The Prince of Darkness has left the building. Just 2½ weeks after a farewell concert that was watched the world over and made millions for charity, Ozzy Osbourne has passed away.
Hearing Black Sabbath’s We Sold Our Souls for Rock and Roll when I was 14 years old changed my life. We would hang at my friends’ vacant Mother-in-Law house where we could party unsupervised and crank his older brother’s vinyl. I already loved The Who, KISS, and Cheap Trick, but man, those Sabbath guitars! And those songs! And why is the room spinning and I’d give anything for some Doritos right now?
I quickly got hip to Blizzard of Ozz, Diary of a Madman, and Speak of the Devil. It wasn’t long before Maiden, Priest, Scorpions, and the first two Mötley Crüe albums became the soundtrack to my life. Soon after, Bark at the Moon introduced the world to Jake E. Lee and metal was almost mainstream. For me, the journey into hard-rock and metal started in that house with We Sold Our Souls... 43 years later and Volume 4 is literally sitting on my turntable from last weekend. My tastes have broadened into new genres, but I still love and listen to metal in heavy rotation, practically daily.
It was then that I knew I wanted to be in a band. I wanted to be Randy Rhoads or Jake E. Lee. I wanted to party like Ozzy and David Lee Roth. I wanted the girls in those videos. Hundreds of frustrating hours spent practicing to no avail and an eventual door into the very foreign world of punk-rock liberated me from those unachievable dreams, but I never, ever stopped listening to Ozzy.
And then came the 2000’s. The success of Survivor kick-started a reality TV trend that continues to this day. It’s occasionally decent, but way more often than not, terrible. I’ll admit it, I watched The Osbournes for a season or two, but the scripted and goofy antics quickly stripped away the mystique of Ozzy. I guess that was the point? But there was something very sad about seeing my heavy metal hero cleaning up dog shit or walking down the street in Beverly Hills in his PJ’s stoned out of his mind on pharmaceuticals, and not in an “I’m on tour and I don’t know what city I’m in” kinda way, but more of a “Let’s get Ozzy stoned and laugh at him on TV” kinda way. And make no mistake, America was laughing at him, not with him. After a short while it was just depressing. Even decent sets at OZZFest couldn’t shake the reality TV stigma.
At Ozzy’s side since shortly after he left Sabbath was his wife, Sharon. She’s often villainized as the royalty-stealing Cruella DeVille who pushed and prodded Ozzy to be out on stage, on tour, and on TV when to most of us he just seemed to want to relax and fade into the sunset, exhausted from decades of work and self-abuse. While I do understand and subscribe to those accusations, it can’t go without saying that without Sharon, Ozzy probably wouldn’t have survived the Sabbath split, and if he had by some miracle, he certainly wouldn’t have had much of a career after it.
A few mediocre records and farewell tours came and went, but Ozzy was always there, a little harder to understand as the years passed, and eventually unable to sing without a backing track. Black Sabbath did a farewell tour in 2016 and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a guitar sound that HUGE. Bill Ward sat the tour out, a sad fact that was remedied just a couple weeks ago when all 4 original members reunited for one last show – Back to the Beginning – featuring a who’s-who of rock and metal mega-stars and sets by both Ozzy solo and Sabbath wrapping up the night. Seated, Ozzy did not sing to a track, thankfully, and while it maybe wasn’t awesome, it was good enough, a fitting and noble farewell, and by all accounts, a great day. I was glued to the screen, I loved every minute of it, and it wasn’t lost on me that it was the end. We didn’t know that the real end would come so quickly.
Rest in peace John Michael Osbourne. You changed this kid’s life and the lives of a million others. Your music will live forever.
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit, fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos, and plays acoustic shows all over the place. Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
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Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
