From: ozzyfaq@hotmail.com (Ozzyfaq)
Newsgroups: alt.music.ozzy,alt.music.black-sabbath,news.answers
Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU
Subject: Ozzy Osbourne Family FAQ/Biography
Summary: Everything you've ever wanted to know on Ozzy and family
Followup-To: poster

Archive-name: music/ozzy-osbourne-faq
Posting-Frequency: every 30 days
Last-modified: September 5, 2005
Version: September 5, 2005


Ozzy Osbourne and Family FAQ/Biography

The *LARGEST* source of info on Ozzy on the Internet

Current Update: September 5, 2005

Written By Mike [ ozzyfaq@hotmail.com ]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer

This article is provided as is without any express or implied warranties.
While every effort has
been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this
article, the author,
maintainer, contributors assume(s) no responsibility for errors or
omissions, or for damages
resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

There are discrepancies in certain dates depending on which source is used.
I've attempted to
make this the most complete and accurate source of information on Ozzy
Osbourne. I believe I've
succeeded.

This FAQ is protected free speech.

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Author's Note
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Most web pages, which offer you information on Ozzy Osbourne, are sketchy.
Other pages are never
updated and remain the same for over a year. Even the commercial pages can't
beat the pages run
by Ozzy fans.

This text file is without a doubt the largest source of information
available on Ozzy, which can
be found on the Internet.

This file may be freely distributed in all forms, or put on your web page,
providing the contents
are not changed, though I doubt much would happen even if you did :)

It's sad but true that the only way internet users are able to have any
contact with the members
of Black Sabbath is to throw up a web page and jump into bed with the record
companies. If you
put up a web page then the marketing team will offer you promos and help
market.

This has always been a solo effort and will remain so, with no benefits
handed to me.

I welcome any suggestions, corrections or complaints you may have.

I have been asked if it is acceptable to use this FAQ. The answer, as stated
above, is YES. The
only condition is that you DON'T MODIFY THE FILE OR REMOVE THE CREDITS.

The majority of people may not share my opinions - or they may. But they are
mine to make and
mine alone. I enjoy his music so feel free to enjoy this biography.


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Table Of Contents
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* = UPDATED September 1, 2005


[1.0] Introduction
* [1.1] What was Ozzy's childhood like?
[1.2] How did Ozzy start his music career?
* [1.3] Who was Jim Simpson? (Manager Number One)
* [1.4] Who was Earth/Black Sabbath?
NEW [1.4b] Earth concert dates
* [1.5] How Black Sabbath came to be?
[1.6] Paranoia
* [1.7] An act of SABOTAGE?
[1.8] Manager Number Two
* [1.9] When and how did Ozzy leave Black Sabbath?

* [2.0] Randy Rhoads
[2.1] What the hell is this about biting a bat? (Diary of a Madman)
* [2.2] When and how did Randy Rhoads die?
* [2.3] What is this about a dove?
[2.4] Wife as Manager/Speak of the Devil
[2.5] Suicide Solution
[2.6] Bark at the Moon
[2.7] The Ultimate Disaster
[2.8] No Rest for the Wicked
[2.9] No More Beers
[2.10] Ozzmosis
[2.11] Why did Zakk leave Ozzy?
* [2.11b] Ozzfest
[2.12] Of Priests and Devils
* [2.13] Will there ever be a reunion?
* [2.14] After Ozzmosis/Ozzfest
* [2.15] The Osbournes (2002-2003)
* [2.16] Kelly
* [2.17] Jack
* [2.18] Aimee
NEW * [2.19] Louis
* [2.20] Who is Robert Marcato?
* [2.21] The Family
* [2.22] Money, money, money
NEW [2.23] Kerslake and Daisley
[2.24] Continuing in 2004/2005


INFORMATION
===========

Updated Soon [3.0] Ozzy Album Discography
Updated Soon [3.1] Rare/B-sides/etc.
* [3.2] Song Definitions
* [3.3] Did You Know?
[3.4] Tattoos
* [3.5] Milestones
* [3.6] Questions
* [3.7] Quotations
* [3.8] Fan Club Info
* [3.9] Ozzy and Black Sabbath books
* [3.10] Ozzy's Movie Career
* [3.11] Where are they now?

CONCLUSION
==========

* [4.0] Closing Remarks
* [4.1] Credits


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1.0 INTRODUCTION
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1968
====
In a small German club, a band by the name of "Earth" is up on the stage.
The audience is
ignoring the band as audiences typically do. The lead singer, Ozzy, decides
to get their
attention. He goes back to the dressing room, unnoticed by the audience.
Backstage, he coats his
hands, face and feet with purple paint. He returns to the stage and then
screams at the audience.
The audience remains oblivious to this purple man screaming at them. The
band resigns themselves
to the fact that the audience is just not going to pay them any attention.

Present day
===========

Ask someone if they have heard of Celine Dion or Tom Cochrane, and even if
their answer is no,
they have most likely heard about Ozzy Osbourne or Black Sabbath. Since his
debut in the late 60's
as a blues/rock singer, this man has had a worldwide impact on the music
scene.

You may think of him as a drugged out lunatic who sacrifices animals and
eats dead frogs for
supper while worshiping Satan with dead bodies around him. This is of course
complete and utter
nonsense... I have never heard of him using more than one dead body. :)

The most common stories are the beheading of the bat, wasn't there something
about a dove?, and
what was that about the Alamo? From his childhood right on up to his current
Ozzmosis album, this
file will attempt to explain it all.

At the age of 57, this man still has the mind, and at times, the body of a
22 year old. His
records still continue to sell and make it to the charts, his concerts sell
out within minutes,
all this despite his never having followed any given 'trend' as a lot of
music groups try to do
today. When Britney Spears is 48, do you think she will still have sell out
concerts?

With the introduction of The Osbournes on MTV, a new younger generation of
Ozzy fans is heading
to the internet, exposed to the singer in a new light. The newsgroup has
never so much activity.
Unfortunately most of it comes from young people who have no ability to
express themselves
without the use of profanity.

"When I left school I wanted to become a plumber. When I heard the Beatles I
wanted to become a
Beatle" ...Ozzy


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
What was Ozzy's childhood like?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"It doesn't give me a very good reflection about the state of crime in the
country."
Ozzy, former thief, on his English home being broken into

The year was 1948 and John Michael Osbourne was born on December 3rd in the
industrial town of
Birmingham, England to Jack and Lillian Osbourne. John was the fourth of six
children (2
brothers, Paul and Tony) and 3 sisters (Jean, Iris and Gillian) in a small
two bedroom home at
14 Lodge Road in Aston, England. Needless to say the house was more than a
little crowded.

Ozzy's father worked nights in a steel plant while his mother worked days in
the Lucas car plant
assembling electrical circuits. His family was in poor financial shape with
no money, no car and
little food. Ozzy says his childhood consisted of one pair of shoes, one
pair of socks, no
underwear, one pair of pants and one jacket. There would be a bucket at the
end of the bed to
urinate in, which sat there for months. Their beds never had clean sheets,
and sometimes they
used overcoats as bed sheets.

Ozzy was beaten quite a bit by his father; most of it was deserved for
stunts like trying to kill
his siblings. (Ed: While I don't condone the beating of a child, I also
don't think one should
attempt to kill one's siblings either. Take the above comment with this in
mind.)

One day Ozzy's friends gave his brother a used condom and told him it was a
balloon. His brother
went into the house with the condom blown up, and his father washed his
mouth out with soap.

In his spare time, Ozzy would watch television. He liked shows such as "I
love Lucy", "Lassie"
and "Roy Rogers". This was the lifestyle of Birmingham, a time where you
went to work all day and
then to the pub to drink and play darts until deciding to stagger home. For
the Osbourne family,
life was no different. It was all work and little time to enjoy the finer
moments in life. While
the Beatles were singing about flower power and loving one another, the
people of Birmingham
simply had to take a good look around them to see the reality of the world:
it was hard. Life was
no different for the Osbourne family.

While attending school at King Edward VI on Frederick Road, the other
students called John,
"Ozzie" or "Oz-brain" with respect to his last name. Quite the rebel, Ozzy
did however take part
in various school opera-plays such as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Mikado and The
Pirates of Penzance.
There was one student at school named Tony Iommi whom Ozzy did not get along
with. Tony and John
were from two different crowds and there was no love lost between the two.
Tony and his mates
would make fun of Ozzy's high voice and compared his singing to that of
girls. The two of them
would later reunite later on under totally different circumstances.

Ozzy did not do particularly well in school and wanted to get out as soon as
he could. When asked
on a school survey what his ambition was, he wrote that he wanted to become
a plumber. This was
not to happen however. Ozzy was kicked out from school. His parents argued
often, and the main
issue was their lack of money. Ozzy decided that he could fix this if he
could go out and get a
job. So at the age of 15, Ozzy took his first job as a plumber's assistant.
He proceeded to cut
the end of his thumb off, and it had to be reattached. He still bears a
scar.


His second job was as a toolmaker's apprentice. Ozzy then went on to work in
a slaughterhouse in
Digbeth for two years, killing cows. Perhaps this influenced his musical
style, I do not know.
other jobs included an auto mechanic, house painter and even two weeks at a
mortuary. His first
musical job was working in the Lucas electrical plant tuning car horns.

He later said, "I liked heavy metal better because it was louder".

Ozzy did not care for working for other people so he decided to try crime
instead. He once tried
stealing a 24-inch television set. Balanced on top of a wall with it, and
trying to keep his
balance, he fell off with the television landing on top of him. He did some
more break and enters
but used a pair of gloves with the fingers cut off. Naturally he was caught.

Ozzy also broke into his 63 year old neighbor's home. It would be many years
later, in 2004 that
this act would be repaid to him.

Caught breaking into Sarah Clarke's clothes shop while trying to steal
sweaters, Ozzy served six
weeks of a three-month sentence at Birmingham's Winson Green Prison. His
father refused to pay
the 40 fine.

While incarcerated there, Ozzy tattooed the now famous letters O-Z-Z-Y on
his left knuckles and
happy faces on his knees using sewing needle and a graphite slab. One happy
face can be seen on
his left knee on the "Diary of a Madman" album cover. He would later be put
in jail again for
punching a police officer in the mouth.

Shortly after his release from prison for burglary, Ozzy wound up in the
hospital on glucose for
12 hours after being thrown through a glass window while fighting 3 men.

The current owner of Ozzy's Lodge Road home, Ali Mubarret says that he will
either put the front
door on E-Bay and give the proceeds to charity or give it away to a hardcore
Ozzy fan. Ali is
tired of the fans that drop by looking for the house Ozzy grew up in,
leaving graffiti on the
front door.

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1.2 How did Ozzy start his music career?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

After getting out of jail, Ozzy decided he did not want to go end up going
back. At this time,
The Beatles were becoming increasingly popular and becoming the craze. Ozzy
thought that this
would be the way to go. There was money to be made in singing as opposed to
crime. In fact the
Beatles were one of his main influences. Even to this day he still listens
to the Beatles before
going out on stage. It is of interest to note that this would not be his
first musical experience
though: earlier at the age of fourteen he had already been in a band named
'The Black Panthers'.


A band by the name of "Music Machine" needed a singer because theirs was
sick. Ozzy liked the
idea of being able to travel to gigs and meeting women so he filled in.
Later on he joined a band
named "Approach" but didn't like the band so he quit. He then decided to
call himself "Ozzy Zig"
and placed this ad in the local music paper/shop: "Ozzy zig requires gig.
Ozzy's father loaned
him some money and together they purchased a 50-watt amp.


Ozzy placed an ad in a local record store reading, "Ozzy zig requires gig.
Owns own P.A.".
Another 18-year-old Brummie named Terence 'Geezer'Butler had been playing
guitar for just six
months when he saw Ozzy's ad on a shop bulletin board and decided to go look
him up. After the
two met, they decided to form a band named "Rare Breed". Rare Breed lasted
only two shows before
disbanding.

Elsewhere Ozzy's old schoolmate, Tony Iommi had teamed up with an
18-year-old assistant truck
river named William Ward who had just quit his job. Tony and Bill also
decided to form a band,
"The Rest", and recruited a singer named Chris Smith. The Rest eventually
moved north to a small
town named Carlisle where they renamed themselves "Mythology" and gained a
large following of
fans. They played mainly blues songs inspired by such groups as The
Yardbirds, Cream, The Beatles
and John Mayal.

Mythology eventually split up; Tony and Bill returned to Birmingham and went
to the music shop
where they also saw Ozzy's ad. Tony was hoping this was not the same 'Ozzy'
he had went to school
with because that Ozzy could not sing well and the two of them disliked one
other. It turned out
that it was indeed the same Oz and decided it would not be a good idea to
form a band together.
Tony was also not impressed with Ozzy because he had very short hair
(really!). Since Ozzy and
Geezer still needed a drummer they later approached Tony to see if he knew
of a drummer. Bill was
at Tony's place and agreed to join them but only if they'd let Tony join
too. So along with a
slide guitar player named Jim Phillips and a saxophone player, they formed a
new band. The new
band returned to Carlisle where Tony and Bill had been a success and played
some gigs. Not being
pleased with a six-piece band, they broke up and then rejoined once the two
extras had gone. This
was a polite way of getting rid of the two unnecessary members. The foursome
them learned 18
songs in their first week together. Ozzy named the band "Polka Tulk Blues
Band" after a tin of
talcum powder. It has also been said that the name came from a Pakistani
clothing store named the
'Polka Tulk Trading Company'. Two days after Ozzy and Geezer met, Geezer
Butler said that Ozzy
defecated on a car.

Geezer Butler switched to playing bass guitar since Tony was now the lead
guitar player. Unable
to afford a bass guitar, Geezer simply took two of the guitar strings off
his guitar and re-tuned
it to make a bass guitar.

In September 1968 Polka Tulk changed their name to "Earth".

It is of interest to mention that in December of 1968, Tony left to join
Jethro Tull. While Tony
did not appear on any of Tull's albums, he did make an appearance at the
"Rolling Stone's Rock
and Roll Circus" which was never released, because the Stones were upstaged
by other acts. Tony
and Jethro can be heard on a bootleg called "Archangel Rides Again". The
movie was eventually
released in the movie festival circuit. The Rock and Roll Circus with Tony
occured on December
10th and 11th, 1968 at Wembley Arena in London.

Tony's stint with Jethro Tull was very brief (for two weeks). He left Tull
and was back with
Earth (back on Earth?) by December 14th, 1968.


"Black Sabbath makes Led Zeppelin look like a kindergarten house band"
...Advertisement by Jim
Simpson

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1.3 Who was Jim Simpson? (Manager Number One)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim Simpson was a musician in a band named Locomotive who played jazz
trumpet. He was also the
manager of a Brummie band named 'Bakerloo Blues Band'. Unable to find a
place where he could
promote the band, he opened his own place called "Henry's Blueshouse".
Henry's, located at Hill
Street and Station Road was an instant success. It wasn't before long before
the club had to stop
accepting new bands. A band that was just starting out, Led Zeppelin, would
also be one of the
first bands to play Henry's.

In 1969, the four members of Earth approached Jim and asked if they could
play at Henry's. They
also wanted him to be their manager since they knew nothing of the business
sense of things. He
told them that they could open for the band 'Ten Years After', which pleased
them.

The band asked Jim on April 1, 1969 (unconfirmed) if he would become their
manager. Jim agrees.

Happy to have a manager who supposedly cared for their interests, they
recorded a song in tribute
to him, "Song for Jim". The song was a spoof of their manager and the jazz
music he played. This
elusive song is still sought after by Sabbath fans worldwide. Simpson would
also give the band
some of his jazz records to inspire them to write songs. Simpson still has
his copy of the
demo and it's unlikely he will ever decide to share it with the public.

DID YOU KNOW: Jim Simpson's band, Locomotive hit the international charts
with a song titled
Rudi's In Love.

As Simpson was trying to market Sabbath, he had them record some demos at
Regent Sound. One
such demo session took place on August 22, 1969. At this time the band
recorded a demo by
the name of "THE REBEL". The song, about a reclusive voyeur, is one of the
rarest Sabbath songs.
(It has also been mentioned the demos were recorded at Trident Studios in
St. Anne's Court in Soho. Another conflicting version of events.) The Rebel
was written by Jim's bandmate, Locomotive keyboardist Norman Haines. Haines
played the organ and piano on the demo track.

Shortly after, the band also recorded another Haines song called "When I
Come Down", which
was renamed to "When I Came Down" for the Sabbath version.

Neither song saw the light of day. For those who are trying to track down
The Rebel and A Song
for Jim, the only known person who has these is said to be Pete Sarfas who
used to run the old
Black Sabbath Fan Club.

Jim Simpson is currently head of the Big Bear Music Agency. If you write to
Jim
(jim@bigbearmusic.com) regarding the demos, don't expect a reply of any
sort.

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1.4 Who was Earth/Black Sabbath?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

BAND MEMBER FULL NAME BIRTHDATE

1) Tony Iommi [guitar] Anthony Frank Iommi Feb 19, 1948 in Aston

The In Crowd (pre 1966)
The Birds and the Bees (pre 1966)
The Rockin' Chevrolets (1964-65)
The Rest (1965-67)
Mythology (1967-68)
Polka Tulk Blues Band (August 1968)
Earth (Sept. 1968 - Aug. 1969)

2) Bill Ward [drums] William Ward May 5, 1948 in UK

The Rest (1965-67)
Polka Tulk Blues Band (August 1968)
Earth (Sept. 1968 - Aug. 1969)

3) Ozzy Osbourne [vocals/harmonica] John Michael Osbourne Dec. 3, 1948
in Aston

The Black Panthers
Musicmachine
Rare Breed (1966-1968)
Polka Tulk Blues Band (August 1968)
Earth (Sept. 1968 - Aug. 1969)

4) Geezer Butler [bass] Terence Michael Butler July 17, 1949

Rare Breed (1966-1968)
Polka Tulk Blues Band (August 1968)
Earth (Sept. 1968 - Aug. 1969)


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[1.4b] Earth concert dates
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

These are the known dates that Earth played. If you'd like to view
tour dates of the pre-Earth bands I suggest you visit Rob's Black Sabbath
page
at www.sabbathlive.com. Rob has done an excellent job researching the old
tours.
Credit for these dates goes to Rob, Joe Siegler of black-sabbath.com and
John Lero.

1968 Loreburn Hall Dumfries Scotland
9/68 Henry's Blues House (Birmingham)
9/68 Pokey Hole Blues Club (Bore Street - Lichfield, England)
9/23/68 Gretna Hall Tavern (Carlisle Cumberland (Cumbria) England)
9/30/68 Opening of Henry's Blueshouse - Station Hotel on High Street
(Brownhills, Eng.)
11/22/68 Mother's Club (Erdlington - High Street Birmingham) w/Ten Years
After
11/24/68 Mother's Club (Erdlington - High Street Birmingham) w/ Jethro Tull
12/21/68 County Ballroom (Carlisle, England) w/guests Smokey Blue (Neil
Marshall's band)
12/68 possibly a school hall (Cumbria, England)
12/68 Buccleuch Hall (Langholm, Scotland)
1/1/1969 Opposite Lock (Birmingham, England) w/guests Locomotive, Bakerloo
Blues Band, Tea &
Symphony
1/3/1969 The Marquee London (England) w/guests: Jon Hiseman's Colosseum
1/11/69 The Polytechnic (England) w/John Mayall's Bluesbreakers
1/25/1969 The Polytechnic (same as above)
2/6/1969 The Marquee London (England) w/guests: Locomotive, Bakerloo Blues
Band, Roy Everett,
Tea & Symphony
2/28/1969 The Marquee London (England) w/guests: Bakerloo Blues Band
3/3/1969 The Bay Hotel (Sunderland) w/guests Van Der Graaf Generator, DJ
John Peel
3/11/1969 The Marquee London (England) w/guests Bakerloo Blues Band,
Locomotive, & Roy Everett
3/13/1969 The Marquee London (England) w/guests Terry Reid
3/14/69 County Ballroom (Carlisle, England)
3/21/69 The Pokey Hole (Frog Lane Lichfield, England)
3/28/69 Wigton Market Hall (Cumbria, England)
4/69 The Star Club (Hamburg, Germany)
4/69 The Speakeasy Club (London, England)
4/69 Banklands Youth Club (Workington, England)
4/1/1969 Birmingham (England) possibly Zurich, Switzerland
4/21/69 Caves Club (Walsall, England)
5/11/69 Pennycliffe Club (Brownhills, England)
5/23/69 Pokey Hole Blues Club (Robin Hood Public House - Frog Lane,
Lichfield)
6/5/69 Westfield Welfare Centre Workington Cumbria England
6/7/69 Village Hall Low (Hesket England)
6/20/69 The Star Club (Hamburg, Germany)
7/5/69 County Ballroom (Carlisle, England) w/guests Tambourine
7/8/69 Banklands Youth Club (Workington Cumbria, England)
7/11/69 The Pokey Hole (Frog Lane Lichfield, England)
7/25/69 Market Hall (Wigton Cumbria, England) w/guest: Weight
8/01/69 The Pokey Hole (same)
8/03/69 Manchester, England

AUGUST 9 - EARTH BECOMES BLACK SABBATH

8/10/69 The Star Club (Hamburg Germany) w/guests: Junior's Eyes and Tremors
(same venue as above right through to August 16th)
8/23/69 Y.M.C.A. (Kilcaldy, Scotland)
9/01/69 Midlands Art Centre w/guests Tea & Symphony, Locomotive
9/27/69 Drill Hall (Dumfries) w/guest: Timothy Park
10/1/1969 Tow Bar Inn - billed as "Black Sabbath"
10/18/1969 Birmingham (England)
10/29/1969 Birmingham (England)
11/1/1969 Tow Bar Inn (Nethertown) w/guests: Society's Child
11/11/1969 John Peel's 'Top Gear' (Radio Session in London)
11/14/1969 The Marquee (London)
11/16/1969 Rugman's Youth Club Whitesands (Dumfries, Scotland)
11/20/1969 The Star Club (Hamburg, Germany) might be June 20th venue
11/26/1969 Carlisle Earth
11/29/1969 Birmingham University
12/26/1969 The Pokey Hole

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.5 How Black Sabbath came to be
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"When we hit America we were the wild bunch. We bought dope and f***ed
anything that moved" ...Ozzy

While waiting to go into a rehearsal one day, they noticed a Boris Karloff
movie playing named
"Black Sabbath" (1935). Geezer mentioned it was strange that people would go
to a movie to scare
themselves silly. Until this time they had only played other artist's
material. They decided to
use the name of the movie as the name for their first original song.

One day the band showed up to do a gig at Henry's. There, someone mentioned
they liked the bands
single. The only problem was the foursome hadn't ever released a single!
They then realized that
there were two bands by the same name. The audience was upper class and
expecting a totally
different type of music. Unable to back out of the show, the scruffy four
played blues and rock
to the audience. It was a disaster! The band however did have some fun in
watching the crowd try
to dance to their type of music.

As a result, Geezer came up with the idea to change their name to that of
the Karloff movie,
'BLACK SABBATH' to avoid being confused with the other band named Earth.
They now had a song and
a band name taken from the movie's title. This would also reflect the groups
interest in the
occult.

It has also been said that the name Black Sabbath came from Geezer's
interest in occult writer
Denis Wheatley.

Not having any money, the band relied on Tony's mother who owned a chocolate
shop, for the use of
a van, food and cigarettes. Sometimes the group would get gigs on their own,
other times they
would show up at a place where another band was to be playing. In the event
that the scheduled
band failed to show up, the Sabs would take their place. They played the
Star Club in Hamburg in
Jan. 1969, a place the Beatles had made famous.

They were so popular that they were booked to come back for 5 more shows.
They would play 7 shows
a day, and write new material as they went along. This would also explain
why their early songs
had different lyrics than the final album versions.

As Black Sabbath made news, a group of Satanists asked them to play at their
"night of Satan" at
Stonehenge. They refused. The head witch of England, Alec Sanders who was a
regular fan of
Sabbaths, informed them that these Satanists had placed a hex on the band
members. Ozzy asked his
father to make aluminum crosses, which he did, and then had them blessed.
They wore these crosses
24 hours a day for protection. The cross remains a well known Black Sabbath
symbol even to this
day. You see, Black Sabbath as Satanic and dark as the name sounded, had
nothing to do with the
devil when they chose their name.

An independent producer named Tony Hall paid for the band to record some
demo songs at the Regent
Sound studio on Tottenham Court Rd. These were produced by Roger Bayed,
whose name appears on
many of their albums. One demo cut, a single called "Evil Woman", was
released on the Fontana
record label in Jan. 1970. This was a cover song from a Minnesota band named
Crow, which did
quite well unbeknownst to the band.

In January of 2005, Black Sabbath fans were shocked to learn that a rare
Black Sabbath song had
been discovered. Sabbathlive.com broke the news that Joe D'Agostino, a music
collector and Black
Sabbath fan purchased an acetate (record) containing a song called "When I
Came Down". The song
is believed to have been recorded between March and October 1969. The B-side
of the acetate
contained an alternative version of The Wizard. Joe transferred the acetate
to CD and cleaned up
the sound. Despite rumors that he would one day release this song to the
fans, it's highly
unlikely it will ever see the light of day. The song features all original
members of Black
Sabbath in the Jim Simpson era.

Sabbath's first completed album was released on Friday, Feb. 13th, 1970. It
took them only eight
hours to record and cost a mere 800 British pounds (approx. $1200 US). The
album was recorded in
four tracks on an 8 track machine. The band was not that popular at this
time, they simply wanted
to do what they liked best... sing about the darker, more depressing things
that surrounded them.
It was not likely they ever intended to make the big time, in fact Ozzy has
said he was just
happy to show his mother that his voice was recorded on a piece of vinyl. It
was not as easy as
it sounds though, it took them 14 tries before Jim Simpson found a record
company (Vertigo) that
would carry the album.

The record company chose to put an upside down cross on the gatefold of the
album and thus people
readily associated the band with Satanism. The band knew nothing about this
and did not want the
upside down cross. They backed down from the record company's "wiser and
higher" marketing
methods. Inside the inverted cross was a poem.

The poem seemed to correspond with the album's cover showing a woman
standing in front of the
17th century Mapledurham Water Mill. The poem is called "Still Falls the
Rain". Due to requests
by fans, it is shown below:

*** STILL FALLS THE RAIN ***

"Still falls the rain,
the veils of darkness shroud the blackened trees,
which, contorted by some unseen violence,
shed their tired leaves, and bend their boughs
toward a gray earth of severed bird wings.

Among the grasses, poppies bleed before a gesticulating death,
and young rabbits, born dead in traps,
stand motionless, as though guarding the silence
that surrounds and threatens to engulf
all those that would listen.

Mute birds, tired of repeating yesterdays terrors,
huddle together in the recesses of dark corners,
heads turned from the dead, black swan
that floats upturned in a small pool in the hollow.

There emerges from this pool a faint, sensual mist,
that traces its way upwards to caress the feet
of the headless martyr's statue
whose only achievement was to die too soon,
and who couldn't wait to loose.

The cataract of darkness forms fully,
the long black night begins, yet still
by the lake a young girl waits.
Unseeing she believes herself unseen, she smiles faintly
at the distant tolling bell, and the still falling rain."

The first album contained the following songs:

1) Black Sabbath (a dark doom sounding song)
2) The Wizard (a song about a wizard who walks through towns cheering
people up through the use of magic)
3) Wasp/Behind The Wall of Sleep
4) Bassically/N.I.B. (a song about the devil falling in love with a
mortal woman and changing to a good person)
5) Wicked World (society, and our struggle to survive)
(Euro versions had 'Evil Woman' instead, another great single)
6) Sleeping Village/Warning (a very blues influenced song that is an
easy listener, about found/lost love)

This was definitely NOT a satanic album! Today there are still people who
hear the words "Black
Sabbath" and think hard rock devil music. This is sheer ignorance. Remember
the band was
originally a blues band, and there is a definite blues sound in their debut
album.

Ozzy brought the album home to proudly show his parents. The Osbourne's were
the type of people
who would sit around the phonogram with a beer and merrily sing alone to the
records. This was
not to be though. When Mr. Osbourne heard the album he asked John, "Are you
sure you were just
drinking alcohol?, this isn't music, this is weird." The first song began
with a church bell
tolling and the sound of rain falling in the background, and was eerie to
say the least. Ozzy too
had not heard the final product until now. It would reach #8 in the UK
charts and #23 in the
United States.

The four unknowns were now finally making a name for themselves with the
release of an album. It
is of interest to note that their album followed the release of Led
Zeppelin's first album. Both
bands knew one another personally since they both played in the same club
and the music scene was
a close knit group. It came in the form of a surprise to the Sabs when
someone put on a brand new
album from Led Zeppelin.


Bill Ward was close to Zeppelin's drummer, John Bonham. He talks about the
relationship between
the two bands in the book, "The Story of Black Sabbath".

It is of interest to point out that in February of 1970, the same month
their debut album came
out, they broke the attendance record at Simpson's club which had remained
untouched for over a
year by Jethro Tull. Tony had made the right choice in returning to Sabbath
it would seem. With
an album comes touring, and with touring comes America. America would have a
great impact on them
as well. Ozzy has said that people would go around saying, "if you go to San
Francisco be sure to
wear a flower in your hair". This mystified him because he did not know what
or where San
Francisco was. When the band eventually did tour America, it took them by
storm. They had never
seen anything like it. They had their share of groupies and took in the
marvelous sights of
America. They played one of their first shows at the Fillmore East. Some old
8mm footage of their
first trip overseas can be seen on the commercial video, "The Black Sabbath
Story - Volume 1". It
must be said, that on this particular videotape, Bill Ward the drummer
relates an interesting
story: While playing in New York, the audience was still at the stage where
they would simply sit
there and listen to the music. The band wanted a stronger reaction from the
audience since they
were putting 150% effort into their songs. Ozzy would often yell at the
audience to get up and go
crazy (as many bootlegs can attest to). At one particular show they were
growing fed up with the
audience just sitting there and Bill picked up his drum set and threw it at
the audience. Bill
says that as a result, that night they did SEVEN encores. Can you think of
any band in today's
scene which does seven encores? By the time they reached Los Angeles, people
had already heard
about this "Black Sabbath".


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.6 Paranoia
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

While working on their next album the band released a single called
"Paranoid". The single was
very popular, maybe too popular: On October 23, 1970 the band attempts to
play the Mayfair
Ballroom in Newcastle. The crowd is very drunk and all over the stage and
equipment. The band,
unsuccessful in trying to get them off the stage, starts playing their hit
single Paranoid. 70
minutes later the show is done and the band is very upset. Someone put their
foot through one of
their big PA speakers, Bill's drum sticks and cymbals were stolen and a bass
drum mic destroyed.
The audience had gone crazy over their new single and Ozzy says, "If it
means us having to give
up putting out singles then we will. We want people to listen to us, not try
to touch us. I was
really terrified, shocked out of my mind."

This would also be the gig that would give birth to their new song,"Fairies
Wear Boots". While
walking down a street some time after the show, the band was attacked by a
group of skinheads.
Tony's arm was badly hurt and this forced them to cancel their next show.
Due to the fact the
skinheads wore boots, they decided to make fun of the punks in the song.
Ozzy has claimed that
the song had nothing to do with this incident, however Ozzy also falsely
claimed that there were
no recordings from the Jim Simpson era.

It was not uncommon for the band to be verbally abusive if the audience was
not responding
properly. If they were talking, the band would just crank up the music some
more. Bands were so
loud during this time the Leeds City Council introduced a "96 decibel law".
If any band's music
was to rise above 96 decibels the amplifiers would cut out. Sabbath did not
consider their
night's work complete unless they hit at least three cut outs a night.


PARANOID
--------
The album, 'Paranoid', was recorded in four days once again at Regent Sound
and then released in
Jan. 1971. The cover shows a person running out of a forest with a sword and
shield in hand. This
seemed to listeners, a strange representation of being paranoid. The truth
is that the album was
to originally be named "War Pigs" (mans constant desire to have weapons of
destruction and
killing). The record company objected to the album title and so it was named
after one of the
songs. The song "War Pigs" came about when Sabbath was told tales of horror
and war from soldiers
while playing an American air force base. The Paranoid album reached FIRST
place in the UK charts
and 12th in American charts. It was during the span between the Paranoid and
Master of Reality
albums that Jim Simpson was fired as the band's manager. Patrick Meehan and
Wilf Pine would
replace him. The reason for Jim's firing is discussed in a later chapter.

MASTER OF REALITY
-----------------
In 1971 "Master of Reality" was released, charting 5th place in UK
and 8th place in USA song charts. Ozzy also married his first wife, Thelma
Riley and became a
stepfather to her son, Elliot. This album would take an interesting turn
with the release of
"After Forever" which was clearly a religious, believe in God, song. The
church called this
blasphemy. People disliked the band, perhaps for their After Forever song or
perhaps for what
they represented. In any event, 1971 saw some strange events: At a show in
Memphis, their
dressing rooms had crosses painted in blood on the walls.

During the show a Satanist jumped on stage with a sacrificial knife. The
local witches coven
later gathered outside the band's hotel and Geezer tried to scare them away
with a fake hex. It
was also the year that threats were made that the band would be shot
sometime during their US
tour. At one show the lights suddenly failed into their 3rd song and Ozzy
stood frozen solid with
fear. The band also included a song titled "Sweet Leaf" which openly talked
about the band's
usage of marijuana. The song begins with a coughing sound (as if someone had
just inhaled the
drug). In actual fact, Tony had just finished smoking drugs in a water pipe
and the sounds were
included in the final version.

VOLUME 4
--------
The following year "Volume 4" was released. As with the inverted cross case
and the "War pigs"
album title, the record company would again take authority over the bands
wishes. Volume 4 (hence
the fourth Sabbath album) was to have originally been called "Snowblind",
another drug reference.
The record company thought this was too controversial and so they had to
change it. The band was
becoming involved in hard core drugs by this time (including cocaine).
During the recording of
Volume 4, the band sat around in a Jacuzzi snorting coke all day and would
get up every so often
to record a new song. We can see why Snowblind was an appropriate album
title. Not being allowed
to use it as an album title, they came up with this amusing line on the
cover sleeve of the
record: "Thanks to the COKE-Cola Company". It was also during this year that
Ozzy and Thelma had
their first mutual child, Jessica.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.7 An act of SABOTAGE?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"For the first part of their career they were managed by two of the biggest
crooks in the
business. They made nothing, I mean nothing." ...Sharon on Sabbath's early
management


The year is now 1974. The band is living a good life of drugs, sex, cars,
etc. If they wanted a
car or a house they would ask for it and receive it almost the next day.
Ozzy even owned a Jaguar
which he smashed while backing out of his driveway, the same day he was to
sell it. What the band
never saw though, was money. They became very successful especially in the
UK charts. Their
material possessions were provided by their new management of Patrick Meehan
and Wilf Pine. What
happened was this: During the same year that Paranoid was soaring up the
charts, Pat and Wilf
left their management company (which was Don Arden's, more on him later).

The duo offered the band a chauffeured limo, champagne dinner at the
Speakeasy, and filled the
Sab's heads with ideas that Jim was mismanaging them and they could do a
hell of a lot better
with them instead. The Sabs agreed and on Sept.4, 1970 Jim Simpson found out
he was history. The
man who had turned the four nobodies into a juggernaut was dismissed. The
Sabs were also not
happy that with Jim they were being paid a lot less than what they should
have been getting. The
reason was that Jim insisted they perform at the shows they had already been
booked for, even six
months prior. These older bookings were for a lot less money than the usual
fee, now around 2000
pounds per show.

Simpson launched lawsuits against them for of breach of contract. Some
concerts later, Ozzy was
handed a subpoena on stage for Simpson's lawsuits. The resulting court case
would last years.

California saw the Cal Jam concert take place in Ontario on April 6th. This
was a televised
concert to millions of viewers as well as over 450,000 audience members. It
featured bands such
as Electric Light Orchestra. In the middle of the night, their management
threatened the band
with a lawsuit if they did not play the Cal Jam concert. The band had not
practiced for months
and was not ready for a show, especially one with over 450,000 people in
attendance. It has been
said that the band did not even know they were to play the show. This would
be one of the final
straws for the band and they soon began the process of getting rid of their
second management.
Ozzy talks a bit about this in the documentary, "The Decline of Western
Civilization II" where
the band questions how much money they are really making if their managers
could afford houses
and cars.

[[ The California Jam is available on audio as well as hard to find video. I
was sent a VHS of
the entire show but it's poor quality. I forget the name of the person who
sent it to me long ago
but he told me his room mate had the entire copy. While others have made
claims to having the
entire set, it's always lip talk. ]]

Once again the band gets rid of their management and decides to form their
own management. This
allowed them to have more control and say into what decisions were made for
the band. It would be
a learning experience as well since they had never dabbled in the management
aspects before. They
decided a rest was in order since they were exhausted. Their next US tour
would be in three short
installments rather than one big tour to further save them exhaustion and
nervous breakdowns. Oh
yes, remember all the flashy cars and houses they were given? They were
never really theirs, and
when they dumped the management duo they lost everything. They still had the
Warner Bros. label
in America though, and stayed with WB during the management change.

SABOTAGE
--------
In September of 1975, the band released their "Sabotage" album. The last
song on the album, "The
Writ", would reveal their feelings towards their previous management and all
the problems they'd
encountered:

The Writ
========
The way I feel is the way I am
I wish I'd walked before I started to run to you, just to you
What kind of people do you think we are?
Another joker who's a rock and roll star for you, just for you
The faithful image of another man
The endless ocean of emotion I swam for you, yeah for you
The shot troopers laying down on the floor
I wish they'd put an end to my running war with you, yeah with you

Are you metal, are you man?
You've changed in life since you began, yeah began
Ladies digging gold from you
Will they still dig now you're through, yeah you're through

You bought and sold me with your lying words
The voices in the deck that you never heard came through, yeah came through
Your folly finally got to spend with a gun
A poisoned father who has poisoned his son, that's you, yeah that's you
I beg you please don't let it get any worse
The anger I once had has turned to a curse on you, Yeah curse you
All of the promises that never came true
You're gonna get what is coming to you, that's true, ah, that's true

Are you Satan, are you man?
You've changed the life since it began, it began
Vultures sucking gold from you
Will they still suck now you're through

The search is on, so you just better run
And find yourself another way
Probably dead, they don't feel a thing
To keep you living for another day

You are nonentity, you have no destiny
You are a victims of a thing unknown
A mantle picture of a stolen soul
A fornication of your golden throne

A smiling face, it means the world to me
So tired of sadness and of misery
My life it started some time ago
Where it will end, I don't know
I thought I was so good I thought I was fine
I feel my world is out of time

But everything is gonna work out fine
If it don't I think I'll lose my mind

I know, I know, I know, yeah yeah I know
Listen to me while I sing this song
You might just think the words are wrong
Too many people advising me [managers, lawyers]
But they don't know what my eyes see

But everything is gonna work out fine
If it don't I feel I'm lose my mind

The anger is very strong in both the lyrics and the tone of Ozzy's voice.
After hearing the song
one cannot help but feel sympathy for what the band had been enduring. Some
album labels (Warner
Bros. for example) have a hidden tune following the song, you need to really
turn up the volume
to hear it. It features the band playing piano and singing an old 'Nitty
Gritty Dirt Band' song
called "Blow on the Jug". A sound engineer caught this during a recording
session and it was put
on the album. Sadly, there are a lot of other Sab cover songs which we will
never get to hear.
You can hear the 'Blow on the Jug' song by clicking right here!

Reporter: "Do you have a drinking problem?"
Ozzy: "Yes, I can't find a bar."


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.8 Manager Number Two
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Needing a new manager, Don Arden was hired. Don's management was the same
company that their last
management had parted from. Don managed Black Sabbath while his daughter,
Sharon (then 18) was
his receptionist. Ozzy and Sharon met when Ozzy walked into his office
wearing a tap faucet
around his neck and sat on the floor - refusing to use a chair. Sharon was
terrified of Ozzy upon
first sight. She even tried to get another woman working in the office to
bring him a cup of
tea, rather than bring it to him herself.

The two of them would get to know one another quite well over the years as
Don and the Sab four
conducted business.

Money and fame were no longer problems for the four of them, instead the
only challenge was how
to come up with another best selling album. A very audible change in the
bands musical direction
began to show in their 1974 album, "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath". Despite the
title, the album
contains deep lyrics with many different musical arrangements. The songs
seemed more uplifting
and vibrant than their previous dark, gloomy sounding material and a more
energetic sound.
Electronic instruments also changed the way they were able to record songs.
This album, probably
their best album with Ozzy as vocalist, placed 4th and 11th respectively in
UK and American
charts.

TECHNICAL ECSTASY
-----------------
"Technical Ecstasy" was released in 1976. This album was considerably less
heavy then previous
albums, and perhaps was due to the band just being fed up with it all. They
had succeeded in
making a lot of money, owned as many cars as we own socks, and were getting
burned out from
constant touring. T.E. would contain a song titled, "It's Alright" featuring
Bill the drummer on
vocals, a very gentle song. The album cover also set the stage for something
entirely new from
the band. No more dark images, this artistic cover showed two robots having
sex (or so it has
been said). Sadly, Technical Ecstasy did not sell very well.

The late 1970's also saw some deep trouble for the band. On January 20,1978
Ozzy's father passed
away. Here is a small portion of an interview with Ozzy regarding his
father:

"In England, they don't tell you, y'know. What they did to my father was, he
hadn't eaten a
fucking thing because of his -- whatever the fucking tube -- he had a lump
here like a fucking
black ball, in his sagophagus or whatever the fuck it is; he couldn't eat
any food. Plus the fact
that he had cancer of the fucking intestines, the bowels, so he couldn't
shit. He never ate a
thing for thirteen weeks.

They operated on him about a fucking week before he died. They took the
whole tube out and put a
plastic one in. I don't know what it's like in the states, but in
England...they put him in a
fucking closet with the fucking mops and buckets, because he was on the
death ward and it was too
distressing for the rest of the patients so they put him in a cot, sort of a
crib thing, a giant
crib. They strapped him...like a boxer, fucking bandages on his hands, with
a glucose drip going
into his arm. He was stoned out of his head. You know, the most amazing
thing he said to me. I
told my father one day, "I take drugs. I said to him, "Before you go, will
you take drugs?"

He says, "I promise you I'll take drugs." He was on Morphine. Totally out of
his mind on
Morphine, because the pain must have been horrendous. They had the operation
on a Tuesday, and he
died on Thursday...No one could understand what he was talking about,
because he was so out of
it. He says to me -- he only understands drugs as "speed" -- he says,
[whispers, a drawn-out,
rattling imitation] "ssspeeeeed." And he died in my arms (note: Ozzy says in
another article
that the hospital phoned him when his father died, thus putting him outside
of the hospital)

I haven't got over it yet. The twentieth of January, I'll go freaking like a
werewolf. I'll cry
and I'll laugh all day long, because it's the day my daughter was born and
the day my father
died. Like a fucking lunatic.

When they go, they're out of their misery. But what freaked me out more than
anything else was
the funeral. I was singing fucking "Paranoid" in the church...Seconal,
drunk... it blew me away.
All the family came that I'd never seen for fucking years, and they were
making comments. In
England, it's a weird scene at a fucking death. My father hated his brother
Harold - my whole
family's fucking nuts."

This took a toll on Ozzy and he decided to quit Black Sabbath. Ozzy's
father, Jack, who thought
his son would either end up in prison or end up being someone very special,
died knowing his son
had made something out of himself. While on his leave of absence, Ozzy asked
Glenn Hughes
(another vocalist who would eventually spend some time in Sabbath) about the
two of them forming
a band. Oz was fed up with Sabbath by this time, though he kept his feelings
about this to
himself. Glenn did not join Ozzy in his desire. Meanwhile the band had to
continue work on its
upcoming album, "Never Say Die".

NEVER SAY DIE
-------------
The band took in Dave Walker (who used to be with Fleetwood Mac) to write
new material for their
album. Ozzy decided he wanted to rejoin the band, but he refused to sing any
of the songs written
with Dave Walker. So Dave left and the band had to rewrite all of their
songs. Tony booked a
studio in Toronto, Ontario because it was where the Rolling Stones had
recorded one of their
albums.

The band traveled up there in the middle of winter to record the album. Ozzy
has since said it
was a stupid thing to do and that it was freezing up there. Tony was just
trying to keep the band
together in a time of turmoil.

Ozzy had this to say on the album:
"The fucking studio's a pile of shit, the fucking -- we had two songs half-
written before we'd
gotten into the studio. The reason we'd gone to Canada was because of the
tax-exile thing,
because the taxes are so high in England. In the end, it cost us nearly 500
fucking thousand
dollars to make that album, and it was the biggest pile of horseshit that
I've ever made in my
life. I'm embarrassed with that album."

There is one song titled "Junior's Eyes" which is available on the
"Archangel Rides Again"
bootleg, featuring Sabbath with Dave Walker on vocals. Junior's Eyes was
kept for the final album
with the same music but Ozzy rewrote the lyrics in a way as to say goodbye
to his father.

Junior's Eyes
=============
Junior's eyes looked up to the skies in tears
He prayed that his maker, the giver and taker, would `pear
Junior sighed, as his hands reached out to the sky
Junior cried, the day that his best friend died

(chorus)
You're coming home again tomorrow
I'm sorry it won't be for long
With all the pain I've watched you live within
I'll try my hardest not to cry
But it is time to say goodbye

Junior's eyes, they couldn't disguise the pain
His father was leaving, and Junior is grieving again
Innocent eyes watched the man who had gave everything
Junior's sorrow, who knew what tomorrow would bring?

(chorus)

Junior's eyes looked into the skies once more
Now he knew well, this life was hell for sure
He desperately tried, his fingertips stretched to the stars, yeah
Reaching for reason, along with the time and the stars

(chorus)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
1.9 When and how did Ozzy leave Black Sabbath?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

By now, all four members of the band were staying in their rooms all day and
doing hard drugs and
booze. They had cars, success, and perhaps little motivation to release
another album. Ozzy
himself has said he only wanted to release an album to make money and get
fat off of beer. Ozzy
would subsequently not show up for weeks at a time for practice. They were
to begin work on their
next album, "Heaven and Hell". Tony, having met Ronnie James Dio
(ex-Rainbow) by this time, then
asked Bill to get rid of Ozzy.

Tony was fed up with Ozzy and was interested in having Dio as a vocalist.
After the 1978 NSD
tour, Ozzy was told by Bill, that they no longer wanted him in the band.
Bill feels bad about
doing this because him and Oz were best of friends and yet Bill wanted Ozzy
out of the band as
well. People still ask how Ozzy left, the truth is that both him and Tony
Iommi say he was fired.
Ozzy also adds that he was relieved at this. In actual fact Ozzy was asked
many times on the last
day to leave before being fired. For some time now Ozzy wanted to go into a
new musical direction
and perhaps was unable to do so with the politics of the band being the way
they were.

Tony, being the transportation, would never be spoken against by the other
members of the band.
1978 saw the end of the original Black Sabbath. Their last tour would be the
"Never Say Die"
tour. Appropriately named.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.0 Randy Rhoads
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

After being fired from Sabbath, Ozzy spent three months staying in the Le
Parc Hotel in Los
Angeles. He would order out for pizza and booze and have his dealer drop off
cocaine for him. He
basically thought his life was over. It was around this time that his friend
Sharon Arden came to
collect a debt from Ozzy. Sharon saw Ozzy in a state of despair and
suggested to him to form
another band. Ozzy went about this with the help of Dana Strum. The
auditioned many guitarists,
one of whom was 23 year old Randall William Rhoads.

Randy was born to William Arthur and Delores Rhoads on December 6th, 1956 at
St. John's Hospital
in Santa Monica, CA. He had an older brother Doug and a sister named Kathy.

Their father was a music teacher while their mother ran a music school named
Musonia. Delores
graduated from UCLA with a bachelors degree in music and taught in the Los
Angeles School system
before starting the school.

When Randy was about the age of 6 he began attending his mother's music
school. At this time he
received his first guitar, an acoustic Gibson that had belonged to his
maternal grandfather.

At the age of 12, Randy began taking lessons from Scott Shelly, a guitar
teacher at Musonia.
Eventually Shelly would approach Delores and explain that she could not
teach Randy anymore, he
knew everything that she did.

At the approximate age of 14, Randy then joined his first band named Violet
Fox. The name Violet
represented his mother's middle name. Randy played rhythm guitar while his
brother Doug playing
drums, The band lasted about half a year.

In May of 1975 Kevin Bubrow of Quiet Riot met with Randy and the two began
working together.
Randy remained in Quiet Riot for less than a year. After leaving the group
he approached Karl
Sandoval to create a custom guitar for him. The end result after several
meetings was the black
and white polka dot "V" guitar. It cost Randy $738 to make and he took
possession of it on Sept.
22, 1979.

In the latter part of the 1979, at the suggestion of a bass player from a
band that used to open
for Quiet Riot (Dana Strum), Randy went to audition for a band being put
together by Ozzy.

Randy met with Ozzy for an audition and was told, "you've got the job".

Ozzy then decided to tour, with his first solo concert in Glasgow, Scotland
on September 12,
1980. What you probably don't know is that Ozzy had two shows before his
debut under the band
name of "Law". The opening day of his first solo concert he and Sharon paced
the streets
nervously. Since people in Scotland usually showed up at the concert without
prepaying for
tickets, they had no way of knowing how many people would show up. As it
turned out it was a big
success.

Ozzy played all of his Blizzard of Ozz album and some Sabbath songs.
Eventually he broke down and
cried because he realized that he could make it on his own without the other
three Sabbath
embers with whom he had paved the road to success. You must realize that
when Ozzy was in Sabbath
he was really not a contributing member of the band. Geezer wrote most of
the song lyrics and
Ozzy would come by and sing the words, but he had little to do with the
actual contributions to
the songs[*].

Now Ozzy and Randy were the main writers and had equal say as to what went
into the songs.

[*] Ozzy did write 'Am I Going Insane' (his feelings about society's views
towards him and his
anger towards society) and 'Who Are You?'

"Who do you think you were in previous incarnations?"
"I think I was a bat" ... Ozzy some years before the "incident"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.1 What the hell is this about biting a bat? (Diary of a Madman)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The following year, "Diary of a Madman" was released. An interesting note,
Ozzy's son, Elliot is
shown on the album cover. Though production of the album was rushed towards
the end so that the
band could get out and tour, Ozzy has said he liked this album better of the
two. The album came
out the same time as Sabbath's Mob Rules album. Diary soared to the top 15
on US charts while Mob
Rules remained at #29. Ozzy's first two albums would sell over 6 million
copies. As they toured,
Randy would often hold a guitar clinic for kids who wanted to learn to play
guitar. A kid named
Joe Holmes took lessons from Randy, and would later have an impact on Ozzy's
life as well.


During the tour, Ozzy was admitted to St. Johns mental hospital near London
after suffering a
mental breakdown. He would laugh and cry as band members visited him.

The Diary tour was nicknamed Night of the Living Dead tour due to various
misfortunes: The entire
band was expelled from a San Diego over Ozzy's reputation, the prop truck
broke down, and in
Minneapolis a crane fell and crushed $8000 worth of synthesizers. On the
upside, the stage
setting for Diary of a Madman was a huge castle complete with fog. The
drummer was situated on a
raised platform, and there was an opening in the center of the stage where
a dwarf would come
out to give Ozzy water and towels. The dwarf was actually Little John Allen
who played R2D2 in
Star Wars. It has been brought to my attention that Kenny Baker actually
played R2D2 so I don't
know which name is correct. John Allen suffered mock abuse by having pig
entrails tossed at him,
he was stuffed into a hole and he was even hanged for prolonged periods from
a noose (as shown on
some videos). This was accomplished with a harness so as not to really choke
him, but how did he
manage to stay up for so long??

During the Diary tour, Ozzy would throw raw meat at his audience. It was
even part of his
contract that 25 pounds of calves livers and pigs intestines be thrown. A
parent once phoned the
promoter of the show asking how to get blood out of the clothes. As the tour
continued, people
would bring meat to the show to throw back at him. As time passed, the
audience brought dead
frogs, cats, snakes, etc. to throw onto the stage. Once, someone threw a toy
doll onto the stage
and Ozzy freaked out thinking that someone had thrown a real infant up on
stage.

On Jan. 20, 1982 at a Des Moines, Iowa concert some winner threw a real bat
up on stage. The bat
lay still because of the spotlights on the stage, and so Ozzy picked it up,
THINKING IT WAS A TOY
RUBBER BAT. He bit into the bat, taking off its head. Immediately the
audience and Sharon freaked
out. Ozzy was rushed to emergency to have rabies shots. It is reported that
at the time he was
treating the whole thing as a joke, apparently barking like a dog when
wheeled into the hospital.
He sent the crew back to find the bat to find out if it was in fact real or
not, the bat could
not be found. The shots would continue for about a week, with needles in
each buttock, arms and
leg. Ozzy would also faint or collapse at the concerts which followed.
Ozzy's advice on the
situation is, "if you want to be a complete dick, try it".

Subsequently the bat would become a symbol for Ozzy on his upcoming albums,
and even a tattoo.
The animal humane society would become involved and show up to boycott Ozzy
concerts. From this
point on, he was marked a madman and his reputation began to precede him.
One such nasty rumor,
and sure sign of people's ability to go overboard with gossip and rumors is
this little gem:
Before one concert even started, Ozzy supposedly threw three small dogs into
the audience. He
refused to play the show until all the dogs came back to him dead. The story
is not true. It was
the honest mistake with a bat which would cement itself in people's minds,
even to this day.


[Ed: I can recall when Ozzy came to my home town on the Diary tour, the SPCA
and police were
there threatening to take action if any animals were harmed on stage. Ozzy
has never returned.]

"If they were buzzing the bus, like people say, it probably meant that Randy
was struggling with
the pilot to stop him from crashing it" -Kevin Dubrow of Quiet Riot


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.2 When and how did Randy Rhoads die?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1981, Ozzy divorced his first wife, Thelma. They were separated soon
after the day he came
home (drunk) to find a bailiff at the door, and all of his belongings
outside. He was told that
if he stepped inside the house he would be arrested. Ozzy was not exactly
what you would call a
father figure. He would leave home for days, weeks, at a time and stay at
friends places until
they kicked him out. Rather than go through the divorce proceedings, Ozzy
told her to just keep
everything. By now Ozzy and Sharon had gotten to the point where they
decided to get married.
Sharon had been hoping this would also get Ozzy a better deal since her
father was the one
managing the recording and managerial contracts.

On March 19th, 1982 Ozzy and his band were on their way to Orlando, FL from
Knoxville, TN. The
show was to feature Foreigner and UFO. Ozzy and Randy had been talking about
their recent
success. Randy mentioned wanting to leave to pursue a degree in classical
guitar at UCLA. Ozzy
has said that if Randy were still alive, it is doubtful that Randy would
still be playing with
him.]

During the trip, Andrew stopped the bus at the Flying Baron Estates near
Leesburg, Florida. This
location was a private community and served as home to Andrew. It also
served as the tour bus's
home base. Jerry Calhoun who also lived at the estate leased the tour buses
out to those who
required them.

Aycock (36) invited some of the crew for a ride in a 1955 Beechcraft Bonanza
F-35 airplane (9-10
am). Present that day were Ozzy, Sharon Arden, Tommy Aldridge, Rudy Sarzo,
Don Airey, Andrew and
his wife Wanda, Rachel Youngblood, Randy and Jake Duncan the tour manager.

The bus driver took Don Airey and Jake Duncan for a spin. Unbeknownst to
anyone, Aycock had been
involved in a previous accident in which a young boy was killed. His pilot's
license was not
valid due because his medical certificate had expired.

When the plane landed, the driver went for another ride, this time with
Randy and Ozzy's
seamstress, Rachael Youngblood, 58. The pilot of the plane was presumably
under the influence of
cocaine (it was later found in drug tests).

Aycock had picked up his ex-wife at one of the concerts and was to drop her
off in Florida. She
was standing outside the bus and it is assumed Andrew dove the plane into
the bus in an attempt
to kill her. Aycock circled the bus three times, and on the fourth pass, the
plane clipped the
tour bus, spun through a tree, pinwheeled over upside down and careened into
a nearby house where
it exploded. Ozzy ran into the house and pulled out Jesse Herndon (70), a
deaf man who was
unaware of the fire.

Rachel and Randy were both killed in the crash. The fire destroyed the home
and adjacent garage.

Ozzy's new solo career had come to a screeching halt.

He would continue the tour in April with a quick shoe in of Bernie Torme.
Bernie used to play
guitar for Gillan (Ian Gillan, who would join Sabbath). Bernie would not
stay with Ozzy long
however. Bernie left Ozzy's band after three weeks. The reason is not known
for sure. Some people
say he was not used to playing big gigs. What is known is that Bernie had a
UK tour lined up for
his 'Electric Gypsies' album. His departure from Ozzy was bound to happen.

Brad Gillis left 'Night Ranger' to replace Torme for the remainder of the
tour. Brad Gillis also
appeared on the 'Speak of the Devil' LP. After the tour Ozzy would hire
Jakey Lou Williams (Jake
E. Lee) with whom he recorded 1984's 'Bark At The Moon' album. Gillis would
later rejoin Night
Ranger.

Brad may have wanted to stay on with Ozzy but Oz didn't really think the two
of them were
compatible.

On Feb. 19, 1982, while visiting San Antonio, Texas, Ozzy was again drunk
after drinking a bottle
of Courvoisier. Sharon decided to lock his clothes in the hotel room so that
Ozzy would not go
outside and cause trouble. To solve this problem, Ozzy dressed up in one of
Sharon's evening
gowns. While taking some photos of himself in drag, he had to urinate and
did so on the
historical Alamo building.

The Alamo is the 1836 site of the legendary battle between the Texans and
the Mexican army. Ozzy
was arrested and charged with defiling a national monument and banned from
playing in San Antonio
any further. This would be another blow to his image that would haunt him to
this day. The ban
was eventually lifted.

I received a piece of email from one of the officers who arrested Ozzy at
the Alamo. Contrary to
the dress we was supposed to be wearing, he says Ozzy was not in one. This
is just one of the
many contradictions in this FAQ. Until they can be proven, they will remain.

Here is the e-mail I received (Thanks Sam):

"I am one of the officers who arrested Ozzy at the Alamo and to set the
record straight he was
not wearing a womans clothes. He had on athletic shoes with no socks, a
T-shirt and a pair of
sweatpants with no underwear.

He also had a pack of cigarettes rolled up in one sleeve. He was wasted and
he never spoke. Billy
actually arrested him and I was driving the "wagon" that day. The wagon is a
van outfitted for
prisoner transport. I was called to transport him from the Alamo to jail.
The jail was then
directly across from the S.A.P.D. and it now is the Wackenhut federal parole
violator jail. I've
kicked myself several times since then for not having kept copies of the
reports.

I know what he was wearing because I searched him for weapons and had very
close contact with
him. Half way to the jail, which was only about a mile away the dispatchers
were already calling
wanting to know who had him in custody. By the time I dropped him off there
was a long black
stretch limo waiting for him.

You might note for your records he was actually given a big break. He was
arrested and booked for
public intoxication a class "C" misdemeanor which carries a max $200.00
fine. The law that more
appropriately applied was "Desecration of a venerated Object" which covers
among other things
"Shrines." The Alamo is considered a shrine.

You can post my info on your web page if you like. I think it would be cool
to hear from fans to
answer their questions.

Check back later on the report. Send me the exact date again as I really do
not remember and I'll
try to get it for you. "

Ozzy married his long time friend Sharon, on a Honolulu-Hawaii beach on July
4, 1982. Tommy
Aldridge was the best man.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.3 What is this about a dove?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

While the bat incident which still haunts Oz's reputation to this day can be
called an accident,
the incident with the dove can be called stupidity.

Here is the story: After leaving Black Sabbath, Ozzy was rejected by many
record labels. Tony
Martell, CBS records executive, signed Ozzy to a contract. Ozzy and wife
Sharon were being
introduced to the head executives of CBS records in Los Angeles (Guitar
Magazine claims it was
New York).

CBS was not too interested in Ozzy because they had just signed Adam Ant.
Ozzy was just another
album to them, and they were not interested in the person behind the music.
Sharon decided it
would be a good publicity stunt for Ozzy to walk into the office and throw
two doves
up into the air.

The stunt worked, and made CBS pay attention to Ozzy. It also made the
nation pay attention to
Ozzy as well: After throwing one dove up in the air, Ozzy bit the head off
of the other one. It
is not known whether Sharon intended for Ozzy to actually bite the dove's
head off or not. Ozzy
has already admitted he (not surprisingly) had drunk a bottle of booze
beforehand. Make no
mistake about it, Sharon Osbourne is a shrewd marketer and I wouldn't put
any dirty trick past
her. What follows is an interview with an eyewitness (from Epic) who saw the
event:

Q: What happened?
A: It was a normal Thursday morning marketing meeting down in the
conference room. It was just prior to the release of Ozzy's first solo
album. His management and Jet Records, which is the associated label that
puts out his albums,
had arranged for him to pay a little surprise visit to us, to say "Hi, my
name is Ozzy Osbourne,
and let's make this record a hit".

Q: Is it unusual for the artist to come to a marketing meeting?
A: No, they seldom do. We've had people from time to time just come in.
Their manager arranges for them to drop by and say, "Surprise!" just to
push the album.

Q: Then what happened?
A: He walked in with Sharon, who later became his wife, and [withheld] from
Jet Records. They
introduced Ozzy all around, and there was a photographer with them. They sat
him down on the arm
of a chair, and he pulled a dove out of his pocket. I looked at it and
thought, "Gee how cute!"

Q: It was a live dove?
A: I'm ninety-nine and nine-tenths sure it was alive, but now I can't sayfor
sure. I remember I
was leaning forward and thinking, "How cute," and suddenly he bites its head
off. There was blood
on the floor. I think he ate the head; he started spitting some feathers
out. I was in shock.
It's hard to remember too much after that, to tell you the truth. It was
horrible.

Q: What was the reaction of the people in the room?
A: There was a stunned silence, and they got him out of there, fast. It was
just very quiet-not a
good reaction, I would say. People were going, "Yucch!". Some looked as
though they thought it
was a fake bird, that it was all just a publicity stunt. And others said
"No, it's a real bird
and what a horrible thing to do." Personally, I thought it was an awful
thing to do even if it
was a fake bird. Sharon called up afterward and sort of apologized.

Q: Do you think it was her idea all along?
A: Oh, I know it was. I said to her, "He's not mad, just desperate for
publicity."

Q: Did it work? Did he get the publicity?
A: I don't think it worked in getting Epic Records to take notice, but I
think it did work as far
as getting the kids to take notice. When the story leaked out, with photos
and all, it got around
everywhere. I'm sure Sharon was calling columns all over the country. That
sort of became the
Ozzy legend, that and all the other things he did afterwards.

Q: Sharon said that Epic wasn't taking any notice of Ozzy before this
happened.
A: I feel that people were already aware of Ozzy, prior to the meeting. My
impression was
certainly that he was a major artist we were going to be working with. I
doubt if it changed our
impression one way or the other, although I could be wrong. Obviously, he
went on to great
success, and maybe that was part of the reason, but who am I to say?

Q: So it was all definitely planned in advance?
A: Definitely. It was not a spontaneous act. He just didn't walk in and
happen to find a dove
hanging out in the CBS reception area and say, "Gee, I'll take this in with
me in case I get
hungry and they don't have coffee and doughnuts." It was right in his jacket
pocket. Come to
think of it, he had two of them. That was it: he had two of them, one in
each pocket. He let the
other one go afterwards. Everyone made him do it. He took the other one out
of his pocket and
everyone screamed, "No, don't do it again!"

Q: Did the second one fly away? That would indicate the first one was
alive, wouldn't it?
A: Not necessarily. He might have had one live one and one fake one. It's
just all so hazy; I was
so shocked.

(Ed: There are reports of three doves, however I believe there were only
two.)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.4 Wife as manager/Speak of the Devil
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"I am something of a madman. I can do nothing in moderation. If it's
booze, I drink the place dry. If it's drugs, I take everything and then
scrape the carpet for little crumbs. I took LSD everyday for years - I was
spending about $1000 a
week on drugs... I OD'd about a dozen times." ...Ozzy on his addictions

Once married, the better deal they had hoped for fell through. Sharon did
not want her father
controlling Ozzy's future any more. It was decided that the two of them
would buy out Ozzy's
contract from her father. Before they could buy out Ozzy's management and
recording contracts,
Ozzy still had to deliver an album under his old contract. Since he wanted
out badly, the result
was the purposely low-budget live album "Speak of the Devil". This album was
a live concert
recorded Sept. 26 and 27th at The Ritz in New York. After the album was
done, Ozzy could then
leave his contract with Sharon's father.

Don would not give it up so easily though, even for his own daughter. The
newly married couple,
not having much money, had to buy Ozzy's contract for over $1.5 million
dollars from her father.
Sharon has not spoken with her father since. Speak of the devil was released
in November of 1982.

The runes on the border of the 'Speak of the Devil' album and inside cover
actually translate
into meaningful phrases. The translation is found in Ozzy's autobiography
book:

"Howdy! Dial-A-Demon productions in conjunction with graveyard graphics
proudly presents the
madman of rock dumping into El Satanos toiletto. "A tribute to Randy Rhoads,
the axeman. That kid
was my lifeline, you know? He was such a dynamic player and I'd rather not
talk about it anymore
because it cuts me up every day of my life. Randy Rhoads rest in peace and
love."

One of the conditions for the transfer of Ozzy's contract from Don to Sharon
was that she get him
to enroll in the Betty Ford center for his drinking problems. She did this
by telling him she was
"going to teach him to drink like a gentleman". Ozzy took this to mean that
he would learn how
to drink properly, not at all what the Betty Ford center was for. When he
showed up, he asked
where he could find the bar. It didn't take long to find out that at Betty
Ford there is no bar!
Ozzy would also begin work on his next album, Bark at the Moon.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.5 Suicide Solution
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"I swear on my kid's life I never said 'get the f***ing gun'"
...Ozzy on his Suicide Solution song

"They know what they are putting out. There are people who are out there
trying to make money,
and they have no hesitation to sell your kids down the drain. You see a
perfectly normal kid
there who doesn't show any signs of depression at all. Then six hours later,
he's dead. Nobody
can explain it. The only thing we know is that he was listening to this
music."
...Father of suicide victim who listened to Ozzy

A song on Ozzy's first solo album, "Blizzard of Ozz" would cause a lot of
trouble. The song
"Suicide Solution" from the start, would have a very misleading title and
this was
understandable. Ozzy wrote the song after the singer for AC/DC (Bon Scott)
died after drinking
heavily one winter's night and passing out in his car, dying of hypothermia
as a result. Ozzy's
intentions were to talk about alcohol as a DEADLY LIQUID ('solution' meaning
mixture) but the
word 'solution' was looked upon as "an answer" instead. If you are not
familiar with Ozzy's
lyrics and true intentions, I strongly suggest before you pass judgement, to
read the meaning
behind the song.


Suicide Solution:
================
Wine is fine
But whiskey's quicker
Suicide is slow with liquor
Take a bottle drain your sorrows
Then it cuts away tomorrows

Evil thoughts and evil doings
Cold, alone you hang in ruins
Thought that you'd escape the reaper
You can't escape the master keeper
'Cause you feel life's unreal and you're living a lie
Such a shame who's to blame and you're wondering why
Then you ask from your cask is there life after birth
What you saw can mean hell on this earth
Now you live inside a bottle
The reaper's traveling at full throttle
It's catching you but you don't see
The reaper is you and the reaper is me
Breaking laws, knocking doors
But there's no one at home
Made your bed, rest your head
But you lie there and moan
Where to hide,
suicide is the only way out
Don't you know what it's really about

The song is clearly about the dangers of alcohol, but the song title could
be misinterpreted just
as well. Try as I might, I just can't see anything which tells a person to
commit suicide. The
only misleading words are in the song title. In October 1984, a
nineteen-year-old teenager named
John M. shot himself in the head, while listening to Ozzy Osbourne's
"Suicide Solution". When the
coroner entered the room, he found the headphones still on John's head.

In 1986, Ozzy had just gotten off a plane at LAX airport when people began
asking him about the
"lawsuits". Ozzy knew nothing about any lawsuit but the details quickly
emerged. Three lawsuits
had been launched against Ozzy, claiming that his lyrics had caused youths
to commit suicide.
The family of John hired attorney Thomas Anderson in a lawsuit against Ozzy.
Mr. Anderson
claimed on the "Don't Blame Me" Ozzy video, that the song contained tones
known as 'hemisync'
and would cause a person to be unable to resist what was being said in the
song. On Jan. 13,
1986 the parents of John, sued Ozzy.


The lawsuit was thrown out on Dec. 19, 1986 by a California Superior Court
judge. On July 18,
1988 an appeals court uphold the decision to dismiss the lawsuit.


The Institute for Bio-Acoustics Research, Inc. (IBAR) was hired to evaluate
the song. They found
subliminal lyrics that weren't included in the lyrics sheet. These
subliminal lyrics were sung
at one and one-half times the normal rate of speech and are not recognized
by a first time
listener. The IBAR institute claimed the subliminal lyrics, "are audible
enough that their
meaning and true intent becomes clear after being listened to over and over
again." The
subliminal lyrics in question were "Why try, why try? Get the gun and try
it! Shoot, Shoot,
Shoot", followed by a hideous laughter.


Further analysis by IBAR revealed the hemisync tones, which result from a
patented process that
uses sound waves to influence an individual's mental state. The tones have
been found to
increase the rate at which the human brain assimilates and processes
information. IBAR claimed
these tones made John vulnerable to the suggestive lyrics which Ozzy sang.

Ozzy's lawyer claimed that this was nonsense and relied upon the First
Amendment of the
Constitution to argue that Ozzy could write about anything he wanted. Three
people had now taken
their lives, and in each case it was Ozzy's 'Suicide Solution' song which
was the focus as the
cause of the deaths. Mr. Anderson claimed that the words, "shoot shoot, get
the gun, get the
gun" were audible in the song. There is an effect which can be heard on the
song, that could be
interpreted as that. The sounds were just Ozzy dicking around with the
soundboard. There is the
very real possibility which we must consider, that the record company wanted
to promote
publicity and placed these tones in purposely, but this is not for me to
prove or disprove.


Throughout the world, this problem would occur only in America. People were
forced to now take a
look at the family life instead of the actual music.

Rather than blaming the music, families should have realized it was up to
the parents to be
strong role models and have good communication with their children. In all
cases, Ozzy was found
not at fault and has sworn that this was never the true meaning behind the
song. Heavy metal
seems to be a scape-goat in which to blame teenagers problems such as drug
abuse on. Yet
teenagers who may listen to punk, jazz, or blues music may also suffer from
substance abuse or
commit suicide. As a parent, you should be keeping not only a close eye on
the type of music
your child is listening to, but get involved in their lives. Talk to them,
ask them how are they
doing, try to forge some kind of a relationship. When kids turn to heavy
metal, sometimes though
not always, it is a form of rebelling against a society or education system
they dislike.

What follows is an article written by a group calling themselves "Truth
About Rock":

'' One teenager who unfortunately succeeded in committing suicide was 14
year old Eric A. of St.
Louis Park, Minnesota. His favorite groups were Van Halen, Black Sabbath,
Ozzy Osbourne, AC/DC,
Quiet Riot, and Motley Crue. Eric's mother said, "He watched it (MTV) day
and night. He...
watched intil(sic) six o'clock in the morning." Eric and his friends were so
obsessed with the
rock scene that, the very night before he died, they held a seance and
attempted to contack(sic)
the spirits of dead rock stars. At 2:30 the next afternoon, with his eyes
filled with tears, he
said to his father, "Dad, I just can't cope with the pressure." He then went
into his room, took
his .22 rifle off the wall rack, and killed himself. ''

[Right here we have some problems. If a kid is spending all his time in
front of the television,
it might be a wise idea for the parents to intervene. If you just let him
soak up videos all
day, there may be a problem. Hosting a seance is also not a normal social
activity for a
teenager. Why did the father not talk to his son?]

'' Apparently, he had followed the deranged advice of one of his favorite
rock singers, Ozzy
Osbourne, who preaches in "Suicide Solution" "Suicide is the only way
out/...Why don't you kill
yourself 'cause you can't escape the Master Reaper..." {3} ''

[This is not true. Ozzy never says "Why don't you kill yourself". This is a
prime example of a
religious group portraying Ozzy as a menace to society. If you read the
lyrics of his song you
would see otherwise.]


'' Though Ozzy preaches such deadly lyrics, he defends himself
saying,"Parents have called me
and said, 'When my son died of a drug over-dose, your record was on the
turntable.' I can't help
that. These people are freaking out anyway, and they need a vehicle for the
freakouts." {4} ''


I will leave the closing words to the remainder of the groups article:

'' Pathetically, Rock Stars themselves are being caught in the devastating
grasp of suicide.
Peter Townshend, formerly of The Who, acknowledged "Rock is going to kill me
somehow. Mentally
or physically or some thing, it's going to get me in the end." {5} I myself
spent 6 months
contemplating suicide every day. The influence of Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll
had almost destroyed
my life. Until, with a knife in my hand, after trying to cut my wrists, I
cried out "God help
me!" From that moment on He began to change my life, and a short while later
I became a 'born
again' Christian. Whether you like it or not, you are in a battle for your
life. The Devil wants
to destroy you and he is using Rock music as a primary agent. But God has
not given you life,
only to have it choked out by the demented obsessions of Rock musicians.
There is only one
solution to your problems. Begin to live for God and not for yourself.
Because Jesus loves you,
He came to Earth to give His life in your place, so that you wouldn't have
to die for your own
sins. If you give your life back to Him, He will give you the peace you're
looking for. ''

For more information on Rock n'Roll, write to: Truth About Rock,
Box 9222, North St. Paul, MN. 55109

Note: Since there is a constant turnover of new Rock groups some of those
mentioned above may
not currently be "hot". However, be assured that other groups have taken
their place and
continue to present a similar message.

FOOTNOTES: {1} National Center For Health Statistics
{2} Aurora Mackey, "The Frightening Facts About Teen Suicide"< Teen, 10/83
{3} Truth About Rock Report, June/July '85, p. 6
{4} "Heavy Metal Mania", Anne Fadiman, Life magazine,12/84, p.112
{5} Time magazine Dec. 17, 1979, pg. 94

* UPDATE *

One of Ozzy's original band members claims that the song is NOT about Bon
Scott. In an
interview, Bob Daisley claims, "He's (Ozzy) a fuck. He didn't write it. I
know what I wrote it
about."
Daisley says he came up with the lyrics and Ozzy came up with the first
line. Daisley says he
wrote the song as a warning to Ozzy about his drinking.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.6 Bark at the Moon
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ozzy's next album would be "Bark at the Moon". The title track is a song
about a creature
(werewolf) who has come back to seek revenge on those who scorned and buried
him. The video
portrays Ozzy being confined to an asylum because he was a mad scientist. In
the asylum he sees
this werewolf running around chasing him. This song, like his earlier songs
would supposedly
affect his listeners in negative ways, read on:

"Rock Sparks Stabbing", Canadian Press Association:
Halifax, Canada, 9/26/84

"...according to the Canadian Press Wire Service, the effect of heavy metal
rock music so
influenced a young Canadian named James Jollimore, that '...on New Year's
Eve -1983, he went out
and stabbed someone. A friend of the defendant testified that Jollimore, 20,
who is charged with
the first-degree murder of a 44 year old woman and her two sons, felt like
stabbing people when
he heard music such as Ozzy Osbourne's 'Bark at the Moon'. 'Jimmy said that
every time he
listened to the song he felt strange inside,' the friend told the court. 'He
said when he heard
it on New Year's Eve he went out and stabbed someone.'"

[Once again the blame would be shifted from the individual to the musician.]

Ozzy's band now consisted of Jake E. Lee on guitar, Tommy Aldridge, Don
Airey on keyboard and
Bob Daisley on bass. One of the videos they filmed for the album was the
lovely ballad, "So
Tired". This ballad made use of a full orchestra. An interesting note: Ozzy
also plays the parts
of all the main characters in the video. A good use of makeup art is
evident. One scene shows
Ozzy in front of a mirror clenching his fists, and the mirror shatters.
While filming the video,
the charge which would shatter the mirror was too strong and the mirror
exploded sending glass
into Ozzy's face.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.7 The Ultimate Disaster
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

After the release of the 1984 Bark at the Moon album and subsequent tour,
Ozzy began work on the
long awaited Ultimate Sin album. The Ultimate Sin would come out in 1986,
ending the long wait
by his fans. It would also be one of the poorest amongst the opinions of
Ozzy and his fans as
well. The album's sound was cheesy and according to Ozzy, most of songs
ended up sounding alike
(which they do).

On March 19, 1987, due to overwhelming demand by his fans, Ozzy also
released the Randy Rhoad's Tribute album. Randy's mother, Dolores had
dozens of letters from fans wanting to know if there were any more Randy
concerts out there. She
then contacted Ozzy who searched through his house and came up with some old
archive material.
The material was sent to Max Norman who had produced Ozzy's first three
albums, to see if the
material was suitable. The result was the Randy Rhoad's Tribute album. Ozzy
also played only one
show that year, at the HMP Wormwood Scrubs prison in the UK.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.8 No Rest for the Wicked
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The following year, in 1988, Ozzy released his 'No Rest for the Wicked'
album. This featured
Zakk Wylde (who had his own band 'Pride and Glory') on guitar, Randy
Castillo on drums and Bob
Daisley on bass guitar. The album title again was a bit eerie and the cover
showed an Osbourne
sitting in a chair with two girls (looking possessed) and one screaming at
him. Zakk, who had
heard Ozzy on Howard Stern mention that he was looking for a new guitar
player, didn't think he
had a chance. It was not until later when a rock photographer mentioned he
would be happy to
pass along a tape of Zakk's music, did he then get the audition and the
subsequent part.

On August 12 and 13th of 1989, Ozzy played the Moscow Music Peace Festival.
This show featured
acts like Bon Jovi, Scorpions and Motley Crue. The other bands were
basically small club bands
but of course Ozzy was a world-wide name and the crowd just went crazy when
it was his turn to
play.

In March of 1990, Geezer would join Ozzy in releasing a live album titled
"Just Say Ozzy". This
would contain some of the No Rest for the Wicked and Black Sabbath material
combined. Nothing to
write home about.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.9 No More Beers
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"A lot of my drinking friends died in their 40's-heart attacks, one
guy's liver exploded. There but for the grace of God go I. Their
must be a guiding star over me" [Ozzy 1996]

The year 1991 would mark the beginning of big changes in Ozzy's life. Ozzy
gave sobriety another
try, and came out victorious. It was a combination of domestic situations,
hangovers, and many
personal reasons which made him want to try again. He had wanted to quit
drinking every day but
was unable to because he'd be feeling too bad from the day before. He had
been to many treatment
centers (including multiple stays at Betty Ford) before. This time he just
woke up one day and
decided that enough was enough. Since successfully quitting, he has not had
a drink to this day!
Now that he wasn't drinking, Ozzy took his health one step further. He
bought a Lifecycle (which
he uses at least 90 minutes a day), starting dieting (he now avoids eating
red meat) and working
out. The result was a better looking Ozzy, both in physical aspects and his
on stage
performance.
He would also begin to see life in a different light, enjoying life's
moments that he had
previously ignored because of being constantly drunk. There would be another
change, this time
in his musical direction. Ozzy has said he used to write songs based on what
he thought his fans
would like to hear. The album titles were dark. He had never written or
recorded an album sober
before. During this alcohol free period he recorded his next album, "No More
Tears", which would
be a change from his previous dark album titles.

No More Tears was originally going to be titled "Say Hello To Heaven" which
would be an accurate
portrayal of the cover. The cover showed a tame looking Ozzy with wings, in
a cloudy serene
background. The music itself was a pleasant mix of soft ballads like "Mama
I'm Coming Home" (one
even your mother would enjoy), to hard rocking songs like "Hellraiser". It
is of interest to
note that Lemmy of Motorhead helped Ozzy write the lyrics to some of the
songs (or in the case
of Mama, he wrote all the lyrics). The song "Road to Nowhere" would describe
his life in
general, while "Mr. Tinkertrain" would talk about child molestation issues.
Being written in the
first person, critics now claimed Ozzy was promoting child molestation.

Ozzy would also win a Grammy award for the song, "I Don't Want to Change the
World". This would
also be a first in that it was the first album they made demos of, thus
deciding on which songs
to keep and which ones to make changes to. Samples of the untouched,
original songs are
available on bootlegs as well.

Ozzy surprised everyone by calling the tour, "No More Tours". In interviews
he said that he was
tired of touring and he wanted to spend more time with his family. He was
also suffering bouts
of illnesses, canceling shows, and other injuries. The pressures of touring
got to him and he
embarked on what was to be his "final tour". The band now consisted of Zakk
on guitar, Randy
Castillo on drums and Mike Inez on bass. During these final tours, some
shows were taped and
used in an upcoming commercial video and audio compilation, "Live and Loud"
which was a double
album.
The CD package also included two stick-on tattoos. There was much
speculation about whether or
not this would be the final tour, or perhaps it was a ploy to get more
money.

On November 15 of 1992, Ozzy played at Costa Mesa, California. This was one
of the two nightly
shows that would be the last in his tour. Sharon and Ozzy decided it would
be cool to invite the
other members of Black Sabbath for a reunion since this would be the end of
it all. All of the
members of Black Sabbath agreed, but Ronnie Dio did not. After playing his
songs, the members of
Black Sabbath came out and joined Ozzy in playing four songs: Black Sabbath,
Fairies Wear Boots,
Iron Man and of course, Paranoid.

The video release of this final show only contains the Black Sabbath song
though. How did the
audience react at seeing the original Sabbath members back together since
1978? They went
totally crazy of course. At the end of the show a fireworks sparkler display
went off which
proclaimed, "I'll Be Back". The purpose of having a final show and then
saying you'll be back is
beyond me.
Being his final tour, sales were high and other artists turned out to see
the madman before he
retired, including Vince Neil, Rod Stewart and Nicholas Cage.

When it was all over, so was Ozzy's lifetime of performing. Or so he wanted
us to think.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.10 Ozzmosis
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

In 1993, Ozzy was officially retired. His fans had the 'Live and Loud' video
and double CD to
remind them of his final days. Ozzy went home and did what he longed to do,
be a father. He
spent time playing with his children and wife. He also bought various toys
to pass time:
motorcycles, guns, and night vision goggles (to see animals running at
night). It would not be
too long before he longed for his old lifestyle and after a few weeks of
being retired, Ozzy
wanted to get another band and start touring all over again.

His fans soon began hearing rumors of an upcoming Ozzy album, what would it
be called? The
latest gossip was "X-Ray" as a working title. There were also disgruntled
fans who were angry
(and rightly so) that they had been taken in by another lie. [While I am a
huge fan of Ozzy's, I
am not going to only portray the good sides of him, this is after all a
biography and it is part
of the story]. Rumors also persisted that Steve Vai would be playing on the
new album.

It was not until almost two years later that the rumors became facts. Yes,
Ozzy was coming back
with a new album. Yes, there would be a tour to support it. The album would
be called
"Ozzmosis".

Ozzmosis was released on September 1995.

Ozzmosis is defined as "the diffusion of fluids through a membrane" :)
Geezer Butler, his old
Sabbath friend would also be on the album and tour. The band recorded the
album in Paris, and
was produced by Michael Beinhorn. Since Zakk was busy with his own project,
Pride and Glory, it
was arranged that Steve Vai would be contributing to the album. The songs
would be split so that
both Zakk and Vai would appear on the album. Because of the record company
once again
interfering with plans, only Zakk's material made it to the final product.
However Steve Vai DID
play the guitar on My Little Man. "Perry Mason", was released as a single
earlier on and
received radio play.

All that remained after the album's debut was to begin touring...


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.11 Why did Zakk leave Ozzy?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Ozzy would name his Ozzmosis tour, "Retirement Sucks" in an obvious
statement about his feelings
towards his short lived retirement. It was now time to begin touring. Zakk
was talking about
playing with Guns and Roses so Ozzy decided to audition new guitarists,
thinking Zakk would not
be around for the tour. Zakk's manager, Doug Goldstein, called Sharon and
told her that Zakk
would be available. He later phoned to say that Zakk was still negotiating
for the gig with Guns
and Roses. Ozzy did not know what Zakk was planning to do because he was
negotiating with both
groups, and so asked Zakk to let him know what his plans were. When Zakk did
not return the phone
call as promised, Ozzy decided enough was enough and found a new player.
Ozzy and Zakk are still
on good terms however.

Remember Joe Holmes, the kid who took guitar lessons from Randy? The 31 year
old guitar player
who hailed from New Jersey, would soon play a part in Ozzy's life. Joe had
previously played with
David Lee Roth for his 1988 tour and was currently working on his own band,
"Tariff", when Dean
Castronovo (Oz's drummer) phoned Joe to let him know they were seeking a
guitar player. Joe went
down to Audible in Los Angeles and played three Ozzy classics. He did not
mention that he had
once took lessons from Randy because he thought this might jeopardize his
chances. He succeeded
though and got the part. Unfortunately Joe is not heard on the Ozzmosis
album but he will be on
the next one. So Joe Holmes as Ozzy's new guitar player and Geezer Butler on
bass began the
Retirement Sucks tour. Halfway through the tour, Geezer left due to being
homesick for his family
and Mike Inez took his place.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.11b Ozzfest
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Later on, in yet another shrewd marketing attempt, Ozzy and Sharon came up
with the 'Ozz-Fest'.
The festival which would start September 14, 1996 would be of a different
theme. At this event
one could get a tattoo done, body piercing or have your fortune read by a
psychic. Ozz-fest
featured the following hard rock groups: Danzig, Sepultura, Prong, Slayer,
Biohazard, Fear
Factory, Neurosis, King Norris, Earth Crisis, Powerman 5000, Coal Chamber,
and Cellophane.

Ozzfest prices are insane. $3 for a bottle of water, $4 for a hot dog.
Sharon is taking it all
to the bank.

Towards November 1996, Ozzy played his last show of the tour in Hawaii. His
plans now were to go
back to the studio to release a 'Greatest Hits' package (early 1997) which
will have his older
songs and three new ones. One of them would be a song called "Back on Earth"
which was
co-written with Steve Vai.


Timeline continued in [2.14]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.12 Of Priests and Devils
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Years ago a particular news snippet caught my attention. It was a news clip
about a religious
group who were burning records. It showed children and adults throwing
record albums into a
bonfire. A priest told the interviewer, "One of the albums we're going to be
burning tonight is
Ozzy Osbourne's Speak of the Devil". The album cover shows Ozzy sitting in a
chair, or throne,
with his mouth open and drooling what is supposed to be blood (but looks
more like strawberry
jam). At Ozzy Osbourne concerts, religious believers have been known to hand
out pamphlets to
concert-goers.

Religious leaders have condemned Ozzy for being a Satanist and devil
worshipper. Ozzy's shows
are boycotted and he is banned from playing certain cities. Is any of the
hype true, and as a
parent should you be concerned if your child is listening to Ozzy Osbourne?
To start, Ozzy has
had a record of macabre album titles: Diary of a Madman, Speak of the Devil,
No Rest for the
Wicked and The Ultimate Sin. However the old saying, "you can't judge a book
by its cover"
certainly comes into play here. As a priest, an album called 'Speak of the
Devil' and showing a
man spewing blood would certainly be cause for alarm. But if you take a
closer look at the album
and listen to the songs, it becomes another story. Speak of the Devil is
simply a live album
boasting some of the earlier Black Sabbath material. There is absolutely no
reference AT ALL to
Satan. The closest Ozzy comes on that album or most any other of his albums
to evil, are songs
such as 'Snowblind' and 'Sweet Leaf' which talk about drug usage. You can
pull out all of Ozzy's
albums, glance at the cover pictures and album titles and dismiss him as a
devil worshipper in a
heavy metal band. However we live in a world where people are free to make
their own minds up
about what they believe. I fail to see anywhere in Ozzy's career any truth
to the Satanic
rumors. I am a fan of Ozzy's and it is true I might be somewhat biased
towards him, but I can
reassure you I have never seen anything, WHATSOEVER, that leads me to believ
e Ozzy has any
relationship with the devil. Fans of his may laugh at this but there are
obviously people out
there who seriously believe otherwise.


So why then has this man been accused so often of being associated with
evil? To explain this
would be beyond my abilities. I can however tell you that his album covers
may play a part. The
fact that people have claimed to have heard backwards messages in his music
may also play a
part. The suicide deaths of teenagers listening to Ozzy's music also go hand
in hand with the
allegations of backwards messages. The fact he was once lead singer for a
band called Black
Sabbath also may play a part. I really can't tell you why people claim this.
True, he is a
singer in a band which is considered heavy metal. This does not make him an
evil person.

In all fairness, he has lived a life of drug and alcohol abuse and done some
very stupid things
which people will always remember him for. Overlooking the stupid stunts he
has done, I don't
find any evidence of his being an evil person.

If you are a parent, should you be concerned if Jimmy brings home an Ozzy
Osbourne album? Well,
to answer that you need to look at a few outside factors. Is the kid level
headed and are the
lines of communication open with your child? If the child has serious
problems, perhaps
listening to his "Suicide Solution" would be a mistake. It is very easy to
misconstrue the
lyrics and it just might play a part in your son's decision. If your child
is planning suicide,
there are obviously more serious problems than that of an Ozzy album. I
don't wish to spread
panic, there is no need to really go and censor all of his albums. The fact
is that if given the
right circumstances, any medium could lead someone to believe suicide is ok.
If you trust your
child's judgement and believe him to be level headed, I don't see any real
problems. Mind you I
am NOT an expert, nor do I pretend to be. I am simply someone who grew up
listening to Ozzy's
music. Maybe you should sit down with the lyrics to the song and explain
that it was the
death of the singer for AC/DC which prompted the song, and the lyrics
pertain to alcohol
solution not answer-to-your-problem-solution. I figure it like this: If
Jimmy is thinking of
committing suicide, I think listening to an Ozzy album would be the same as
watching a TV
program or reading a paper on the same subject. If the child sees other
teens talking about
wanting to commit, how they tried to, or how life is not worth living,
perhaps that media
attention on the topic would affect his decision just as much.

Up till now I have been talking mainly of suicide, this is because music
could play a crucial
weight in a child's decision. However a song about suicide is irrelevant to
the topic of this
chapter. I merely wanted to address the question or whether it is okay to
listen to Ozzy. SURE!
I never sacrificed any cats, nor did I try to kill myself. I did not go out
on a full moon and
try to eat a dog either, maybe if I was sleepwalking but not that I can
remember. :)

So why then does the religious faith attack this man? I sincerely do not
know. I really don't.
Perhaps it has to do with the last chapter. Maybe when our children turn to
drugs and alcohol
and kills animals, it must be heavy metal's fault. There has been a long
waged war against
metal. I think statistically you will find that a lot of troubled teenagers
and drug abusers
listen to heavy metal but I would not blame that music category for it. As
Ozzy once said, "I'm
sure people smoke pot at a Stevie Wonder concert". Let us now talk about
some of the religious
people who have attacked Osbourne for being in league with the devil.

Cardinal O'Connor
--------------------
This man accused Ozzy of being the devil and told people that exorcisms were
real and that Oz's
music was spreading the devil's word. 'A Current Affair' also did a
telephone survey in which
the majority of callers said that they felt heavy metal music was killing
their kids.

Jimmy Swaggart
---------------------
Another television evangelist. The man makes his bread and butter by selling
God. The morals of
this are not mine to determine. Jimmy also put down Ozzy. Jim was later
found coming out of a
hotel room with a prostitute. He was later shown on television crying to God
and asking for
forgiveness. I don't wish to put him down for his repenting, but the fact he
put down someone
else and committed his own sins is hypocrisy. The fact is he is a human
being with human urges
and he can't deny that. Ozzy made a song and video called "Miracle Man" in
which he talks about
Jimmy and his critical views.


Oral Roberts
------------------
Another evangelist who has put down Ozzy. This is the same man who claimed
if he did not get 7
million dollars by a certain time, God would be calling him back home. To
me, this seems a very
obvious and pathetic attempt at milking the public. Ozzy makes his money
through hard work, not
pretending he will soon die.

None of these people offered to help Ozzy in his time of depression and
substance abuse. Though
Ozzy did send Oral Roberts a single dollar for "his psychiatric bill".


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.13 Will there ever be a reunion?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

It depends on what kind of reunion you want to know about. The possibility
of Ozzy and the three
Sabs reuniting as a permanent group is nill. It just won't happen. A partial
reunion for the
sake of fans (or should I say $F$A$N$S$) is probable.

What you may not know is that during the time Ozzy was playing his last show
in Costa Mesa with
his old Sabbath buddies, the foursome had already been talking for nearly a
year about a
reunion. It was originally going to be a two month tour and an album (a
Sabbath-head's dream
come true). As time progressed though, Ozzy grew uncomfortable about doing
the reunion. Problems
began arising... the four original members now had their own managers,
lawyers, and record
companies. Each person's manager wanted to be the one in charge of the
project which would
result in a fortune. The Sabs just wanted to do the show. Ozzy has since
gone on to say that he
might have done a reunion if they had scrapped the name Black Sabbath at the
time when the
original members left. As it stands, Black Sabbath has had members leave,
come back and then
leave again. There have been numerous changes in the members of the band
involving outside
players. Ozzy felt that the name Black Sabbath no longer represented what it
once did. This
chapter deals with the idea of Black Sabbath reunited for good. In fact,
Black Sabbath and Ozzy
HAVE reunited for concerts, but both remain two separate bands.


Since the Costa Mesa show, Ozzy has agreed to reunite with Sabbath for a
small tour. This
coincided with a live album which was released October 31, 1998. This will
not be a permanent
reunion, however the band is touring North America in 1999.

As of 2005, Black Sabbath did get together to write some material. Bill Ward
has about 30 tapes
these sessions. Ozzy hasn't ruled out the possibility of a reunion but so
far Ozzfest remains
he only chance to see the four original members on the same stage.

Tony Iommi had this to say on the subject:
The band has come up with about six songs, none of which have been formally
recorded. "The
tracks were good; actually, I thought, very good," he said. "But we didn't
get as far as
actually recording them; we demoed them.


Black Sabbath has reunited:

In 1985, the original members of Black Sabbath (Iommi/Butler/Osbourne/Ward)
reunited for the
Live Aid benefit concert. They played three songs.

In 1992, the 1980-1982 version of Black Sabbath (Iommi/Butler/Dio/Appice)
reunited and toured
for the album Dehumanizer.

In 1992, the original members of Black Sabbath played three songs after one
of Ozzy Osbourne's
"retirement" concerts in Costa Mesa, California.

In 1995, the 1989-1991 version of the band
(Iommi/Powell/Martin/Murray/Nicholls) reunited for
the album and tour for Forbidden.

In 1997-98, the original members of Black Sabbath reunited, toured and
released Reunion.


In 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2005 the original Black Sabbath reunited and toured
on Osbourne's
Ozzfest.

Ozzy's management denies any new album will be released. Tony seems to think
there will be. Ozzy
has said there might be. Apparently there is, isn't or might be - depending
on whom you ask.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.14 After Ozzmosis
------------------------------------------------------------------------

"For all the money we have, the way we live, the cars we drive, the
first-class travel we
take...I would gladly give it all up just to be simple old Ozzy again." .
Ozzy

Ozz Records
===========

Ozzy and Sharon started their own record label, Ozz Records in 1996. The
first release under the
label was "The Ozz Fest - Live".

The company began as an idea that they could be more personal and fun than
the large corporate
labels.

They began building a studio in London.


The record label was eventually abandoned because Ozzfest was a full time
effort.


1995-1996
========

Aft