Ozzy Osbourne, the gloomy, demon-invoking lead singer of the pioneering band Black Sabbath who grew to become the throaty, growling voice — and drug-and-alcohol ravaged id — of heavy metallic, died Tuesday, simply weeks after his farewell present. He was 76.
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time,” a household assertion from Birmingham, England, mentioned. In 2020, he revealed he had Parkinson’s illness after struggling a fall.
Both clad in black or bare-chested, the singer was typically the goal of oldsters’ teams for his imagery and as soon as brought about an uproar for biting the pinnacle off a bat. Later, he would reveal himself to be a doddering and candy father on the truth TV present “The Osbournes.”
The Massive Bang of heavy metallic
Black Sabbath’s 1969 self-titled debut LP has been likened to the Massive Bang of heavy metallic. It got here in the course of the top of the Vietnam Warfare and crashed the hippie social gathering, dripping menace and foreboding. The quilt of the report was of a spooky determine towards a stark panorama. The music was loud, dense and offended, and marked a shift in rock ’n’ roll.
The band’s second album, “Paranoid,” included such traditional metallic tunes as “War Pigs,” “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots.” The track “Paranoid” solely reached No. 61 on the Billboard Sizzling 100 however grew to become in some ways the band’s signature track. Each albums have been voted among the many high 10 biggest heavy metallic albums of all time by readers of Rolling Stone journal.
“Black Sabbath are the Beatles of heavy metal. Anybody who’s serious about metal will tell you it all comes down to Sabbath,” Dave Navarro of the band Jane’s Dependancy wrote in a 2010 tribute in Rolling Stone. “There’s a direct line you can draw back from today’s metal, through Eighties bands like Iron Maiden, back to Sabbath.”
Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979 for his legendary excesses, like displaying up late for rehearsals and lacking gigs. “We knew we didn’t really have a choice but to sack him because he was just so out of control. But we were all very down about the situation,” wrote bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler in his memoir, “Into the Void.”
Osbourne reemerged the following yr as a solo artist with “Blizzard of Ozz” and the next yr’s “Diary of a Madman,” each exhausting rock classics that went multiplatinum and spawned enduring favorites corresponding to “Crazy Train,” “Goodbye to Romance,” “Flying High Again” and “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll.” Osbourne was twice inducted to the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame — as soon as with Sabbath in 2006 and once more in 2024 as a solo artist.
The unique Sabbath lineup reunited for the primary time in 20 years in July 2025 within the U.Okay. for what Osborne mentioned could be his closing live performance. “Let the madness begin!” he informed 42,000 followers.
Metallica, Weapons N Roses, Slayer, Instrument, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon all did units. Tom Morello, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Billy Corgan, Ronnie Wooden, Travis Barker, Sammy Hagar and extra made appearances. Actor Jason Momoa was the host for the festivities.
“Black Sabbath: we’d all be different people without them, that’s the truth,” mentioned Pantera singer Phil Anselmo. “I know I wouldn’t be up here with a microphone in my hand without Black Sabbath.”
Outlandish exploits and a traditional look
Osbourne embodied the excesses of metallic. His outlandish exploits included relieving himself on the Alamo, snorting a line of ants off a sidewalk and, most memorably, biting the pinnacle off the dwell bat {that a} fan threw onstage throughout a 1981 live performance. (He mentioned he thought it was rubber.)
Osbourne was sued in 1987 by dad and mom of a 19-year-old teen who died by suicide whereas listening to his track “Suicide Solution.” The lawsuit was dismissed. Osbourne mentioned the track was actually concerning the risks of alcohol, which brought about the loss of life of his buddy Bon Scott, lead singer of AC/DC.
Then-Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York claimed in 1990 that Osbourne’s songs led to demonic possession and even suicide. “You are ignorant about the true meaning of my songs,” the singer wrote again. “You have also insulted the intelligence of rock fans all over the world.”
Audiences at Osbourne exhibits may very well be mooned or spit on by the singer. They’d typically be hectored to scream together with the track, however the Devil-invoking Osbourne would often ship the crowds dwelling with their ears ringing and a hearty “God bless!”
He began an annual tour — Ozzfest — in 1996 after he was rejected from the lineup of what was then the highest touring music pageant, Lollapalooza. Ozzfest has gone on to host such bands as Slipknot, Instrument, Megadeth, Rob Zombie, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park.
Osbourne’s look modified little over his life. He wore his lengthy hair flat, heavy black eye make-up and spherical glasses, typically sporting a cross round his neck. In 2013, he reunited with Black Sabbath for the dour, uncooked “13,” which reached No. 1 on the U.Okay. Albums Chart and peaked at No. 86 on the U.S. Billboard 200. In 2019, he had a High 10 hit when featured on Submit Malone’s “Take What You Want,” Osbourne’s first track within the High 10 since 1989.
In 2020, he launched the album “Ordinary Man,” which had as its title track a duet with Elton John. “I’ve been a bad guy, been higher than the blue sky/And the truth is I don’t wanna die an ordinary man,” he sang. In 2022, he landed his first profession back-to-back No. 1 rock radio singles from his album “Patient Number 9,” which featured collaborations with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Mike McCready, Chad Smith, Robert Trujillo and Duff McKagan. It earned 4 Grammy nominations.
On the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame induction ceremony in 2024, Jack Black known as him “greatest frontman in the history of rock ‘n’ roll” and “the Jack Nicholson of rock.” Osbourne thanked his followers, his guitarist Randy Rhoads and his longtime spouse, Sharon.
The beginnings of Black Sabbath
John Michael Osbourne was raised within the gritty metropolis of Birmingham, England. Youngsters in class nicknamed him Ozzy, brief for his surname. As a boy, he cherished the 4 Seasons, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. The Beatles made an enormous impression.
“They came from Liverpool, which was approximately 60 miles north of where I come from,” he informed Billboard. “So all of a sudden it was in my grasp, but I never thought it would be as successful as it became.”
Within the late Sixties, Osbourne had teamed up with Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Invoice Ward because the Polka Tulk Blues Band. They determined to rename the band Earth, however discovered to their dismay there was one other band with that identify. So that they modified the identify to the American title of the traditional Italian horror film “I Tre Volti Della Paura,” starring Boris Karloff: Black Sabbath.
As soon as they discovered their sludgy, ominous groove, the band was productive, placing out their self-titled debut and “Paranoid” in 1970, “Master of Reality” in 1971, “Vol. 4” in 1972 and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” in 1973.
The music was all about industrial guitar riffs and disorienting modifications in time signatures, together with lyrics that spoke of alienation and doom. “People think I’m insane because I am frowning all the time,” Osbourne sang in a single track. “All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy/Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t find something to pacify.”
The Guardian newspaper in 2009 mentioned the band “introduced working-class anger, stoner sludge grooves and witchy horror-rock to flower power. Black Sabbath confronted the empty platitudes of the 1960s and, along with Altamont and Charles Manson, almost certainly helped kill off the hippy counterculture.”
After Sabbath, Osbourne had an uncanny knack for calling a number of the most artistic younger guitarists to his facet. When he went solo, he employed the sensible innovator Rhoads, who performed on two of Osbourne’s best solo albums, “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman.” Rhoads was killed in a freak aircraft accident in 1982; Osbourne launched the dwell album “Tribute” in 1987 in his reminiscence.
Osbourne then signed Jake E. Lee, who lent his abilities to the platinum albums “Bark at the Moon” and “The Ultimate Sin.” Hotshot Zakk Wylde joined Osbourne’s band for “No Rest for the Wicked” and the multiplatinum “No More Tears.”
“They come along, they sprout wings, they blossom, and they fly off,” Osbourne mentioned of his gamers in 1995 to The Related Press. “But I have to move on. To get a new player now and again boosts me on.”
Courting controversy — and wholesomeness
Whomever he was enjoying with, Osbourne wasn’t more likely to again down from controversy. He had the final giggle when the TV evangelist the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart in 1986 lambasted numerous rock teams and rock magazines as “the new pornography,” prompting some retailers to drag Osbourne’s album.
When Swaggart later was caught with a intercourse employee in 1988, Osbourne put out the track “Miracle Man” about his foe: “Miracle man got busted/miracle man got busted,” he sang. “Today I saw a Miracle Man, on TV cryin’/Such a hypocritical man, born again, dying.”
A lot later, an entire new Osbourne could be revealed when “The Osbournes,” which ran on MTV from 2002-2005, confirmed this one-time self-proclaimed madman ingesting Weight-reduction plan Cokes as he struggled to seek out the Historical past Channel on his new satellite tv for pc tv or warning his youngsters to not smoke or drink earlier than they launched into an evening in town.
Later, he and his son Jack toured America on the journey present “Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour,” the place the pair visited such locations as Mount Rushmore and the House Middle Houston. Osbourne was honored in 2014 with the naming of a bat frog discovered within the Amazon that makes high-pitched, batlike calls. It was dubbed Dendropsophus ozzyi.
He additionally met Queen Elizabeth II throughout her Golden Jubilee weekend. He was standing subsequent to singer-actor Cliff Richard. “She took one look at the two of us, said ‘Oh, so this is what they call variety, is it?’ then cracked up laughing. I honestly thought that Sharon had slipped some acid into my cornflakes that morning,” he wrote in “I Am Ozzy.”
Thelma Riley and Osbourne married in 1971; Osbourne adopted her son Elliot Kingsley, and so they had two extra youngsters, Jessica and Louis. Osbourne later met Sharon, who grew to become her personal superstar persona, when she was working her father’s Los Angeles workplace. Her father was Don Arden, a high live performance promoter and artist supervisor. She went to Osbourne’s resort in Los Angeles to gather cash, which Osbourne had spent on medicine.
“She says she’ll come back in three days and I’d better have it. I’d always fancied her and I thought, ‘Ah, she’s coming back! Maybe I have a chance.’ I had pizza hanging from my hair, cigarette ashes on my shirt,” he informed the Los Angeles Instances in 2000. They married in 1982, had three youngsters — Kelly, Aimee and Jack — and endured periodic separations and reconciliations.
He’s survived by Sharon, and his youngsters.
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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
