40 years of Heavy Metal
It was on February 13, 1970, when in Birmingham (England), the band featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward -which was baptized with the name Black Sabbath - showed the world their eponymous LP debut, considered the album that marks the birth of the so called "Heavy Metal".
Hailed by many, hated by others, this record marked a milestone in the musical styles prevailing at the time, because its content was loaded with dark lyrics representative of Satanism and the occult.
Black Sabbath decided to write scary songs because they used to rehearse in front of a movie theater; then Tony Iommi noticed that people paid to watch scary movies, and had the idea of composing music about that subject... Very clever.
The current lineup includes the four original members of the band:
Tony Iommi - guitar, piano, flute, synthesizer, organ, mellotron
Ozzy Osbourne - vocals, harmonica
Geezer Butler - bass, synthesizers, mellotron
Bill Ward - drums, percussion, backing vocals
Former members in alphabetical order:
Don Airey - keyboards
Vinny Appice - drums
Bev Bevan - drums
Mike Bordin - drums
Jo Burt - bass
Terry Chimes - drums
Gordon Copely - bass
Laurence Cottle - bass
Bob Daisley - bass
Ronnie James Dio - vocals
Dave Donato - vocals
Ian Gillan - vocals
Ray Gillen - vocals
Rob Halford - vocals
Glenn Hughes - vocals
Ron Keel - vocals
Tony Martin - vocals
Neil Murray - bass
Geoff Nicholls - keyboards
Cozy Powell - drums
Bobby Rondinelli - drums
Eric Singer - drums
Dave Spitz - bass
Adam Wakeman - keyboards
Rick Wakeman - keyboards
Dave Walker - vocals
Jezz Woodruffe - keyboards