It would be improbable to think that anyone into rock or metal, whether a fan or musician can doubt the pedigree of Tony Iommi, his influence on metal through Black Sabbath is unquestionable. His riffs have been copied countless times in various outfits over the years but few can actually say they ever got it quite right such is the man’s undeniable uniqueness. This book told to T J Lammers sets about giving an insight to everything that is in Tony Iommi’s world, from the early bands and upbringing, to the formative years of Sabbath and the creative ingenuity that went into those seminal Sabbath albums through all the eras of time, up to the more recent tragedy with the passing of the legendary Ronnie James Dio.
As with all insights into the personal side of life it is filled with trials and tribulations alongside more successful and opulent periods in life. The book divides Tony’s life into succinct periods as chapters in his life covering his early influences musically and the various bands he was part of and the resulting getting together of Ozzy, Bill and Geezer to form Black Sabbath. However as you probably know Tony’s life was decimated when he chopped two fingers off at work resulting in him seeking some way to resurrect his career, something the factory manager did when he played him an EP by jazz guitarist Django Renhardt who only played with two fingers. Inspired by this Tony set about creating finger thimbles from anything he could and practised very hard to rekindle his music career and was ultimately responsible for introducing lightweight strings, a factor he takes great pleasure in.
Getting the guys together to form Black Sabbath more or less occurred by chance meetings as originally the band had various names that eventually became simply Earth. Changing their name, courtesy of Geezer, introduced the band to all sorts of satanic accusations and a following of pagan nutters that seemed to stalk the band. All of this was debunked by Tony as being totally ridiculous. Once the Black Sabbath moniker was firmly in place the band churned out eight albums from 1970 to 1978 as it was very obvious that Tony became the leader of the band by default making most of the decisions overall, something he wasn’t that comfortable with at first. With such a prolific release rate the band was more or less either on tour, writing or recording with virtually no break as “Paranoid” was released not too long after the debut. Here you can read all the little anecdotes about the individual song titles, where they came from, their inspirations, etc. Exploding popularity eventually caused the band to implode through excess money, drink and drugs. Even law suits threatened the fabric of the band by the time “Technical Ecstasy” and “Never Say Die” came out. Ozzy was completely wayward through drugs and was pushed aside due to impending demands from their label to record songs.
In comes Ronnie James Dio, courtesy of Sharon Osbourne who introduced him to Tony at a party. This partnership gave the kiss of life to Sabbath resulting in the seminal “Heaven And Hell” being put together with fresh ideas and a new direction. As ever substance abuse is the negating factor in progress or hardship within the band as by now Bill Ward has serious issues resulting in a period in no mans land before Vinnie Appice joins the Sabs to knock out the seminally wonderful “The Mob Rules”. Tours continue with various anecdotes before Ronnie (and Vinnie as well) left due to him signing to record his own album which you all know what that is, don’t you? In walks Ian Gillan and “Born Again” is released to raised eyebrows as the sound was definitely not what Tony expected, due entirely to blown tweeters whilst recording and nobody realised. Gillan’s stay was short-lived as was Bev Bevan who was on drums, leaving Tony more or less isolated.
Imposed isolation resulted in Tony writing solo songs which eventually ended up as ”Seventh Star” due to label interference and demands, something he did not want to happen. As ever touring was inevitable as was the ensuing problems it caused with band members and drug abuse which eventually caused Glenn Hughes to be replaced with Ray Gillen. Reading this book one gets the impression that Tony’s seemingly endless line up issues made his own personal musical journey a very steep one as personnel problems continued into the making of “Eternal Idol”. Dogged determination gave us “Headless Cross” as by now Cozy Powell was on the scene and this was followed quickly by the release of “Tyr” followed by the return of Ronnie James Dio for the “Dehumanizer”, an album that caused friction due to Ronnie and Cozy not getting on at all; more personnel matters. Running parallel to all this was Ozzy’s continuing musical career when Ozzy announced his retirement shows in 1992 whereby Tony was asked if he wanted to do a couple of shows at the supposed farewell gigs. Ronnie refused to do this and so Rob Halford stood in for Ronnie. Even for this Tony was hit with one problem after another, with his arrest for alleged missing child support payments and having his passport seized enforcing a long stay in Florida while it was sorted.
1994 and 1995 saw “Cross Purposes” and “Forbidden” released respectively with tours for both and with Motorhead supporting the former. Tony is a perfectionist when it really gets down to it and meant he was unhappy with the vocalist’s lack of professionalism and more importantly the guys poor stage presence. During this time more personal family issues came to the fore regarding his daughter Toni with custody battles, which was eventually sorted much to his relief so that he see his daughter again properly.
1997 was a landmark year for Ozzy era Sabbathites when a couple of reunion gigs at the NEC were played (I went to one myself). Even six songs were recorded but not released with original line up. A full reunion tour took place in 1998 and Tony remembers this fondly as like old times with a live album, “Reunion” being released. Things looked good, apart from the death of Cozy Powell and a heart attack suffered by Bill Ward, However once Bill had recovered the guys were on fire again. Tony even had time to release a solo album “Iommi” which received good reviews as an appearance at Buckingham Palace took place to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and is very funny. Black Sabbath took part in a number of Ozzfest tours and firmly established the band back on the metal map during 2003 and 2004. Another solo album was released in 2005, “Fused” as Tony was inducted into the UK, and USA equivalent, Music Hall Of Fame and promptly lost his award, though he did get it back later.
With plenty of interest back on the band “The Dio Years” package was released with a few new songs. This tour went under the banner of Heaven & Hell as it was deemed inappropriate to call it Black Sabbath when the band had just done that on the Ozzfest gigs. The band was ultimately called Heaven & Hell as a new album came out “The Devil You Know” and more touring followed. Unfortunately as you well know this was a sad time for everyone into rock and metal when Ronnie James Dio died leaving Tony utterly bereft. Particular mention is given to the tribute gig at High Voltage as Tony reflects on his own personal journey as a summary taking into account the persistent issues with his hand over the years but particularly in recent years with many operations and procedures.
This is a warts and all look at the world of Tony Iommi and I can never cover everything this book has to offer in a few hundred words. Suffice you are given an almost microscopic look into his life but also into the life of being a musician in general with all its hardships, periods of elation, depression and everything in between. This is an easy read and offers a genuine insight into the riffmaster.
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Martin Harris
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