Under Covers (2005)

John Michael Osbourne was born in Birmingham, England, to Jack and Lillian Osbourne in 1948. Ozzy and his two brothers and three sisters were raised in a small row house at 14 Lodge Road in the working class suburb of Aston. The family lived in near poverty with no running water in the house, and bombed-out, post-war Birmingham, with its choking smokestacks, street gangs, and reminders of World War II, provided a grim reality for the young Madman.

British school life in the 1950's was a regimented grind, still dominated by rote exercises and no-nonsense, corporal punishment-inclined instructors. School was for disciplined students, which restless John certainly was not. He suffered a particularly acute case of dyslexia, leaving him hard-pressed to live up to the expectations placed on him by his teachers. They in turn referred to him as "dunce" and made an example out of him. This confused and embittered John who built up a tolerance for the ritual torment of his instructors and peers, who disdained him with the nickname "Oz-brain." To cope he daydreamed, cut class, and took with the wrong crowd, joining one of Aston's numerous street gangs at age 13. Finally, bored and fed up with the day-in, day-out boot camp, "Ozzy," as he by then called himself, dropped out in the ninth grade. In 1964, the teen-ager joined his first band, The Black Panthers.

Two years and a number of bands later, The core of Black Sabbath--Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, "Geezer" Butler, Bill Ward-comes together as the ingeniously named Polka Tulk Blues Band (after a tin of talcum powder!), the pre-Sabbath jazz/blues formation that included a saxophonist and slide guitar player! The band soon trimmed the fat and the foursome renamed the group Earth. Tours of the Midlands and northern England followed, where the band found a small following. In 1969, Acting on their audience's arousal to their heavier songs the members of Earth again change course and their name. Now calling themselves Black Sabbath, after one of Geezer's favorite horror flicks, their songwriting becomes foreboding, full of doom and despair: "Wicked World" and "Black Sabbath" are the first numbers composed under the new moniker. During the summer, the band took residency at the famous Star Club in Hamburg, Germany playing seven shows a day. Many of their early masterworks such as "War Pigs" and "N.I.B." grew out of jams and the unorthodox arrangements were the result of playing the songs over and over and over during this arduous yet productive period.

Back in England and summarily rejected by every label in the country, Black Sabbath finally finds a home as one of the first acts signed to the progressive Vertigo label. A hastily arranged recording session for their debut LP is thrown together between tour stops and Ozzy, Tony, Geezer, and Bill track and mix Black Sabbath, the most influential of all proto-metal albums, in a mere twelve hours.

The music, described as "acid rock" and "downer music" by disdaining elitists, was universally reviled by critics but fans found this new sound intriguingly seductive and undeniably heavy, pushing the album into the Top 20 in the U.K. and U.S.

Success had its flipside, though: New management took over at the end of the year, marking the beginning of nightmarish legal squabbles that continued for ten years. One time in the mid-Seventies Ozzy would actually be subpoenaed on stage for a lawsuit filed by a former manager! Through it all, the band continued to make albums and tour. The Volume 4 recording experience was a prodigal whirlwind of parties, groupies, and substances when the band rented a house in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air to write the album. A long tour followed but the drug toll was beginning to get heavy and the band took its first break. They got together again in 1973 to record Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and tour, but again the grind got to them and this time they took an extended break to recover from their nearly four-year touring/recording/touring cycle. In April of 1974, the band came back with their triumphant performance at the California Jam at the Ontario Speedway in California, the biggest concert of their career with over 200,000 in attendance. What wasn't known to the audience was the the concert came together on one day's notice due to management snafus, and the group hadn't rehearsed together--or seen each other--in six months! In 1975, Sabbath fired their second management, taking matters into their own hands. Unbeknownst to the band members, though, all the fancy cars, houses, and jewelry they thought were theirs, their managers in fact leased to them. Six years into their careers, with six Gold records to their credit and international fame and fortune Black Sabbath, after all that, was flat broke. Another tour followed behind the recording of the Sabotage album, but the band's morale was beginning to ebb. By 1979, dissention and drug abuse finally took its ultimate toll, and Black Sabbath broke up.

Friend and business associate Sharon Arden convinced Ozzy to pick himself up by his bootstraps and encouraged him to get a band together and start a solo career. First, he needs a guitarist. Enter Randy Rhoads. Hearing about the auditions from a friend, the guitar prodigy, classically-trained and a fixture of the L.A. rock scene, is reluctant at first but ends up winning the gig after a mere two minutes, so blown away was Ozzy at the kid's skills. Rhoads' proved invaluable to Ozzy's early solo career with his undeniable songwriting prowess and patience in fleshing out ideas Ozzy would hear in his head. The seminal Blizzard Of Ozz album is recorded in February and March of 1980, with "Crazy Train" released as the first single. A tour of the U.K. commences with a show in Glasgow, Scotland on September 12. Pacing the city streets before the show Ozzy and Sharon, who by this time had fallen in love, fret and worry if anyone will bother to show up. Alas, the show is a rousing success. The Blizzard has arrived, and after the show Ozzy breaks down backstage having realized he could make it on his own. The album is a hit in Europe and Randy Rhoads quickly becomes a star.

Rejected by every major label in the U.S. Tony Martell of Epic Records takes a chance on the fledgling act in 1981, signing Ozzy for a three-record deal. Blizzard of Ozz goes Gold in eight working days. The hard rock genre, once dismissed as "not viable" and old hat, is rejuvenated. 1982 could not have started worse nor ended better for Ozzy. In April, Randy Rhoads' life was cut short in a small plane crash, but in September, Ozzy and Sharon Arden were married and within three years were the parents of two daughters and a son. Recording and touring have continued into the present, as Ozzy, achieving stability in his personal and professional life thanks to Sharon and his family, continues to build new legions of fans in a career that is truly one of a kind.