I. Introduction
Most people know about Ozzy Osbourne because he is one of the hottest personalities recently who is offensive, violent and somewhat “demonic”. Not many artists have influenced the world of entertainment as Ozzy Osbourne does. MTV has launched the sacrilege-soaked The Osbourne family show. His music is more on heavy rock and he is also considered as one of the rock music’s most stable and prominent personalities who became as one of the best loved figures on television through the wildly successful hit MTV program entitled “The Osbourne” which had the top rated original show in the 24-year history of MTV.
In 2003, Ozzy Osbourne was able to score his first number 1 U.K. single hit entitled “Changes” together with his daughter, named Kelly. Ozzy Osbourne is presently writing Broadway show which is based on Rasputin’s life. Not only that, he has a film too which is based on his life story that presents his being popular, creative and immeasurable.
Last March 2005, Ozzy became more famous when he released his album entitled “Prince od Darkness”. This is a four CD-set which contains the biggest hits and most unforgettable and notable collaborations having a separate disc which feature ten recent versions of Ozzy’s chosen songs from other artists (see “Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Darkness”).
The intents of this paper are to: (1) know the background of Ozzy Osbourne; (2) figure out how Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath have started; (3) find out what were the testing of his life before and after he became a member in Black Sabbath; (4) learn who the people behind his successful career were and; (5) be aware of how he was able to cope life after some tragedies happened to him.
II. Background
On December 3, 1948 in the place of Aston, Birmingham, England, a baby boy was born and named him as John Michael Osbourne or popularly known as Ozzy Osbourne. Ozzy Osbourne is a lead singer of the original heavy metal band called as Black Sabbath. He is also a famous solo artist and a reality television personality. Ozzy Osbourne married twice, have five children and two grandchildren from his oldest daughter, namely Isabelle and Harry. His first wife was named Thelma Riley and she has two children with Ozzy, namely Jessica Hobbs and Louis Osbourne. Ozzy’s second and current wife is Sharon Osbourne. Sharon has three children with Ozzy and they are Aimee, Kelly and Jack (see “Ozzy Osbourne”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. November 1, 2006).
III. Discussion
Ozzy’s life before Black Sabbath
Not many of us know what Ozzy had been through when he was still young. Just like other people, Ozzy also undergone some biases from other people especially in the school where he was enrolled. During Ozzy Osbourne’s earlier age, he settled in Birmingham, England. He belonged to a family of six children and experienced extreme poverty. He too had learning incapacity which was reported as dyslexia. Due to that fact, he was always bullied in school and insecurities started to crept in his heart.
And to avoid himself from clinical depression, he diverted his attention at an early age in music, as his scapegoat, where he became the lead singer of a local band called “Rare Breed”. Tony lommi, was once one of his bullies, hesitantly invited Ozzy to jam and join with his promising group called “Polka Tulk Blues Band” and subsequently renamed as “Earth” and Tony lommi was ultimately impressed by Ozzy’s voice. During the time when psychedelic rock was the trend, lommi and co-band members had come into a decision to play heavy blues and sing in relation to the depressing quality of life around them. Since the name Earth is very common and mostly used by anybody, the band decided to change the band’s name into “Black Sabbath” (see “Ozzy Osbourne”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. November 1, 2006).
Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath
The Black Sabbath band was able to reach to its fullest. It was made stronger through the driving guitar riffs of Tony lommi and the horror-laden lyrics of Geezer Butler. In addition, the band is also topped with creepy, loud vocals of Ozzy Osbourne which was included on the Black Sabbath’s early records like their self-titled debut album called “Paranoid” and “Master of reality” that are specifically identified as heavy metal. Many of their earlier singles particularly the “Iron man”, “War Pigs” and “Paranoid” continuously attract significant and noteworthy radio airplay. Moreover, Ozzy Osbourne continually plays the said hits when he performs as a solo artist. During 1979, Ozzy Osbourne was terminated from the Black Sabbath Band.
There were many allegations, controversies and hearsays about Ozzy’s termination. It was believed by many that he was terminated because he used narcotic drugs. But Ozzy Osbourne clarified the issue and said to the public that he was purposefully terminated because of his attorney’s advice. The position he left in the band was replaced by Ronnie James Dio, a former “Rainbow” vocalist (see Takasugi, Fumiko. “The Development of Underground of Musicians in Honolulu Scene, 1995-1997. Popular Music and Society. Vol. 26, Issue 1, 2003).
Ozzy’s life after Black Sabbath and people behind his success
Every individual cannot be successful in life without the support of other people. This was what happened in Ozzy’s life. Ozzy was still successful in his career after Black Sabbath because there were people who were patiently and faithfully helping him to achieve his dreams. These were the people who encouraged him during the lowest point of his life where he perceived that drugs are the only “solution” he can turn to and “resolve” his problems. But he was very wrong in doing such act because it made him more depressed and even did not want to “face” life as beautiful as it can be. The person who had great impact to Ozzy’s career was Sharon Arden.
After Ozzy Osbourne was terminated in the Black Sabbath Band, he decided to go solo as a music artist. But the allegation from other people that he used drug was proven. He has undergone depressions that were caused by drug and alcohol, for being divorce from his first wife Thelma and a treatment of bipolar disorder which gave him more stress. There was a time that Ozzy locked himself in a hotel for several months doing nothing but simply drinking and taking cocaine. But a very significant day came into his life and that day changed his life as a person. There was unanticipated knock at his door. And that knocked was owned by Sharon.
Sharon tried to talked and persuaded Ozzy to pick himself up and restart all over again. Sharon Arden, who was once a Black Sabbath manager and a daughter of Don Arden, managed Ozzy and Ozzy was able to have a recoding deal with Jet Records through the helped of Sharon and then subsequently got a subsidiary from CBS. Nonetheless, Sharon claimed that the band was able to record and tour through the financial help rendered by Jet Records. Moreover, the Ozzy Osbourne band started as “The Blizzard of Ozz”. The initial album was intended to be named eponymously but subsequently, it was agreed to entitle it as “Blizzard of Ozz featuring Ozzy Osbourne”.
Nevertheless, the record company entitled it as “Ozzy Osbourne” along with the album basically annotated “Blizzard of Ozz”. Then later, the name of the band was changed as “The Ozzy Osbourne Band” which has a drummer named Lee Kerslake of “Uriah Heep” and lyricist and at the same time bHelp named as Bob Daisley of “Rainbow”. Fortunately, Ozzy was able to have victory on his first solo job which the debut collection sold well with heavy rock fans (see “Sharon Silenced”. The Washington Times. February 2, 2004. Copyright 2004 News World Communications).
In addition, to keep Ozzy from his addictions, Sharon decided to continue the band working. In the course of Ozzy’s second album entitled “Diary of a Madman” took shape. The album launched was considered by others to be rock classic and included more gifted songwriting by Bob Daisley and Randy Rhoads’ impressive guitar work and the launching encountered with controversy. Even though the songs were composed and performed by the four band members, the internal album art and credits were given to the novel touring band of Osbourne which has a singer and Rhoads, together with Rudy Sarzo of “Quiet Riot” and a bHelp, and drummer Tommy Aldridge of Black Oak Arkansas (see “Ozzy Osbourne”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. November 1, 2006).
For several years, Sharon had created a reputation as an impressive and remarkable business woman who maintained the successful rock career of Ozzy Osbourne by making vast profits of Ozzfest heavy metal festivals and making negotiation with MTV. The Osbourne family received the amount of 115,000 (pounds sterling) from the station for the first series but in the third series, the fee received by the Osbourne was approximately around (sterling pounds) 3 million (see Bright, Spencer. “Ozzy Rules; in a Rock World Dominated by Bad Boys, Ozzy Osbourne Stood out…” The Daily Mail. November 19, 2005. Page 6).
In addition, a reality-TV show entitled The Osbourne talks about a “53-year-old former lead singer of the metal band Black Sabbath and his dysfunctional family” is an extraordinary record hit. It was able to receive the top ratings in the history of MTV (see Goldberg, Jonah. “Ozzy without Harriet: What the Osbournes Tells Us about Drugs”. National Review. Volume 54, issue 11. June 17, 2002).
Tragedy Strikes and how Ozzy cope with it
By the year 1982 of March, a tragedy strike to Ozzy Osbourne’s life. When the band was busy doing promotions of the album “Diary of a Madman” in Florida, and one week away from playing Madison Square Garden in New York City, there was an accident happened. A light craft that carried Randy Rhoads, the band’s guitarist, crashed. Their pilot, who was also their tour bus driver and actually attempting to murder his wife, clipped the tour bus and crashed in the nearby house which led his death and killed Randy Rhoads, the hairdresser of the band named Rachel. There was evidence that the said pilot had taken cocaine and it was found out that the pilot’s license was already expired by several years. Osbourne was able to manage to help the man who is living in the house but unfortunately was not able to help those who are in the plane.
Because of the death of his band mate and close friend, Ozzy Osbourne experienced again a deep depression. And the recording company was considerate enough to understand what Ozzy Osbourne had been going through and it gave him a break from performing in order to weep for his deceased band mate, however, Ozzy got back to work after a week. Since there was vacancy for the guitarist position in the band, Bernie Torme of Gillan was hired to replace Randy. But Bernie Torme could not manage the pressure of learning the guitar parts in a short time and pulled back in playing in the presence of the thousand fans who were still weeping for the death of Randy Rhoads (see “Bring on the Nutters; Sharon tells Will Marlow about Dark Days and the Search for a Star in the X Factor”. The Birmingham Post, September 2, 2004. Page 14).
The Controversy
The press stated that Osbourne’s escapade worsened by the year 1980s and his drug abuse and alcoholism was progressively occurred and because of that, he underwent several therapies for drug addiction and alcoholism. He shared in one interview that he listened the music of Hall, Beethoven and Oates. There was one incident, during 1978, that Ozzy got into a fight when his wife, Sharon Osbourne, kissed the lead singer of Electric Light Orchestra. Moreover, Osbourne confessed that at the height of his addiction to narcotic drugs, he was able to shot 17 cats (see “Ozzy Osbourne”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. November 1, 2006). Ozzy Osbourne stated that:
“I was taking drugs so much I was a fucker, the final straw came when I shot all our cats. We had about 17, and I went crazy and shot them all. My wife found me under the piano in a white suit, a shotgun in one hand and a knife in the other” (see “Ozzy Osbourne”. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. November 1, 2006).
The Recovery
Between 1980s and 1990s, Ozzy Osbourne continually made a move for his career even without his close friend Rhoads and turns to be sober. The concert conducted during 1981 were recorded with a live album entitled “Speak of the Devil” but was recognized in United Kingdom as “Talk of the Devil”. During 1982, Ozzy Osbourne was invited as the guest vocalist on the “Was” pop dance track “Shake Your Head (Let’s Your Go to bed)” together with Madonna who performed as backing vocals. The cut of Osbourne’s album was remixed and was released again in the initial part of 1990s for a Was. Furthermore, in the last part of the year 1986, Osbourne was the object of US proceedings which was filed against him because one of his songs entitled “Suicide Solution” was motivating two teenagers to commit suicide because of its “subliminal lyrics”.
The cases were dismissed because there was no strong ground on the case filed. It stated that Osbourne was not responsible for any action committed by the listener. After that case, Ozzy Osbourne publicly clarified that he composed the song “Suicide Solution” for his friend, lead singer Bob Scott of AC/DC, who eventually died because of alcohol abuse and the word solution denoted to alcohol as a solution and as a chemical solution (see “Culture: Many Happy Returns from legends Both Old and New. The Birmingham post. November 28, 2005, Copyright 2005).
IV. Conclusion
Life’s fame and wealth cannot satisfy one’s soul. It continuously looks for more wealth and there is no satisfaction in it. Life’s success is not equated of how famous and wealthy you are but how much peace you have in your heart in spite of the circumstances coming on your way. The life of Ozzy Ozbourne is just like a rollercoaster because he was able to experience ups and downs in his life and career. He is truly blessed financially but peace is not vividly seen on him and his actions really show it. The stillness of one’s soul will be reflected of how he/she behaves and acts towards on things; and it is definitely not seen on Ozzy’s life because of how he expresses himself. Out from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
Ozzy’s life was truly “seasoned” by time in such away that he was able to experience hardships in his early life yet he was blessed by God to have enough strength to maintain and soar high in his music career. Ozzy was blessed, too, to have a supportive wife. Sharon Ozbourne was a kind of wife who is supportive because she really stood by the side of her husband in spite of the controversies happened. Moreover, the contribution Osbourne has made in the music industry was really remarkable. Since the Black Sabbath days up until to his successful solo career, Ozzy Osbourne continually makes music of high quality and intensity. The Black Sabbath Band with Ozzy Osbourne paved its way during the time of Metal. Because of Ozzy’s behavior and attitudes, he was able to have nicknames like “the madman” and the “Godfather of Heavy Metal” and “Prince of darkness”.
