out of his mind--singing about war,damnation,evil and darkness-He would pretend as if he was the devil talking to his audience.
The Sabs--as people in the western world had swiftly called them,as if by nickname,rivaled both the Stones and Led Zeppelin on their 1972 US tour and appealed so much to most American teens.And of course,like any other rock band--indulged with most of the drugs and entertained hordes of groupies they met along the way.
Black Sabbath's second album Paranoid,spawned a hit single that won the band several appearances on Britain's Top Of The Pops.The story goes that the album should've been named War Pigs from one of their best known songs from the same album,but the record label decided against it fearing controversies that may arise from the ongoing Vietnam War at the time.
Though "War Pigs" was later on admitted by the band as anti-war song,the band decided to move ahead and name the second album Paranoid.
Black Sabbath released more albums to the damning reactions of the rock music press who couldn't see any difference from both their new and previous efforts.The band had their first flop in 1976 with Technical Ecstasy and problems started to rise between band members particularly that of Osbourne and Iommi.
Though the band made a comeback in 1977 with the album Never Say Die,which spawned a hit single with its title name,the band seemed to be drifting apart that Osbourne checked into a mental hospital afterwards.Drugs,management pressure and personal problems with the band seemed to take its toll on Osbourne that a year later he was sacked from the band and was replaced by American singer Ronnie James Dio.
After his firing,Ozzy Osbourne made a successful solo comeback in 1980 with the album Blizzard Of Ozz and established himself as one of heavy metal's godfathers.Ozzy had a remarkable and successful solo career while his former band Black Sabbath struggled through the eighties and nineties,in which the band had considered the darkest time of their entire career.
After two decades of refusing to reunite with his former bandmates,Osbourne finally joined Black Sabbath on their reunion tour in 1997 and made a live double album.Though Osbourne continued to make solo albums he still tours with Black Sabbath and his bandmates who astonishingly toured with Ronnie James Dio who replaced him in 1978,renamed the group Heaven And Hell as to not confuse the band with Osbourne as Black Sabbath,though they continued to tour with Osbourne on the latter name.Confusing eh?
Ronnie James Dio died in 2010 and Ozzy Osbourne was heard to be having thoughts of retiring after several more albums.Ozzy and the rest of the band may had been contented and earned a lot of money from their wild past as rock stars,but Black Sabbath has indeed left a mark on what would be the gloomiest and darkest genre of rock music.
(c) Keith Vernon Adagio
