As you’ve probably heard by now, Ozzy Osbourne has died. For anyone of my generation, that’s a biggie, and I’m sorry to hear he’s gone.
I had a slight personal connection: back in 1983, when I was just making the transition from assistant to staff engineer at Power Station Studios in New York, my boss Tony Bongiovi got a call from the record company saying that the release of Ozzy’s latest album, Bark At The Moon, was being held up because the mixes weren’t good enough, and that they wanted Tony to remix the album. (The cover art had already been finalized, so there wouldn’t be a mixing credit involved, but I’m sure they made it worth Tony’s while.) Tony drafted me to assist, and on the evening before we started, I remember the three of us going out to dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant (La Torre di Pisa, on 9th Avenue, now defunct).
The mixes proceeded normally, until Tony suddenly caught a debilitating flu with two songs to go. He told me I’d have to do the mixes in his stead, and Ozzy had no objection, and so for those last two mixes I ended up in the pilot’s seat, at the old Neve 8068 console in Studio A. (If you’re interested, the songs are Slow Down and Waiting For Darkness.)
I never saw Ozzy again after that, but I remember him as a cheery and good-natured fellow, and pretty much exactly as he always came across in public. He had an enormous influence on the development of hard rock in all its later forms, and all who came after owe him a debt of gratitude.
Rest in peace, Ozzy, and thank you.
5 Comments
Malcolm you had to do a fill in bit on drums for a beat or two for Charlie Watts back in the early 1970s didn’t you? I seem to remember that.
Yes, I played the floor-tom “power hand” part on Going To A Go-Go, from the album Still Life.
Ozzy, with Black Sabbath, basically invented Heavy Metal as a genre, inspiring literally hundreds of different bands to experiment and eventually create all of the different subcategories that make up hard rock/heavy metal. He was that important a figure.
Beyond that, I love much, but not all, of his work with Sabbath. When those guys connected, they hit it out of the park… repeatedly.
Truly the end of an era.
I guess you know Malcolm that Tom Lehrer also recently died, a rather different fellow from OO.
Live 1971 Paris ( May have been Belgium)
War Pigs .. Whoa
Powerful voice and stage presence.
Bill Ward on drums. Jesus