#243 - Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970)
MUSIC HISTORY COMPILED BY ADAM BERNARD:
BACKGROUND – BLACK SABBATH
Black Sabbath were formed in Birmingham in 1968 by guitarist Tony Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, bassist Geezer Butler, and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne. The band helped define the genre with releases such as today's album, Paranoid (1970) and Master of Reality (1971). The band had multiple line-up changes following Osbourne's departure in 1979, with Iommi being the only constant member throughout their history.
The godfathers of heavy metal didn't take the name Black Sabbath until 1969. They were previously called the "Polka Tulk Blues Band" and "Earth" prior to that. Guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward were in a band called Mythology before everyone met, and connected with vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler, who were also looking for a band after they departed their group "Rare Breed". While they were still known as Earth, Iommi had a brief fling with the band Jethro Tull, but came back to the band within a month. They discovered another band had this name and were sometimes being mistaken for them, so they needed a change. A cinema across from where the band was practicing was showing the 1963 horror movie "Black Sabbath", and the rest is history. Sabbath released their first single in November 1969, "Evil Woman" (a cover by a band called "Crow"). While it didn't chart, that and their performance on a national television show led them to 2 days of studio time, in which they recorded their self-titled debut album.
Three months later they went back into the studio to record their second album "Paranoid", which contained tracks like Iron Man, War Pigs, the album's title track, which was released as a single prior to the album's release. Following their first real tour, the band wtrote and released their exploratory album (as Geezer called it) Master of Reality. It peaked #8 on the US Billboard 200, and #5 on the UK charts. Following their world tour in 1972, Sabbath took its first break in three years. As Ward explained: "The band started to become very fatigued and very tired. We'd been on the road non-stop, year in and year out, constantly touring and recording. I think Master of Reality was kind of like the end of an era, the first three albums, and we decided to take our time with the next album."
In June 1972, the band reconvened in Los Angeles to begin work on their next album. With more time in the studio, the album saw the band experimenting with new textures, such as strings, piano, orchestration and multi-part songs. Recording was plagued with problems, many as a result of substance abuse issues, which would become a common issue throughout the decade. Butler thought that the end product "was very badly produced, as far as I was concerned. Our then-manager insisted on producing it, so he could claim production costs". The album was originally titled Snowblind after the song of the same name, which deals with cocaine abuse. The record company changed the title at the last minute to Black Sabbath Vol. 4. Vol. 4 was released in September 1972, and while critics were dismissive, it achieved Gold status in less than a month, and was the band's fourth consecutive release to sell a million in the U.S. When the band began to work on their fifth album, the same issues were plaguing the band, forcing them to abandon recording on the west coast. "Ideas weren't coming out the way they were on Vol. 4, and we really got discontent", Iommi said. "Everybody was sitting there waiting for me to come up with something. I just couldn't think of anything. And if I didn't come up with anything, nobody would do anything". The band opted to return to England, and by November 1973, Black Sabbath began to receive positive reviews in the mainstream press after the release of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. The album marked the band's fifth consecutive Platinum-selling album in the U.S. reaching number four on the UK Albums Chart and number 11 in the U.S.
Black Sabbath began work on their sixth album, this time with a decisive vision to differ the sound from Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. "We could've continued and gone on and on, getting more technical, using orchestras and everything else which we didn't particularly want to. We took a look at ourselves, and we wanted to do a rock album – Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath wasn't a rock album, really". Their 6th album, Sabotage was released in July 1975. Sabotage reached the top 20 in both the U.S. and the United Kingdom, but it was the band's first release not to achieve Platinum status in the U.S., only achieving Gold certification. The cracks in the band's foundation were also beginning to take hold. Black Sabbath toured in support of Sabotage with openers Kiss, but were forced to cut the tour short in November 1975, following a motorcycle accident in which Osbourne ruptured a muscle in his back. In December 1975, the band's record companies released a greatest hits album without input from the band, titled We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll. The album charted throughout 1976, eventually selling two million copies in the U.S.
During the recording of their next album, Technical Ecstasy, Osbourne admits that he began losing interest in Black Sabbath and began to consider the possibility of working with other musicians. By the time the album was completed, Osbourne was admitted to Stafford County Asylum in Britain. It was released in September 1976 to mixed reviews. The album featured less of the doomy, ominous sound of previous efforts, and incorporated more synthesisers and uptempo rock songs. Technical Ecstasy failed to reach the top 50 in the U.S. and was the band's second consecutive release not to achieve Platinum status, although it was later certified Gold in 1997. In late 1977, while in rehearsal for their next album and just days before the band was set to enter the studio, Osbourne abruptly quit the band. Iommi called vocalist Dave Walker, a longtime friend of the band who had previously been a member of Fleetwood Mac, and informed him that Osbourne had left the band. Walker, who was at that time fronting a band called Mistress, flew to Birmingham from California to write material and rehearse with Black Sabbath. Walker later recalled that while in Birmingham, he had bumped into Osbourne in a pub and came to the conclusion that Osbourne was not fully committed to leaving Black Sabbath. "The last Sabbath albums were just very depressing for me", Osbourne said. "I was doing it for the sake of what we could get out of the record company, just to get fat on beer and put a record out." Osbourne initially set out to form a solo project, but Osbourne had a change of heart early in rehearsals and rejoined Black Sabbath. "Three days before we were due to go into the studio, Ozzy wanted to come back to the band", Iommi explained. "He wouldn't sing any of the stuff we'd written with the other guy (Walker), so it made it very difficult. We went into the studio with basically no songs. We'd write in the morning so we could rehearse and record at night. It was so difficult, like a conveyor belt, because you couldn't get time to reflect on stuff. 'Is this right? Is this working properly?' It was very difficult for me to come up with the ideas and putting them together that quick". The band spent five months writing and recording what would become Never Say Die!. Iommi said "We were getting really drugged out, doing a lot of dope. We'd go down to the sessions, and have to pack up because we were too stoned, we'd have to stop. Nobody could get anything right, we were all over the place, everybody's playing a different thing. We'd go back and sleep it off, and try again the next day". The album reached number 12 in the United Kingdom and number 69 in the U.S.
Following the tour, Black Sabbath returned to Los Angeles and again rented a house in Bel Air, where they spent nearly a year working on new material for the next album. The entire band were abusing both alcohol and other drugs, but Iommi says Osbourne "was on a totally different level altogether". The band would come up with new song ideas, but Osbourne showed little interest and would refuse to sing them. Pressure from the record label and frustrations with Osbourne's lack of input coming to a head, Iommi made the decision to fire Osbourne in 1979. Iommi believed the only options available were to fire Osbourne or break the band up completely. Ward, who was close with Osbourne, was chosen by Tony to break the news to the singer "I hope I was professional, I might not have been, actually. When I'm drunk I am horrible, I am horrid", Ward said. "Alcohol was definitely one of the most damaging things to Black Sabbath. We were destined to destroy each other. The band were toxic, very toxic"
Black Sabbath has sold over 70 million records worldwide, including 15 million in the U.S., and 8 million in the 1970s alone. They were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. They have also won two Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance, and in 2019 the band were presented a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Black Sabbath has been so influential in the development of heavy metal rock music. They have influenced many acts including Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Soundgarden, Anthrax, Pantera, Megadeththe Smashing Pumpkins, and Van Halen. In addition to being pioneers of heavy metal, they also have been credited for laying the foundations for heavy metal subgenres stoner rock, sludge metal, thrash metal, black metal and doom metal.
ALBUM BACKGROUND – BLACK SABBATH
This is the debut album of the legendary band Black Sabbath. Their self-titled release is credited with pioneering heavy metal music as we know it. Other bands like Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin, and Deep Purple were already setting new standards for volume and heaviness in the realms of psychedelia, blues-rock, and prog rock, but it was Sabbath's unique, doomy sound that set them apart. While critics didn't embrace it at first, Sabbath are the only one whose sound today remains instantly recognizable as metal, even after decades of evolution in the genre.
The band had gone through many different names and various sounds throughout the 1960s. But by the end of the decade they found their name, sound, and identity at the movie theater (of all places) that would set them on the path of becoming one of the most legendary and heaviest bands of the past 50 years.
This album was recorded in 2 days of studio time. The album cost $1200 (about $10,000 in today's money) to make and took about eight hours to record. It was released in February 1970, and peaked at #8 in the UK and #23 in the US, and spent over a year on both charts.
Tony Iommi talked about the recording sessions: We just went in the studio and did it in a day, we played our live set and that was it. We actually thought a whole day was quite a long time, then off we went the next day to play for £20 in Switzerland. We thought, ‘we have two days to do it and one of the days is mixing.’ So we played live. Ozzy was singing at the same time, we just put him in a separate booth and off we went. We never had a second run of most of the stuff.
Iommi on where his heavy sound came from "I’d play a load of chords and I’d have to play fifths because I couldn’t play fourths because of my fingers. That helped me develop my style of playing, bending the strings and hitting the open string at the same time just to make the sound wilder. Tony lost two fingertips in an industry accident, which required him to play slower and to slacken the strings by tuning his guitar down, thus creating Sabbath's signature style. Geezer Butler also added: "Back then the bass player was supposed to do all these melodic runs, but I didn’t know how to do that because I’d been a guitarist, so all I did was follow Tony’s riff. That made the sound heavier."
The way he plays it has to compromise not having finger tips so and it starts to develop a dark sound. He tunes down. And next thing you know you have the sabbath sound. The elements of the sabbath sound.
Black Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne has fond memories of the recording the band's debut album, stating in his autobiography "Once we'd finished, we spent a couple of hours double-tracking some of the guitar and vocals, and that was that. Done. We were in the pub in time for last orders. It can't have taken any longer than twelve hours in total. That's how albums should be made, in my opinion." Drummer Bill Ward agrees "I think the first album is just absolutely incredible. It's naïve, and there's an absolute sense of unity – it's not contrived in any way, shape or form. We weren't old enough to be clever. I love it all, including the mistakes!"
Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford commented: "They were and still are a groundbreaking band...you can put on the first Black Sabbath album and it still sounds as fresh today as it did 30-odd years ago. And that's because great music has a timeless ability: To me, Sabbath are in the same league as the Beatles or Mozart. They're on the leading edge of something extraordinary."