R.I.P. Ozzy

Farewell to Ozzy. I don't need to say his last name. Everyone knows who I mean. Ozzy isn't even his real name, it's his nickname that he had since school and later made his trademark. All of his solo albums are credited as Ozzy. Just Ozzy.

He became famous as the lead singer of the band Black Sabbath. The brains behind the band was the guitarist, Tony Iommi, but it was always Ozzy that everyone knew. Most people can't name all four of the original band's members, let alone the later singers who temporarily replaced Ozzy, but everyone knows Ozzy.

I shan't write anything about his life. Other people have already written better tributes than I could ever write. I'll just give a few details about my relations with him.

I first encountered Black Sabbath when Dave Pace, my best friend at school, lent me "Paranoid", Black Sabbath's second album. I loved it immediately. A few months later "Master of Reality" was released, which I liked even more. I remember countless arguments with Dave. He thought "Paranoid" was better, while I preferred "Master of Reality". But who cares? They're both fantastic albums. On the other hand, I didn't like Black Sabbath's self-titled first album as much. Their first album was very blues based. On "Paranoid" they abandoned blues, which set them apart from all the other rock bands of the early 1970's.

Round about that time Dave and another friend, Philip Parkin, decided to start a group. They asked me to be their drummer. I have no idea why. I bought the drum kit from the drummer of a local amateur band, Savoy Truffle, who was giving up music. Let's be honest... I was never very good. I didn't practise enough to improve in the two years that we played together. My only real contribution was that I picked the band's name, Electric Embryo. We didn't have our own songs. We just covered the songs of Black Sabbath and a few other bands. We never performed in public. My drum kit stood in the shed of Dave's uncle, and we practised our songs once a month at most. School was more important to us.

Things changed in 1973. Black Sabbath played at the Odeon in Birmingham. That was the only time I ever saw them live. It was terrible. It was the worst concert I'd ever seen. Ozzy's voice was sore. Tony Iommi couldn't keep up and was playing too slow. Geezer Butler was just waving his bass guitar from side to side, hardly playing at all. The only competent musician was Bill Ward, the drummer. I was so disappointed. After the concert Dave said to me, "That's how I want us to play". I was astounded. Hadn't he noticed how bad the music was? The next day at school I told Dave I was quitting the band. Without me, Electric Embryo died, as it should have died years ago.

The poor concert didn't put me off my love for Black Sabbath's studio music. Their fourth album, with the unimaginative title "Vol 4", was released shortly afterwards. I didn't find it quite as good as the two previous albums, but I still liked it. It was one of the first albums that my sister Shirley bought, so she played it non-stop for months. I don't have clear memories of their following albums, except that I bought them regularly as soon as they were released.

Then something happened. In 1979 Ozzy left Black Sabbath and was replaced by Ronnie James Dio, who'd previously been the singer of Rainbow. I was shattered. Remember, those were the days before the Internet, so I didn't know what was going on. For me it was sacrilege for someone to take Ozzy's place, so I turned against Ronnie and refused to listen to the Black Sabbath albums he appeared on. It wasn't until 30 years later that I read an article in which Ronnie said that he was never Black Sabbath's real singer, he was only filling in for Ozzy until he returned. So I finally forgave him and listened to the albums he appeared on. They were good albums, and he was a good singer, but he wasn't Ozzy, as he never claimed to be.

It was a long time before Ozzy actually returned to Black Sabbath. He rejoined them for tours in 1998, appearing on several live albums before Black Sabbath finally made another studio album in 2013.

I was aware of Ozzy's solo career, but I didn't buy any of his albums. I don't know why. I downloaded a few of them. Illegally. Later I began to listen to them legally with an Amazon Music subscription. I only realised today that I've never listened to his 2005 album, "Under Cover". I'll make up for it tonight.

In 2002 Ozzy and his family did a reality show called "The Osbournes", which ran for four years. I only watched the first two episodes. It was embarrassing. For me Ozzy was a god (with a small G), but in the reality show he looked like a buffoon. Whose idea was it to make the show? It must have been Ozzy's wife Sharon. I can't imagine that a rock star like Ozzy would want to make such a fool of himself.

On 5th July I watched the live stream of Black Sabbath's final concert with Ozzy. Tony Iommi said that he was open to playing future concerts without Ozzy, but it was definitely Ozzy's final concert. There were great bands who played all day, some unfortunately with very small sets. Every band played at least one cover song of Black Sabbath or Ozzy. At the end of the evening Ozzy performed five songs, and Black Sabbath performed four songs. I was disappointed that Black Sabbath's set was so short. At first I thought that it was because Ozzy was tired and had to stop, but a few days later Tony Iommi said that Black Sabbath was planning to perform seven songs. They had to stop early because the concert was running late and they were legally obligated to stop at 11pm. The Aston Villa football stadium is in a built up area, and the noise would have disturbed the residents. That's unfortunate. Couldn't they have shortened Metallica's set instead?

Ozzy's set was an emotional affair. The fans were crying, especially when he was singing "Mama I'm coming home". They must have felt he didn't have long to go. They were right. He died 17 days later, in the city where he was born.

I've created an Amazon Music playlist containing all of Ozzy's music, with Black Sabbath and solo. 214 songs. Maybe I've missed a few which weren't included on his albums, but I shan't search for missing songs. I've decided that for the rest of July I'll only listen to Ozzy's music. That's a promise. I'll probably extend my Ozzy-only session until the end of August, while I'm on holiday.