timeline

Black Sabbath

Four Birmingham musicians who turned down-tuned guitars and occult and war-haunted lyrics into heavy metal, from a one-day debut in 1969 to a farewell show at Villa Park in 2025.

Origin
Birmingham, England
Years active
1968-2017
Genres
heavy metal, doom metal
Labels
Fontana, Vertigo, Warner Bros., Mercury, Virgin EMI, I.R.S., Universal, Sanctuary
Also known as
Polka Tulk Blues Band, Polka Tulk, Earth

Birmingham

Black Sabbath began in Birmingham in 1968, when guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, whose band Mythology had just broken up, teamed up with bassist Geezer Butler and singer Ozzy Osbourne, who had played together in a group called Rare Breed. They worked as the Polka Tulk Blues Band, then Polka Tulk, then Earth. In August 1969, after confusion with another band called Earth, they became Black Sabbath, and the first show under the new name was on 30 August 1969 in Workington. That November they signed to Philips.

Iommi's guitar sound was shaped by a factory accident that cost him fingertips. Much of the early material was worked up in club dates, including a run in Zurich in late 1969. Ward remembered first playing War Pigs there.

Two albums in 1970

The first album, Black Sabbath, came out on 13 February 1970. The band cut Evil Woman and Wicked World first, then recorded the rest in a single 12-hour session straight from their live set, with almost no overdubs. Lester Bangs panned it in Rolling Stone, but it reached number 8 in Britain and number 23 in the United States, where it stayed on the chart for over a year. Later critics saw in the title song and N.I.B. the start of heavy metal.

Paranoid followed in September 1970 and went to number 1 in Britain. Its title song was an afterthought, written fast to fill out the record, yet Paranoid became a hit single. Alongside Iron Man and War Pigs it made the album the one that AllMusic's Steve Huey said defined heavy metal more than any other record in rock history.

The early seventies

Master of Reality (1971) was the last album produced by Rodger Bain. The band detuned their instruments for a bigger, heavier sound, and it reached number 5 in Britain and number 8 in the United States. For Vol. 4 in 1972 the band moved to the Record Plant in Los Angeles, rented a mansion in Bel Air and produced the record largely themselves, with Iommi doing most of the work. Cocaine runs through the sessions: the working title was Snowblind, which the label refused, and Snowblind stayed on the record as a song.

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) added keyboards from Rick Wakeman and brought the band their first favourable mainstream reviews. Sabotage (1975), made while the band were being sued by their former manager, Technical Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die! (1978) followed. Osbourne was fired in 1979.

Changing line-ups

Ronnie James Dio joined and sang on Heaven and Hell (1980) and Mob Rules (1981). Ian Gillan sang on Born Again (1983). Through the rest of the decade Iommi led shifting line-ups, including Glenn Hughes on Seventh Star (1986) and Tony Martin on records from 1987 into the 1990s. Dio, Butler, Iommi and drummer Vinny Appice made Dehumanizer in 1992.

The original quartet reunited in 1997, Ward rejoining that December. Their live album Reunion, recorded at two Birmingham NEC shows, came out in 1998, and its version of Iron Man won the Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2000. Iommi, Butler, Dio and Appice toured as Heaven & Hell from 2006 until Dio died on 16 May 2010.

The end

A reunion of Osbourne, Iommi and Butler was announced in November 2011. Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma in January 2012, and the band played their first show since 2005 on 21 May 2012 at the O2 Academy in Birmingham. 13, produced by Rick Rubin, appeared on 7 June 2013 and became their first number 1 in the United States. The End tour ran from January 2016, and the last shows were at Genting Arena in Birmingham on 2 and 4 February 2017. The band announced they were disbanding on 7 March 2017.

On 5 July 2025 all four original members played together at Villa Park in Birmingham for Back to the Beginning, with Ward on drums. They played War Pigs, N.I.B., Iron Man and Paranoid, in that order, before about 45,000 people, on a bill with Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Tool and Slayer. It raised about 140 million pounds for charity. Osbourne died 17 days later, on 22 July 2025. The band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, and have sold over 70 million records.

Members

Records

Songs

Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Metallica, Heaven & Hell

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

  • MusicBrainz Release dates and identifiers for every album.

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Sources

  1. Black Sabbath, Wikipedia
  2. Black Sabbath discography, Wikipedia
  3. Back to the Beginning, Wikipedia
  4. Black Sabbath, MusicBrainz
  5. Black Sabbath artist data, MusicBrainz
  6. Black Sabbath release groups, MusicBrainz
  7. Black Sabbath, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame