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Ross Halfin
Black Sabbath
Rock
Canadian Musicians Remember Heavy Metal Pioneer Ozzy Osbourne
Following the legendary rock singer's death on Tuesday, Canadian artists like Drake, Randy Bachman, Geddy Lee, Voivod and more offer tributes and anecdotes testifying to Osbourne's immense impact.
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Ozzy (John Michael) Osbourne, the English vocalist who helped create heavy metal with Black Sabbath prior to launching a highly successful solo career, died on July 22, at age 76. He had been suffering from Parkinson's Disease, a condition he revealed in 2019.
His death came just 17 days after he performed at Black Sabbath's final concert in their hometown of Birmingham. The "Back to the Beginning” concert featured performances from a long list of heavy metal royalty, including Metallica, Anthrax, Tool, Slayer and Pantera. A Billboard obituary reported that "the show netted $190 million, making it the highest grossing charity concert of all time."
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"Osbourne's distinctly dark vocals and appetite for extreme behaviour made him the ideal frontman for the transformational heavy metal band Black Sabbath — qualities which also propelled him through an even more successful solo career," the obit continues.
"Osbourne’s abilities as a vocalist – his uniquely sharp timbre and bellowing lung power – gave him the fortitude to cut through even the densest metal songs like a foghorn. Starting with Sabbath in 1970, his voice helped defined what heavy metal became. The image he inaugurated at that time became just as indelible. By voicing Sabbath’s reliably morbid lyrics, clad in the band’s trademark funereal attire, he earned the nickname The Prince of Darkness. The credibility of that image, at times, struck Mr. Osbourne as hilarious.
"Osbourne’s solo career, which began in 1980, saw his notoriety soar through a series of increasingly outrageous antics, two of which involved decapitation. During a 1981 meeting with executives at his record company, he bit the head off a live dove to get their attention, while the next year, he performed the same act on a dead bat while on-stage. One month later, while wearing a dress owned by his later wife Sharon Arden, he urinated on a monument erected to honour those who died at the battle of the Alamo in Texas. As a consequence, he was banned from the city of San Antonio for a decade."
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Though he would later blame these stunts on serious intoxication, he recognized the power of publicity. In 1991, he told Rock Hard Magazine that "rock ‘n roll is a sensationalist business. If you haven’t got controversy, you haven’t got rock ‘n roll. You’ve got fucking Phil Collins.”
A surprising but successful career detour in the early 2000s found Osbourne gaining TV fame via hit Emmy-winning MTV series The Osbournes, alongside his wife and manager Sharon and their two children. Billboard wrote that "the show, which served as a precursor to such powerful reality programs as Keeping Up with The Kardashians, presented Osbourne as a doddering, gibberish-spewing dad but one who adores his family unendingly."
With Sabbath, Osbourne was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. All nine of the albums he recorded with that band went gold, while five achieved platinum status. His 1991 solo effort, No More Tears, peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 3 million copies in the U.S..
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Seven of his solo releases went top 10 on the Billboard 200, while 17 of his singles made the top 10 of the Mainstream Rock Songs chart, two hitting No. 1. He created Ozzfest in 1996, and it became one of the most successful, and enduring, festival tours of all time.
Ozzy Osbourne was born in Birmingham, England, in a working class family. His mother Lilian was a factory worker and father Jack worked as a toolmaker, and the class component of his story is explored in depth in an obit in The Quietus. Osbourne earned the nickname Ozzy in elementary school, with Billboard noting that "by this time he was struggling with undiagnosed dyslexia, attention deficit disorder and low self-esteem."
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He quit school at age 15, worked in construction, plumbing and an abattoir, then served a short jail term for burglary. Osbourne then started taking music seriously, playing his first gig in 1967, when future Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler hired him for his band Rare Breed. After two gigs, they broke up, with the pair joining with the other future Sabbath members, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward.
After a stint as Earth, they became Black Sabbath in 1969, based on a like-named horror movie. Billboard states that "Recognizing the attraction people have to scary films, the band hit on the novel idea to translate the morbid thrill of Grand Guignol to rock ‘n roll. They did so by stressing menacing guitar riffs, shadowy bass lines, and thundering drums, topped by the Osbourne’s devilish voice. He credited their embrace of darkness to their hard life in Birmingham, and to their rebuke of San Francisco’s summer of love."
Sabbath’s self-titled debut made the British top 10 and the top 25 on the Billboard 200, remaining on the charts in the U.S. for a full year. The follow-up, Paranoid, sold even better, leaping to No. 12 on the Billboard 200 while generating Sabbath’s two Billboard Hot 100 hits, “Iron Man” and “Paranoid," both now considered metal classics.
Black Sabbath's Toronto concert debut came in 1971, to a mixed reaction, but the group returned to the city regularly.
Subsequent Sabbath albums also sold well, but heavy drug use and band in-fighting followed. The band's self-produced 1978 album, Never Say Die, was recorded in Toronto over five months in winter at famed Kensington Market studio Sounds Interchange. Excessive drug use was blamed for the long recording time of the album, the last studio record with the band's original line-up. It was certified Gold in the U.S. in 1997.
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Osbourne was fired by the rest of Black Sabbath in the spring of 1979, and replaced by ex-Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio. With Black Sabbath, Osbourne sold almost 70 million albums, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. Osbourne was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2024 as a solo artist, an impressive feat.
Post-Sabbath, Osbourne fought his way back to solo success, aided by his future wife, Sharon Arden, whose father, Don Arden, then managed both the singer and his ex-band.
Osbourne's solo debut, Blizzard of Ozz, became one of the best-selling works of his career, fuelled by songs like “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley." His follow-up, Diary of a Madman, in 1981, sold over 3 million copies. His solo albums continued to sell in huge numbers, never dipping below gold status, or missing the top 25 of the Billboard 200, right through his last studio work, 2010’s Scream.
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In late 2011, the original lineup of Sabbath announced a reunion tour. Two years later, the band issued their first album with Osbourne in over thirty years. Titled 13, it hit No. 1 both in the U.K and on the U.S. Billboard 200. The band began a farewell tour in January of 2016, playing their final show a year later.
In 2018, Osbourne announced his farewell tour as a solo artist, one that included a sold-out show at Budweiser Stage in Toronto in September 2018. In his Toronto Star obituary, Nick Krewen reported that as a solo artist, Osbourne played Toronto 13 times.
With Black Sabbath, Osbourne sold almost 70 million albums, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Osbourne also became a reality TV star with The Osbournes, which won an Emmy in 2002.
Tributes from Canadian Musicians
Musical peers, industry types and fans from around the globe quickly responded to news of Osbourne's passing with a huge outpouring of affection and respect for his achievements.
They included many Canadian artists, from a wide number of musical genres. Possibly the most surprising tribute came from internationally-acclaimed veteran classical guitar star, Liona Boyd, who revealed in a Facebook post that she had become friends with Osbourne.
"I’m very saddened to learn that Ozzy Osbourne has died," Boyd posted. "I knew Ozzy when he lived directly across the street from me in Beverly Hills. He was always a gentleman and a lot of fun along with his beautiful wife Sharon and their kids. My late husband and I were invited to many of their crazy parties! I send my deepest condolences to his family. I’m glad he had the opportunity to offer such a beautiful musical farewell to his millions fans earlier this month at his amazing concert in Birmingham. Rest In Peace Dear Ozzy."
Renowned Ontario studio auteur and musician Jordon Zadorozny (Blinker the Star, Hole) provided Billboard Canada with this reminiscence and tribute: "When I was 13, my best friend Doug and I were handed a dubbed cassette of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid from his next door party legend neighbour, Len, and told to listen to it. It was love at first listen for both of us. The dry, doom laden sound of the band fused ecstatically with the sandpaper banshee wail of the singer, Ozzy Osbourne. The vocals cut through the sludge with an unusual amount of pure joy, given the proceedings.
"From there we discovered the rest of Sabbath’s Ozzy-led catalogue where things just seemed to get heavier and more psychedelic, culminating in Sabbath’s bacchanal masterpiece, Sabotage. I still marvel at the vocal acrobatics he pulls off on that album. You can tell just by listening that this guy meant every word he was singing and absolutely loved what he was singing. Ozzy went on to become not only metal’s most recognizable face but also a gifted and underrated melodicist, one of the best actually, the Beatles always his biggest musical inspiration.
"I’ve had more fun listening to Ozzy’s music than should be legal. His wild, ecstatic spirit is the spirit of rock’n’roll music itself, so individual, so unrepeatable, so vulnerable and beautiful. Just like the man himself."
Hamilton-based rock guitarist Scott McCullough (formerly in The Doughboys, still active in Rusty) tells Billboard Canada that Osbourne and Black Sabbath were an early inspiration.
"I was a fan of Sabbath and early Ozzy but really didn't go for the later '80s Randy Rhoads stuff," he recalls. "When I was 13/14 and just learning to play guitar the first song I ever learned by ear myself was [Sabbath classic] 'War Pigs'. Well the main riff anyway, I got lost after that but because it was just power chords moving rather leisurely up the neck of the guitar I could get the hang of it. So my first band would play the first part, make some noise over the hard part and then just go back to the original riff.
"The other thing about that song is that Ozzy's vocal follows the guitar chords exactly so it was really the first song I could play and sing at the same time cuz it was relatively easy to sync up. Later as a songwriter, John Kastner [Dpughboys] often reminds me that I told him the vocal melody should never exactly follow the chord progression but obviously there are exceptions to the rule and 'War Pigs' is one of them. My high school band also incorporated 'Paranoid' into our set a bit later on. I'm not much of a heavy metal fan really, but Ozzy and Black Sabbath were the first and best as far as I was concerned."
Veteran Canadian rock guitarist and vocalist Todd Kerns (The Age of Electric, Static in Stereo, Slash) posted a long tribute on his Facebook page. In part, it reads that "It cannot be underestimated the impact that Ozzy Osbourne had on an entire wave of music. As a solo artist he managed to introduce a whole generation of kids to his previous band, Black Sabbath. The impact of the Blizzard Of Ozz/Diary Of A Madman double shot caught the attention of every mall wandering hesher like me. Sure we were familiar with 'Iron Man' or 'Paranoid' but those were those tough older kids smoking out behind the school’s music. Ozzy was OURS. His live album Speak Of The Devil was 100% classic Sabbath songs and in my opinion a lot of people’s first real taste of those songs was through that album opening a treasure trove of Sabbath albums that are all winners.
"I was fortunate enough to open for Ozzy while on tour of multiple cities throughout the U.S. with Slash in 2011. Every night Ozzy went on stage and stated, 'I love you all!' and I believed him every time. I truly believe he loved all of us. I finally met the man on the final date of the tour. The whole tour he had been elusive. I was under the impression he would fly back and forth from L.A. between shows. A luxury most of us would indulge in if we could."In 2012 while on tour with Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators, Slash would bounce over and play with Ozzy And Friends. Every night I stood side stage mesmerized by the mastery of Ozzy. I’ve never seen anyone as committed to his audience as Ozzy Osbourne. He never gave less than 100%. We performed for Ozzy again at the MTV Europe EMAs in 2014 in Glasgow, Scotland. We played Crazy Train with Simon from Biffy Clyro. I never saw Ozzy that day, but it was yet another honour to be able to pay respect to the man. Our stars never crossed again. The experiences feel mythical now. Like I had been in the presence of a unicorn. Tomorrow I wake up for the first time in an Ozzy-less world and I can’t help but think it will be a very different one indeed. Thank God we have the music. Music makes all of our heroes immortal. Whenever we miss Ozzy we are very lucky to be able to revisit him at the touch of a button. I think I’ll do that right now. I think you should too."
Global superstar Drake offered a personal tribute to Ozzy on Tuesday (July 23), stopping at the Black Sabbath Bench in Osbourne’s hometown of Birmingham, England. Billboard reports that "Drake spoke with fans leaving bouquets of flowers and letters to the late Black Sabbath rocker, and Drizzy reportedly poured some tequila on the ground next to the Black Sabbath Bench.
The New York Times was also present at the scene, and Drake told the paper "I just came out to pay respects to someone who lived it to the fullest."
Luke Bentham, guitarist, vocalist and leader of Hamilton hard rock band The Dirty Nil, posted a photo of himself alongside the Black Sabbath Bridge in Birmingham on his Facebook page. He also gave Billboard Canada this tribute: "Ozzy’s voice was the sound of the void. Even as a teenager, it felt dangerous to listen to his music. He preached peace and empathy, with the most thunderous band that ever played. His blue collar work ethic is still inspiring and he managed his exit masterfully. There will never be another Ozzy, I’m glad we had him."
On Facebook, Daryn Barry, co-owner, manager and producer at The Orange Lounge in Toronto, recalled working on a project with Ozzy Osbourne at the studio. "A truly sad day at The Orange Lounge," Barry posted. "One of our heroes has left us. A true gentleman, funny as heck, and an enormous talent. At least he had a really great send off and got to see how much people still loved him. We were all sooooooo excited to even be in the same room as such a legend. RIP Ozzy."
Also on Facebook, acclaimed Toronto live sound engineer Doug McClement offered up this reminiscence: "In early 1992, Ken Friesen and I drove the Comfort Sound mobile down to Michigan to record three nights with Ozzy for a live album. Some of the dates on the rest of the tour had been recorded using the new Sony 3348 48 track digital reel to reel, and Sony Records wanted us to use the same format to make the mix session easier.
"Nobody in Canada had one of those tape decks at the time (They cost over $300,000 even back then!) so we finally found a company called Toybox in New York City that would rent us one and ship it to Kalamazoo, where the first show was taking place. They wanted $5000 for the rental. That seemed like a lot at the time, so I phoned Sony in New York to tell them. The executive at the other end of line basically said 'and you're calling me because???' In typical American fashion, the attitude was 'Throw money at the problem till it goes away.' He sighed and said 'Just rent it, and send us the bill.'
"So we arrived at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo, and backed the truck it arrived in up to ours, and wheeled the 300 lb. machine into the Comfort Mobile. The Kalamazoo show was just a rehearsal for the two following dates at the Fox Theatre in Detroit. Ozzy was hobbling around backstage with a cane, as he had sprained his ankle jumping off a speaker at a show a few days earlier. But once he got out on stage, he was running around like a madman, exhorting the crowd to 'Go fucking crazy!!' What a showman! You always got your money's worth at an Ozzy performance.
"I'm not a big metal fan, but I was really impressed at how hard he worked to get the crowd going. He left every bit of energy he had on that stage! I've had a lot of respect for him ever since. The two shows at the Fox in Detroit went flawlessly. It was a Byzantine 1910 theatre with eerie sculptures covering the front wall, a perfect venue for an Ozzy show. Rest in peace, 'Prince of Fucking Darkness.' You definitely earned your place in the Rock'n'Roll Pantheon."
Quebec prog-metal favourites Voivod posted this Facebook tribute: "Voivod would like to express our heartfelt thanks to Ozzy and Sharon for the incredible opportunity they gave us in 2003 — opening for Ozzy across Canada from Vancouver to Quebec City, and joining Ozzfest throughout that unforgettable summer. We will never forget this unique experience. You both made us feel like part of the family. Rest in peace, Ozzy."
On X, Randy Bachman called Osbourne "one of the original architects of Heavy Metal..He and Sharon will forever be known as THE fantastic power couple of the industry.”
In a statement, Rush vocalist/bassist Geddy Lee said “Ozzy and his bandmates were at the forefront of that brand of metal, and Ozzy was an intensely loved, one of a kind performer."
Canadian record producer Kevin Churko worked extensively with Osbourne, first as an as engineer on the 2005 album Under Cover, then graduating to co-production and co-writing on such albums as 2007's Black Rain (work that helped Churko win the Juno Award for recording engineer of the year) and 2010's Scream. In an interview with Canadian Press, Churko noted that "Ozzy was a true entertainer. He liked to tell jokes, he liked to hang with the boys. I can only imagine what those early years in Black Sabbath were like, just a bunch of dudes out there having fun.”
"I don’t think he ever lost that roguish childhood spirit in him,” Churko added, recalling a time Osbourne visited Churko’s home studio in Las Vegas to record a few extra vocal takes for Black Rain. After singing a couple of lines, Osbourne snuck out of the room. 'About 15 minutes later, I could just hear him howling with laughter and all of a sudden there’s a party in the other room," Churko told CP. "I poked my head out and there he was, sitting down on the couch with my son Kane and his friend, and they were watching Superbad. It was such a wonderful, happy moment amongst many of them. We almost never had any bad times making albums.”
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