Iron Man
My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath
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4.3 • 6 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Black Sabbath is currently on “The End Tour,” which they have proclaimed as their final concert tour.
Iron Man chronicles the story of both pioneering guitarist Tony Iommi and legendary band Black Sabbath, dubbed “The Beatles of heavy metal” by Rolling Stone. Iron Man reveals the man behind the icon yet still captures Iommi's humor, intelligence, and warmth. He speaks honestly and unflinchingly about his rough-and-tumble childhood, the accident that almost ended his career, his failed marriages, personal tragedies, battles with addiction, band mates, famous friends, newfound daughter, and the ups and downs of his life as an artist.
Everything associated with hard rock happened to Black Sabbath first: the drugs, the debauchery, the drinking, the dungeons, the pressure, the pain, the conquests, the company men, the contracts, the combustible drummer, the critics, the comebacks, the singers, the Stonehenge set, the music, the money, the madness, the metal.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While there are other books that offer more detail about the band, lead guitarist and songwriter Iommi's chronicle is an important addition to the Black Sabbath story. Even early Sabbath detractors recognized that Iommi's pummeling riffs in songs like "Iron Man" and "War Pigs" powerfully delivered by lead singer Ozzy Osborne defined the Sabbath sound. Iommi's autobiography is as direct as his music, beginning with his description of losing the two middle fingers on his left hand in an industrial press accident as a teenager in the early days of the band, which, he notes, some people credit with creating "the deeper, down-tuned sound" of the band "I had to reinvent my style of playing to accommodate the pain." The book's main virtue is its straightforward, year-by-year account of the band's history, from early struggles ("When we recorded Paranoid I still lived at home") through the band's breakup with Ozzy in 1979 ("There were so many drugs flying around, coke and Quaaludes and Mandrax, and there was booze and late nights and women and everything else") to Iommi's post-Ozzy versions of Sabbath and various solo projects.
