Ozzy Osbourne - The Prince of Darkness

To me, Ozzy wasn't the prince of darkness, but the prince of laughs. He would have done anything for a laugh, a born entertainer

(Geezer Butler)

At school, I didn't even know Ozzy could sing…I told Bill: I know an Ozzy, but it can't be him; he can't sing

(Tony Iommi)

If the music is too loud, you're too old

(Ozzy Osbourne)

The Final Show

Back to the roots. The title looms large in vintage lettering, just below the figures of four dark knights of hard rock. Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne together again after twenty years, once more in Birmingham, where it all began. Saturday 5 July 2025, at Villa Park stadium, as announced in a purple as elegant as it is diabolical. Tickets available through authorized outlets starting 14 February, a maximum of 45,000 passes that will sell out in 16 minutes, leaving another 105,000 desperate fans stuck in the virtual queue. They'll have to settle for the pay-per-view broadcast, which will draw nearly 6 million simultaneous streaming viewers. In the city of Birmingham, at the heart of Villans territory, no one wants to miss this colossal event. Not so much for the presence of what could easily be called the pantheon of hard rock, from Metallica to Slayer. Nor for the good cause behind it, since the proceeds – around 140 million pounds – will go entirely to institutions such as the Cure Parkinson's Trust and Birmingham Children's Hospital. The heartache is plain and runs through everyone: this will almost certainly be the last chance to see Black Sabbath live; the last show of a now-frail Ozzy Osbourne.

Seated on his infernal throne, Ozzy spreads his arms and thanks the ecstatic crowd, taking a sip of water. "This is a song called 'Mama I'm Coming Home'", he announces, as the guitar intro takes flight. His voice is clearly struggling, but thousands of people carry him through the chorus, amid floods of tears. When his old bandmates join him onstage, the excitement seems boundless, running through the unforgettable riffs of "Iron Man" and "Paranoid". The children of metal in the presence of the twisted godfather of heavy metal, who now struggles desperately to stand and greet everyone, seeking help from his own former bandmates. The same ones who, many years earlier, decided to push him out of Sabbath over his evident problems with alcohol and drugs. The same ones who today have chosen to embrace him once more, one last time, before writing the final word on one of the most incredible stories in rock history.

Aston, Birmingham

Third of December 1948. Marston Green is a small village in Warwickshire, not far from the airport of the much larger Birmingham, recently reopened to civilian traffic after being requisitioned by the Air Ministry during the Second World War. In the local maternity clinic, a baby boy named John Michael is born, the first son of Lilian Unitt and Jack Osbourne after three daughters in a row. The Osbournes are a humble family: John Thomas, known as Jack, works at a foundry in industrial Birmingham; Lilian, meanwhile, is employed in a factory that makes electrical components. Now, with four children to support, the couple lives in a modest flat on Lodge Road, in the working-class district of Aston.

Lilian has Catholic roots but isn't a practising believer, while Jack is the typical representative of the English working class, spending his days between hard labour and the loving care of his large family. Little John Michael, quickly nicknamed "Ozzy", shows an outgoing, ironic character, but an early form of dyslexia causes him significant trouble settling in during his first years of school. His accent is odd, his voice seems to hesitate, but he's clearly an intelligent and particularly exuberant kid. There's no money in the family – two more brothers will follow – but plenty of love, which makes the little house on Lodge Road a safe harbour.

The main problem comes from his difficulty settling in at school, where Ozzy's struggles are read as symptoms of a troubled personality. Many years later, speaking to the press, he will admit to having suffered sexual abuse at the hands of bullies, and to having attempted suicide more than once. A dark side that contrasts with the ironic, resilient temperament he shows in public.

His musical passions first steer him toward school plays, then comes the thunderbolt triggered by the Beatles single "She Loves You", which upends the English scene in 1963. The irresistible chorus of the Liverpool four arrives like an epiphany, convincing Ozzy that yes, he will become a music star. His creative spirit cannot be caged by industrial Birmingham, so he decides to leave school at fifteen to devote himself to his true passions.

But those who don't go to school go to work. Young Ozzy tries his hand at pretty much every trade, from plumber's apprentice to worker at a meat-processing plant. He is perfectly aware that his future won't be the cold, anonymous factory floor; he just needs to bring some money home to keep alive his goal of becoming a music star. When he's home he spends hours listening to local radio stations, buying the first singles of his beloved Beatles for a few pennies. He even manages to get hold of a microphone and a small amplifier, practising daily with that odd, stumbling accent of his. At seventeen he's caught shoplifting from a clothes shop, reported to his father by the shop staff and ordered by the authorities to pay a fine. Jack, in an extreme attempt at discipline, refuses and has him locked up for a full six weeks at the Winson Green detention centre. This gives him even more free time to think about the Beatles and about how he too could become a pop star. After all, four humble lads from Liverpool had managed it, and they certainly weren't rich kids.

Ozzy's very first opportunity comes with a Birmingham group called The Polka Tulk Blues Band, which blends traditional blues with the psychedelic rock fashionable toward the end of the 1960s in its repertoire. The band grew out of the short-lived experience of the Rare Breed, formed by bassist Terence Michael Joseph Butler, better known to friends by the nickname Geezer. A year younger than Ozzy, Butler also comes from a large Catholic working-class family in Aston, having miraculously survived, at just one day old, his sister's attempt to throw him out of a window in a childish fit of jealousy. Raised in poverty, Geezer showed a great passion for reading from an early age, studying Shakespeare and later the less conventional writings of the occultist Aleister Crowley. When he meets Ozzy, Butler discovers their shared love of the Beatles, and immediately invites him to audition as singer for his group The Rare Breed, formed at the end of 1967.

In love with a girl named Georgina, Geezer discovers that one of her neighbours plays guitar – an opportunity too good to pass up for putting the band together. Georgina's neighbour is named Anthony Frank Iommi Jr, born at the start of 1948, the only child of a couple of Italian immigrants. Young Tony attended the same school as Ozzy, and he too was bullied, to the point of suffering a nasty cut to his lip that would earn him the nickname Scarface. Iommi then took up martial arts to defend himself, picturing a future as a wrestler, or at worst a nightclub bouncer. A music lover, he started out on drums before switching to guitar in the gaps between jobs. After a serious factory accident that tore away two finger joints on his right hand, Tony began studying the technique of the famous Django Reinhardt, never once considering switching hands despite being naturally left-handed. By the time he meets Butler, he has just wrapped up his run in the blues-rock group Mythology, formed together with his drummer friend Bill Ward.

William Thomas Ward was also born in Aston, drawn to the sound of drums from a very young age thanks to his love of 1940s big bands. Having first joined the Rest, Bill joined Mythology in 1967, then answered, alongside Iommi, the ad reading "Ozzy Zig Requires Gig", going on to form The Polka Tulk Blues Band with two other musicians, second slide guitarist Jimmy Phillips and saxophonist Alan "Aker" Clarke. The new outfit plays a handful of local venues such as the Banklands Youth Club, before almost immediately deciding to cut Phillips and Clarke loose and carry on as a quartet under the shortened name Polka Tulk. For Ozzy, it's the long-awaited training ground where he can hone his highly distinctive vocal gifts, while also flexing the muscles of his exuberant stage presence.

During 1968, Polka Tulk change their name to Earth, in an attempt to broaden their sonic horizons and become a truly original band, moving away from rehashing the stylistic tropes of blues or psychedelic rock. The four want to follow their own musical tastes, turning melodic sound into something darker and heavier. Ozzy is fully aware that real success requires great perseverance, the courage to take risks and work on something genuinely one of a kind. Iommi himself is trying to work around the evident limitations of his right hand with slower, darker riffs, while Butler channels his occult literary dreams into lyrics. It's the summer of 1969. Earth have just discovered that whoever booked them for a live show mixed them up with another band. Time for a new name, then.

Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath is the title of a 1963 horror film directed by Italian director Mario Bava, a feature made up of three stories introduced by English actor Boris Karloff. Hunting for a new name for the band, Ozzy and co. are drawn to the idea of striking terror into their audience, having by now shifted their musical focus toward the darkest strain of blues. Butler keeps devouring books on the occult, and confides to Ozzy that he's glimpsed an unsettling black shape at the foot of his bed. “A figure in black which points at me”, as described in the lyrics of “Black Sabbath”, recorded by the band in October 1969 at Regent Sounds in London with producer Rodger Bain.

The debut album Black Sabbath comes out in the UK on the Vertigo label on 13 February 1970, greeted negatively by critics, with Lester Bangs dismissing them as a lousy Cream knock-off, and Robert Christgau writing them off as “Negro-necromancer bullshit”. Beyond climbing to number eight on the UK chart, Black Sabbath proves to be the first cry of heavy music, a monstrous and startling evolution of the blues and a load-bearing pillar of doom. The thunder-and-bells intro is suddenly torn open by a slow, heavy riff, with Ozzy ready to cling to it with his raw, demonic voice.

Black Sabbath sounds right away like a manifesto of intent, moving between occult slowness and satanic boogie accelerations before giving way to distortion of thunderous beauty. On tracks like “The Wizard”, the hard-blues already taken to success by Cream is effectively transformed into heavy metal, Lester Bangs be damned. It is, in effect, the start of a devastating revolution, recorded moreover in very little time and with limited funds, given the general scepticism of both Vertigo in the UK and Warner Bros in the US. From the Hendrix-inflected rock of “Behind The Wall Of Sleep” to the immortal riff of “N.I.B.”, Ozzy unleashes his nature as a deviant entertainer, playing the role of rock singer across an impressive range of styles, from the luciferian to the desperate. “My name is Lucifer, please take my hand”, he sings before Iommi's leaden solo.

In spite of criticism from the trade press, Black Sabbath reach number twenty-three in the United States, and immediately set to work on a second album in the summer of 1970. Still with Rodger Bain, between the Regent and Island studios, the band doesn't yet have new songs fully ready, but throws itself headlong into the work to capitalise on the success of Black Sabbath. The backdrop of the Vietnam War leads them to expand their satanic arsenal with themes of alienation and conflict, which explode on the riff of what will become a generational anthem, “Paranoid”.

Opened by the pachydermic groove of “War Pigs”, Paranoid speaks of death and destruction in a blistering piece of social criticism, this time inevitably appreciated by critics as well. Ward's constantly shifting drum tempos and Ozzy's increasingly aggressive voice denouncing the powerful turn the band into an anti-militarist outfit standing up for those cast aside by the establishment. This is where the other manifesto track, “Iron Man”, comes in, with Ozzy's metallic voice introducing a superb, icy new rhythm built on total disillusionment.

The record is a masterpiece of alchemy among the band members themselves, with Iommi's apocalyptic wah-wah guitar conversing with Ozzy's theatricality on “Electric Funeral”, or with Butler's sinuous bass combining with Ward's drumming, now syncopated, now hammering, on “Hand Of Doom”.

Paranoid thus reaches number one on the UK chart, climbing to number twelve in the States, where fans multiply exponentially. A largely male audience, as Ozzy later pointed out: “Back then, the band wasn't very popular with girls”. But it's precisely in that period that Osbourne meets Sharon Rachel Levy, daughter of Harry Levy, a businessman and promoter very active in the music world under the name Don Arden. Born in Manchester to a family of Jewish origin, Don became professionally active after returning from the Second World War, becoming manager of American rocker Gene Vincent in 1960. After nearly being killed by Vincent himself, who had serious problems with alcoholism, he went on to sign the Small Faces and then The Move. Arden is thus considered by Black Sabbath as a potential manager for the group, which leads Ozzy to meet his daughter, now known as Sharon Arden, who has recently started working as a secretary in the office. A perfect excuse to hang around her, even while keeping things strictly professional.

Changes

At the start of 1971, Black Sabbath enter the Island studios to put out their third album, Master Of Reality, which amplifies their darkest sound yet to depict a world now devoid of hope. The funereal textures are heightened by Iommi, dragging listeners toward an abyss of total darkness. It is the dawn of what will come to be called doom metal, on tracks nothing short of seminal such as “Children Of The Grave”, which mirrors the anxieties of young generations about the political and social future.

After Iommi's decision to tune his guitar down a tone and a half, to reduce string tension and thus the pain of playing them, Ozzy's task is to push his voice even higher, making it sharper and faster. From the proto-stoner “Sweet Leaf” to the heavy charge of “After Forever”, the band crafts a titanic record, a cornerstone of subgenres such as doom and sludge metal.

On Master Of Reality, the darkest nightmares take shape, over the macabre turn of “Lord Of This World” or in the cold cosmic void of the slow obsession of “Into The Void”. Black Sabbath's third album thus reaches the Top Ten both at home and in the States, going gold in under two months. The band is then able to consolidate its worldwide fame through the live circuit, becoming absolute protagonists in the early 1970s. Ozzy Osbourne's theatricality wins over crowds in every corner of the planet, thanks to an innate ability to carry minds and hearts into a grand spectacle.

The band's fame is now at its peak as Black Sabbath record their fourth album, Vol. 4, at Record Plant in Los Angeles together with manager Patrick Meehan. After Bain's departure, it's Iommi who takes on the task of steering the band through the studio sessions in the summer of 1972, between May and June. While Bill Ward shows growing problems with alcohol dependency, the others consume huge amounts of cocaine, laid out in neat lines on the various studio speakers. “I'd often hyperventilate – Ozzy would later say – but we all felt like kings of the universe, those weeks in Bel Air were the strongest creative stretch of all”.

Opened by the languid blues phrasing of “Wheels Of Confusion”, the first experiment fusing the hard riff with psych-prog textures, the record isn't well received by critics, though it is praised by Lester Bangs, who speaks of “intellectual honesty” and “mythic musical structure”. The album partly abandons the claustrophobic atmospheres of Master Of Reality, turning toward more open and musically varied compositions. The poignant “Changes”, for instance, is enriched by classical-leaning piano and hypnotic Mellotron textures beneath Ozzy's anguished vocal. The same mammoth riff of “Supernaut” takes hard'n'heavy to a new level of instrumental airiness with a sublime Caribbean interlude, while the ending of “Snowblind” sounds almost orchestral. The doom darkness remains intact (“Cornucopia”), while also opening up glimpses of acoustic beauty on the cinematic “Laguna Sunrise”.

The album sells a million copies in the United States, enormously boosting the band's allure as they race on tour from one side of the world to the other. But the lethal mix of exhaustion, outside pressure and, above all, heavy drugs wears the four of them down, Iommi in particular, who ends up collapsing toward the end of a show at the Hollywood Bowl. “Tony had literally been doing coke for days – Ozzy would recall – we all were, but Tony had gone past the limit. I mean, that stuff warps your sense of reality. You start seeing things that aren't there. And Tony was gone. Toward the end of the show he came off stage and collapsed”.

In the summer of 1973 Black Sabbath need a break, to regroup and get their ideas in order. They find themselves back at Bel Air, at the Record Plant studios, but creative inspiration doesn't come for a good month. So they decide to go home, recording in the striking setting of Clearwell Castle, nestled in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire. Amid new black figures and medieval secrets, the band finds inspiration again when Iommi comes up with the blazing new riff that will give the new album its title, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. “We're back!”, the four of them exclaim almost in unison, aware they've found the key to another absolute masterpiece, despite the first real difficulties encountered since the start of their adventure.

Starting with the title track, a disorienting rollercoaster between dark heavy rhythm and melodic openings, the album wrong-foots both critics and fans with its instrumental versatility. The slow-building “A National Acrobat” is among Ozzy Osbourne's greatest vocal showcases, first riding a pachydermic rhythm, then – almost in spoken-word – the wah-wah guitar, before unleashing one of the most pyrotechnic endings in 70s rock history. Paid, by his own choice, in nothing but beer, Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman lends his lysergic, spacey touch to the seductive progressive-metal march “Sabbra Cadabra”.

From the nihilism of the electric epic "Killing Yourself To Live" to the gloomy synthesizer textures of "Who Are You?", the album massively widens the sonic horizons of Black Sabbath. As on the pastoral flute that breaks up the sinister boogie of "Looking For Today", or amid the orchestral folds of the mini rock-opera "Spiral Architect", Sabbath Bloody Sabbath is the album Iommi himself would call "the pinnacle" — the one a fan would take with them to a desert island.

You Won't Change Me

At the start of 1975, Black Sabbath entered London's Morgan Studios to record Sabotage, a title chosen as an act of accusation against their manager, Patrick Meehan. Ozzy and co. had discovered that Meehan had pocketed most of the proceeds from a recent tour, while effectively holding onto all their assets, from houses to cars. The studio work was thus marked by the legal dispute, with lawyers a constant presence influencing the creative process. Clear tensions were building within the band, with Iommi refining the sound alongside producer Mike Butcher while Osbourne complained about the excessively drawn-out songwriting process. When Ozzy walked into the studio one morning and found members of the English Chamber Choir there, he immediately walked back out, thinking he'd got the wrong room. In fact, the choir was there to record the sinister atmospheres of "Supertzar", lending an almost Morricone-esque tone to Iommi's distorted riff. Ozzy was far from convinced by the guitarist's new orchestral experiments, and he also lashed out at "Am I Going Insane? (Radio)", which he saw as a sellout to poppier melodies, at odds with the goal of returning to a rawer, more direct sound after Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. That goal was certainly achieved on tracks like "Hole In The Sky", which picks up the heavy rhythms of Paranoid, and above all "Symptom Of The Universe", an illuminating preview of thrash metal.

Ozzy shows off his deranged, razor-edged vocal talents across the orgasmic ten minutes of "Megalomania", moving between psychedelic visions in the style of "Planet Caravan" and stunning hard rock outbursts. His fingerprints are also on the lyrics of the aggressive march "The Writ", which points the finger without mincing words at Meehan: "Are you Satan? Are you man?".

Sabotage is thus the tortured record of a band afraid it will have to keep working indefinitely just to cover the costs of a thorny legal battle, made worse by lost earnings following the unauthorized release of the compilation We Sold Our Soul For Rock'n'Roll.

The summer of 1976 is a particularly delicate time, with the now-exhausted band deciding to record their new album in Miami, at Criteria Studios. While Tony Iommi works tirelessly on new sonic experiments, the rest of the band soaks up the Florida sun, dodging any kind of responsibility during the production process.

The first stirrings of punk radically change the musical landscape, forcing Black Sabbath to make important decisions about the group's future. Meanwhile, new manager Don Arden is pouring all his efforts into Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), who have hit the Top Ten with the album "Face The Music". While Iommi senses the potential success of softer rock – and bands like Eagles and Fleetwood Mac will prove him right – Ozzy is absolutely against the change of direction and starts leaning toward leaving the band. "We should sound like Foreigner or Queen", Iommi announces, leaving Osbourne stunned: why should they let themselves be influenced by bands that were actually influenced by them? On top of that, production costs for Technical Ecstasy keep climbing, while Ozzy grows ever more dependent on drink and drugs, to the point of checking himself in for a quick stint of rehab at Stafford County Asylum before heading back home.

The sessions at Criteria Studios are a complete mess, with piles of cocaine left sitting on the amplifiers. The band is out of control, scattered across different musical directions in an attempt to reinvent themselves, from the funk-rock of "All Moving Parts (Stand Still)" to the jarring, gospel-pop melody in the style of Paul McCartney that is "It's Alright", Bill Ward's first lead-vocal turn in place of Ozzy. Fans and critics alike are left stunned – and not entirely in a good way – with some comparing "Rock'n'Roll Doctor" to Kiss, and others seeing in tracks like "Back Street Kids" a total decline of the devastating heavy metal of the past.

Technical Ecstasy translates the band's inner confusion into weak songs, sliding down the charts as it's presented live on a European tour between late 1976 and early 1977. The lengthy run of shows features AC/DC as the opening act, leading to fierce tensions between Bill Ward and Malcolm Young. In April, once the tour wraps up, Osbourne drops the bombshell and quits the band to focus on a solo project called Blizzard Of Ozz, after recruiting some members of Necromandus, who had once supported Black Sabbath back when they were still called Earth, at a show in Birmingham.

While Black Sabbath replace him with Dave Walker, a former singer with bands like Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac, Ozzy Osbourne is determined to face his personal demons, convinced that leaving the band that launched him to rock stardom can only do him good. A lover of challenges, he realizes it's time to put the past behind him and be reborn, both as a person and as an artist, encouraged by an increasingly close Sharon Arden. After recording a first version of the song "Junior's Eyes" with Walker and presenting it to the BBC, Iommi realizes the experiment isn't working, and tries to convince Ozzy to get back in the saddle. Not entirely convinced himself, Osbourne agrees, but sets conditions: he won't sing any of the songs tried out with Walker, except for the multifaceted "Junior's Eyes", which becomes an opportunity to honor the memory of his father, who had recently passed away.

The sessions for Never Say Die!, held at Sounds Interchange Studios in Toronto purely for tax reasons, prove to be a disaster waiting to happen, amid excessive substance use and by-now-irreconcilable differences between Ozzy and Iommi. In particular, Osbourne dislikes the inclusion of strongly jazz-inflected tracks like "Air Dance" and "Breakout", which he sees as a betrayal of the band's identity. From the acidic electronic forays of "Johnny Blade" to the piano flourishes of "Over To You", the album sounds confused, even if it contains some better moments than Technical Ecstasy. Take, for instance, a "Never Say Die" that tries to keep pace with punk's furious energy – albeit with clear echoes of Thin Lizzy – or the hard-boogie of "A Hard Road".

After the flop on the American charts, Black Sabbath set off on tour in May 1978, with Van Halen in support. Thanks to the success of their cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me", the Californian band draws most of the crowd's attention across the States, while tensions with Iommi keep mounting. Ozzy is in terrible shape: in Nashville he falls asleep in the wrong room of his hotel, then wakes up convinced he's still living the previous evening. The show is naturally cancelled, the lowest point of a tour that critics describe as "tired and uninspired", given the competition from a band exploding in popularity like Van Halen.

Blizzard of Ozz

The disastrous Never Say Die! Tour comes to an end in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on December 11, 1978. Black Sabbath get straight to work on a new album, effectively getting bogged down for months in the United States amid by-now-unbearable frustrations. Ozzy is drunk or high all the time, but above all he can no longer stand the experimentation of the last two albums. Iommi, too, is worn out by Osbourne's antics, having already toyed with the idea of leaving the band to form a new one with singer Ronnie James Dio, recently out of Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow over artistic differences. Unlike Walker, Dio has a genuinely formidable voice within the hard'n'heavy scene, a replacement ultimately deemed credible enough to carry Black Sabbath forward.

On April 27, 1979, Tony announces Ozzy Osbourne's dismissal, a decision also backed by Butler and Ward and brought on by excessive behavior fueled by alcohol and drug use. After collecting a severance of nearly 100,000 pounds, Ozzy decides to take a few months off, isolating himself in a haze of booze and cocaine, before returning home to Birmingham to sign up at an employment office. But manager Don Arden has other plans, so he asks his daughter Sharon to look after him and figure out what he wants to do: there's already a contract waiting with his own label, Jet Records. Arden suggests Osbourne form a band called Son of Sabbath – he even initially tries to talk him into getting back with Iommi – while Sharon advises him to put together a supergroup with guitarist Gary Moore. In the end, he recalls that old name his late father once suggested to him: Blizzard of Ozz. But there's still a band to assemble, starting with a new partnership with Australian bassist Robert John Daisley, whom he met one night at the Music Machine in Camden Town.

A native of Sydney, Bob Daisley started playing bass at 14, making a name for himself on the music scene through his blues background, first with Chicken Shack and then with Mungo Jerry. In 1977 he joined Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, staying for a couple of years until he was replaced by ex-Deep Purple member Roger Glover. Just like Butler, Daisley has a gift for songwriting, one Ozzy appreciates along with his skills in the record-production process. Osbourne knows he can't afford to get the guitarist wrong, so he thinks of Randall William Rhoads, born in Santa Monica, California, into a family of musicians. Randy learned to read music from his mother, Delores, and fell in love with the guitar after listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. After forming The Whore with his bassist friend Kelly Garni, Rhoads started out playing nothing but covers, until he had an epiphany at an Alice Cooper concert at the Long Beach Auditorium in 1971. Struck by the style of Cooper's guitarist, Glen Buxton, Rhoads went on to form Quiet Riot with singer Kevin DuBrow, landing a deal with CBS/Sony Records and releasing two albums exclusively for the Japanese market. The band's run ended quickly, after a furious studio argument that even saw a gun pulled out. That's when a Los Angeles bassist, Dana Strum, enters the picture, calling the guitarist to convince him to try out for the auditions Ozzy Osbourne was holding.

Rhoads shows up at a Los Angeles studio with his Gibson Les Paul and a makeshift amplifier, finding Ozzy visibly drunk. He starts out with a few warm-up riffs, stunned when he's immediately handed the job. "He started playing this fucking solo and I thought, am I that stoned, or am I hallucinating, or what the fuck is this?!" Ozzy would later say. Rhoads can't believe he's landed the lead guitarist role just by playing a few chords, and he's understandably wary of trusting this scruffy guy on the other side of the rehearsal room. But Randy doesn't seem to have much choice, having grown tired of Quiet Riot, who hadn't managed to release a single record outside Japan's borders.

Back home, Osbourne talks to Don Arden, telling him about a "talented guitarist he met in America", sidestepping management's original mandate to form an all-English band. Rhoads thus boards a flight to London, but is initially arrested and sent back due to lack of work permits. Ozzy apologizes to him and sorts things out, arranging a new meeting at the end of November at the Jet Records offices. Together with Daisley, Ozzy and Randy take a train to reach the Osbourne home in Staffordshire, with the former Black Sabbath man wondering to himself why such a talented guitarist would decide to work with a hopeless alcoholic.

Drummer Lee Gary Kerslake, who joined Uriah Heep at the end of 1971, joins the trio. After nine records with the London band, Kerslake called it quits at the end of the Fallen Angels Tour, drawn in by Osbourne's wry personality after meeting him in Australia. Kerslake is then invited to Clearwell Castle to try out new material already written and played with another drummer, before work actually begins on Blizzard Of Ozz at Ridge Farm Studio in West Sussex.

The first song recorded is the ballad "Goodbye To Romance", written as a farewell to Black Sabbath in the baroque style of Pachelbel's Canon. Rhoads' guitar immediately takes center stage with the electric solo at its heart, while Ozzy adopts a mellow, emotional vocal style to officially kick off his new musical adventure. The band wants to release the song as a single to launch the album, but Jet Records wants something more energetic. The label makes the right call, because "Crazy Train" tops the charts with its epic riff, instantly becoming a classic and drawing comparisons to the work of guitar giants like Iommi and Blackmore. Ozzy's opening demonic verses launch a relentless heavy metal rhythm that speaks to humanity's deepest fears amid Cold War tensions.

The other pivotal track on Blizzard Of Ozz is the unsettling "Mr. Crowley", opened by Don Airey's horror-movie keyboards before winding like a relentless serpent toward Rhoads' grand, classically-styled solo. Alongside Eddie Van Halen, Randy's near-operatic technique redefines the boundaries of neo-classical metal, turning Ozzy Osbourne's debut album into a cornerstone of the genre. From the furious gallop of "I Don't Know" onward, the record proves nearly flawless, pairing Ozzy's theatrical voice with Rhoads' boundless talent, who borrows a riff of his own from Quiet Riot and reshapes it into "Suicide Solution", written by Osbourne as a warning about excessive drinking. Five years later the song would lead to a lawsuit against Ozzy brought by the family of John Daniel McCollum, a nineteen-year-old American who died by suicide after listening to the track, over an alleged invitation to pick up a gun and shoot himself.

While tracks like "No Bone Movies" and "Steal Away (The Night)" bring back a catchier hard rock groove with touches of glam and rock'n'roll, the epic "Revelation (Mother Earth)" returns to that fusion of sophisticated classical-leaning passages, macabre theatrics and powerful electric flourishes. Thanks to a group of outstanding musicians, the new formula allows Ozzy to brilliantly move past his Black Sabbath years, opening the door to millions of new heavy metal fans in the 1980s.

Flying high, once again

Blizzard Of Ozz pulls off the feat of earning five platinum records in the United States without placing a single song in the Top 40, keeping Ozzy Osbourne's name at the top after his split from Black Sabbath. Two months after the album's release, Jet puts out a live EP, Ozzy Osbourne Live Ep, with just three tracks recorded during the show at the Gaumont Theatre in Southampton. It's mostly a pretext to release "You Said It All", a sinister hard rock boogie the band recorded during the Blizzard Of Ozz sessions to replace "Goodbye To Romance", the single Jet had rejected.

As Sharon Arden becomes an increasingly important figure for Ozzy, and not just professionally as his de facto manager, the band returns to Ridge Farm Studios during 1981, with the support of English producer Max Norman. The new recording sessions are weighed down by an atmosphere of resentment, with Kerslake and Daisley complaining about unpaid wages due to Sharon Arden's involvement, which they consider overly intrusive. So much so that the credits for Diary Of A Madman list Cuban-born bassist Rudy Sarzo and American drummer Tommy Aldridge, neither of whom was actually involved in the studio work.

The change in lineup obviously doesn't affect Randy Rhoads, Ozzy's essential right-hand man and an increasingly towering figure on the world guitar scene. In fact, Kerslake and Daisley's contribution to the songwriting is even greater than on Blizzard Of Ozz, since Osbourne is often in poor shape to write and record with the focus required. The band pushes hard to finish the record in time for the start of a world tour, opening with the new heavy metal charge "Over The Mountain", with Rhoads' sublime playing building sonic cathedrals between the devastating riff and baroque solos. The second big hit is "Flying High Again", with its devastating radio-friendly impact, melodic groove and operatic flourishes in the central solo.

The acoustic opening of "You Can't Kill Rock And Roll" drives an atmospheric ballad, constantly balanced between melancholy and hard rock fury. The mood turns darker and more claustrophobic on the obsessive "Believer", with a slow, Sabbath-like rhythm marked by an eerie, horror-movie guitar. Ozzy sets aside any egocentric ambitions to put together direct, no-frills songs, from the almost Beatles-like opening of "Little Dolls" to the pop choruses of "Tonight", revealing a more melodic side than on the debut album. The return to riff-driven rock comes with the constant tempo shifts of the rhythm section on "S.A.T.O.", while the fireworks-filled finale is entrusted to the majestic title track, which mirrors the building electro-acoustic structure as if aiming to be a personal "Stairway To Heaven".

Once recording on Diary Of A Madman wraps up, Ozzy and Rhoads regroup at Shepperton Studios along with the new rhythm section made up of Sarzo and Aldridge, brought in to replace Daisley and Kerslake, who had already been dropped from the last album's official credits.

Rodolfo Maximiliano Sarzo arrived in the United States from his hometown, Havana, in 1961, at the age of eleven. After moving from Florida to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, he came into contact with Quiet Riot, invited by his new friend Kevin DuBrow to replace Kelly Garni on bass. That's how he also became close friends with Randy Rhoads, leaving Quiet Riot alongside him before going on to replace, as it happens, Bob Daisley.

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, drummer Tommy Aldridge developed a natural talent for music from a young age, honing — against his father's wishes — a formidable technique that made him a true pioneer in the use of double bass drumming. Having joined the southern-rock band Black Oak Arkansas, Tommy never felt artistically at ease there, put off by the band's heavy hashish consumption. Bound by a restrictive contract, he managed to break free from the group to work with Canadian guitarist Pat Travers, and later with Gary Moore once he moved to London. It's in the English capital that he meets Rhoads, a huge fan of the Belfast guitarist, and accepts his invitation to replace Kerslake for the upcoming Diary Of A Madman tour.

Rehearsals for the new lineup last two weeks, ahead of the sold-out debut on November 4, 1981 at the Ernst-Merck-Halle in Hamburg. But the tour gets off to a rocky start: on November 13, after the Ravensburg show, Sharon Arden cancels the remaining European dates to take Ozzy to a psychiatric clinic back home, given the singer's mental and physical breakdown over his impending separation from his first wife, Thelma Riley, with whom he had his first two children, Jessica and Louis. Having fallen into a severe depression, Ozzy has to stop for several weeks, only able to resume the tour at the end of December.

Things pick up again in California on the 30th, while Rhoads receives the Best New Talent Award from Guitar Player magazine. On January 20, 1982, at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa, a particularly creative fan throws a dead bat onto the stage, stolen from the science department of Lincoln's local school. Ozzy, convinced it's a very realistic toy, decides to pick it up, spread its wings and bite it before tossing it back toward the crowd. As our man heads to Des Moines General Hospital for a quick rabies treatment, news of the extreme stunt spreads to every corner of the rock world, instantly becoming legendary and cementing his reputation as a dissolute, anti-conformist star.

The Diary Of A Madman tour is one long string of episodes somewhere between comedy and tragedy: in Rosemont, Illinois, Ozzy at one point grabs Randy Rhoads by the leg and lifts him up in a gesture of deep friendship, before collapsing during a subsequent show in Rosemont, carried to hospital by Sharon Arden due to the side effects of his rabies treatment. In February 1982, after a concert at Market Square Arena in Indianapolis, Osbourne argues with Rhoads over his refusal to take part in a live album made up entirely of Black Sabbath covers, which the guitarist sees as a step backward in his blazing career. Before a Texas date, Sharon decides to hide all of Ozzy's clothes to stop him going out drinking, triggering a hilarious response: Osbourne puts on Sharon's nightgown, gets drunk, and ends up urinating near the Alamo Mission. He's caught and arrested by local police, then released just hours before the show thanks to Sharon's intervention, who fears a riot if the gig were cancelled.

Having become public enemy number one in Texas, threatened by activists, politicians and religious figures, Ozzy Osbourne is completely out of control. Rhoads has already told him he'll only be working with him for a little longer, wanting to pursue classical music studies at the University of California. Before March 20, 1982, while the band is travelling on the tour bus towards Orlando, Florida, a mechanical breakdown forces the driver to stop at a depot outside Leesburg. Ozzy and Sharon, along with Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge, are sleeping on the bus while it's being repaired, while Rhoads, Don Airey and the rest of the crew are awake. The property in Leesburg has a landing strip and a hangar full of small aircraft. Andrew Aycock, the bus driver, claims to be a very experienced pilot, so he takes possession of a Beechcraft Bonanza F35, offering to take everyone up for a flight. During one of the flights, Aycock, Rhoads and Rachel Youngblood, the band's costume and makeup artist, board the Beechcraft Bonanza. But the plane's left wing suddenly clips the parked bus, causing a thunderous crash that kills all the passengers instantly.

Local authorities wrap up their investigation the following day, when Ozzy and his crew return to Los Angeles, shaken by the tragedy that has robbed rock of one of its most acclaimed guitarists. Osbourne is in shock and speaks frankly with Sharon: there's no point in carrying on. It's she who convinces him to get back on the road for all his fans, with the addition of new guitarist Bernie Tormé, recently out of the band led by Ian Gillan over a pay dispute. Of Irish descent, Tormé is obviously a completely different guitarist from Rhoads, not even really up to handling Ozzy's material. In early April the tour resumes in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, with Tormé telling everyone he actually wants to pursue a solo career. Sharon then finds a new guitarist, Bradley Frank Gillis, who since 1978 has been in the funk-rock outfit Rubicon, the earlier incarnation of Night Ranger. Further tour dates are later cancelled due to Ozzy's psycho-physical state, as at one point he decides to shave his head completely. Sharon initially convinces him to wear a wig on stage, which Ozzy duly throws into the crowd, to everyone's astonishment. There is, however, good news: on July 4, 1982, he marries Sharon Arden, the woman supporting him more than anyone else in his fight against his own downward spiral.

The rebel of rock'n'roll

During the Diary Of A Madman tour, Jet Records wants to release a live album made up solely of tracks Ozzy recorded with Black Sabbath. It's clearly a move designed to cash in on royalties, but also a rather underhanded way of beating to market the live album of the same former bandmates, now with Ronnie James Dio on vocals and new drummer Vinnie Appice in place of Bill Ward. Led by Rhoads, Ozzy's entire band refuses to take part in the record, unwilling to lend their names to what amounts to a cash-grab. Osbourne is furious, lost in a haze of constant benders, and fires everyone on the spot, though he won't even remember doing so the next day. He claims to have Frank Zappa lined up to replace Rhoads, who ultimately agrees to the project due to contractual obligations, before dying in the tragic plane crash in Florida. Brad Gillis takes part in rehearsals scheduled for September in New York City, alongside the reluctant Aldridge and Sarzo, whom Sharon warns in advance that unfortunately "Ozzy won't be very cooperative." It's at this point that the Cuban-born bassist decides to leave the Prince of Darkness as soon as possible. When he shows up for the album's recording sessions, Osbourne can't even remember the lyrics to the Black Sabbath songs, forced to read them off during the live filming at The Ritz in Manhattan. Once the work is done, Sarzo says goodbye to return to Quiet Riot, while Gillis retreats once more into Night Ranger.

Speak Of The Devil comes out on November 22, 1982, opening with the mammoth riff of "Symptom Of The Universe." The double album — not by chance, since two more records are needed to fulfil the contract with Jet — sells better than Black Sabbath's Live Evil, but stands as sonic proof of a voice clearly in trouble. From the ponderous "Snowblind" to "The Wizard," Ozzy's new band is a war machine, capable of effectively replicating the formidable technical prowess of Iommi, Ward and Butler.

If Sarzo makes his bass throb on "N.I.B.," Gillis steps into the role of guitar hero on the riff of "Sweet Leaf," while Aldridge thunders away on double bass drums on "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath." Shame that Osbourne's vocal performance falls below par, on a record conceived purely for commercial reasons and as a bit of payback against his former bandmates.

At the start of 1983, Ozzy Osbourne is on the hunt for a new guitarist after Gillis's departure, back with Night Ranger. Los Angeles bassist Dana Strum advises him to hire Jakey Lou Williams, better known as Jake E. Lee. Originally from Virginia, Jake moved to California to play in glam-metal band Ratt, then moved on to Rough Cutt. When he turns up for the audition, Ozzy has actually already chosen George Lynch (Dokken), but changes his mind and tells Lee himself to handle firing his first choice. Together with the returning Bob Daisley, the guitarist starts working on new material in the studio, when he's approached by Sharon, who forces him to sign a contract effectively giving up any legal claim as a songwriter, in favour of Ozzy Osbourne alone. Lee is persuaded with a sum of around 50,000 dollars to leave Ozzy as sole author of lyrics and music, thus avoiding being fired on the spot.

With Tommy Aldridge on drums and Don Airey on keyboards, the band finishes recording Bark At The Moon, released in November 1983 on Epic (UK) and CBS (USA). From the very first riff of the vibrant title track, the record bears the mark of Rhoads's tragic absence, inevitably abandoning the neoclassical approach to heavy metal for a less original sound. Ozzy, dressed as a werewolf, dominates MTV, driving sales up to triple platinum in the States.

Not particularly well received by critics, Bark At The Moon still contains some excellent tracks, from the anguished "You're No Different," enriched by Airey's atmospheric keyboards, to the team performances on "Now You See It (Now You Don't)" and "Rock'n'Roll Rebel," between the thunderous rhythm section and Lee's melodic solos. Then there's "Forever" — or "Centre Of Eternity" on the American version of the record — opening with bells, Gregorian chants and liturgical organ before the killer groove kicks in, with a thoroughly convincing vocal performance from Ozzy.

The tone perhaps shifts too drastically on the Beatles-esque orchestral ballad "So Tired," while "Waiting For Darkness" and "Spiders" return to the darker tones driven by Lee's hard rock guitar.

Shortly before the release of Bark At The Moon, Ozzy sets off on a new world tour, opening with a show in Leicester on November 10, 1983. Carmine Appice, previously with bands like Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, takes over on drums. Appice lasts until February 1984, when he's replaced by Tommy Aldridge due to friction with Sharon. At the end of the tour, an overweight and mentally shattered Ozzy decides to enter rehab at the Betty Ford Center in California, in a genuine attempt to break free of his massive alcohol and drug consumption.

The final sin

Back from rehab, Ozzy meets up with his guitarist Jake E. Lee, who in the meantime has renegotiated the terms of his contract with Sharon to be reinstated as an official songwriter and thus receive his royalties. Osbourne obviously can't come up with new original songs himself, so he relies on Lee and his work with Daisley for a new album. But Bob never sets foot in Townhouse Studios in London, clashing with Ozzy once again before recording begins. He suggests being replaced by Greg Chaisson, but Osbourne feels his image doesn't fit with the rest of the group, choosing instead Philip Raphael Soussan. Originally from London, Phil simply plays the parts written by Daisley, backed in the rhythm section by new drummer Randolpho Francisco Castillo, already recruited by Lita Ford.

The Ultimate Sin comes out at the start of 1986, going double platinum in the United States. Opened by the hammering rhythm of the title track, the new album shows itself more aggressive, leaning into American-style heavy metal sonics, moving toward a radio-friendly sound that for many fans betrays Ozzy's usual musical nonconformity. Jake E. Lee's greater input is evident in glam-flavored tracks like "Secret Loser", while "Never Know Why" partially recovers Osbourne's more theatrical tones. The whole record works like a riff-grinding machine, from a "Thank God For The Bomb" that could have come straight off a Def Leppard record, to a "Never" in the most classic stars-and-stripes hard'n'heavy style. That's why The Ultimate Sin is a rather derivative record, put together with an Osbourne who had only recently come out of rehab. "Lightning Strikes" bets on a catchy chorus over a classic heavy gallop, while "Killer Of Giants" opens between melancholy acoustic breaks and Hollywood-style orchestral arrangements.

The album is saved, at least commercially, by the single "Shot In The Dark", a striking example of the new MTV-ized course with its pompous, melodic arrangements bordering on glam. Originally written by Wildlife, the band in which bassist Soussan played, the song was reworked in the studio by Osbourne, sparking no small controversy over its true authorship after its huge success and heavy rotation on the mainstream rock charts.

In April 1986 the promotional tour for The Ultimate Sin kicks off, the last to feature Jake E. Lee and Phil Soussan in the band, with the former let go for reasons never fully clarified, certainly linked to a less-than-idyllic relationship with Sharon. Despite his stint in rehab, Ozzy keeps abusing substances, while Epic Records releases, at his request, the live album Tribute, a tribute to the late Randy Rhoads featuring classics from his early solo period and Black Sabbath covers from the album Speak Of The Devil.

Recorded during various live dates between 1980 and 1981, the double album is a must for fans of a prodigious guitarist, second perhaps only to Eddie Van Halen on the global hard'n'heavy scene. That same year Slade release their fourteenth and final album, "You Boyz Make Big Noize", born out of a collaboration with the legendary Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker. Ozzy is particularly struck by the sound of the rhythm section, and immediately calls Baker to ask him to work on his next album. Osbourne has recently handed the lead guitarist role to American Zachary Phillip Wylde, who showed up on his own at the auditions after finding out about them through an announcement on The Howard Stern Show. Zakk thus joins returning bassist Bob Daisley and former Uriah Heep keyboardist John Sinclair, stepping into Enterprise Studios in Los Angeles to record No Rest For The Wicked, released in the fall of 1988.

Opened by the sinister laugh over the powerful riff of "Miracle Man", the album recovers the cohesion lost on The Ultimate Sin, now able to rely on a less "Americanized" guitarist. On "Devil's Daughter (Holy War)" there's a clear rollercoaster sonic effect, full of crooked ups and downs driven by the immediately commanding personality of Ozzy's new guitarist. The second single chosen to promote the record, "Crazy Babies", is built on a round, repetitive rhythm, while "Breakin' All The Rules" launches a tight dialogue between Wylde's blazing guitar and Castillo's drums.

Osbourne returns to Sabbath-like atmospheres on the following "Bloodbath In Paradise", about the brutal crimes of Charles Manson at the end of the 1960s. The engaging "Fire In The Sky" hovers between electric bursts and melodic ballad-style passages, before the speed-metal of "Tattooed Dancer". The choral finale of "Hero" is also convincing — perhaps overly self-referential, but it succeeds in giving back a more vibrant Ozzy after the radio-friendly flirtations.

Coming home

The American tour for No Rest For The Wicked kicks off in November 1988 in Pensacola, with old friend Geezer Butler on bass replacing the departing Bob Daisley. On August 13, 1989, Ozzy performs at the Moscow Music Peace Festival, a sort of Russian Woodstock held at Central Lenin Stadium in front of a crowd of over a hundred thousand people. Alongside Scorpions and Mötley Crüe, Ozzy is invited as the godfather of the heaviest music right in the middle of Glasnost, for an event broadcast live in nearly 60 countries. A huge boost in worldwide visibility that pairs with his collaboration on Lita Ford's single "Close My Eyes Forever", which shot up to number eight on the Billboard Hot 100.

After inviting Butler to play bass on the latest tour, Osbourne also gets back in touch with Bill Ward, lending his voice to two tracks on the Black Sabbath drummer's debut solo album, "One: Along The Way". After a couple of compilations released by Cbs, Just Say Ozzy is a live Ep recorded at Brixton Academy in London during the leg with Butler on bass, with a standout version of "Sweet Leaf".

At the start of 1990 Osbourne has to deal with another legal headache over the deaths of young Michael Waller and Harold Hamilton, both suicide cases linked to listening to the now-notorious "Suicide Solution". Ozzy comes out on top once again, having convinced the court of the song's true meaning, a tribute to Bon Scott and a general warning about the dangers of alcohol abuse.

Together with producers Duane Baron and John Purdell, Osbourne enters A&M studios to record the new album No More Tears, after writing a few songs with Motörhead leader Lemmy Kilmister. The first single released is the title track, born out of an improvised jam session that also featured Mike Inez, a bassist from the Los Angeles scene. It's Inez who came up with the riff that opens the track, although it's actually Bob Daisley who ends up in the official credits as the effective contributor across the whole record. The single is a huge hit in the United States, with a modern groove where heavy metal meets art-rock and certain progressive leanings. Ozzy's own vocal performance wins over critics, who speak of a powerful return to former glories.

The album brings Osbourne's sound right into the nineties atmosphere upended by bands like Nirvana, while still keeping a steady course toward classic hard rock, as on "I Don't Want To Change The World", clearly the product of Kilmister's pen. Wylde's pyrotechnic guitar is by now an invaluable partner for Ozzy, who finally seems to have found stability after the tragic loss of Rhoads. Tracks like "Desire" and "S.I.N." revitalize the metal framework in a more contemporary style, with an approach somewhere between aggressive and melodic. Beyond his cumbersome public image, the lawsuits and the addiction, Osbourne wants to prove to the world that he's still the godfather of the entire heavy movement. Songs like "Hellraiser" celebrate the rock'n'roll lifestyle with epic power, while the street-smart riff of "Mr. Tinkertrain" opens onto a personal reflection on child sexual abuse. Castillo and Wylde once again prove to be top-tier additions, driving the crescendo of "Zombie Stomp" and the following "A.V.H.", later described by Ozzy as a tribute to his beloved football team, Aston Villa.

But if the record tops the mainstream-rock charts, it's above all thanks to its more intimate moments, in the form of power ballads. "Road To Nowhere" unleashes a Slash-like solo; "Time After Time" returns to his undying love for the Beatles. The real high point, though, is the heart-wrenching "Mama, I'm Coming Home", driven by nostalgic fingerpicking, an open-hearted ode to Sharon, first his friend and then his lover, a pivotal figure in his almost desperate rescue from the darkness of addiction.

No More Tears tops the charts in both the United Kingdom and the United States, where it goes quadruple platinum. In June 1992 the No More Tours Tour kicks off, announced as the final run of shows around the world, by Ozzy's own wish to spend more time with his family. Osbourne had in fact received a terrible medical diagnosis — later proven wrong — and was convinced he had multiple sclerosis. The tour sees bassist Mike Inez brought on as a permanent member, while keyboardist Kevin Jones takes Sinclair's place, as the latter is touring with The Cult. In mid-November, the final date in Costa Mesa features the acclaimed live reunion of Black Sabbath, seven years after their appearance at the Live Aid charity event — incredibly left out of the subsequent album Live & Loud, presented to the world as Ozzy Osbourne's final album before his definitive retirement from the music scene.

Carried by the media hype, the album sells over a million copies, despite offering listeners little that's new. From the immortal riff of "Paranoid" to the closing "I Don't Want To Change The World" — which in 1994 would earn him a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance — the record is pure entertainment for Ozzy's fans. There's naturally plenty of room for tracks from No More Tears, with a powerful version of "Mr. Crowley" and a spine-chilling one of "Changes".

Ozzy's retirement from the scene proves short-lived, following a meeting with American producer Michael Beinhorn and subsequent agreements to begin recording a new album starting at the end of 1994. Osbourne's new band still features Butler on bass and, of course, Wylde on guitar, along with new drummer Deen Joseph Castronovo, formerly of hard rock outfit Hardline. The sessions for Ozzmosis take place between Paris, New York and Woodstock, with Beinhorn working on earlier recordings in the style of No More Tears that had been scrapped by Epic.

Opening with the synthesized textures of Rick Wakeman's keyboards on "Perry Mason," the album turns out to be a flop, light years away from the modern metal of just a few years earlier. "Ghost Behind My Eyes" revisits Beatles-style pop, while on tracks like "Thunder Underground" Wylde's guitar sounds almost neutered, a victim of overly soft production. Ozzy repeats his collaboration with Kilmister on the moody "See You On The Other Side," while the Eastern-tinged "My Little Man" includes a guitar part originally written by Steve Vai.

Despite the array of excellent musicians involved, Ozzmosis is a flat, toothless record, with Osbourne's voice put in service of mediocre material like "Denial" or "My Jekyll Doesn't Hide." The album still sells over two million copies in the United States, kicking off the so-called The Retirement Sucks Tour, which sees the return of Sinclair on keyboards and, more notably, Wylde's replacement by Joe Holmes (David Lee Roth), since Ozzy isn't willing to wait around for his guitarist to make up his mind after receiving an offer to join Guns N'Roses.

Ozzfest

After vainly trying to get her husband a slot on the prestigious lineup of the American Lollapalooza festival, Sharon Osbourne decides to put together a big homegrown event of her own. The first edition of Ozzfest is held over two days, October 25-26, 1996, first in Phoenix, Arizona, and then in Devore, California. On the main stage, naturally, is Ozzy, alongside Slayer, Sepultura and Fear Factory, instantly launching the festival into the imagination of every hard-music fan. The following year brings huge media attention thanks to the presence of Marilyn Manson, who sues the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority (NJSEA) over its attempt to cancel his performance, in violation of the American constitution. With subsequent appearances by bands like Foo Fighters, Pantera, Tool and Megadeth, Ozzfest grows into a full-fledged brand, a summer-long national tour that expands enormously, eventually spreading to the UK and the rest of Europe.

The 1997 edition also brings a new Black Sabbath reunion, this time without Bill Ward, sidelined by fresh health issues and replaced for the occasion by Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin. This is the genesis of Reunion, the storied English band's first live album to feature the original lineup reassembled since the days of Never Say Die!. The four set aside their old grudges and book Birmingham's NEC arena, where they perform live over two dates in December 1997. There's great concern over Bill Ward's heart, though he manages to take the stage regardless, only to suffer a nasty arm injury courtesy of a gong. Opened by the thunderous riff of "War Pigs," Reunion is, paradoxically, the band's only true live album across three decades of career, avoiding the temptation to speed up the performances on the Birmingham stage and instead capturing the slow, inexorable grandeur of Black Sabbath. Released by Epic Records in 1998, the album runs a marathon of over a hundred minutes, from the great classics "N.I.B." and "Iron Man" to two new tracks recorded for the occasion that spring: the slow doom-metal march "Psycho Man" and the more melodic "Selling My Soul," built around a drum machine with no contribution from Ward.

While Ozzy returns to touring with Black Sabbath between 1997 and 1998, the Epic compilation The Ozzman Cometh offers up several gems, from demo versions of "Black Sabbath" and "War Pigs" taken from the 1970 John Peel Sessions to a cover of "Pictures Of Matchstick Men" (Status Quo) featuring the gothic arrangement of Type O Negative.

As the new millennium dawns, Ozzy's idea is to follow the example of the Grateful Dead, that is, to give up studio work altogether and focus solely on live performance, especially given the runaway success of his annual festival. But Epic senses another opportunity to cash in on his personality, which remains squarely in the media spotlight, and asks him to record a new album, Down To Earth. Osbourne's new lineup brings back Wylde on guitar - building on parts already worked out with Joe Holmes - alongside Mike Bordin on drums and new bassist Robert Trujillo, formerly of Suicidal Tendencies. The new producer is Tim Palmer, who worked in the '90s with Pearl Jam and U2, and who has recently relocated to Los Angeles, where recording sessions begin in the Hollywood area.

Down To Earth is an album in classic Ozzy style, remarkably solid even within the ever-evolving context of metal. The liturgical piano that opens "Gets Me Through" lets the listener sink immediately into the powerful, sinister Ozzy sound. The thrashing rhythm of "Facing Hell" carries a new set of cursed lyrics, while the melancholy orchestral ballad "Dreamer" addresses humanity's destruction of the planet and is described by Osbourne himself as his own answer to Lennon's "Imagine."

Given Palmer's track record, the album takes on grunge overtones on tracks like "No Easy Way Out" and "Junkie," while "Black Illusion" carries an obvious nod to Black Sabbath's doom-laden slowness. Osbourne now seems a true master at alternating his most violent moments with passages of melodic openness, as on the elegant, cinematic "Running Out Of Time." But in the end, it always comes back to the good old madman, who has a field day recounting his ever-burning madness on vibrant tracks like "Alive."

The Osbournes

March 5, 2002. MTV airs the premiere of a reality show destined to make history, or at least to rewrite the rules for the public exposure of the eccentric lives of so-called celebrities. "The Osbournes" chronicles the highly unconventional daily life of the Prince of Darkness's family, made up of his iron lady Sharon and their children Kelly and Jack. Only Aimee is missing, having flatly refused to be filmed for a worldwide broadcast, openly criticizing her family's choice. Aimee may not be entirely wrong, since her parents' health is in dire shape: Sharon is battling stage-three colon cancer, while Ozzy shows up at the MTV studios constantly stoned.

But it's probably Ozzy's proverbial irony, combined with the anticonformism of Sharon, Kelly and Jack, that keeps them from taking it all too seriously, effectively turning an already legendary rock figure into a fully rounded star. So much so that in June 2002 Ozzy is invited to Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee to perform "Paranoid" at Buckingham Palace. Meanwhile, in one episode of the family reality show, he complains about the volume of a vacuum cleaner being too loud - one he hasn't even managed to switch on by himself.

Even funnier is the dedication to his own daughter Aimee on the album The Osbourne Family Album, released by Epic in 2002 and made up of tracks chosen by the various family members, including a swing-jazz cover of "Crazy Train" lifted from Pat Boone's absurd, unmissable album "In A Metal Mood."

Filming of "The Osbournes" hits a snag in December 2003, when Ozzy is rushed to Wexham Park Hospital after a terrible fall while riding his quad bike near his home in Buckinghamshire. Osbourne suffers multiple fractures, to his collarbone and several vertebrae: he's saved by a miracle thanks to his bodyguard Sam Ruston, who resuscitates him after he had stopped breathing. The surgery goes well in the end, following an alarming halt in blood flow to his right arm, but his health troubles don't stop there. On live television, Ozzy often has to ask family members to repeat themselves, showing clear signs of hearing trouble. Increasingly frequent tremors are initially put down to excessive drug use, but he is later diagnosed with a genetic form of Parkinson's disease. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he describes his Beverly Hills doctor, who had him taking some 13,000 doses across more than 30 different medications, radically transforming his body and limiting certain movements.

Meanwhile, while lying in a hospital bed, he lands at number one on the UK charts with a version of "Changes" performed as a duet with his daughter Kelly. And it's no small record: the longest gap between two number-one singles, thirty-three years after "Paranoid."

Having recovered from the operation, Osbourne returns to perform with Black Sabbath during Ozzfest 2004. Meanwhile, Epic sets about filling the gap in his discography, starting with Live At Budokan — also released on DVD with a sprawling extended version of "Suicide Solution" — and two commercially successful compilations. The Essential Ozzy Osbourne comes out in 2003 as a three-disc set, partially reworked following the lawsuit brought against the management by Daisley and Kerslake over unpaid royalties.

The mammoth box set The Prince Of Darkness is released in 2005, running over four hours of music and including, across its final two discs, a number of collaborations — among them a questionable duet with Miss Piggy of the Muppets on "Born To Be Wild" — as well as unreleased demos and B-sides.

That same year Ozzy works with Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell and Cult bassist Chris Wyse on the album Under Cover, conceived as a tribute to his favourite artists. From the grimy riff of "Rocky Mountain Way" (Joe Walsh) to the aching melancholy of "In My Life" (The Beatles), the album plays out like a drawer full of sonic memories, undoubtedly enriched by the presence of some exceptional guest musicians.

"Mississippi Queen" (Mountain) features a great solo from Leslie West, while on "21st Century Schizoid Man" (King Crimson) Robert Randolph's acid-toned guitar shines. Ian Hunter resurfaces on "All The Young Dudes", ahead of a Sabbath-ified "Sunshine Of Your Love" and an "Sympathy For The Devil" reimagined with an oriental-blues flavour.

Obviously an album made strictly for Ozzy devotees, but undeniably impressive in how the songs are put together, and flawlessly played.

After supporting Sharon as a judge on the talent show "X-Factor", Osbourne tells the press of his intention to return to the studio with guitarist Zakk Wylde, while his former bandmates Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler announce the formation of the supergroup Heaven & Hell, with Vinny Appice on drums and Ronnie James Dio on vocals.

For Ozzy, this is a period of newfound sobriety, which leads him back to the Californian studios in pursuit of new creative visions. Recorded with bassist Rob Nicholson (Rob Zombie, The Death Riders), Black Rain is released in spring 2007, as Ozzy is about to turn 60. It's his first album since filming began on his much-talked-about reality show, six years on from Down To Earth, and it reveals a changed man, moving from the incarnation of the Prince of Darkness to a globally broadcast TV celebrity. Fittingly, the single "Not Going Away" reads like a statement of intent, with Ozzy declaring that he isn't going anywhere, that he'll stay on stage until the day he dies.

The apocalyptic pulse of "I Don't Wanna Stop" seems to prove him right, as the second single pulled from the album goes straight to number one on the American Mainstream Rock chart. Unsurprisingly so: Black Rain shows a clear process of normalization of heavy metal, landing much closer to radio-friendly hard rock than to the old Osbourne sound.

Opened by a bluesy harmonica, the title track leans on Wylde's riffs, though it betrays a certain sonic flatness. Tracks like "Lay Your World On Me" attempt to pick back up the darker thread, while the schizoid groove of "The Almighty Dollar" reveals an attempt to court new generations of listeners.

The experiment works commercially too — the album still sells half a million copies in the States — but it transforms Ozzy's music, making it more predictable and controlled. While Wylde's guitar remains a guarantee in terms of riffs ("Civilize The Universe"), Osbourne doesn't give up his classic tear-jerking ballad ("Here For You"), complete with orchestral flourishes. In the end, it all comes down to arrangements like "Countdown's Begun": modern, biting, but decidedly plastic.

One last scream

"I don't want my life to fall apart." So said Ozzy in a 2007 interview with Billboard, on the eve of turning 60. Having left the comfort of the bottle behind, Osbourne feels he still has something to offer the world of hard music, and begins searching for a new guitarist. It isn't really a break with Wylde, so much as the need to move away from a sound seen as too close to that of Black Label Society, the band fronted by Zakk himself. When he performs at the American gamer convention BlizzCon in the summer of 2009, lead guitar duties are handed to Gus G, the stage name of Greek musician Konstantinos Karamitroudis.

A native of Thessaloniki, Karamitroudis enrolled at Berklee College of Music at just eighteen, dropping out after a few weeks to devote himself to metal. After his first amateur project, called Firewind, Gus G went on to work with several bands — Nightrage and Dream Evil — before receiving an email from Ozzy's management in the spring of 2009 inviting him to fly to Los Angeles for a lightning audition. Introduced to the public during the BlizzCon show, the young guitarist takes part in the new recording sessions at The Bunker, Ozzy's new home studio, working again with producer Kevin Churko, retained behind the desk after the previous album, Black Rain.

The title announced online, "Soul Sucka", sparks vocal protests from Osbourne's fans, who could never imagine walking around the house in a t-shirt bearing such a dreadful name. Retitled Scream, the album is released in June 2010, with Adam Wakeman joining the lineup on keyboards after six years of touring with Ozzy alone. The new studio record is unveiled with great fanfare at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, when, during the fifth-inning break of a game between the Dodgers and the Angels, the crowd is invited to attempt the Guinness World Record for the longest and loudest scream. The exact decibel level reached is never disclosed, but the previous record, held by the Finnish Boy Scouts, is broken, resulting in a substantial donation to ThinkCure!, the cancer research charity.

Scream partly proves wrong the critics who see Ozzy as a spent force after his TV antics, starting with the violent, industrial-tinged chorus of "Let It Die". The arrival of Gus G, brought in by Osbourne precisely to move away from Wylde's sound, pays off, as heard in the vibrant doom riff of "Latimer's Mercy" or the pyrotechnic "Diggin' Me Down", which opens in a Spanish-flavoured acoustic mode before veering into progressive scales, in a kind of tribute to the extreme technicality of Rhoads.

Not too fortunate commercially, Scream alternates light-and-shade tracks like “Life Won’t Wait” with moments of brilliance like the pure melody of “Time”. When it hammers home the point about being a “rockstar” early on, Osbourne isn't just waving a flag of grandeur, he's confirming he's alive and well on a professional level. And the sludge drift of tracks like “Soul Sucker” and “Fearless” prove he can still aspire to the role of godfather of metal worldwide.

In November 2011 a surprise announcement arrives from Osbourne, Iommi, Butler and Ward, who reunite the original line-up of Black Sabbath. The fans' astonishment isn't so much about the new world tour, but about the release of a new album of original material for the first time since 1978. The album will be called 13 and will be released in June 2013 by the historic Vertigo Records, produced by guru Rick Rubin, who in fact goes back to work on tapes already tried out with him by the band in 2001, shelved for over ten years due to the various commitments of their respective solo careers. At the Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, however, drummer Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave) takes part, after Bill Ward's decision to back out of the new reunion following contractual disputes with management. Rubin's work is suddenly moved to the UK after Tony Iommi is diagnosed with lymphoma, though he isn't allowed to stop the group, which by now is fully launched towards a stunning comeback.

In spring 2013, Black Sabbath indeed return to stages around the world, starting from New Zealand and Australia before taking part in the Japanese edition of Ozzfest, pausing only for a few weeks at home for Iommi's treatment.

13 comes out on 7 June amid the fans' utmost anticipation, preceded by two singles that climb the Rock & Metal charts. “God Is Dead?” is a hypnotic return to dark doom atmospheres, inspired by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and among the longest compositions the band has ever created, running almost nine minutes. Black Sabbath pull off a seemingly titanic feat: crafting an album that seems to have stopped time, as on the technological nightmare of cloning depicted by the obsessive, claustrophobic rhythm of “End Of The Beginning”. From the old-school riff of “Loner” to the brilliant revival of the hypnotic atmospheres of “Planet Caravan” in “Zeitgeist”, the group makes the most of Rubin's genius to make a grand return to the contemporary heavy metal scene. Ozzy himself shows he's regained excellent vocal form after his period of sobriety, amid the new doom-blues obsessions of “Damaged Soul” and the steady gallop of “Dear Father”, closer to his solo repertoire.

In July 2013, after the release of 13, Black Sabbath's Reunion Tour lands in the United States before heading to South America and then Europe. The grand finale is scheduled for 4 July 2014 at Hyde Park, London, while Vertigo releases the live album Live… Gathered In Their Masses, which oozes legend, from a chills-inducing version of “War Pigs” to - in the DVD edition - the new “Methademic”, already among the bonus tracks of 13 and the only composition credited to Ozzy without Butler's involvement.

The success of the album and tour leads Black Sabbath back to Rick Rubin's Shangri La Studios, to rework several riffs written by Iommi during the 13 sessions. The idea is to release a new album of unreleased material, but Butler isn't convinced, while Ozzy thinks it would take another three or four years to finish it properly.

At the start of 2016, an EP is thus released, The End, which actually runs almost an hour, definitively putting an end to the group's revolutionary adventure. From the funeral march of “Season Of The Dead”, the new tracks are like a sonic appendix to the last studio work, retaining that Sabbath-esque allure to the delight of millions of fans.

Between the doom weave of “Cry All Night” and the flamenco forays of “Take Me Home”, The End is the English group's brief testament, sold exclusively during the subsequent world tour, which kicked off on 20 January 2016 at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha. On drums is Tommy Clufetos in place of Wilk, while Bill Ward can't get past the old grievances, both contractual and personal, especially towards Osbourne.

The tour brings fans to tears by the thousands, while over a million tickets are sold across the four corners of the planet. The finale is of course scheduled for Birmingham, at the Genting Arena, on 2 and 4 February 2017. Iommi is struck by the devastation among the audience, while Ozzy bids everyone farewell with a simple: “Thank you, goodnight, thanks for everything”.

Just an Ordinary Man

After closing out the new Sabbath chapter, Ozzy Osbourne takes part for the first time as a solo headliner at Download Festival, at the end of 2017. A few months later, he announces the start of the No More Tours II, an explicit reference to the old farewell tour of 1992, pointing out that it isn't a real retirement from the scene, simply a drastic reduction of live activities to avoid being away for months without his family.

The tour kicks off in April 2018 from Jacksonville, but will be plagued by various problems, the first of which is recounted by Ozzy himself during a podcast: “It was the dead of night, I went to the bathroom and when I came back to the room to go back to sleep, I missed the bed and fell to the floor. I went down straight, face first. I didn't feel any pain, but I realized something was wrong. I couldn't move, Sharon woke up and said to me: 'What are you doing on the floor?'. And I said: 'Call an ambulance, I've broken my neck!'”.

The fall at home shifts the metal plates that had been fitted after the quad bike accident, leading to the cancellation of all the tour dates from the end of 2018 onwards. The second problem comes with the Coronavirus pandemic, which effectively halts live events around the world, while the third is far more serious, given that his Parkinson's disease worsens alarmingly.

After the great success of the track “Take What You Want”, in collaboration with Post Malone, in 2020 his new album finally comes out, already announced by Epic Records a full five years earlier. Ordinary Man is the touching reflection of the rockstar turned man at the end of his strength, by now worn down by a dissolute career that has incredibly kept him alive to the brink of 70. “I don't know why I'm still alive”, he sings on the poignant title track, sitting almost in tears in front of the film of his own life, joined by special guest Elton John. The melancholy orchestral ballad is the single that does the rounds on the radio in the thick of the pandemic, embellished by a solo from Slash.

The album is a parade of stars, who rally to help Ozzy work on the collection, opened by the sinister riff of the Sabbath-esque “Straight To Hell”, on which Osbourne opens with a nostalgic “All Right Now!”, drawn from the vocal intro of “Sweet Leaf”. On drums is now Chad Smith (RHCP), with producer Andrew Watt directing the orchestra and Duff McKagan juggling bass and guitar. On the captivating power-ballad “Under The Graveyard”, two actors - Jack Kilmer and Jessica Barden - are also enlisted to play Ozzy and Sharon, portraying the singer's absurd life in the official video.

Ordinary Man isn't a perfect record, but it's cleverly produced to once again modernize Osbourne's sound, even if he sometimes falls back on already-heard tricks like "Eat Me" and "Scary Little Green Men". Still, the album also boasts some convincing numbers, such as the Metallica-scented "Today Is The End" and the new collaboration with Post Malone on the punk-thrash mix of "It's A Raid".

Music critics embrace Ordinary Man, which climbs the UK charts, while Osbourne wastes no time announcing his intention to release a new album with the help of Andrew Watt. Patient Number 9 brings the welcome return of Zakk Wylde on lead guitar, accompanied by an impressive string of special guests that by now suggests a kind of Ozzy & Friends. On the long title track, Jeff Beck turns in one of his trademark solos in the psychedelic-flavored middle section, before the long, prog-adjacent outro. The aggressive grunge-metal mix of "Immortal" features Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), while the metalcore of "Parasite" sees Wylde returning alongside Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters) on drums.

Aside from the annoying but inevitable use of autotune to prop up Ozzy's faltering voice, Patient Number 9 is a fun and varied record, ranging from a reclaiming of the Sabbath-style sound on tracks like "No Escape From Now" and "Degradation Rules" (with Tony Iommi) to more traditional rock, as on the gem "One Of Those Days" with Eric Clapton. There's no shortage of more melodic, Beatles-esque tracks either, like "A Thousand Shades" and "Nothing Feels Right", built on architecture similar to that of "Black Hole Sun". Wylde's work on the downtempo groove of "Evil Shuffle" is excellent, and, with hindsight of what was to come, the short, skeletal closer "Darkside Blues" seems perfect for closing a sonic circle, between a harmonica and a satanic laugh.

After the release of his latest album, Ozzy finds the strength to perform on two occasions: on August 30, at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, where he sings "Iron Man" and "Paranoid" backed by Iommi, Tommy Clufetos and Adam Wakeman; and on September 8, at the NFL Kickoff event at Inglewood's SoFi Stadium, with Zakk Wylde. At the start of 2023 he announces he's working on a new album and is ready to get back on tour, having undergone surgery on the spine that had tormented him for twenty years following the near-paralysis caused by his quad bike accident. But Parkinson's no longer allows him to stand, so the mega-event "Back To The Beginning" is organized at Villa Park in Birmingham, where he performs seated on a conspicuous black throne, like the true Prince of Darkness.

On the morning of July 22, just two weeks after his final performance, Ozzy Osbourne is officially killed by a heart attack, caused of course by a series of deteriorating health factors, including Parkinson's disease. The public funeral is held in Birmingham, where the hearse tours the city, passing over what is now known as Black Sabbath Bridge. Tens of thousands of people attend in mourning, while his friend Elton John assures that Ozzy Osbourne has a guaranteed place in the pantheon of rock gods.

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