Everything about Black Sabbath totally explained
Black Sabbath are an
English heavy metal 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 band named Earth, the band began incorporating occult and horror-inspired lyrics with 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 1970s 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", 30 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.
History
Formation and early days (1968–1969)
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 reading a book by
occult writer
Dennis Wheatley, and seeing a black-hooded figure standing at the foot of his bed. Making use of the musical
tritone, also known as "The Devil's Interval", the song's ominous sound and dark lyrics 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, and made the decision to focus writing similar material, in an attempt to create the musical equivalent of horror films.
Black Sabbath and Paranoid (1970–1971)
Black Sabbath were signed to
Philips Records in December 1969, and released their first single, "
Evil Woman" through Philips subsidiary
Fontana Records in January 1970. Later releases were handled by Philips' newly formed progressive rock label,
Vertigo Records. Although the single failed to chart, the band were afforded two days of studio time in late January to record their debut album with producer
Rodger Bain. Iommi recalls recording live: "We thought 'We have two days to do it and one of the days is mixing.' So we played live. Ozzy was singing at the same time, we just put him in a separate booth and off we went. We never had a second run of most of the stuff."
The eponymous
Black Sabbath was released on
Friday the 13th, February 1970. The album reached number 8 in the UK, and following its US release in May 1970 by
Warner Bros. Records, the album reached number 23 on the
Billboard 200, where it remained for over a year, selling a million copies. While the album was a commercial success, it was widely panned by critics, with
Lester Bangs of
Rolling Stone dismissing the album as "discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitized speedfreaks all over each other's musical perimeters, yet never quite finding synch".
To capitalise on their chart success in the US, the band quickly returned to the studio in June 1970, just four months after
Black Sabbath was released. The new album was initially set to be named "War Pigs" after the
track of the same name, which was critical of the
Vietnam War. However Warner changed the title of the album to
Paranoid, fearing backlash by supporters of the Vietnam War. The album's lead-off single "
Paranoid" was written in the studio at the last minute. As Bill Ward explains: "We didn't have enough songs for the album, and Tony just played the (Paranoid) guitar lick and that was it. It took twenty, twenty-five minutes from top to bottom." The single was released prior to the album in September 1970, and reached number four on the UK charts, remaining Black Sabbath's only top ten hit. "We were getting into
coke, bigtime", Ward explained. "Uppers, downers,
Quaaludes, whatever you like. It got to the stage where you come up with ideas and forget them, because you were just so out of it."
Production completed in April 1971, and in July the band released
Master of Reality, just six months after the release of
Paranoid. The album reached the top ten in both the US and UK, and was certified gold in less than two months, eventually receiving platinum certification in the 1980s.
Master of Reality contained Black Sabbath's first
acoustic songs, alongside fan favorites such as "
Children of the Grave" and "
Sweet Leaf". Critical response of the era was again unfavorable, with
Lester Bangs of
Rolling Stone dismissing
Master of Reality as "naive, simplistic, repetitive, absolute doggerel", although the very same magazine would later place the album at number 298 on their
500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, compiled in 2003.
Following the
Master of Reality world tour in 1972, Black Sabbath took its first break in three years. As Bill Ward explained: "The band started to become very fatigued and very tired. We'd been on the road non-stop, year in and year out, constantly touring and recording. I think
Master of Reality was kind of like the end of an era, the first three albums, and we decided to take our time with the next album."
In June 1972, the band reconvened in
Los Angeles to begin work on their next album at the
Record Plant. The recording process was plagued with problems, many due to
substance abuse issues. While struggling to record the song "Cornucopia" after "sitting in the middle of the room, just doing drugs", Bill Ward was nearly fired from the band. "I hated the song, there were some patterns that were just... horrible" Ward said. "I nailed it in the end, but the reaction I got was the cold shoulder from everybody. It was like 'Well, just go home, you're not being of any use right now.' I felt like I'd blown it, I was about to get fired". The album was originally titled "
Snowblind" after the song of the same name, which deals with
cocaine abuse. The record company changed the title at the last minute to
Black Sabbath, Vol 4, with Ward stating "There was no Volume 1, 2 or 3, so it's a pretty stupid title really".
Black Sabbath's
Volume 4 was released in September 1972, and while critics of the era were again dismissive of the album, it achieved gold status in less than a month, and was the band's fourth consecutive release to sell a million copies in the US. The song "
Tomorrow's Dream" was released as a single - the band's first since
Paranoid - but failed to chart. With new musical innovations of the era, the band were surprised to find that the room they'd used previously at the Record Plant was replaced by a "giant synthesizer". The band rented a house in
Bel Air and began writing in the summer of 1973, but due in part to substance issues and fatigue, were unable to complete any songs. "Ideas weren't coming out the way they were on
Volume 4 and we really got discontent" Iommi said. "Everybody was sitting there waiting for me to come up with something. I just couldn't think of anything. And if I didn't come up with anything, nobody would do anything." While working in the dungeon, Iommi stumbled onto the main riff of "
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", which set the tone for the new material. Building off the stylistic changes introduced on
Volume 4, new songs incorporated synthesizers, strings, and complex arrangements.
Yes keyboardist
Rick Wakeman was brought in as a session player, appearing on "
Sabbra Cadabra" and "
Who Are You".
In November 1974, Black Sabbath released the critically-acclaimed
Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. For the first time in their career, the band began to receive favorable reviews in the mainstream press, with Gordon Fletcher of
Rolling Stone calling the album "an extraordinarily gripping affair", and "nothing less than a complete success". Later reviewers such as All Music's Ed Rivadavia cite the album as a "masterpiece, essential to any heavy metal collection", while also displaying "a newfound sense of finesse and maturity". The album marked the band's fifth consecutive platinum selling album in the US, reaching number four on the UK charts, and number eleven in the US. The band began a world tour in January 1974, which culminated at the
California Jam festival in
Ontario, California on
April 6,
1974. Attracting over 200,000 fans, Black Sabbath appeared alongside such 70's pop giants as
Emerson Lake & Palmer,
Deep Purple,
Earth, Wind & Fire,
Seals & Crofts, and
The Eagles. Portions of the show were telecast on
ABC Television in the US, exposing the band to a wider American audience. In 1974 the band shifted management, signing with notorious English manager
Don Arden. The move caused a contractual dispute with Black Sabbath's former management, and while on stage in the US, Ozzy was handed a subpoena that led to two years of litigation. Produced by Tony Iommi,
Sabotage was released in July 1975. Again the album initially saw favorable reviews, with
Rolling Stone stating "
Sabotage isn't only Black Sabbath's best record since
Paranoid, it might be their best ever", although later reviewers such as All Music Guide noted that "the magical chemistry that made such albums as
Paranoid and
Volume 4 so special was beginning to disintegrate".
Sabotage reached the top 20 in both the US and the UK, but was the band's first release not to achieve platinum status in the US. Although the album's only single "
Am I Going Insane (Radio)" failed to chart,
Sabotage features fan favorites such as "
Hole in the Sky", and "
Symptom of the Universe". The album featured less of the doomy, ominous sound of previous efforts, and incorporated more synthesizers and uptempo rock songs.
Technical Ecstasy failed to reach the top 50 in the US, and was the band's second consecutive release not to achieve platinum status, although it was later certified gold in 1997. The album included "
Dirty Women", which remains a live staple, as well as Bill Ward's first lead vocal on the song "It's Alright". Touring in support of
Technical Ecstasy began in November 1976, with openers
Boston and
Ted Nugent in the US, and completed in Europe with
AC/DC in April 1977.
In November 1977, while in rehearsal for their next album, and just days before the band was set to enter the studio, Ozzy Osbourne quit the band. "The last Sabbath albums were just very depressing for me", Ozzy said. "I was doing it for the sake of what we could get out of the record company, just to get fat on beer and put a record out." Former
Fleetwood Mac and
Savoy Brown vocalist
Dave Walker was brought into rehearsals in October 1977 and the band began working on new songs. The album featured the singles "
Never Say Die" and "Hard Road", both of which cracked the top 40 in the UK, and the band made their second appearance on the
Top of the Pops, performing "Never Say Die".
Touring in support of
Never Say Die! began in May 1978 with openers
Van Halen. Reviewers called Black Sabbath's performance "tired and uninspired", a stark contrast to the "youthful" performance of Van Halen, who were touring the world for the first time. The band filmed a performance at the
Hammersmith Odeon in June 1978, which was later released on DVD as
Never Say Die. The final show of the tour, and Osbourne's last appearance with the band (until later reunions) was in
Albuquerque, New Mexico on December 11.
Following the tour, Black Sabbath returned to Los Angeles and again rented a house in Bel Air, where they spent nearly a year working on material for the next album. With pressure from the record label, and frustrations with Osbourne's lack of ideas coming to a head, the band decided to fire Ozzy Osbourne in 1979. "At that time, Ozzy had come to an end", Iommi said. "We were all doing a lot of drugs, a lot of coke, a lot of everything, and Ozzy was getting drunk so much at the time. We were supposed to be rehearsing and nothing was happening. It was like 'Rehearse today? No, we'll do it tomorrow.' It really got so bad that we didn't do anything. It just fizzled out." Drummer Bill Ward, who was close with Ozzy, was chosen to break the news to the singer. "I hope I was professional, I might not have been, actually. When I'm drunk I'm horrible, I'm horrid," Ward said. "Alcohol was definitely one of the most damaging things to Black Sabbath. We were destined to destroy each other. The band were toxic, very toxic."
Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules (1979–1982)
Sharon Arden, (later
Sharon Osbourne) daughter of Black Sabbath manager
Don Arden, suggested former
Rainbow vocalist
Ronnie James Dio to replace
Ozzy Osbourne in 1979. Dio officially joined in June, and the band began writing their next album. With a notably different vocal style than Osbourne, Dio's addition to the band marked a change in Black Sabbath's sound. "They were totally different altogether", Iommi explains. "Not only voice-wise, but attitude-wise. Ozzy was a great showman, but when Dio came in, it was a different attitude, a different voice and a different musical approach, as far as vocals. Dio would sing
across the riff, whereas Ozzy would follow the riff, like in "Iron Man". Ronnie came in and gave us another angle on writing."
Geezer Butler temporarily left the band in September 1979, and was initially replaced by
Geoff Nicholls of
Quartz on bass. The new lineup returned to Criteria Studios in November to begin recording work, with Butler returning to the band in January 1980, and Nicholls moving to keyboards. Produced by
Martin Birch,
Heaven and Hell, was released on
April 25,
1980, to critical acclaim. All Music Guide said the album was "one of Sabbath's finest records, the band sounds reborn and re-energized throughout".
Heaven and Hell peaked at number 9 in the UK, and number 28 in the US, the band's highest charting album since
Sabotage. The album would eventually sell a million copies in the US, and the band embarked on an extensive world tour, making their first live appearance with Dio in
Germany on
April 17,
1980.
Black Sabbath toured the US throughout 1980 with
Blue Öyster Cult on the "Black and Blue" tour, with a show in
Uniondale, New York filmed and released theatrically in 1981 as
Black and Blue. On
July 26,
1980, the band played at a sold out
Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles with
Journey,
Cheap Trick, and
Molly Hatchet to 100,000 fans. The next day, the band appeared at the 1980
Day on the Green at
Oakland Coliseum. While on tour, Black Sabbath's former label in England issued a live album culled from a five-year old performance, entitled
Live at Last without any input from the band. The album reached number five on the British charts, and saw the re-release of "Paranoid" as a single, which reached the top 20.
On
August 18,
1980, after a show in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, Bill Ward was fired from Black Sabbath. "I was sinking very quickly", Ward later said. "I was an unbelievable drunk, I was drunk twenty-four hours a day. When I went on stage, the stage wasn't so bright. It felt like I was dying inside. The live show seemed so bare, Ron was out there doing his thing and I just went 'It's gone'. I like Ronnie, but musically, he just wasn't for me." Concerned with Ward's declining health, Iommi brought in drummer
Vinny Appice, without informing Ward. "They didn't talk to me, they booted me from my chair and I wasn't told about that. I knew they'd have to bring in a drummer to save the (tour), but I'd been with the band for years and years, since we were kids. And then Vinny was playing and it was like 'What the fuck?' It hurt a lot."
The band completed the Heaven and Hell world tour in February 1981, and returned to the studio to begin work on their next album. Again produced by
Martin Birch, and recorded at
John Lennon's old house in
Ascot, England, Black Sabbath's second album with Dio,
Mob Rules was well received by fans, but received mixed reviews from critics. All Music's Ed Rivadavia called
Mob Rules "a magnificent record", while
Rolling Stones J.D. Considine gave the album one star, claiming "
Mob Rules finds the band as dull-witted and flatulent as ever". The album was certified gold, and reached the top 20 on the UK charts. The album's title track "The Mob Rules" was also featured in the 1981 animated film
Heavy Metal, although the film version is an alternate take, and differs from the album version.
The chart success of the unauthorized live album
Live at Last prompted the band to record their first official live album titled
Live Evil on the
Mob Rules world tour, in
Dallas, Texas on
May 12,
1982. During the mixing process for the album, Iommi and Butler had a falling out with Dio. Iommi and Butler accused Dio of sneaking into the studio at night to raise the volume of his vocals. In addition, Dio wasn't satisfied with the pictures of him in the artwork. "Ronnie wanted more say in things," Iommi said. "And Geezer would get upset with him and that's where the rot set in.
Live Evil is when it all fell apart. Ronnie wanted to do more of his own thing, and the engineer we were using at the time in the studio didn't know what to do, because Ronnie was telling him one thing and we were telling him another. At the end of the day, we just said, 'That's it, the band is over'". "When it comes time for the vocal, nobody tells me what to do. Nobody! Because they're not as good as me, so I do what I want to do," Dio later said. "I refuse to listen to
Live Evil, because there are too many problems. If you look at the credits, the vocals and drums are listed off to the side. Open up the album and see how many pictures there are of Tony, and how many there are of me and Vinny".
Ronnie James Dio left Black Sabbath in November 1982 to start a
solo project, and took drummer Vinny Appice with him.
Live Evil was released in January 1983, but was overshadowed by
Ozzy Osbourne's
Speak of the Devil, a platinum selling live album that contained only Black Sabbath songs, released five months earlier.
Born Again and Seventh Star (1983–1986)
Left with just two original members, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler began auditioning new singers for the band's next release. After failed attempts with the likes of
Whitesnake's
David Coverdale,
Samson's Nicky Moore, and
Lone Star's John Sloman, the band settled on former
Deep Purple vocalist
Ian Gillan to replace
Ronnie James Dio in 1983. The album reached number four on the UK charts, and number 39 in the US.
Although he performed on the album, drummer Bill Ward was unable to tour due to the pressures of the road, and quit the band in 1984. "I fell apart with the idea of touring," Ward later said. "I got so much fear behind touring, I didn’t talk about the fear, I drank behind the fear instead and that was a big mistake." Ward was replaced by former
Electric Light Orchestra drummer
Bev Bevan for the
Born Again world tour, which began in Europe with
Diamond Head, and later in the US with
Quiet Riot and
Night Ranger. The band headlined the 1983
Reading Festival, adding the Deep Purple song "
Smoke on the Water" to their set list.
The tour in support of
Born Again included a giant set of the
Stonehenge monument. In a move that would be later parodied in the mockumentary
This is Spinal Tap, the band made a mistake in ordering the set piece. As Geezer Butler later explained:
Born Again tour in March 1984, vocalist Ian Gillan left Black Sabbath to re-join
Deep Purple. The band enlisted
Los Angeles vocalist
David Donato, the only Black Sabbath vocalist not to record an album with the band. The new lineup wrote and rehearsed throughout 1984, and eventually recorded a demo with producer
Bob Ezrin in October. Unhappy with the results, the band parted ways with Donato shortly after.
The band spent the remainder of the year in the studio, recording what would become
Seventh Star. Warner Brothers refused to release the album as a Tony Iommi solo release, instead insisting on using the name Black Sabbath. Pressured by the bands manager,
Don Arden, the two compromised and released the album as "Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi" in January 1986. "It opened up a whole can of worms really," Iommi explained, "because I think if we could have done it as a solo album, it would have been accepted a lot more."
Seventh Star, which sounded little like a Black Sabbath album, incorporated more
hard rock elements popularized by the 1980s
Sunset Strip hard rock scene, and was panned by the critics of the era, although later reviewers such as All Music gave the album favorable reviews, calling the album "often misunderstood and underrated".
The new lineup rehearsed for six weeks, preparing for a full world tour, although the band were again forced to use the Black Sabbath name. "I was into the 'Tony Iommi project', but I wasn't into the Black Sabbath moniker," Hughes said. "The idea of being in Black Sabbath didn't appeal to me
whatsoever. Glenn Hughes singing in Black Sabbath is like
James Brown singing in
Metallica. It wasn't gonna work". Just four days before the start of the tour, vocalist Glenn Hughes got into a bar fight with the band's production manager John Downing which splintered the singer's orbital bone. The injury interfered with Hughes' ability to sing, and the band brought in vocalist
Ray Gillen to continue the tour with
W.A.S.P. and
Anthrax, although nearly half of the US dates would eventually be cancelled due to poor ticket sales.
The Eternal Idol, Headless Cross, and Tyr (1986–1990)
Black Sabbath began work on new material in October 1986 at
Air Studios in
Montserrat with producer Jeff Glixman. The recording was wrought with problems from the beginning, as Glixman left after the initial sessions, and was replaced by producer Vic Coppersmith. Bassist Dave Spitz quit due to "personal issues", and ex-
Rainbow bassist
Bob Daisley was brought in. Daisley re-recorded all of the bass tracks, and wrote the album's lyrics, but before the album was complete, he left to join
Gary Moore's solo band, taking drummer
Eric Singer with him.
Prior to the release of the new album, Black Sabbath accepted an offer to play six shows at
Sun City,
South Africa during the
apartheid. The band drew criticism from activists and artists involved with
Artists United Against Apartheid, who had been boycotting South Africa since 1985. Drummer Bev Bevan refused to play the shows, and was replaced by
Terry Chimes, formerly of
The Clash. Blender gave the album two stars, claiming the album was "Black Sabbath in name only". The album would be Black Sabbath's first release not to chart in the UK, while peaking at 168 in the US. Bassist Dave Spitz left the band shortly before the tour, and was replaced by Jo Burt.
Following the poor commercial performance of
Eternal Idol, Black Sabbath were dropped by Vertigo Records and Warner Bros. Records, and signed with
I.R.S. Records. Iommi enlisted ex-
Rainbow drummer
Cozy Powell, and session bassist
Laurence Cottle, and rented a "very cheap studio in England". Anchored by the top 40 single "Headless Cross", the album reached number 31 on the UK charts, and number 115 in the US. The European leg of the tour began in September, where the band were enjoying chart success. After a string of
Japanese shows, the band embarked on a 23 date
Russian tour with
Girlschool. Black Sabbath was one of the first bands to tour Russia, after
Mikhail Gorbachov opened the country to western acts for the first time in 1989. while
Blender gave the album just one star, claiming that "Iommi continues to besmirch the Sabbath name with this unremarkable collection". The band toured in support of
Tyr with
Circus of Power in Europe, but the final seven UK dates were canceled due to poor ticket sales. For the first time in their career, the band's touring cycle didn't include US dates.
Dehumanizer (1990–1993)
While on his own
Lock Up The Wolves US tour in August 1990, former Black Sabbath vocalist
Ronnie James Dio was joined on stage at the Minneapolis Forum by former Black Sabbath bassist
Geezer Butler to perform "Neon Knights". Following the show, the two expressed interest in rejoining Black Sabbath. Butler convinced Iommi, who in turn broke up the current lineup, dismissing vocalist Tony Martin and bassist Neil Murray. "I do regret that in a lot of ways", Iommi said. "We were at a good point then. We decided to [reunitewith Dio] and I don't even know why, really. There's the financial aspect, but that wasn't it. I seemed to think maybe we could recapture something we had". Unable to complete work on the album, Powell was replaced by former drummer
Vinny Appice, and the band entered the studio with producer
Reinhold Mack. The year-long recording process was plagued with problems, primarily stemming from writing tension between Tony Iommi and Ronnie James Dio, as some songs were re-written multiple times. "
Dehumanizer took a long time, it was just hard work", Iommi said. "We took too long on it, that album cost us a million dollars, which is bloody ridiculous". Dio later recalled the album as difficult, but worth the effort. "It was something we'd to really wring out of ourselves, but I think that's why it works", he said. "Sometimes you need that kind of tension, or else you end up making the Christmas album".
The resulting album,
Dehumanizer was released on
June 22,
1992. In the US, the album was released on
June 30,
1992 by
Reprise Records, as Ronnie James Dio and his
solo band were still under contract with the label at the time. While the album received mixed reviews, it was the band's biggest commercial success in ten years. Iommi and Butler also joined Osbourne and former drummer
Bill Ward on stage for the first time since 1985's
Live Aid concert, performing a brief set of Black Sabbath songs.
Cross Purposes and Forbidden (1993–1996)
Drummer
Vinny Appice left the band following the reunion show to join
Ronnie James Dio's solo band, later appearing on Dio's
Strange Highways and
Angry Machines. Iommi and Butler enlisted former
Rainbow drummer
Bobby Rondinelli, and reinstated former vocalist
Tony Martin. The band returned to the studio to work on new material, again not originally intended to be released under the Black Sabbath name. As Geezer Butler explains:
Cross Purposes, on
February 8,
1994, under the Black Sabbath name. The album again received mixed reviews, with
Blender giving the album two stars, calling
Soundgarden's 1994 album
Superunknown "a far better Sabbath album than this by-the-numbers potboiler". All Music Guide's Bradley Torreano called
Cross Purposes "the first album since
Born Again that actually sounds like a real Sabbath record". The album failed to chart in the UK, but reached 122 on the
Billboard 200 in the US.
Cross Purposes contained the song "Evil Eye", which was co-written by
Van Halen guitarist
Eddie Van Halen, although uncredited due to record label restrictions. Touring in support of
Cross Purposes began in February with
Morbid Angel and
Motörhead in the US. The band filmed a live performance at the
Hammersmith Apollo on
April 13,
1994, which was released on
VHS accompanied by a CD, entitled
Cross Purposes Live. After the European tour with
Cathedral and
Godspeed in June 1994, drummer Bobby Rondinelli quit the band and was replaced by original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward for five shows in
South America.
Following the touring cycle for
Cross Purposes, bassist Geezer Butler again quit the band. "I finally got totally disillusioned with the last Sabbath album, and I much preferred the stuff I was writing to the stuff Sabbath were doing".
Following Butler's departure, newly-returned drummer
Bill Ward once again left the band. Iommi reinstated former members Neil Murray on bass, and Cozy Powell on drums, effectively reuniting the
Tyr lineup. The band enlisted
Body Count guitarist
Ernie C to produce the new album, which was recorded in London in the fall of 1994. The album featured a guest vocal on "Illusion of Power" by Body Count vocalist
Ice T. The resulting
Forbidden, was released on
June 8,
1995, but failed to chart in the US or the UK. The album was widely panned by critics; All Music's Bradley Torreano said "with boring songs, awful production, and uninspired performances, this is easily avoidable for all but the most enthusiastic fan"; while
Blender magazine called
Forbidden "an embarrassment ... the band’s worst album".
Black Sabbath embarked on a world tour in July 1995 with openers
Motörhead and
Tiamat, but two months into the tour, drummer Cozy Powell left the band, citing health issues, and was replaced by former drummer
Bobby Rondinelli. After completing Asian dates in December 1995, Tony Iommi put the band on hiatus, and began work on a solo album with former Black Sabbath vocalist
Glenn Hughes, and former
Judas Priest drummer
Dave Holland. The album wasn't officially released following it's completion, although a widely traded bootleg called
Eighth Star surfaced soon after. The album was officially released in 2004 as
The 1996 DEP Sessions, with Holland's drums re-recorded by session drummer
Jimmy Copley.
In 1997, Tony Iommi disbanded the current lineup to officially reunite with Ozzy Osbourne and the original Black Sabbath lineup. Vocalist Tony Martin claimed that an original lineup reunion had been in the works since the band's brief reunion at Ozzy Osbourne's 1992 Costa Mesa show, and that the band released subsequent albums to fulfill their record contract with I.R.S. records. Martin later recalled
Forbidden as a "filler album that got the band out of the label deal, rid of the singer, and into the reunion. However I wasn’t privy to that information at the time".
I.R.S. Records released a
compilation album in 1996 to fulfill the band's contract, entitled
The Sabbath Stones, which featured songs from
Born Again to
Forbidden.
Reunion (1997–2006)
In the summer of 1997, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Ozzy Osbourne officially reunited to co-headline the
Ozzfest festival tour along side Osbourne's solo band. The lineup featured Osbourne's drummer
Mike Bordin filling in for Bill Ward, who was unable to participate due to prior commitments with his solo project, The Bill Ward Band. Ward returned in time for the US tour with openers
Pantera, which began in January 1999 and continued through the summer, headlining the annual Ozzfest tour. "It just came to an end", Iommi said. "We didn't go any further, and it's a shame because
[thesongs] were really good". Iommi commented on the difficulty getting all of the band members together to work on material:
"It's quite different recording now. We've all done so much in between. In [theearly] days there was no mobile phone ringing every five seconds. When we first started, we'd nothing. We all worked for the same thing. Now everybody has done so many other things. It's great fun and we all have a good chat, but it's just different, trying to put an album together." At the awards ceremony Metallica played two Black Sabbath songs, "Hole in the Sky" and "Iron Man" in tribute to the band.
Heaven and Hell (2006–)
While Ozzy Osbourne was working on new solo material in 2006, Warner records released The Dio Years, a compilation of songs culled from the four Black Sabbath releases featuring Ronnie James Dio. For the release, Iommi and Dio reunited to write and record three new songs. The Dio Years was released on April 3, 2007, reaching number 54 on the Billboard 200, while the single "The Devil Cried" reached number 37 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. In April 2008 the band announced their participation in The Metal Masters Tour, alongside Judas Priest, Motörhead and Testament.
Legacy
With more than 100 million albums sold worldwide, 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:
tuned-down guitars, which contributed to the dark feel of the music. Inspired by Reinhardt, Iommi created two thimbles made of plastic and leather to cap off his missing fingers. The guitarist began using lighter strings, and detuning his guitar in 1971, to better grip the strings with his prosthetics; a move which inadvertently gave the music a darker feel".Members
Current line-up
Discography
Black Sabbath (1970)
Paranoid (1970)
Master of Reality (1971)
Black Sabbath, Vol. 4 (1972)
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973)
Sabotage (1975)
Technical Ecstasy (1976)
Never Say Die! (1978)
Heaven and Hell (1980)
Mob Rules (1981)
Born Again (1983)
Seventh Star (1986)
The Eternal Idol (1987)
Headless Cross (1989)
Tyr (1990)
Dehumanizer (1992)
Cross Purposes (1994)
Forbidden (1995)Further Information
Get more info on 'Black Sabbath'.
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