He was not a particularly gifted singer (after the release of Black Sabbath's first album, one of the critics wrote that everything was fine in this band, but it was worth changing the vocalist - fortunately, they did not listen to the advice), he was not such a bright showman — the episode with the bat's head bitten off was an accidental impromptu, was not and the most striking songwriter is that music has always been the "area of responsibility" of his guitarists and producers. He was just Ozzy, Ozzy Osbourne, the man who, according to many, invented "heavy metal" as we know and love it. On July 22, it became known that the Black Sabbath leader had died. Izvestia pays tribute to the memory of the great rocker.
A guy from the people
Michael Osborne got the nickname Ozzy John at school for his love of Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz. Back in the 70s, journalists called him the "prince of darkness." He himself, however, replied complacently that it sounded better than "idiot" in any case. In 1992, tired of explaining that he was just a singer in a rock band, he admitted in an interview that he went with his family to services at an Anglican church and prayed before every concert. But he really always had something of the infernal clown from a horror movie - bulging eyes, outstretched arms and, of course, his voice — that unique transcendent falsetto, breaking into a hysterical squeal.
The path to rock stardom was not too long for Ozzy. A guy from a large (three sisters and two brothers) working-class family was born in Birmingham on December 3, 1948. At the age of 15, he dropped out of school and went to work — he was both a plumber's apprentice and a loader at a slaughterhouse — and at 17 he got caught robbing a store. Ozzy did not have the money to pay the fine, but his father refused to help out his offspring, deciding to teach him a "life lesson." As a result, the future Metalist spent six weeks in Birmingham's notorious Winson Green prison.
He could have continued to roll down the crooked path if it hadn't been for rock music, which then (as, indeed, in some places today) was blamed for all the sins of this world. As a schoolboy, Ozzy fell in love with The Beatles for the rest of his life. As she said years later, when he heard She Loves You, he firmly realized that he would become a rock star himself. He was helped in this by a random friend, a bass guitar enthusiast named Terence Butler (who also went down in rock and roll history under the nickname Geezer).
Fatal mistake
In 1967, Geezer formed his first band, Rare Breed, which was soon renamed Earth. Ozzy was invited to sing, mostly because he couldn't play. Bill Ward and Tony Iommi took over the drums and guitar. After a comically absurd incident (Earth was invited to play a concert, confused with another English band with the same name), the guys decided to come up with something more original. Lady Luck was on their side — the Italian Mario Bava horror film "Three Faces of Fear" was being shown in Birmingham cinemas, which for some unknown reason was renamed "Black Sabbath" by British distributors. Soon Black Sabbath were already working in the studio on their first album, which almost immediately brought them success, fame, money — and everything that goes with it in the world of show business.
The 70s were the golden years of hard rock - and Black Sabbath were at the forefront of a new musical trend. Their stringy heavy blues, dark occult lyrics and quasi-mystical entourage of concerts made an irresistible impression on the young audience. Even behind the Iron Curtain, where the Sabbats' songs reached only on illegally smuggled records and through the howl of radio jammers, it seemed that every second schoolboy knew about Ozzy.
Love and other diseases
The band thundered all over the world, gathering full houses — "except that the girls didn't really like our songs," as Ozzy modestly noted later. One, however, liked them, just like he did. Ozzy married Thelma Riley in 1971, and the couple had two children, but the marriage itself, according to Osbourne, was a "terrible mistake." He turned out to be a lousy father, admitting that he couldn't even remember when Louis and Jessica were born. The marriage soon broke up — and Black Sabbath themselves almost broke up. Tired of the antics, the bandmates showed the vocalist the door — and he had no choice but to start a solo career.
His first solo album, Blizzard Of Ozz, released in 1981, became an international hit, not least due to the virtuoso work of young guitarist Randy Rhodes. In addition, Ozzy himself fell into the strong hands of Sharon, the daughter of the American Black Sabbath manager Don Arden, took over his affairs, and in 1982 became his legal wife. This time, the marriage turned out to be as it should be — to the grave.
Alcohol, drugs, and other excesses nearly killed Ozzy several times, but he always managed to pull through. Even the famous incident of a dead bat being thrown onto the stage by a fan, whose head he bit off, cost only a series of injections for rabies and tetanus. The press sent him to retirement many times, but he invariably returned, eventually reconciling with his Black Sabbath bandmates.
Ozzy has also been to Russia — for the first time back in Soviet times, at the International Peace Festival in Luzhniki in 1989, then this century with the reformed Black Sabbath. And each time he was greeted here literally "like a native" — although on his first visit this almost led to disastrous consequences (having already found a bottle of vodka at home among gifts from the Soviet Country, Ozzy immediately consumed it and got into a fight with his lawful wife — it is ironic that the event in Moscow was officially held under the motto "Rock against Drugs").
The English patient
By the end of his seventies, Osborne had calmed down, giving up drinking, smoking and other vices. In addition, doctors gave him a disappointing diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. He himself, however, attributed the ailment to a medical error made during surgery on his neck. In 2020, he was diagnosed with the "smokers' disease", emphysema. Despite all this, he continued to perform and release albums — the last one, called, not without dark humor, "Patient number 9", was released three years ago.
On July 5, Black Sabbath staged a grand farewell concert in their native Birmingham. All the heroes of the "heavy" music of the last half of the century came on stage with them — Metallica, Guns'n'Roses, Pantera, Gojira and a dozen more idols of "metal". Ozzy himself could no longer stand and sang, sitting on a black throne —decorated, of course, with bas-reliefs of bats. The farewell was sad, but no one could have imagined that it would turn out to be a farewell forever. The "Prince of Darkness" has forever retreated into the Great Void on a Crazy Train
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
