Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath began as a small heavy metal band in Aston, Birmingham, England. Originally known as the Polka Tulk Blues Company in 1966 they began their music career. By 1968 the name was shorted down to Polka Tulk and then changed again to Earth. They were popular for the blues-rock and hard rock was that relatively new to the music industry.

In 1966 when the Polka Tulk Blues Company began the band consisted of Ozzy Osborne on vocals, Toni Iommi played guitar, Terence "Geezer" Butler played bass and Bill Ward was on the drums. The early music of the Black Sabbath was a combination of blues, jazz, rock and cover songs of hard rock hits by such artists as Cram, Blue Cheer and Jimi Hendrix. Osborne was deeply influence by the Beetles while other members found different music groups to be influence in their musical choices.

As the band began to gain in popularity, Geezer Butler entered into an influential time is his life when he began to explore black magic and black magic novels by Dennis Wheatley. Butler soon wrote an occult-themed song titled "Black Sabbath".

As the band grew in popularity, they began to get mixed up with another band that was also using the name of "Earth" and in what seemed a natural change of events; they changed their name to "Black Sabbath".

As the group grew, they began to notice that they did not have a gimmick. Then one day, as if by accident, their gimmick found them. While rehearsing in a studio, that happened to be outside a theater that was showing a horror show, Bill Ward was watching the people as they went inside the theatre to see the movie. He made the comment that is was very odd that people would willingly pay money to sit in front of a movie screen and watch a show that fully intended to scare the audience.

With this epiphany, the band began moving further and further into the dark side of life, promoting the occult and other concepts within their music. It was their attempt to become the audio version of horror films.

The 1970's found the band cultivating their new sound and stage antics of Ozzy Osbourne. Their first album, released on February, Friday the 13th, 1970 was titled Black Sabbath. The band signed with Warner Bros. Records in both the United States and Canada. For the rest of the world, Vertigo Records held their contract.

The arrival of their second album, Paranoid brought even more notoriety in the United States and Canada. The most popular single off of this album, Paranoid, had been added as an afterthought, intended to lengthen the album. It ended up being the single that received the most airtime and earned then considerable more recognition on the airways.

In 1973, Black Sabbath was a major concert draw and their popularity was growing to such extreme that they finished the year considered one of the most popular heavy metal rock bands in the country. As the popularity grew, so did the drug abuse. Ozzy Osbourne and Bill Ward were heavily into LSD and these addictions played out in the lyrics of the bands songs. As the drug addictions climbed, the bands physical structure began to suffer, management was falling apart, music experimentation was working against them and as such albums began to fail.

In 1977 Ozzy Osbourne began to stop attending rehearsals and the remaining band members began to record music with other vocalists. Osbourne would continue coming in and out of the band until 1979 when he was officially asked to leave the band. Ronnie James Dio replaced him.

Over the next three decades, Black Sabbath would make many different changes in their performers, suffer many different successes and failures and would regroup with the original members and then disband again. The eighties and nineties found the band and its many transitional members either coming or going but nothing that proved to be successful in the long run.

Then, In December of 1997 by a stroke of odd circumstances, all of the original members somehow managed to perform together. After almost twenty years, the original band members officially reformed the original Black Sabbath on a permanent basis.

In November 2005, The United Kingdom's Music Hall of Fame inducted Black Sabbath and had them play at the awards ceremony. It was during this time that the announcement was made that the United States would also induct the band into the U.S. Rock and Roll Hall of game. The ceremony was held on March 13, 2006.

As of 2007, the original lineup of Black Sabbath still performs together, however now it is under a new name, Heaven and Hell, based upon a recent album release and the current tour. It should be noted that the album, band and tour are all using the same name at this time. On the Osbourne's Website, rumor has it that the band could be making a new album, the official announcement will be made sometime in 2007.

 

 

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