Black Sabbath has gone through a lot of renditions and members over the years but I too like the original lineup.
Not often a founding member and frontman gets fired from the group which happened in 1979.
Most of you know this but Tony Iommi had a traumatic injury to his fretting hand when he was 17
and working at a sheet metal business.
Basically amputated the tips of his middle and ring finger.
He considered giving up guitar and even tried to convert to right handed playing but eventually made
some prosthetic finger tips out of plastic and was able to carry on.
Probably influenced his style more than anything else.
Interestingly, I suffered almost the same injury when I was 14.
I had been using our electric hedge trimmer to trim some bushes in our
front yard.
The cord was in the way so I reached down to move it when my fingers got into the blades.
Severed my middle finger just past the last joint and cut my ring finger halfway through.
It was a shredded mess because of the back and forth motion of the blades.
My doctor pinned the end of the middle finger back to the finger and stitched it all back together as best he could.
I had a bandage on those fingers for about two months.
This was way before micro surgery and the doc said if it started to smell bad (gangrene) he would have to remove the finger.....
It was probably close to a year before I could use those finger tips without pain.
My middle finger ended up being about 1/4" shorter, just slightly longer than the ring finger.
On 9 January 2012, it was announced that Tony Iommi had been diagnosed with early stage lymphoma.
Reportedly he has undergone chemo therapy and radiation to eradicate the cancer.
Not sure of the prognosis but I hope he pulls through.
My favorite albums were Paranoid and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath although I did like some songs from the Ozzy Osbourne band
with Randy Rhoads who died much too young.
I can only imagine what his career would have achieved if he had lived.
But old Ozzy had a pretty successful solo career as well.
The list of top guitarists that joined him on these albums was pretty extensive.
Such as Blizzard of Ozz "Crazy Train" with Randy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0N-l0tCHhM
And No More Tears with Zakk Wylde.
I also liked Ozzmosis "Perry Mason"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OY04AsbNEs
Not real crazy about Zakks over use of pinch harmonics though.
When "The Osbournes" reality show came out I watched it a few times.
Seems as if Ozzy was really out of it and sort of brain damaged from years of substance abuse.
But damn, put him on stage and hand him a microphone and he was back to the old Ozzy.
Funny, I can still remember the day I bought Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album.
My dad made a lot of trips down our hallway to yell at me i to turn that shit down!
As usual, sorry for rambling on and on and on.....
