Bootleg Rodeo: Black Sabbath’s Paranoid In New Jersey (2025)

Album of the Day: Black Sabbath’s Paranoid In New Jersey, a dodgy copyright gap “import” album documenting an August 1975 performance in Asbury Park. Really, anything from Sabbath’s first six LPs (through Sabotage) is aces with me, and the performance here rocks AND rolls! Sadly, although the cover states that this is sourced from a FM radio broadcast, the sound quality is shite. 

Even given the early era of the recording, my ears tell me that it’s a crappy audience tape, not a soundboard or FM capture. My recently-acquired Sabbath Live In Paris 1970 CD sounds a 1,000 times clearer and balanced, even when using more primitive recording tech. ‘Tis a shame, too, with songs like “Killing Yourself To Live,” “War Pigs,” “Snowblind,” “Children of the Grave,” and “Paranoid” this could have been a real banger!

Book Review: Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography (2011)

Glenn Hughes is a contradiction – the talented singer, songwriter, and musician remains a relatively obscure figure in America, in spite of his status as a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll legend. Although you may not have heard of Hughes, or maybe remember his name only vaguely, chances are that if you’re a fan of ye olde “classic rock,” you’ve probably heard the “voice of rock” upon a time.

Hughes’ tenure with bands such as Trapeze, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath during the 1970s and ‘80s has long been the stuff of myth, while collaborations with like-minded musicians like Sabbath’s Tony Iommi, singer Joe Lynn Turner, and guitarist Pat Thrall have only added to his legacy. Throw in a moderately successful solo career (especially in Europe) that has yielded almost two-dozen recordings, and add Hughes’ role as an integral part of the classic rock supergroup Black Country Communion, and the question becomes not “who is Glenn Hughes” but, rather, “why haven’t you heard of Glenn Hughes?”

Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography

With better than 40 years of rock ‘n’ roll history behind him, Hughes has some stories to tell, and tell them he does in Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography. Unlike similar celebrity rock bios that either shovel mud on somebody else (Keith, I’m thinking of you) or mindlessly revel in behavioral excesses (ahem, Mutley Crew…), the punches that Hughes throws are almost exclusively thrown at himself. Glenn has been a bad boy through the years, and the decades of soul-seeking and struggling with addiction he reveals in these pages aren’t shared as thinly-veiled boasts but rather as cautionary tales.

Although Hughes’ longtime struggle with cocaine is certainly no secret to many in the industry, the extent to which it threatened to derail his career is shocking in its extremity. That Hughes managed to come out the other side of decades of abuse with his musical gifts and sense of humor intact is not only amazing, but downright encouraging. Aside from the obvious sincerity that shines from the pages of Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography, Hughes’ conversational style and the way he frames his story conveys a friendliness and down-to-earth personality that the average reader can relate with. Personally, I’ve spoken with Hughes on occasion, and have always been struck at the ease in which he engages you…it’s like meeting an old friend on the street and coming away thinking “what a hell of a guy!”  

As for the dirt in Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography, there’s little of it, really, although Hughes comes embarrassingly clean on a number of high-profile sexual and romantic liaisons, and offers the truth, from his perspective, of a number of high and low points throughout his storied career, most of the self-professed lows involving drugs of one sort or another. The bio begins with a brief overview of his childhood and teen years, and touches upon his early musical efforts. Hughes’ first band of note, the vastly-underrated Trapeze, is covered to some extent, leading up to the unexpected break that would launch his career into the stratosphere – his recruitment as a member of Deep Purple.

Joining Deep Purple

Joining Deep Purple in 1973 was a huge advance for the young singer and bass player’s career. Purple was already one of a handful of jet-setting, globe-spanning superstar rock bands at the time, and Purple’s choice to bring in Hughes and vocalist David Coverdale to replace Ian Gilliam and Roger Glover had the band’s longtime fans wondering. Hughes contributed bass and vocals to three of the band’s mid-to-late 1970s studio albums, and a handful of live discs, and he goes into detail on his time with the band, his relationships with both old members like Jon Lord and Ian Paice as well as newcomers like Coverdale and, later, Tommy Bolin. For a Purple fan, Hughes’ memories of his time with the band – positive and negative – provide priceless inside info.

After the break-up of Deep Purple, Hughes would be involved with a number of various projects, some more successful, creatively and/or commercially, than others. There would be a short-lived Trapeze reunion, a pair of well-regarded albums made with former Pat Travers guitarist Pat Thrall (Hughes/Thrall); an unsatisfying collaboration with blues-rock guitarist Gary Moore; and a number of projects with Tony Iommi, some better than others, that would culminate in the ill-conceived Iommi solo work cum Black Sabbath album-in-name-only Seventh Star. Some of these projects Hughes touches upon only fleetingly, others he offers more detail, but often they are just presented as an interesting aspect of the overall narrative flow.

Also only briefly addressed is Hughes’ seemingly secret career as a studio gun for hire. Although Hughes’ career is indelibly marked by high-profile band memberships and musical collaborations, he has also often lent his talents to a lengthy list of other artists’ recordings. Among Hughes’ session credits are those one would expect – guest appearances on albums by Purple alumni like Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Tommy Bolin – the not entirely unexpected, such as singing with Pat Travers or Ken Hensley (Uriah Heep), and the surprisingly diverse, including sessions with the KLF, Motley Crue, Ryo Okumoto, and Quiet Riot, among many others. One gets the sense that Hughes brought his unique voice to many of these sessions not for monetary gain (although there probably was some) but rather because of the immense joy he has in the music.

Play Me Out

Given short-shrift by Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography is the artist’s lengthy and, at times, brilliant solo career, which began in 1977 has since resulted in a number of solid albums of Hughes’ trademark funk-infused rock ‘n’ soul music. Although Hughes touches upon a few of the milestones of his solo work, including his 1977 debut Play Me Out, he concentrates mostly on his post-sobriety recordings of the 21st century, which include such gems as 2003’s Songs In the Key of Rock, 2005’s Soul Mover, and 2006’s Music For the Divine.

A little more insight is provided Hughes’ role in the formation of Black Country Communion with blues-rock guitarist Joe Bonamassa, drummer Jason Bonham, and keyboardist Derek Sherinian. Hughes has seemingly found a new creative spark playing alongside these three talented musicians, and the overwhelming European acceptance of the band’s blues, rock, and soul hybrid sound has added another interesting chapter to Hughes’ still-ongoing story. Two studio albums and a live CD and DVD into the career of a band that’s only a couple of years old, only stateside dominance as eluded Black Country Communion so far.

Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography is constructed as a sort of oral history, with Hughes’ recollections punctuated by commentary from family (including his wife and parents), friends like Rob Halford (Judas Priest) and Tom Morello, and former bandmates like Coverdale, Thrall, and Iommi. Woven throughout Hughes’ tales of famous musicians and various girlfriends, however, is that of his struggle in the face of overwhelming addiction, including the self-deceit, the rationalized relapses, and the final moment of clarity where Hughes heard the voice of God (not literally, tho’ maybe…I’m not revealing any spoilers!) that led to his current sobriety and obvious joy of life.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Overall, Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography tells an amazing and engaging story – that of the rock star brought down to earth and subsequently resurrected to enjoy a second (third?) chapter of his career. One aspect of the book seemingly overlooked by others who have reviewed it is the perspective of the various people who have offered their comments on Hughes. Without exception, they all seem genuinely relieved that Hughes has found peace with himself, their comments displaying a fondness for the man and an appreciation of his talents…for Glenn Hughes is living proof that a nice guy can finish first… (Jawbone Press, published November 1st, 2011)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine, 2012

Buy the book from Amazon: Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography

Archive Review: Black Sabbath's Reunion (1998)

Perhaps the greatest of the primal heavy metal bands that walked the earth during the early 1970s, Black Sabbath defied critical expectations and went on to become not only one of the most successful acts in rock music during that decade but also one of the most influential. From Guns ‘N’ Roses and Iron Maiden to White Zombie and Marilyn Manson, not a single one of them would have existed if not for Sabbath’s groundbreaking musical efforts. Although signature Sabbath vocalist Ozzy Osbourne would leave the band in 1980 to become a superstar in his own right, the band continued to carry on through the two decades to follow. Making both good records and bad, Sabbath trudged along under guitarist Tony Iommi’s guiding hand to become one of rock music’s most enduring legends.

Black Sabbath’s Reunion

Sabbath has now come full-circle as the original foursome of Ozzy, Iommi, drummer Bill Ward, and bassist Geezer Butler got together again last December for a couple of live performances. The result is captured on the 2-CD Reunion, a long overdue live set from one of rock’s monster live bands. Unlike their contemporaries, Kiss, another recently reunited rock legend created by the fans rather than the critics, Sabbath didn’t attempt to knock people out with a set of new songs. No, they decided to give their fans what they’ve always wanted – red-hot live versions of some of their greatest hits. They’re all here, too, from “Iron Man,” which is still chilling after all these years, to the eerie “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” and the crowd favorite “Paranoid.” Ozzy allows the audience to sing along on a wicked rendering of “War Pigs” while other Sabbath favorites also enjoy stellar performances, including “Fairies Wear Boots” and “Snowblind.”

As a result of the band’s impromptu reunion, Ozzy and Tony Iommi penned two new songs, which are tacked on as studio cuts at the end of Reunion. The first, “Psycho Man,” is a taut thriller with concertina wire-sharp guitars and ominously plodding rhythms while “Selling My Soul” offers a sordid tale of madness and confusion – sort of like a sequel to “Paranoid” – that is driven by Ozzy’s trademark wailing vocals. Perhaps a hint of things to come, these two songs showcase that Black Sabbath has forgotten more about “heavy music” than a lot of aspiring metalheads will ever know. A reunion tour is allegedly in the works, with a new studio album possibly not far behind. Regardless, Reunion captures the greatness that is Black Sabbath in concert, maybe not at their fighting prime, but not missing many punches, either. (Epic Records, released October 20th, 1998)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™, 1998

Also on That Devil Music:
Black Sabbath’s The Rules of Hell CD review
Black Sabbath’s The Dio Years CD review

Classic Rock Review: Black Sabbath's Paranoid (1970)

If Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album, released in February 1970, was a shot across the bow of music biz politesse, then their sophomore effort, Paranoid, tore down the gates and announced that the freebooters were here to rampage and plunder. Released a mere seven months after their debut, the album represented a large creative leap forward for the foursome of Ozzy Osbourne (vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass), and Bill Ward (drums). The touchstone for several subsequent sub-genres of heavy metal – as well as a foundational album for the metal genre altogether – there’s literally not a bad song to be found on Paranoid.

Kicking off with the anti-war dirge “War Pigs,” Iommi introduces his heavy, riff-based guitar technique to a legion of stoners while Ozzy’s sepulchre vocals perfectly match the Sturm und Drang of Butler’s lyrics. Producer Roger Bain added some sound effects to the mix while Ward’s explosive drumbeats drive the song’s lyrical narrative. The result ranks among the top two or three most influential metal songs ever recorded. The breakneck title song – literally thrown together in the studio at the last minute to pad out the album – shows the band channeling arcane forces with a thrashy descent into madness that would make “Paranoid” perhaps the most influential heavy metal track of all time (or only second, perhaps, to Deep Purple’s “Smoke On the Water”). Sabbath wasn’t content with merely resting on the success of the first couple of ball-breakers on Paranoid, nosirree…they go on to dredge up the most devastating sonic sludge that they could conceive of in the proto-metal daze of the dawn of the new decade.

The hallucinogenic psychedelic mindfuck of “Planet Caravan” is directly responsible for the creation of bands like Saint Vitus, Kyuss, the Obsessed, and Electric Wizard while the plodding, metal-clad golem “Iron Man” has taken on legs of its own beyond Paranoid. Songs like “Electric Funeral” and “Hand of Doom” display a heretofore unknown, uranium-strength level of heaviness and radioactivity while the album-closing “Fairies Wear Boots” (with its intricate musical intro often listed separately as “Jack the Stripper”) cranked the amps to absurd levels, Ozzy’s epochal vocals matched by jackhammer rhythms and Iommi’s six-string pyrotechnics. A new wind was blowing in from Merry Olde England, driving Paranoid to #1 in the U.K. and #12 on the U.S. albums chart, eventually selling more than four million flapjacks on its way to making Sabbath international rock stars. (Warner Brothers Records, 1970)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon.com: Black Sabbath’s Paranoid

Archive Review: Black Sabbath's The Rules of Hell (2008)

There are only two kinds of Black Sabbath fans on this cold, grey planet – Ozzy acolytes and Dio devotees. Forget about the fleeting tenures of singers Dave Walker, Dave Donato and Ray Gillen, or those horrible records with Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, and Tony Martin. And just who the heck is Jeff Fenholt? No, for the true Sab fanatic, it all boils down to the eight albums made with Osbourne circa 1970-79, or the four recorded with Ronnie James Dio between 1979 and 1982.

Black Sabbath's The Rules of Hell

A couple of years ago, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi reunited the band's Dio-lead line-up under the banner Heaven & Hell, named for their 1980 album, as a way to promote 2006's The Dio Years set. The band recorded three new songs for that compilation, the collaboration resulting in a lengthy tour and a subsequent live recording. To satiate the tastes of those who have come around to Sabbath after experiencing Heaven & Hell, Rhino Records has done their 16-song The Dio Years one better by boxing up all four of the Dio-era Sabbath albums as the five-disc The Rules of Hell set.

Although the true believer already has most of this stuff, for the casual fan or newbie, The Rules of Hell captures the brief magic of the Dio-years Sabbath in an overflowing treasure chest, the four albums remastered and including newly-penned liner notes. The Heaven and Hell album is the cornerstone of the box, not so much a breath of fresh air after Ozzy as it was a hurricane-force blast, perfectly timed at the dawn of the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal." An influential album that yielded classic songs like "Neon Knights" and "Children of the Sea," Heaven And Hell masterfully paired Iommi's massive, doom-laden riffs with the former Rainbow vocalist's imaginative, fantastic lyrics and unique melodic sense.

Long-time Sabbath drummer Bill Ward left the band due to personal problems, to be replaced for 1981's Mob Rules by former Rick Derringer skin-basher Vinny Appice. The foursome recorded a suitable follow-up to the Platinum™-selling Heaven And Hell, following much the same blueprint, i.e. heavy riffing, scorching fretboard runs, and bombastic rhythms. The album-opening "Turn Up The Night" is a dark, rumbling rocker with histrionic vox, while "The Sign of the Southern Cross" is a Goth-tinged molten doom-stomp that starts life on gossamer wings before emerging from its chrysalis as a light-chewing, flesh-rending carnivore. For Sabbath, Mob Rules was the right album at the right time: capital-H Heavy with plenty of metallic theatrics.

There has always been a lot of discussion among fans over Live Evil, the two-disc concert set unabashedly mixing songs from the two previous studio albums with vintage Ozzy-era gems like "Paranoid" and "War Pigs." The dichotomy was not lost on listeners, and Live Evil retains a muddied reputation among the faithful to this day. Still, there is some quality noggin-knocking to be found on Live Evil. Whether you're grooving to the speeding two-wheeled hog that is "E5150," its tailpipe belching fire as Iommi marks the pavement with his scorched-asphalt six-string garroting, or genuflecting towards the temple of doom that is "Black Sabbath," the band's original signature song, the album delivers enough bone-deep chills and plodding thrills to satisfy even the most couch-bound hesher. There are fourteen songs total on Live Evil, each performance a sign of the impending apocalypse.

When the smoke had cleared after the release of Live Evil, Dio would bolt from the Sabbath ranks in '82 to form his own band; bassist Geezer Butler would depart a couple of years later. A decade passed, heavy metal was seemingly on the ropes, and as both Dio's self-titled band and the Sabs were floundering in the tidal wave emerging from Seattle, the original Heaven And Hell crew reunited for the middling Dehumanizer in 1992.

An attempt to re-imagine Sabbath for the confusing alt-rock daze of the '90s, Dehumanizer turned away from the swords-and-sorcery imagery of Dio's earlier work in favor of a Voivod-like struggle between humanity and technology. Although the dour collection illustrates Sabbath at its darkness, and songs like "TV Crime" or "Time Machine" (from the movie Wayne's World) are rife with Appice's cannonball drumbeats, Dio's soaring vocals, and Iommi's 12-gauge blunderbuss approach to riff-playing, the truth is that a dozen other bands did this sort of thing much better at the time, and Dehumanizer sank like a stone, suffering from the same tensions that broke up this incarnation of the band a decade previous.

The Reverend's Bottom Line

Dio would return to his solo career, while Iommi continued to carry Black Sabbath on his shoulders throughout the '90s and into the new millennium – even reuniting with Ozzy once upon a time – until the band's current reincarnation. For the crazed and the curious, The Rules of Hell captures every note of the often-overlooked Dio-era Sabbath, taking the listener back to the storied roots of Heaven & Hell, warts and all… (Rhino Records, released July 22nd, 2008)

Buy the CD box set from Amazon.com: Black Sabbath's The Rules of Hell

Book Review: Martin Popoff's Born Again! Black Sabbath In the Eighties and Nineties (2019)

As a teenage rock ‘n’ roll fanatic in the early ‘70s, you discovered bands in a myriad of ways. Sure, FM radio was the primary source of exposure, especially if you were lucky enough to live someplace like Nashville where WKDA-FM offered a progressive rock playlist (the station would get much more conservative in its musical choices after changing its call sign to WKDF later in the decade). Zines were another invaluable tool in discovering new music, and I devoured monthly issues of Creem and Crawdaddy, trucked down to the corner store every two weeks for a new Rolling Stone, and cherished copies of obscure rags like Zoo World, Fusion, and Rock magazine whenever they could be found. Friends, especially older ones, helped fill in a lot of the blanks, and I have to thank long-lost compadres like Rick DiBello and Mark Vantrease for introducing me, respectively, to Spirit and the Mothers of Invention.

As I wrote in my review of rock historian Martin Popoff’s excellent Sabotage! Black Sabbath In the Seventies book, it was Rick and Bill Berg and their biker buddies that turned me onto Sabbath, a band that has remained among my favorites for nearly 50 years. Popoff is a familiar, much-reviewed writer ‘round these parts; the author of some 80 books on hard rock and heavy metal, he was the founder and former editor of the Canadian metal zine Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, and a frequent contributor to music publications like Goldmine and Record Collector (U.K.), among many others. Here is the part where I’m duty-bound to mention that Martin is also a pal of mine, a friend and colleague of many years, and a fellow masochist trudging away in the treacherous trenches of self-publishing.

Martin Popoff’s Born Again! Black Sabbath In the Eighties and Nineties

Black Sabbath is obviously one of Martin’s favorite bands as well, as he’s madly written three previous books on the band, including the aforementioned Sabotage!, the informative (and essential) Black Sabbath F.A.Q., and Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose, a gorgeous illustrated history of the British metal pioneers. Born Again! Black Sabbath In the Eighties and Nineties compliments the other three volumes by plowing new turf; nothing here overlaps those other books. As is his usual literary modus operandi, Martin provides the reader with an album-by-album history of these contentious two decades, relying on interviews with Sabbath members and fellow-travelers to create a narrative that includes just the right amount of his critical insight.

Born Again! opens with the release of Sabbath’s 1980 “comeback” album, Heaven and Hell, which vaulted the band back into Platinum™ record sales territory. Sabbath had booted flamboyant frontman Ozzy Osbourne, whose well-documented rock star excesses had begun catching up with him in the late ‘70s. Enlisting former Elf and Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio, Sabbath forged a heavier sound for the new metallic decade with the Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules albums. In recapturing a bit of their former creative and commercial glory, they also sparked an ‘Ozzy or Dio’ debate that, while not as turbulent as ‘David Lee or Sammy’ discussions among the Van Halen faithful, nevertheless split the band’s fans into two distinct sides.

Tony Iommi’s Years In the Wilderness

All good things eventually come to an end, however, and when egos clashed over the mixing of Sabbath’s 1982 Live Evil album, Dio packed his bags and exited stage right, taking drummer Vinny Appice (who had replaced the ailing Bill Ward for Mob Rules) with him to form the subsequently-successful band that bore his name. Thus begun Tony Iommi’s years in the “wilderness,” the Sabbath riff master keeping the band together, for better or worse, over the ensuing years and decades. The band would become a revolving door of musicians and singers, Iommi recruiting legendary rockers like Ian Gillan (Deep Purple) and Glenn Hughes (Trapeze) and lesser-knowns like Tony Martin and Ray Gillen (Badlands) to front Sabbath and journeymen musos like drummer Cozy Powell and bassist Bob Daisley to fill holes in the roster as Ward and original fat-string player Geezer Butler rotated in and out of the line-up.

The results of this uncertainty and tumult were mixed – only Martin held onto the microphone for more than a single album, and Gillen didn’t even get that – but Sabbath nevertheless released some pretty decent, albeit overlooked records during this period (1983’s Born Again and 1987’s The Eternal Idol) as well as some stinkers (1994’s Cross Purposes), and one that never should have seen the light of day (1995’s horrible Forbidden). An ill-fated reunion with Ronnie James Dio resulted in 1992’s Dehumanizer album and, after much blood, sweat, and fiercely-negotiated tears, the inevitable band reunion with Ozzy occurred (tho’ it didn’t include original drummer Bill Ward at first), which yielded the rockin’ two-disc live Reunion album (which did include Ward!). Popoff dives deeply into these shadowy corners of the band’s career, standing out of the way and allowing Sabbath band members and related parties to create an oral history of the 1980s and ‘90s.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

I admittedly knew a lot less about the lengthy period of Sabbath’s career covered by Popoff’s Born Again! than I did about the early years of the band, but I walked away from the book with a better knowledge of the artistic dynamic that drove Black Sabbath through the ‘dark’ years. The late, beloved Ronnie James Dio comes across as a bit of a prima donna in his comments and recollections. Tony Iommi’s ego matches that of other great musicians (Ritchie Blackmore comes to mind), which made clashes of personality with other strong-willed talents (Dio and Ian Gillan, notably) a certainty.

Ozzy Osbourne comes across as a clueless dolt in Born Again!, a charismatic singer whose wife and manager Sharon holds the strings (and has seemingly been the ‘agent of chaos’ in the Ozzy/Sabbath camp all these years). Beleaguered original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward is the conscious of the band, and has usually gotten the short end of the stick when dealing with his former band members while Geezer Butler is the literal and figurative ‘heartbeat’ of the band, reappearing in the story to help propel Sabbath to the next level when needed. Popoff spins the tale, warts and all, providing the reader with no little insight into the musical legacy of one of rock’s most misunderstood and often-maligned bands. Grade: A (Power Chord Press, published January 2019)

Buy the book directly from the man himself!

Also on That Devil Music.com:
Martin Popoff - Sabotage! Black Sabbath In the Seventies book review
Black Sabbath - The Dio Years CD review

Book Review: Martin Popoff's Sabotage! Black Sabbath In the Seventies (2018)

Kind of like the ‘Old Faithful’ geyser in Wyoming’s Yellowstone National Park, you can depend on writer and music historian Martin Popoff to crank out new books with alarming and prolific regularity. He’s begun publishing them so frequently that I can’t keep up with buying them all, much less the reading of them. With almost 80 titles to his name (at this time), including über-cool coffee-table tomes like Led Zeppelin: All the Albums, All the Songs and Pink Floyd: Album By Album, Martin has penned books on hard rock and heavy metal legends like Rush, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Motörhead, and Deep Purple, among many others. This is the part of the review where I tell you that Martin is a buddy of mine, a colleague and friend of many years, but before I got to know this talented writer, I was a fan.

My music library includes roughly three-dozen books that Popoff has written dating back nearly two decades, including some titles that he’s probably forgotten about. While I’ve reviewed but a fraction of these, I’ve absorbed every word ‘cause, you see, Martin is one of the few music archeologists willing to venture into the darks corner of rock ‘n’ roll history, an area far too often ignored by mainstream pundits. The founder and former editor of the Canadian metal zine Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles and a frequent contributor to music-oriented publications like Goldmine and Record Collector (U.K.), Martin is at his best when writing about his earliest musical obsessions – bands like the legendary Black Sabbath.

Martin Popoff’s Sabotage! Black Sabbath In the Seventies

I was 13 years old when I first heard Black Sabbath...it was in the Berg’s basement in Erie PA. Their house was on the corner where our bus stop was, and a couple of the ‘braver’ of us would congregate in the basement where my schoolmate Rick and his older brother Bill lived. They had built “crash rooms” with mattresses and plywood walls, and they had a fridge stocked with beer and soda and a beat-to-hell old pool table. The boys lived downstairs while their parents and younger sister lived upstairs. Bill Berg rode with a local bike club, so he often had biker friends that crashed in the basement and they smoked and drank and did whatever while we wide-eyed young ‘uns stared in wonder. Sabbath’s first two albums were on heavy rotation in the basement over the fall and winter of 1970-71, and I became enamored of the band...

Sabotage! Black Sabbath In the Seventies is Martin Popoff’s third book on the band, including the informative Black Sabbath F.A.Q. and Black Sabbath: Doom Let Loose, a gorgeous illustrated history of the British metal pioneers. No worries, however, as this new book compliments the other two as opposed to re-hashing ancient history, tho’ there’s plenty of band history to be had within these pages, with little or no overlapping content with Popoff’s previous efforts. As is his usual literary modus operandi, Martin offers an album-by-album band history via his numerous interviews with the musicians on a roughly 2:1 ratio with his critical commentary taking a back seat to the band members’ own words.

Heavy Metal Pioneers

Sabotage! covers Sabbath’s groundbreaking early years, (i.e. the ‘70s), when the band drew up the blueprint for what we now know as “heavy metal.” Popoff starts with their self-titled 1970 debut album, pores over classic LPs like Paranoid, Master of Reality, and Sabotage, and finishes the decade with 1978’s Never Day Die, singer Ozzy Osbourne’s swansong with the band before launching his successful solo career. Osbourne would later reunite with his original Sabbath bandmates in 2011, but that’s a story for another book. Sabotage! provides plenty of information on the creation and recording of the band’s first eight albums – six of which are essential for any classic rock fan – with bassist Geezer Butler (the band’s lyricist) and drummer Bill Ward (the band’s de facto historian) in particular telling some great stories about each album.

Guitarist Tony Iommi – the band’s riffmaster, taskmaster, and creative genius – offers insight into Sabbath’s lengthy history and their songwriting process while Ozzy, well…he’s Ozzy, right? The band’s charismatic, larger-than-life frontman, Oz provides interesting anecdotes about Sabbath’s travails on the road as well as clashes with religious zealots and occultists who both misunderstood the band’s lyrics. As the only non-playing member of the band, Osbourne displays a humanizing vulnerability for a rock star, always worrying about his place and contributions (which were massive, by the way, just as Ronnie James Dio’s would be later). Along with his multiple interviews with all four Black Sabbath members; associates like Jim Simpson, the Sab’s first manager; and musicians like Rick Wakeman and Jezz Woodruffe, Martin rounds out his narrative with vintage material from the yellowing pages of music zines like Circus, Creem, and Melody Maker.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

As he usually does, Popoff provides a valuable service with Sabotage!, documenting a fruitful and creative era of one of rock music’s most innovative and influential bands in Black Sabbath. The 1970s were a tumultuous time for the band, but they persevered and extended their legacy to the modern day in spite of changing musical currents and consistent belittling by the music press. Martin preserves the history of the era with both his own insightful commentary and the memories of the band members, resulting in an interesting and entertaining tale.

Will we eventually see a fourth Sabbath book from Popoff? One that covers the equally fascinating decade of the ‘80s and the six albums released by the band with singers like Dio, Ian Gillen, and Glenn Hughes? We can certainly hope so, as that seems to be a story waiting to be told, and there’s nobody better to tell it… Grade: A (Power Chord Press, published May 2018)

Buy it directly from the man himself!

Also on That Devil Music:
Martin Popoff - The Clash: All the Albums, All the Songs book review
Martin Popoff - Led Zeppelin: All the Albums, All the Songs book review
Martin Popoff - Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers: The Rise of Motörhead book review

CD Review: Black Sabbath's The Dio Years (2007)

Few bands in the history of rock & roll have exerted the kind of long-lasting musical influence that has been enjoyed by Black Sabbath. The Beatles, certainly, continue to influence rock music unlike any other band, as do the Rolling Stones (although their status has been diminished somewhat by the band’s refusal to just GO AWAY and be quiet for a long while). The Who has its champions, and one cannot discount Led Zeppelin’s remaining legion of loyal fanatics. But Sabbath…bloody Sabbath…reviled by critics, adored by teenage miscreants across both in the U.K. and the U.S.A…Black Sabbath continues to grow in stature, casting an undeniable shadow over subsequent generations of headbangers and metalheads of every stripe, style and flavor.

Hardcore Sabbath fans can be excused for their unflagging allegiance and devotion to the original, Ozzie-led band line-up (circa 1969-1978). Of the band’s first five albums – from 1970’s self-titled Black Sabbath through 1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and including the seminal Paranoid – well, only the aforementioned musical legends, and maybe Bob Dylan, can brag of such time-tested, tried-and-true initial efforts. There’s a reason that the youngsters keep rediscovering these discs, and it’s not just because “Ozzie rules,” man! From Osbourne’s haunting vocals and disturbed, madness-tinged lyrics and Tony Iommi’s incredible, inflammatory (and still unsurpassed) fretwork to the larger-than-life, molten-sludge rhythms of bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward, these albums were ground-breaking in every way, providing a musical blueprint that other bands would later use to build their own sounds.

There was a second incarnation of Black Sabbath, however – sans Ozzie – that has also proven its mettle time and time again to become, if not as influential as the original line-up, at the very least, highly-regarded as an important era for the band. That era has been documented by The Dio Years. However, first I’ll have to provide a bit of history for the young ‘uns in the audience. When the struggle between Osbourne and his excesses proved to be too much for bandleader Iommi to tolerate, Ozzie was shown the door and the band performed gigs for a few months (1977-78) with former Savoy Brown vocalist David Walker. It never worked out, though, and by the time the band went into the studio to record Never Say Die (1978), Ozzie was back in the fold, singing on the album and subsequent tour.

The reunion proved to be short-lived, however, as the tensions between Osbourne and Iommi led to either Ozzie quitting the band, or being fired, depending on who’s telling the story. Former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio was recruited as Ozzie’s replacement sometime during early 1979, and it was with this new frontman that Sabbath recorded Heaven And Hell (1980), an album that many who ought to know consider to be among Sabbath’s best. With Dio’s sword-and-sorcery, fantasy-oriented lyrics providing a thematic change of direction, the band supported the singer’s soaring vocals with the heaviest dinosaur-stomp soundtrack they’d ever recorded. Produced by respected boardman Martin Birch (Deep Purple, Rainbow), the album was a commercial success on both sides of the pond, yielding classic slabs o’ metal like “Neon Knights,” “Lady Evil” and the title track, “Heaven And Hell,” all fondly remembered by ‘80s-era, second-generation fans of the band.

Going into the studio to record Mob Rules (1981), again produced by Birch, Sabbath lost force-of-nature-drummer Bill Ward, who resigned from the band to address several personal problems, including his own growing depression. Vinnie Appice, younger brother of legendary skinman Carmine (Vanilla Fudge, Cactus), was enlisted to try and fill Ward’s chair. Although it was every bit as heavy, the resulting album lacked the fresh revelations of its predecessor. Songs like the driving “Turn Up The Night,” featuring Dio’s best high-flying vocals and Iommi’s taut six-string leads, or the riff-happy “Voodoo,” find the band absorbing “New Wave Of British Heavy Metal” influences, sounding more like Iron Maiden than the Sabbath of yore. The Dio Years includes five songs from Heaven And Hell and four from Mob Rules.

For whatever reasons, Dio left Sabbath after the 1981/82 tour supporting Mob Rules, taking Appice with him to form his own self-named band. A live album was released from that tour, Live Evil (1983) providing fans with a mix of new material as well as Dio interpretations of vintage Sabbath like “Paranoid” and “War Pigs.” Sadly, The Dio Years only includes one song from Live Evil, the mesmerizing “Children Of The Sea.” After Dio’s departure, Sabbath soldiered on with a succession of vocalists, to varied success. Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, and Tony Martin all fronted the band at various times throughout the remainder of the ‘80s.    

Fate being what it is, however, Dio rejoined the band in 1991, nearly a decade after leaving, to record and tour in support of Dehumanizer. By this point, Sabbath had been passed, commercially, by the previous decade’s nerf-metal bands, and artistically by a generation of thrash-and-black-and-Goth-metal bands that had been weaned on Dio-era Sabbath. The band desperately needed to reassert its domination in the metal world. Dehumanizer was the album that brought the band into the ‘90s and, strangely enough, subsequently set the stage for Ozzie to later perform with Sabbath again. Represented on The Dio Years by three songs – “After All (The Dead),” “TV Crimes” and “I” – Dehumanizer offered the heaviest Sabbath sound since Dio’s previous turn with the band. Iommi’s guitar screeches like a banshee across these tracks while Appice and Butler team up to redefine “doom-metal” with amazingly thick, bass-heavy rhythms.

Another fifteen years has passed, and Ronnie James has reunited with Tony and Geezer for yet another trip ‘round the world, dragging drummer Vinnie Appice behind him. The Dio Years includes three freshly-minted songs by the fab foursome, including the diabolical “The Devil Cried,” which features some of Iommi’s nastiest, most surgically-precise solos in years, and the ethereal “Shadow Of The Wind,” a riff-happy monster of a song that sounds as menacing as anything from the band’s earliest albums. The Dio-fronted line-up will tour under the name “Heaven And Hell” in support of The Dio Years, choosing not to go out on the road as Black Sabbath in respect of Ozzie’s (now permanent) place at the front of the band.   

Whether you’re a fan of the original Ozzie-led Sabbath, a true-blue Dio devotee, or you sit somewhere in between, The Dio Years is a fine collection representing a typically overlooked era for this legendary band. Other than the three new “Heaven And Hell” tracks, there’s nothing else here that’s new – I, for one, would have liked to have seen the inclusion of one or two of the unreleased studio tracks that are known from the Dio era, or perhaps some rare live tracks from the vaults – but The Dio Years nevertheless stands tall as an essential document of this underrated period of Sabbath history, providing it the respect it has so richly deserved for over two-and-a-half decades. (Trademark of Quality blog, 2007)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Black Sabbath's The Dio Years