Black Sabbath TShirTS,

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Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham. The original Black Sabbath line up of Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Terence "Geezer" Butler (bass), and Bill Ward (drums) is the same as the current Black Sabbath line up (2007) although there have been many shifts of personnel over the years.

Black Sabbath remain a dominant influence in the heavy metal genre they helped create. VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock ranks them second, behind Led Zeppelin.



Pairing their new heavy sound and the stage antics of Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath found success beginning with their first album, the eponymous Black Sabbath, released on Friday the 13th, February, 1970. Black Sabbath signed to Warner Bros. Records in the U.S. and Canada, and Vertigo Records for the rest of the world. Black Sabbath follow-up album Paranoid, also released in 1970, brought them even greater attention in America and the UK. The song "War Pigs" was written in protest against the Vietnam war and was originally planned as the title track. Black Sabbath recorded "Paranoid" at the last minute simply to add length to the album. The song ended up becoming the title track for the album and Black Sabbath's first single to garner substantial radio airplay.

Another innovation was the by-product of an accident. Tony Iommi lost the tips of two fingers on his fretting hand while working in a sheet metal factory. Initially, he forged himself prosthetics from a melted plastic detergent bottle. The injured fingers were understandably tender, so Iommi downtuned his Gibson guitar from standard E to C# (starting with the third album, Master of Reality). The reduced tension of the strings allowed him to play with less pain to his fingertips. Butler lowered his bass tuning to match Iommi's. The lower pitch gave the music a "heavier" or more substantive tone matching Black Sabbath's lyrics.

Black Sabbath released another album in 1971, Master of Reality. This was the first Black Sabbath album to feature a significant amount of acoustic material ("Solitude" contained a flute solo by Iommi). This is an often overlooked switch in style by Black Sabbath, as they are largely known only for their simple, heavy, dark riffs. They added more varying musical elements by the time the band released Black Sabbath, Vol. 4 in 1972. Featuring the ballad "Changes" (containing only vocal, bass, piano and mellotron) and hard rock anthems like "Supernaut" and "Snowblind" (which included strings), Black Sabbath, Vol. 4 was the group's most mature record to date.

By 1973, Black Sabbath was one of the most popular heavy metal bands in the world, and were a major concert attraction. Their next release, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, saw Black Sabbath working with Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman on a session basis. Along with the title track, the album also included the space-rock styled "Spiral Architect," and the prog-rock inspired "A National Acrobat".

By this time Black Sabbath was heavily addicted to drugs and Osbourne and Ward supposedly took LSD every day for two years. Towards the end of Osbourne's tenure in 1978, he was so embroiled in drugs that he claims he was "very unhappy and got drunk and stoned every day". Many of Black Sabbath's songs address drugs, both explicitly and implicitly.

Black Sabbath was suffering major management problems (the group was managed by Osbourne's future father-in-law, Don Arden). The management problems and then a label change in the UK from Vertigo to WWA disrupted the release schedule of Black Sabbath's new album while Black Sabbath was still with Warner Bros. in the US and Canada. Despite the troubles, Sabotage was released in 1975 with continued success. However, drug problems, continued experimentation in their music style (Gregorian chants and a chorale of monks highlighted "Supertzar"), the hard rock scene's changing environment, and some internal issues were affecting the stability and output of Black Sabbath.

Technical Ecstasy (1976) turned out to be a commercial failure. The album was laden with symphony orchestras, synthesisers, and vocals from drummer Bill Ward following a brief departure from Osbourne during the recording sessions. After the 1977 tour, Ozzy Osbourne stopped turning up at Black Sabbath rehearsals and the remaining band members recorded some music with singer Dave Walker, formerly of Savoy Brown.

Due to internal conflicts and an evident lack of commitment due to drugs, Ozzy Osbourne was asked to officially leave Black Sabbath in 1979.

In 1996, Ozzy Osbourne launched his wildly successful Ozzfest metal festival tour, which he headlined on a nightly basis. On the 1997 tour, for the last part of his set each night, he was joined by Geezer Butler and Tony Iommi for a rundown on several Black Sabbath classics (Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin was on drums). However, in December 1997, original drummer Bill Ward joined forces with Osbourne, Iommi, and Butler to officially reform the original Black Sabbath on a permanent basis for the first time since 1979.

In November 2005, Black Sabbath were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame, and Black Sabbath played at the awards ceremony. That same month it was also announced that Black Sabbath would be inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006. This time Black Sabbath did not play any songs, instead having Metallica play two Black Sabbath songs, "Hole in the Sky" and "Iron Man".

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