Fifty years. That is half a fucking century. When you put it that way, it seems like forever. Today and tonight, all over the word hard rock, classic rock, and heavy metal fans are celebrating the birthday of the debut Black Sabbath album. Fifty years ago, what was once a blues band from the industrial town of Birmingham, England called Earth would change the face of music and forge a whole new genre.
Nearly every fan of Black Sabbath could tell you when and where they first laid ears on the debut album. As a young metal fan, about 12 years old or so, I was familiar with “hits.” “Paranoid,” “Iron Man,” and the Dio era “Heaven and Hell,” but nothing could prepare me for what I would hear from the debut album.
It was a summer night in Metairie, Louisiana. My family and I were living in a three-bedroom apartment in a complex called Posada de Rey. We lived on the first floor and on the second floor and one apartment over lived these two guys. They were both metalheads and I can remember them always being really cool to me. They used to give me all kinds of cool posters and shit for my room but one night one of them would give me a gift that would change my life.
It was a rainy winter night, and I had been talking to one of them (I can’t remember their names) and we happened to be talking about Ozzy Osbourne. He asked me if I was into Black Sabbath and when I told him what songs I knew, he asked me if I had heard the debut album. I hadn’t so he lent me the album. The album cover creeped me the fuck out but I put the needle on the groove and I had no idea what to expect.
The rain coming from my stereo speakers mixed with the rain coming from outside my window created a sort of quadraphonic sound followed by the haunting echo of a tolling church bell. Then all of a sudden, the music kicked in. A guitar riff that sent a chill down my spine, the pounding of the drums, the dreadfully haunting and tortured vocals, and lyrics that scared the living shit out of me:
What is this that stands before me?
Figure in black which points at me
Turn around quick, and start to run
Find out I’m the chosen one.
Any person who loves this album and band can attest to just how horrifying this song is to a kid hearing it for the first time. While horrifying, I couldn’t get enough. I wanted more. I probably listened to that song ten times in a row and by the end of the night had just about every word memorized. This was the birth of Heavy Metal and it would be a bar set so high that many would attempt and fail to reach.
“NIB” and “The Wizard” are both songs that most Sabbath fans can hum/air guitar for you at the drop of a dime. That memorable bass intro to “NIB” and the harmonica intro coupled with an unforgettable guitar riff in “The Wizard” are forever embedded into my brain and soul, but it is “Behind the Wall of Sleep” that, to me, stands as one of the greatest metal epics of all time. This is where I feel like the band came together and showed just what they could really do as a unit.
The magic of this era of Black Sabbath was all about this classic lineup. Ozzy’s haunting, droning vocals, the masterful guitar playing to Tony Iommi, the swing and groove of Bill Ward’s tastefully and subtly heavy drumming, and the percussive bass playing of Geezer Butler IS the Black Sabbath sound. It is these four guys together that created a sound that was bigger and greater than any one of them alone.
Fifty years later, Black Sabbath continues to inspire and influence new generations of musicians all over the world. Ask me what the greatest Ozzy era Sabbath album is. It’s not Paranoid, it’s not Volume 4, and it’s not Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. While Master of Reality may be a close second, Black Sabbath will forever be in my heart not just the greatest Black Sabbath album but, without a doubt probably the greatest heavy metal album of all time.
A toast to Black Sabbath as the grandfather clock tolls in my friend’s house. May you continue to be as timeless and tireless as you always have been.
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