Black Sabbath Family Tree

 
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This MySpace is dedicated to one of the greatest legacies of Rock & Roll.....The Amazing Family of musicians called BLACK SABBATH. Many know of this powerhouse Heavy Rock unit by its original 4 members of Ozzy Osbourne(vocals),Tony Iommi(Guitar),Geezer Butler (Bass)and Bill Ward(Drums)but,many DONT know of the amazing performances given by so many other legendary artists that helped keep this unstoppable musical force going for over 30 years.
Performances like Rainbow's Ronnie Dio stepping up and changing the voice of Sabbath forever.
Or,The Late,great Ray Gillen rising from nowhere to shine ever so brightly while rescuing Idol Glenn Hughes.
The work of a guy like Geoff Nichols,holding down the ship for the band for over 20 years...while behind the scenes.
And,All the "Off-Shoot" projects that spawned amazing branches from this wonderous Tree.
All of these true rock legends greatly contributed to the amazing legacy known as...
THE MAJORITY OF THIS TEXT IS CREDITED TO THE HARD WORK AND RESEARCH OF ARCHIVIST JOE SIEGLER and CAN BE FOUND @ WWW.BLACK-SABBATH.COM along with much more very informative writings,pictures and multi-media.

Before the band recorded their first album, and after they had taken the moniker of Black Sabbath, Tony Iommi quit the band briefly to play with Jethro Tull. He only lasted 2 weeks, and came back to Sabbath. During his time in Tull, he did "play live" once, and a recording of this exists on the Archangel bootleg, and on the Rolling Stones "Rock & Roll Circus" video (however, it really wasn't Tony "playing", he was just miming). The musical contributions of the original lineup of Black Sabbath to the music world are legendary. The albums they produced during this time still hold up with today's music, and should be required listening for everyone who has a CD player.
Ozzy left Black Sabbath in October of 1977 to try and form the first incarnation of "Blizzard of Ozz". Needing a new vocalist, Tony Iommi remembered Dave Walker from their old Birmingham days and contacted him in San Francisco to ask him to come out to join Black Sabbath. On the flight from San Francisco to London in November 1977 and for the next three weeks, Walker had written lyrics to music the rest of Black Sabbath (Iommi on guitar, Terry "Geezer" Butler on bass and drummer Bill Ward) had put together for their next album (though no Walker vocals had been recorded) and they, along with Walker, appeared on the BBC Midlands TV program called "Look Hear" performing what turned out to be an early draft of "Junior's Eyes".
Shortly after the appearance with Dave Walker on television, Ozzy rejoined the band so Dave Walker was dismissed. None of the lyrics Walker had written for the Never Say Die album were used as Osbourne preferred to use other lyrics. One track on the resulting album called "Swinging the Chain" was sung by Bill Ward instead of Osbourne and another tune called "Breakout" ended up being an instrumental when it wasn't originally planned to be such.
The last date on the Never Say Die tour was December 11, 1978, and Ronnie Dio didn't come on board until around March 1979, so sometime in early 1979 is most likely when Ozzy was "fired".
Depending on who you talk to, Ozzy was either fired, asked to leave, or just quit. There's too many conflicting stories about his departure. However it's spun, it obviously wasn't working anymore, and Ozzy's heart didn't seem in it (having already quit and returned in 77/78). Bill Ward has said over the years that it was he who "informed" Ozzy that he wasn't in the band anymore.
Also, for a brief time before Dio joined the band, Geezer left, too. During that time, Geoff Nicholls (ex-Quartz) was brought in to play bass...on July 17, 1979.
Seometime towards the back end of the album's production, Geezer returned. When that happened, Geoff moved over to keyboards, and stayed there for a very long time.The band actually got on well (at least at this point, anyway), and the inclusion of Ronnie James Dio seemed to respark what had become a lazy, tired band. However, it wasn't to last all that long.Bill Ward left the tour in August, right before a Hawaii gig, for a couple of reasons. His drinking and depression are his publicly stated claims (source was the Sabbath Story Volume 2 video). Bill had also lost both his parents in a short period of time not long before this. The tour was postponed until a replacement could be brought in. Bill's replacement was ex-Axis drummer Vinnie Appice. Vinnie finishes the Heaven & Hell tour, and records the following album Mob Rules, as well as plays the entire tour for that, which was recorded for the Dec 82 release, Live Evil.
Ronnie & Vinnie leave to form Dio at the end of 1982. Again, depending on who you talk to, it's a different story as to why they left. Seems it boils down to personalities. There is also the publicly stated claim of Ronnie "sneaking into the studio to mix up the vocals, and the bass and drums down". Around the time of the Dehumanizer album, the guys say that this claim was "never exactly true". After Dio splits, another singer is needed.

After a short search, Ian Gillan of Deep Purple is brought in for vocals, and Bill Ward is also brought back to play drums. Some years later, Ian Gillan states the only reason he did Sabbath was money. There were interviews given over the years that seem to indicate that this lineup of the band was put together over some drinks in a pub, and then when they sobered up, it was like "Oh shit - we have to do this".
Also, there was a story about the rather hideous album cover for Born Again - Sabbath were being managed by Don Arden (Sharon's Osbourne's dad, ironically) at the time, and word has it that he had the cover drawn up, knowing it was bad, and sent it to the band (because he didn't give a shit about Sabbath). However, Tony liked it, and picked it. Unfortunately, Sabbath seems to have forgotten this era, which is a shame, as Born Again was an excellent album. The only post Born Again tour to have any material from Born Again was the Seventh Star tour, when they played a few bars from Zero the Hero.
Bev Bevan is brought in to replace Bill Ward for the Born Again Tour. Bill's general health and well being was still not up to par, and he was not able to tour with the band, mostly due to alcohol addiction. Bill has stated in interviews over the years that Born Again was the first sober album he ever recorded, and he was trying to stay that way. He apparently had a weakness for drinking on airplanes, and the thought about going out on the road and touring sober was too frightening for him, and he went back on the sauce, and had to go home because he got too sick to tour.
Bev is also from Birmingham, and grew up around Sabbath, so they were "friends from back home". This is the tour that featured the Spinal-Tap spoofed Stonehenge stage. This lineup lasted the entire tour, but not long after it. Ian does some great renditions of Sabbath classics on stage - he has a wonderful scream for the song Black Sabbath, as well as Iron Man.
On tour, Black Sabbath was playing the Purple staple Smoke on the Water as the first encore song. There was a rumour that Sabbath was going to play ELO's Evil Woman on tour, but to my knowledge, it never happened. Also at a few gigs, Sabbath played the old song "Apache" by the Shadows.
Sabbath is more or less put on ice at this time until Iommi is forced by record company pressure to make his 1986 solo album a Sabbath album (see Lineup #8 for more info on this.)
After the mid 84 attempt to bring another singer into the band (Dave Donato, Ron Keel, etc..) the band more or less "breaks up".
It was at some point in this time that Tony Iommi bought up the legal rights to the name Black Sabbath.An article in a 1986 Kerrang said something like (I'm paraphrasing from memory) "Iommi didn't want the Black Sabbath name to die, and bought up the rights to it from the other original Sabbath members" (which is ironic, considering the record label forced the Iommi solo album Seventh Star to be a Sabbath album).
The upshot of this is that now that Tony owns all legal rights to the name Black Sabbath, no one can put together a version of Black Sabbath without his permission.
As if all the 1984 stuff wasn't confusing enough, we now come to Jeff Fenholt.Jeff's part in the history of Black Sabbath is in dispute. The Black Sabbath camp has said that Fenholt merely "tried out" for the part. Jeff says that he was in the band for about 7 months, worked on the Seventh Star album, and is uncredited for co-writing some of the stuff on the album, including No Stranger to Love.There is a bootleg floating around with Seventh Star music on it (called "Star of India"), but with different lyrics sung by Jeff Fenholt. This part of the band's history is also kind of weird insofar as Sabbath didn't officially exist as "Black Sabbath" and is the main driving force behind my belief that Fenholt was never in Sabbath proper. During this time, the album being worked on was officially going to be a Tony Iommi solo album. From this point of view, it could be construed that even if Fenholt had gotten the gig (which he didn't), was not officially part of Black Sabbath, since this time is generally regarded as Iommi solo project time.At some point during the summer of 1985, Tony Iommi began work on a solo album.
When he was working on this material at the demo level, he used the rhythm section from Lita Ford's Band (Eric Singer & Gordon Copley), due to Tony's then engagement to Lita.

{Note:The Contributions of Lita Ford to the Sabbath Family Tree are quite extensive...and often go unrecognized.These will be focused on later)
Eventually, as the project progressed, a vocalist was needed. Glenn Hughes was brought in, and Dave Spitz replaced Gordon Copley (assuming he was ever really a "member" in the first place), who went back out on the road with Lita Ford. This album was originally intended to be an Iommi solo album, but record company pressure forced it to come out under the Black Sabbath banner, but the band was officially called Black Sabbath Featuring Tony Iommi.
This is another album that was excellent, but very much underrated. The only time other than the Seventh Star tour (and a one shot charity benefit appearance in 1988) that any material from this album was played was on the Tyr tour in 1990, when they played one verse of Heart Like a Wheel.
After about 5 or 6 dates into the Seventh Star tour, Glenn Hughes was fired from Black Sabbath. Again, depending on whom you talk to, there are conflicting reports as to why this happened. Stories range from drug and alcohol abuse, to a rumour about his vocal cords being damaged in a fist fight right before the first gig of the tour, or to the publicly stated claim of "inability to properly sing Sabbath classics live".Being out on tour and needing to replace your vocalist is not something that's terribly easy to do.
This job fell to Ray Gillen. Ray got the gig because he was a friend of Dave Spitz's, and literally went from a New Jersey bar band to Black Sabbath. Ray actually was hanging around the band for a few days before his actual debut, legend has it that Ray and the rest of Sabbath (sans Glenn) were rehearsing in secret. Ray finishes the tour, and then the fun begins... In January, Sabbath goes to a different set of studios and does further work on the album, but without a formal drummer or bassist.
As Eric Singer had laid down his tracks already, the band really didn't need a drummer as such, and my research says that during this time Sabbath didn't actually have a drummer, either.Around March of 1987, Ray Gillen leaves the band (according to an interview), because he felt Sabbath wasn't going anywhere, as well as his feeling that the band didn't really have any future.
A new singer was now needed.Actually, Tony Martin was considered for the position in 1986, but he was already in a band at the time (The Misha Calvin Band). Tony Martin has said that one small bit of Ray's vocals was left on the released version of Eternal Idol, that being some laughter on the track "Nightmare".
As production stretched on into mid 1987, Sabbath was warming up to play some gigs in July, most of which were the Sun City gigs below. As such, they needed someone to play drums, so Tony's friend Bev Bevan (who previously was in Sabbath during 83/84 on the Born Again tour) was brought in to play drums for Sabbath again, although when precisely he joined up again,is not known.
While Bev does have a credit on the final Eternal Idol album as "percussion", what (if anything) he played on the final album isn't known. Eric Singer was asked at a KISS convention about the Eternal Idol album, and he said that Bev doesn't actually play anything on the album, and that he's the only drummer. As a side note, during this time, Ray Gillen had tried out for Blue Murder, but wasn't actually hired, with the excuse of "He couldn't sing!".
In addition to Bev Bevan stepping in to play drums, the band needed a bassist if they were to play live again, so Dave Spitz returned to the stage to handle those duties. On July 20th, 1987, Sabbath played a music festival in Greece, which as it turns out has been their only appearance in Greece in their entire history. During the summer of 1988, the two Tonys hook up with Cozy Powell and start writing for what will become Headless Cross. The album was actually recorded from August to November of 1988.
During this time, Sabbath is told by Gloria Butler that Geezer was going to join the band again*. Laurence Cottle was really only around for the recording of the album, he wasn't here all this time. Sabbath waits until April 89 for Geezer, but since Geezer went and joined Ozzy's band, Neil Murray is brought in on the eve of the album's release. The release of Headless Cross also marked the first time since 1970 that Black Sabbath changed record labels.
This version of Black Sabbath toured for the entire Headless Cross album, and then recorded Tyr. The band toured for Tyr, but the tour was never completed. The tour had a few surprises, that being that Ian Gillan, Geezer Butler, & Brian May made appearances during a few gigs. There was a planned US Tour, but it was cancelled.
Ronnie James Dio decides to rejoin Black Sabbath after the infamous "Geezer visit to a Dio gig in Minneapolis" on August 28, 1990. This version of Sabbath never recorded or toured either, although they did demo together. The band was going to progress in this form, Dio didn't just join for "The Dehumanizer Reunion". The band spent most of this time working on new material. Rumors abounded that Dio & Cozy couldn't get along, even going so far as to having Geoff Nichols calling the pair "fire and water". Around September, Cozy has his infamous "horse riding accident" that prevented him from working. There was another rumour that Cozy Powell wanted too much money from what became Dehumanizer, and as such the "horse riding" story was quickly invented for his departure from the band (although this is likely untrue). As work progressed on Dehumanizer, apparently a split occurred with Tony/Geezer & Ronnie as well. According to interviews, it wasn't going well for whatever reason, and Tony & Geezer phoned up Tony Martin and asked him to rejoin Black Sabbath. Tony Martin was at that time working on his "Back Where I Belong" solo project, and could not extract himself to that, and had to turn down the offer.
However a couple of months later (about three months after Ronnie first rejoined, from what I've found out) the offer was made again to Tony Martin to come in and re-record the Dehumanizer material that existed.
Apparently due to the change in vocalists, some lyrics and vocal melodies were re-worked. Tony Iommi was happy with Tony Martin, as all Iommi wanted to do was play, and not go through what came with working with a name like Dio.
Anyway, Warner Bros apparently paid a huge amount of advance money for "Dehumanizer", and again, record company pressure forced another change, they wanted either Ozzy or Dio. So Tony Martin is booted again from the band in favor of Dio.
The Great Reunion of 1992 responsible for Dehumanizer. Probably the most important Black Sabbath record in years. This album proves they can still kick ass with the best of today's rock. After the end of the Cross Purposes tour, the lineup responsible for Tyr and the tour for Headless Cross reunites to make 1995's Forbidden, although the goodwill and headway they made with the public back from 1989-1991 with Headless Cross & Tyr was lost when Sabbath changed gears for Dehumanizer. At this point, the public didn't seem to care anymore.
This album featured for the first time ever a guest vocalist. This was Ice-T of the band Body Count on the track The Illusion of Power. Body Count's guitarist, Ernie C, produced Forbidden. It's widely regarded as Sabbath's weakest studio effort.At the end of the US tour for Forbidden, Cozy Powell leaves, claiming exhaustion from a few non stop years of recording and touring (Brian May Band and Black Sabbath). The split is on friendly terms. Bobby Rondinelli is brought back for the rest of the Forbidden tour. Vinnie Appice did NOT play for Black Sabbath during this time. There was a rumour that started at Cozy's last US gig about this, because Tony Martin announced that Vinnie was in the audience. The rumour started when some people translated this into Vinnie was replacing Cozy.The tour for Forbidden ended in December 1995, and the band was more or less put on ice. Tony began working on material again.As for the rest of the band, Neil Murray was working with Cozy Powell in Peter Green's "Splinter Group" (founder of Fleetwood Mac).
Bobby Rondinelli was heard of working in some capacity with the Sun Red Sun group he was in with Ray Gillen when Ray died, but later turned up in Blue Oyster Cult.n March 1997, several rumors surfaced saying that Black Sabbath was to "reunite" and play some gigs at Ozzy's Ozzfest 1997 Festival tours. The rumors first said it was an original Mk. I reunion, and then it changed to Sabbath with Iommi / Butler / Osbourne / Mike Bordin (from Ozzy's band). Bill Ward was not asked to play. This "reunion" of three of the original Mk I members started in late May 1997, and ran until July 1st, 1997 After the Ozzfest shows ended in July of 1997, everyone "went back home".
Ozzy went to work finishing and preparing his "Ozzman Cometh" Greatest Hits package for release in November, and Geezer Butler went out and toured the clubs in support of his new Black Science CD. Tony Iommi went back to work on his long-delayed solo album, "Iommi".
The rumors continued for awhile that a reunited Black Sabbath will get back together.On November 11th, Bill Ward went to England to rehearse with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Ozzy Osbourne for the December gigs in the UK. During this time, MTV Europe announced that Bill had hurt his hand, but was going to play the gigs anyway. This was totally false. On November 24th, it was officially announced that Bill Ward will play with Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler, and Tony Iommi as Black Sabbath for two shows on December 4th & 5th.
They were recorded (both video & audio) for release later in 1998. The video was later released as the Reunion video.
This is being billed as the "Original Black Sabbath", and it is really.Geoff Nicholls did play keyboards. Geoff wasn't an original member, but has been in the band since very early in 1980 (possibly even late 1979).
There was one "pseudo-Sabbath" event in July of 2002.
Ozzy Osbourne was asked to play the Queen of England's Jubilee festival in England to mark Queen Elizabeth's 50th year as monarch. Ozzy sang one song, Paranoid, and was backed by a band of Tony Iommi, Phil Collins, & Pino Palladino on bass (Phil & Pino were seen with other people, so they were essentially "the house rhythm section" and just played here, too).On November 3rd, it was announced that Black Sabbath would be inducted into the UK Hall of Fame (not the same as the "main" US one) after having been nominated in September.
Sabbath would be going in with other such names like Queen, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and The Kinks.
On March 13, 2006 - Black Sabbath was inducted into the US Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
One positive sign is that there's been rumours for several months during 2006 that Ronnie James Dio would be rejoining Black Sabbath in an off-shoot project called "Heaven And Hell".
Will we ever see this version of Sabbath????
Only Heaven(& Hell)knows!!!!!