Turn the amps up to 11, Ozzy is gone

Ozzy Osbourne (third from left) out the front of the iconic heavy metal outfit Black Sabbath

And so the brass band played as the casket containing the body of Ozzy Osbourne made its way through the streets of his hometown of Birmingham. It wended it way to Black Sabbath Bridge and bench, and paused for fans to say good night sweet prince of darkness and mirth. From there a private funeral service was held. Far from the noise, and the hyper-reality of his life, it somehow seemed an appropriate farewell. Only a few weeks before he had given one last blast of his vocal cords to his hometown, and the world, and reminded all of his importance to music.

Heavy metal didn’t exist when Ozzy Osbourne first picked up a microphone. He was 20-years-old in 1968. The summer of love that dawned in 1967 was still radiating from California across America and washing over Britain and Europe. But in Birmingham, in the English midlands, where Osbourne was born and raised, sunshine and flowers in the hair was akin to being away with the fairies.

The youth of Birmingham weren’t going to California, they were going to the factories or the dole office and then to the pubs to forget about going to the factories and the dole office.

Osbourne went to the stage. Now he has left life’s stage, aged 76. It seems an entirely apposite word to say that he helped spawn a genre of music that became known as heavy metal. This was, of course, Black Sabbath with Osbourne on vocals, Tony Iommi on guitars, Terry “Geezer” Butler on bass and Bill Ward on drums. A few weeks ago he had been on stage again, in a wheelchair due to his Parkinson’s disease, to sing for the last time in front of his home town fans.

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Sabbath weren’t the first heavy and loud band. Cream – Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker had formed in 1966. Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin both in 1968. But Sabbath supped from a cauldron to equal that of any Shakespearean gathering of witches. There was a chemistry, one part the laugh of the devil, one part the thunder of the gods, and another the switch and slice of lightning. The blending of Osbourne’s shouting, wailing, murmuring voice with Iommi’s pure menacing riffs powered by Ward and Butler created a sound unheard to rock music. Iommi, with fingers damaged in a factory accident, brought ironically the tritone in from the cold. Known as the devil’s interval it is dissonance, not harmony. Jimi Hendrix used it on Purple Haze, and a few classical composers have used it. It has become a constant of heavy metal bands such as Metallica, and Slipknot. One of Slayer’s albums is titled Diabolus in Musica.

Sabbath’s self-titled debut album in 1969 gave notice to the music world, and from ensuing albums Paranoid, with songs such as War Pigs, Iron Man and the title track, Master of Reality, Vol. 4, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage, crashed through the norms of harmony and melody. “Black Sabbath are the Beatles of heavy metal. Anybody who’s serious about metal will tell you it all comes down to Sabbath,” Dave Navarro of the band Jane’s Addiction once wrote.

The volume of the amps wasn’t the only thing turned to 11. The lifestyle, particularly of Osbourne, was one of excess, excess, excess. He was in excess before a band in Sydney came to life. By the end of the ’70s, the other members had had enough. It wasn’t the biting of a bat, which though good for his legend, wasn’t so good for his health. Osbourne was sacked. From then, the singer went solo and had massive success with albums such as the Blizzard of Ozz, released in 1980. The band went on without him, and there were intermittent reunions, and finally the last bow in Birmingham this year. Osbourne also found fame then in reality television.

But it is the tributes that have flowed from musicians that is the most telling. From Tom Morello to Ronnie Wood, Elton John and even to Donny Osmond, and of course former band mates,the love and admiration has flowed for giving heavy metal to the world, and a meaning beyond the factory floor.