I recently wrote a piece reflecting back on my first Led Zeppelin LP purchase (LP Lookback: In Praise of Led Zeppelin’s ‘In Through The Out Door’). In it, I discussed the uphill battle I faced trying to catch up with all the great music that had come out in the twenty years before my “rock awakening” in the late 70s. It’s not like I could stream back then. I was busy buying what was current and trying to selectively and quickly build an album collection of all those great, older records at the same time. I will admit, the emphasis of my purchases back then was more slanted toward what was current. I had the Stones’ Some Girls, Van Halen’s debut LP and ZZ Top’s Deguello, to name but a few. I didn’t realize it at the time, but most of what I was drawn to in the early stages was blues based. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I even had the Blues Brothers’ (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) LP, Briefcase Full of Blues. That was a great backing band – Steve Cropper and Matt “Guitar” Murphy on guitars. 

I don’t know why but I was very slow on the uptake when it came to a genre that I absolutely love now, Heavy Metal. Certainly the Van Halen album I had qualified as Heavy Metal, but not much else in the record crate really came close. Metal was where the link between blues and rock and roll was permanently severed, so maybe that was what caused my early hesitancy. My mother had a friend who I’ll call, “Mrs. Smith,” whose kids were the same age as my brother and I. My brother had been buying music for several years prior to my getting into music and I was always taping stuff from his collection. It was a cheap way to build my own music collection. I remember taping and subsequently wearing out Hot Rocks, the Stones greatest hits package that my brother owned. Mrs. Smith heard I was monastically up in my room taping any music I could get my hands on and kindly volunteered to bring a stack of her kids’ records over for me to tape. I’m sure my mom was down in the kitchen complaining about me being “music crazy,” when I should have been, in her mind, “girl crazy.” Mom probably wasn’t wrong. 

A few days later when Mrs Smith dropped by, and she always seemed to be dropping by, she had a stack of records with her. I thought I was open to anything and hauled them up to my room with some blank cassettes. I started glancing at some of these records and I will say, they gave me pause. I recall scratching my head when I looked at the cover art for the first album in the pile, Black Sabbath’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath: 

“What the Hell is this? Is that a 666? What is going on at the Smith house?” I wondered aloud. Anybody who knew me when I was younger would probably tell you, I was a bit of a wild child. Actually people would probably say that about me now as well. Most people would have assumed I’d see that album cover with its ghoulish images and been all in on Sabbath. Oddly, I had enough exposure to the Catholic church that the whole thing freaked me out a bit. I’m not proud of that. When I dropped the needle on the LP, I quickly stopped taping the album. The music sounded like an invading army. The lead singer, whoever that was (I had no idea who this Ozzy Osbourne was), sounded like he was in pain. The next record was Judas Priest’s British Steel and I’m sad to admit, it didn’t fare much better to my young, tender ears. It was too fast, too hard. I don’t think I taped any of those albums that day. 

As fate would have it, only a few months later I was in the car and heard this great track, “Neon Nights” on the car radio. Who is that? That’s a great track. I mean, this couldn’t have been more than six months after Mrs. Smith’s album visit and now I was into metal? I bought that great Black Sabbath LP, Heaven And Hell, their first with amazing vocalist Ronnie James Dio almost immediately after that (Artist Lookback: Black Sabbath, 1980-1981, The Superb Dio Era). The cover art on that album didn’t inspire fear in me… it made me smile. Oh, how soon I was corrupted! I’m not even sure I realized that I’d held an LP from the “classic” line-up of Black Sabbath merely six months earlier. In fact, with the change of vocalists I’m not sure I even knew they were the same band. Dio was so much more…operatic than Ozzy and I was a clueless teenager. 

Ozzy, mired in alcoholism and drug addiction had been fired from Black Sabbath. Living in a hotel, drinking and drugging, a record company guy Don Arden sent his daughter Sharon out to sign Ozzy. She would later become his manager… and his wife. Ozzy quickly formed a band that was supposed to have been a new group named Blizzard of Ozz. The record company wanted to call it “Sons of Sabbath,” which Ozzy rejected. Somehow Ozzy found one of the greatest guitarists ever, Randy Rhoads to lead the band (Artist Lookback – Ozzy & Randy Rhoads: A Match Made In 80s Metal Heaven). The guy played nothing like Sabbath’s Tony Iommi. He was powerful yet nimble… more in the Eddie Van Halen style. He also recruited Bob Daisley to play bass and Lee Kerslake (who just passed away, sadly) to play drums. Rhoads and Daisley wrote a majority of the songs that would appear on Blizzard of Ozz while Ozzy continued drinking and drugging (and mostly sleeping under the drum riser during rehearsals). The results were nothing short of spectacular. Blizzard of Ozz became the name of the album, not the band, and when released it was released as an Ozzy solo album. He was the name, but it’s a shame they couldn’t hold the band concept together. 

I was over at a friend’s house when he put Blizzard of Ozz on his mom’s stereo. I had heard “Crazy Train,” and for whatever reason didn’t take it seriously. Through out the years I was guilty of not taking Metal acts, songs or albums seriously, a malady I’m gladly over now. All I knew about Ozzy was this “wild and crazy guy” act. Yeah, we get it Ozzy, you’re crazy. But then I heard the album. It is simply one of the landmark Metal LPs of all time. “I Don’t Know,” “Mr. Crowley” and “Crazy Train” were radio staples and stone cold classics. “Goodbye to Romance” was a surprisingly great ballad, meant as a farewell to his former bandmates in Sabbath. It’s the deeper tracks that hooked me though… “Suicide Solution” about the late Bon Scott drinking himself to death was great had showed some depth. “No Bone Movies” was actually an anti-porn song. “Revelation (Mother Earth)” is probably the first Heavy Metal track about the environment. After hearing the album at my friend’s place… yes, I taped the album. Sadly, my first actual Ozzy LP purchase was to be the follow-up, the equally majestic Diary of a Madman. 

I find it hard to believe that it’s been forty years since this legendary album came out. In that time the LP has seen its share of controversy. Sharon Osbourne being the ghoul that she is tried to minimize Daisley and Kerslake’s contribution – going so far as to release the album with new bass/drum parts recorded by other musicians. A sin she fixed in the 30th anniversary edition. Daisley had to sue to get credit as a songwriter. Both Daisley and Kerslake helped write Diary of a Madman and played on the LP – but weren’t credited on the album sleeve, they weren’t even in the photos. Thanks Sharon. Those four guys – Rhoads, Daisley, Kerslake and Ozzy had an amazing chemistry. It would have been nice to see what would have happened if it’d been allowed to continue… Sharon’s greed and Randy’s untimely death will keep us all wondering it seems. 

To celebrate the 40th Anniversary of Blizzard of Ozz Ozzy had released an “Expanded Edition.” A momentous album of this stature deserves a big 40th anniversary package… If you don’t already own this album – by all means, purchase it immediately! However, if you do, and most of us do own this record, the question remains, is there anything in this package that would drive you to rebuy it? I have to say, no. There is a B-side track, “Looking At You, Looking At Me,” that’s been out for years that everyone should check out. There’s a live track “You Said It All” that was released previously on an Ozzy live EP. There’s a couple of studio outtakes that were included in the 30th Anniversary Edition. Then there is a handful of six live tracks from the Blizzard tour. They’re nice tracks but its all a bit disjointed. There just isn’t that much new material or compelling reasons to rebuy this 40th Anniversary package. It seems like this is Ghoul Sharon’s latest cash-in. I would have hoped they’d have an entire show from the Blizzard tour to include here, the way the Stones included Brussels Affair in the latest Goats Head Soup box. That would have been worth the price of admission here. I hear Daisley has some tapes but Sharon didn’t want to have to pay for them… I think she’s hurting Ozzy’s legacy. 

Regardless of Sharon’s shady financial motives, Blizzard of Ozz remains one of my favorite Ozzy albums and one of my favorite albums period. This is one to play extremely loud… maybe with a pint of something strong to nip at while you’re flying your Devil Horn hands in the air! 

Cheers! And be safe out there! RAWK from an acceptable, safe distance folks.