Ozzy Osbourne, one of rock’s most recognisable figures, has died at the age of 76.
By Miles Salter
Feature photo copyright Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
Osbourne fronted Birmingham Black Sabbath, the four piece who became hugely influential. Along with The Who and Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath almost helped to invent the ‘heavy metal’ genre. Sabbath’s sound was influenced by the industrial landscape around them. Their taste for dark sounds and dark clothes was heightened by Tony Iommi tuning his guitar down. The lyrics, such as those in Paranoid, were influenced by bass player Geezer Butler’s battles with mental illness. ‘We didn’t want to write happy songs,’ Butler said. ‘We gave that industrial feeling to it.’ The band were surprised by their own success. ‘Sabbath never set out to be legendary,’ Osbourne said in 2005. ‘The only thing we set out to do was scare people.’ The other member of the quartet was drummer Bill Ward. Sabbath, at their best, were magnificent. War Pigs remains a great rock anthem, as well as a powerful protest song.
Ozzy also had his struggles. Two boys sexually abused him when he was eleven. Being in a successful band opened a world of temptations. He was kicked out of Black Sabbath in 1979 after his drug and alcohol use led to issues. Some of the stories around Ozzy’s drug use are comical. After taking acid, he had a nice chat with a horse in a field. ‘I ended up there standing there talking to this horse for about an hour. In the end the horse turned round and told me to f**k off. That was it for me,’ he said.
Abusive horses aside, Osbourne launched a highly successful solo career in 1980 with the album Blizzard Of Oz. There were tragedies – his lead guitarist Randy Rhoads died in a plane accident in 1982. The same year, Ozzy bit a head off a bat (he thought it was a stage prop) and married Sharon Arden, daughter of unconventional music agent Don Arden. The union resulted in three children, but was also tempestuous. In 1989, Ozzy was arrested for attempting to murder Sharon by strangling her while he was drunk. The couple separated more than once. Ozzy had an affair with a hair stylist in 2016.
Despite these antics, he was adored by the public for his down-to-earth demeanour and sense of humour. When Sharon organised a reality show The Osbournes, the series ran from 2002 to 2005. Ozzy fumbled about the house, yelling for his wife’s assistance, but the humour and closeness of the family won through with audiences. Sharon worked as Ozzy’s manager, overseeing the release of thirteen solo albums between 1980 and 2022. Sharon’s smart business sense – she had fingers in numerous pies, including Simon Cowell’s reality talent shows – resulted in a huge fortune. The pair were worth £145 million in 2018, according to the Sunday Times rich list.
Ozzy’s death comes just a few weeks after he played a final gig with Black Sabbath in Birmingham. Health problems, including Parkinson’s and injuries sustained from a quad bike accident, meant that the singer had to sit on a throne throughout the gig. In 2023 he told Piers Morgan how hard recent years had been. ‘It’s been five years of absolute hell for me and the family. My family has been so supportive. I couldn’t have done it without them. It’s been really a bad scene.’
The Birmingham concert was his last hurrah. All his Black Sabbath bandmates paid tribute to the singer. ‘It’s just such heart-breaking news that I can’t really find the words, there won’t ever be another like him,” Tony Iommi wrote on Instagram. “Geezer, Bill and myself have lost our brother.”