Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Decades before reality television was invented, Ozzy Osbourne was subversive and dark. Ozzy was the singer in the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and they meant business. In an era when rock bands were measured by how 'heavy' they were, no one was weightier than Black Sabbath. All four founding members of the original Black Sabbath grew up within half-a-mile of each other in a tiny Birmingham suburb. Though all shared a deep love of music--The Beatles for Ozzy, the Mothers of Invention for Geezer, the Shadows and Chet Atkins for Iommi, and Gene Kruppa for Ward— they formed their group "as the quickest way out of the slums." This is the story of how they made that dream come true--and how it then turned into a nightmare for all of them. At the height of their fame, Sabbath discovered they'd been so badly ripped off by their managers they didn't even own their own songs. They looked for salvation from Don Arden—an even more notorious gangster figure, who resurrected their career but still left them indebted to him, financially and personally. It finally came to a head when in 1979 they sacked Ozzy: "For being too out of control--even for us," as Bill Ward put it. The next fifteen years were a war between the post-Ozzy Sabbath and Ozzy himself, whose solo career overshadowed Sabbath so much that a reunion was entirely on his terms. Or rather, those of his wife and manager—to add a further bitter twist for Sabbath, daughter of Don Arden —Sharon Osbourne.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Veteran U.K. rock writer and broadcaster Wall (Enter Night) sets his sights on his biggest subject yet: groundbreaking band Black Sabbath. With solid research and impressive writing, he delivers a book worthy of the band's legacy. Four lads from a quiet British suburb outside of industrial Birmingham create a new sound that would launch heavy metal music. But the rock 'n' roll dream quickly devolves into a nightmare of alcohol abuse, mountains of cocaine, personality clashes, shady management, fiscal misdeeds, breakups, new lineups and, in the end, a successful reunion. The band's two outsize personalities especially come to life. Bandleader and guitarist Tony Iommi dabbles in the occult, and his iron-fist paranoid perfectionism and drug abuse leads him to tear the band apart. Ozzy Osbourne, the charismatic singer, would resurrect his career from the boozy and drug-addled depths more than once first in a solo career with ill-fated guitarist Randy Rhoads, and later as a reality TV star. As he did in his biography of Led Zeppelin, When Giants Walked the Earth, Wall rises to the occasion of writing the story of a band so tightly cloaked in legend, resulting in a quintessential rock biography.
Customer Reviews
Very Sabifying
I would challenge you to find a more comprehensive and well written book on Sabbath than this one. None of the formulaic generically written crap that you’ll find in most rock music bios. This one is heavy on the heavy.