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Black Sabbath

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Black Sabbath formed in 1968 in Aston, a working-class district of Birmingham. The guitarist Tony Iommi and the drummer Bill Ward wanted to start a heavy blues rock band and found the bassist Geezer Butler and the singer Ozzy Osbourne, who had put up an advertisement in a music shop. The group was first called the Polka Tulk Blues Band and then Earth. Opposite their rehearsal room an Italian horror film was showing, Black Sabbath. Butler thought it strange that people spent so much money on being frightened, and the band wrote a song of the same name. In August 1969 they adopted that name for the band too.

Music and breakthrough

The song Black Sabbath used the tritone, an interval also known as the devil's interval. That menacing sound did not fit at all with the cheerful flower power of the late 1960s. The debut Black Sabbath, recorded live in two days, and Paranoid both appeared in 1970, followed by Master of Reality (1971). With low-tuned guitars, crushingly heavy riffs, slow tempos and lyrics full of horror and occult themes, the band wanted to make the musical equivalent of a horror film.

Influence

In 1979 Osbourne was fired and Ronnie James Dio took over, with whom Heaven and Hell (1980) came about. Many changes followed, until the original line-up reunited. Together with Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, Black Sabbath laid the foundations of hard rock and above all heavy metal. In 2025 the band gave a final concert in Birmingham.

Line-up

Core members only; touring and session musicians are not listed.

Original line-up 1968–1979
Dio era 1979–1982
Born Again 1983–1984
Tony Martin era 1989–1991
reunion 1997–2006
Farewell era 2011–2017

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to the song Black Sabbath from the album of the same name. Notice the opening with rain and a church bell, and then the slow, heavy three-note guitar riff that sounds so ominous.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Mentioned in other articles

See also

Categories: ArtistsHard rock and heavy metal