Guitarist Tony Iommi started off in a band called The Rockin’ Chevrolets when he was 16 years old. When they broke up he was about to join a band called The Birds & The Bees. In fact, he quit his job as a welder to become a professional musician, but his mother insisted that he go back to work on his last day to finish his employment the right way. That very day in an industrial accident with a guillotine press, Iommi cut the top off of two of his fingers on his right hand. While he had skin from his arm grafted onto the tops of those fingers, he found he was now unable to play guitar without excruciating pain, and he believed his guitar playing days were over. He considered learning to play right handed, but he eventually decided to try different types of covers for his damaged fingers that would allow him to touch and bend and slide along the strings without pain. After much time and many experiments with different materials, Iommi found a way to produce what he calls ‘thimbles’ which he places over the tips of his damaged digits and allowed him to continue playing the guitar.
As Iommi then explained in his autobiography “Part of my sound comes from learning to play primarily with my two good finger, the index and the little finger”. He then had to have the right strings to play with, a lighter gauge in order to allow his damaged fingers to do what he had done before. With music shops telling him he couldn’t get lighter strings, he substituted for lighter banjo strings for two guitar strings, allowing him to go lighter gauge on the other four strings. Eventually, through his persistence he found a manufacturer in 1971 who would produce the strings he wanted and needed, which led to the other companies suddenly jumping on board as well. Add to this the tuning down of the guitars to further help him, and you have the background to how and why Black Sabbath began to create a sound and style that would be the leader of this new genre coming into existence.
In 1967 he was asked to join a band called The Rest, whose drummer’s name was Bill Ward. When they broke up they both ended in a band called Mythology, who also soon found the break up curse upon them. The two still wanted to form a band together, and so it was time to find like-minded musicians. They saw an advertisement in a local music shop: "OZZY ZIG Needs Gig – has own PA". Bill said he knew an Ozzy but this couldn’t be him, and when Tony first saw him, as he described in his autobiography, “I know him from school, and as far as I know he isn’t a singer”. Ozzy knew the guitar player from a band called Rare Breed, who went by the name Geezer Butler. After some conversation the four along with two others, slide guitarist Jimmy Phillips who was a friend of Ozzy’s, and saxophonist Alan Clarke, formed a band called the Polka Tulk Blues Band. Geezer decided to switch from guitar to bass, though at their first rehearsal he just tuned his guitar differently because he didn’t own a bass guitar. The band played a heavy blues, but soon felt that Phillips and Clarke were superfluous to requirements. Rather than fire them, they decided instead to break up… before Iommi, Butler, Osbourne and Ward quietly got back together as a four piece a few days later.
They got around to changing the name of the band to Earth, and were beginning to do regular gigs. And then in December 1968, Iommi left to join Jethro Tull. And that was the end of the band… nah, just kidding, though yes, Iommi did join Jethro Tull. For a month. He even filmed playing with the band on something called The Rolling Stones Rock N Roll Circus, which you can still find on YouTube. But Iommi didn’t like the way the band fit (or didn’t) together, and after a month he said to Geezer “let’s get the band back together and make a real go of this”. In his autobiography he said “When I came back from Tull, I came back with a new attitude altogether. They taught me that to get on, you got to work for it”.
While playing shows in England in 1969, the band discovered they were being mistaken for another English group named Earth, so they decided to change their name again. A cinema across the street from the band's rehearsal room was showing the 1963 Italian horror film Black Sabbath, starring Boris Karloff and directed by Mario Bava. While watching people line up to see the film, Butler noted that it was "strange that people spend so much money to see scary movies". It was his suggestion that they rename the band Black Sabbath, with their first gig under the name taking place on 30 August 1969.
With songs written, the band spent 12 hours at Regent Sound studio on October 16, 1969 with producer Rodger Bain, and lay down the tracks that were to become immortal. Most of the songs were done in only one or two takes, played live, with Osbourne singing in a separate booth. One day, to record an album that was to change everything, an album that, of course, was released on Black Friday, the 13th of February 1970, and changing the way all lovers of heavy metal react to when they hear the pattering of rain and the beginning of a storm.
It would be a difficult task to dispute or argue against the fact that the title track to this album is the finest opening track of a debut album ever. Sure, go ahead and offer me any suggestion you like, but this would surely top them all. And there is very little I could say or offer here that would enlighten you any more than you should already be about the majesty of this track, and its importance in the history of the heavy metal genre. Or its importance to MANY metal sub genres. But I guess that the way people who first heard this track when the album was released in 1970 would be pretty similar to the way I reacted when I first heard this song in 1986. Because even then, it had a presence that demanded to be acknowledged. It is creepy, it is doomy. It is... enthralling. The song was written about an encounter Geezer had with a ghostly presence he saw at the end of his bed, and the music complements those lyrics perfectly. The atmosphere throughout, from the opening of pattering rain to the first guitar chord we hear from Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, the pounding of Bill Ward’s drum toms and the first vocal remonstrations from Ozzy Osbourne, is so different from anything else that any other band has produced that it doesn’t matter if you first heard it in 1970 or a decade later or more, it still make you sit up and take notice. The rise and fall of the music, allowing Ozzy to take centre stage for his vocalising, before the other three mebers take over once he completes each stanza, is perfectly executed. And then once the band rolls into the second half of the song, the transformation is complete, and Black Sabbath the band has well and truly arrived.
On the other hand, “The Wizard”, based around the character of Gandalph from The Lord of the Rings, does blend into other areas. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, apart from a couple of slight flurries prior to the song and vocals coming into synch, there is no guitar solo from the man who would become the father of heavy metal riffs. And the riff here is a beauty, don’t make that mistake, but the soloing section is pilfered by Ozzy’s harmonica which does become the dominating factor throughout the song. Ask anyone what the first thing they think of when they are asked about “The Wizard”, and it is the harmonica. Not Tony’s guitar, not Geezer’s bass, not Bill’s drumming or Ozzy’s vocals. It’s that harmonica. It is the core essence of the track, one that is good all the same but does remind you of the fact that this album, for all of its importance for a new music genre, is still feeling its way around as well.
“Behind the Wall of Sleep” has a set structure about it, with Iommi’s riff followed by a line of lyrics from Ozzy, the verse followed by a solo spurt. The title of the song was inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's short story of the same name, though lyrically it does not follow that storyline, but does move along the same mystical and dark themes that were being explored along with the heavy bluesy riff. Following on is the song that closes out the first side of the album, “N.I.B.” Geezer has said in interviews that he called the song “Nib” because of Bill Ward’s beard at the time, which he said reminded him of a pen nib. The adding of the punctuation points between the letters was nothing more than creative licence but of course has stirred up conversation for over fifty years over what the TRUE meaning of the name is, that the letters NIB actually stands for something, such as Nativity in Black. Nothing like creating a controversy and conversation point to build publicity for your album and band! The opening gives Geezer Butler the chance to shine with a warbling wandering bass line which showcases what he was beginning to offer the band in its music, before starting the song proper with his excellent bass riff that then dominates the song throughout. Ozzy sings along the bassline in synchronicity and Tony joining Geezer to double the riff through the verses. Tony’s solo through the middle of the song, and then as the outro to the song, is one of his most iconic, along with that beautiful bassline from Geezer playing alongside and underneath. “N.I.B” has always been a joy to listen to and sing along with, and air guitar along to as well. Along with the title track it is the star attraction of the album, and both are the true beginnings of what Black Sabbath became as a band.
However, for an album that is cited as being either the start of the heavy metal genre of music or at the very least being the major influencer in it coming to life, it is really only the first side of the album that really proves to be the proof of the pudding, if one was to have a critical ear to the album. And one of the main reasons for this is because of the three songs that proliferate the second side of the album, Sabbath themselves only wrote one of them.
In August 1969, the Amercian band Crow released a single from their debut album, “Evil Woman", a song that went to #17 in the US and #65 in Australia. Now, something that seemed to be a habit in the 1960’s especially was that bands would be encouraged to do their own version of a song if it became successful, and with little time difference in the release dates. And such was the case here with Black Sabbath and their debut album. Just six weeks after this single charted, Black Sabbath was encouraged to record their own version of the song in their 12-hour recording session in October. It was suggested that they needed a commercial sounding song with which to release as their own single to promote the album. And so they did, and it was eventually released as the single on January 2, 1970, with “Wicked World” as the B-side. “Evil Woman” is not a bad song, but it is unlike all of the material that the band had written on their own, and as a result it does tend to stick out like a sore thumb when you listen to the album. For a start it seems far too... happy... despite the lyrical content of the song. The mood of the track is very different to everything else presented here, and as an opening to the second side of the album it always feels a little out of place. After listening to it for so many years that doesn’t create a problem for me as a listener and a fan. But the American version of this album does not have this song on it, it has been replaced by “Wicked World”, which does not appear on the original UK version of the album. Now people’s opinions on whether or not “Wicked World” is a better song than “Evil Woman” will be divided, but for me, as a song that is written by the foursome themselves it is reason enough to have it on the album rather than the cover song. Release it as a single? By all means! Or put both of them on there. What does it matter? My personal opinion is that “Wicked World” is superior, but I am happy to sing along to “Evil Woman” every time it comes on.
“Sleeping Village” structurally is a bit unkempt, a song that goes from a quiet and introspective beginning that eventually builds to a fast-paced driving drums and guitar flow through the middle third of the song, to the return to the solace at the conclusion. The double tracked guitar on this song (and on “N.I.B.”) are the only additional pieces on the album that weren’t recorded on the take the band played for each song.
The closing track on the album, “Warning” is a long and rambling classic, but also one the band did not compose. This song comes from the band called the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation. Dunbar has played drums for almost literally everyone and he wrote this song while in this iteration of his band. The version of the blues-based exploration recorded here by Black Sabbath stretches over ten minutes in length and retains that original blues backing while incorporating the unique sounds of Iommi’s guitar and Butler’s bass. The vocals are sung over Geezer’s rumbling bass line that join harmoniously with Bill’s drumming, and yet there are points in the song where everything stops, apart from Tony’s guitar that takes off into tangents not heard to this point of the album. Structuraly again it comes across as that freeform explorative type of song that suits the time that the album was recorded, and yet still seems somewhat out of place when it comes to what this band was about to achieve.
Once I had my heavy metal awakening in the latter part of 1985, I began to try and listen to as many new bands as I could possibly get a hold of. This phenomenon meant that I was discovering and experiencing Ozzy Osbourne and Dio at the same time as Black Sabbath, and the albums both of those vocalists helmed the vocals of Black Sabbath. Add to that the difficulty of also discovering Deep Purple and find out that their lead vocalist ALSO helmed a Black Sabbath album, and it was a confusing time. So while I was listening to Ozzy’s first albums after he left Black Sabbath and loving them, the first Sabbath albums I was exposed to on a regular basis were “Heaven and Hell” and “Mob Rules”, those where Dio was the lead singer. This made it an interesting experience when I first heard the earlier albums, and especially this album, because of the big differences in music, direction and vocals. Whenever I put this album on to listen to – and that is still on a regular basis – I still have my head giving me both sides of the argument. You cannot argue just how influential this album has been, not only on the burgeoning career that the band went on after this, but on hundreds of bands around the world since. Perhaps thousands. Probably hundreds of thousands. What is introduced to the world of music, especially by the songs “Black Sabbath” and “N.I.B.” is incalculable. That combined sound of Tony Iommi’s guitar and Geezer Butler’s bass created the sound of heavy metal, and is forever the sound of Black Sabbath. Argue the semantics over the various vocalists that have played in the band, the sound of Black Sabbath is those two giants playing together. On any album where Geezer Butler is absent, THAT is when you notice the difference, not with the singer.
And yet, it isn’t the perfect representation of the band that was to come. It certainly lay down the platform, which was built on magnificently. But I don’t think anyone would consider that this is the best Black Sabbath album. It gave the band their first recorded effort, and from here they expanded and multiplied. “Paranoid”, “Master of Reality”, “Volume 4”, “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath”, “Sabotage”. What an amazing run of albums followed this debut, taking the best of what this album holds and forming it into something even more incredible, while still being able to experiment around the edges like some songs on this album do and create further entries into the genre they were creating. I first had a copy of this album recorded for me by my heavy metal music dealer in those final years of high school, but probably got more exposure of it from one of my other mates Peter, who eventually became my brother-in-law. He became a huge fan of Sabbath’s Ozzy albums in particular, and often when I went around to his house, he would have this album on. And it was terrific. When I started university at Wollongong, which necessitated a 25 minute drive from my house, I had this album on cassette in the car with “Paranoid” on the other side and it used to get a hefty workout. Eventually I came to own it on vinyl as well, and then CD to complete the collection of the day.I have had this back in rotation for the better part of a month. It is an album I wanted to reacquaint myself with fully before composing this episode, because it is an important album and one that everyone will have a strong opinion on.
And so on 20 something occasions I have listened to this album again – at home in the Metal Cavern, on my deck with a scotch, in the car and on my return to work. And it is still such a terrific album, there can be no doubt about that.
So why, when it comes to ranking all of the Sabbath albums, does it only come in at number 10 out of the 19 studio albums? Probably for the reasons I have already covered. In the main, on the back of this album, there was so much better to come, as the band improved and pushed itself, and created some of the most magnificent music not only in heavy metal, but in music in general. There’s a phrase that goes “You have to start somewhere”. That phrase doesn’t really work in the case of “Black Sabbath” the album, because starting here is already a mile in front of 99% of what other bands achieve in their entire existence. This is fork in the road for music. From this point on, you either head down the good road, or the road paved by this album. I know which road I’ve taken, and I’ve never regretted it for a moment.
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