Black Sabbath, though they were not the only band emerging in the late 1960s to play the style of rock that would eventually become known as heavy metal, were undoubtedly they heaviest in their heyday. Their sound was generally despised by the critics of the time, and yet more than four decades later their early music, specifically their first 6 albums, is among the most influential and revered of any rock band before or since. Each non-guitarist in the band – Bill Ward’s amazing sludgy backbeats and whirlwind fills, Geezer Butler’s throbbing, flailing and deceptively simple bass llines, and Ozzys wailing, sometimes-slightly-out-of tune vocals – contributed massive amounts of talent and drug-infused inspiration to the band.
But it was Tony Iommi’s sledgehammer guitar riffs and bluesy soloing that was the keystone of the band. Without Iommi, there simply would have been no Black Sabbath. It was Iommi who wrote most of the riffs and songs, with Butler writing most of the dark lyrics. His talent is all the more amazing because he lost the tips of two of his fingers back in the mid 1960s in a machinery accident in the metal shop where he worked before Sabbath blew up big (all of the members came from working-class backgrounds).
Just to get it out of the way, contrary to the popular beliefs of the ignorant, the band did not worship Satan. Their songs did often dabble in dark, occult or druggy waters, as well as science fiction. These themes suited their doom-laden, downcast music, which generally merely commented on the dark side of life with an old-testament vibe of retribution and punishment for sins, rather than a celebration of them. They also had a strong anti-war streak, with a number of songs decrying the destruction and death of war.
Though I hate ranking my favorites, Tony Iommi is near the top of the guitarists at whose pantheon I worship. The riffs and songs of Black Sabbath’s early “Ozzy” era were generally recorded quickly and cheaply in-between tours, but are among the classic albums that to this day I do not tire of hearing…. as seems to be true with a lot of bands that recorded classic albums in the late 60s and early 70s. And I generally bore pretty easily.
There’s something about those sludgy, overdriven, precisely loose riffs, dripping with the smooth blast of Marshall amplification that made a boy of 15 want to play guitar like that. Heck, I still do! I play a lot of Sabbathy solos in my current band, and that’s ok with me. He could play so soulfully, those fat, pentatonic runs, his impeccable sloppiness (just enough behind the beat and accented to let you know he knew wtf he was doing) and his howling, moaning vibrato. I would say that, by default if not by design, my current soloing style owes a lot to this guy.
Iommi’s signature guitar was a Gibson SG, which, after many years of fudging around with other kinds of guitars, your humble author/guitarist finally settled on as having the ideal blend of fat tone, lovely sustain and affordability. Iommi’s guitar tone, generally amplified to earsplitting levels through stacks of amplifiers, was also a thing to behold. I have played an SG as my main electric guitar for more than a decade now and though it is beat to shit and showing its age, to this day I still love it’s tone. I owe it to Tony!
More about tone and why Iommi’s is so special… back in the day, heavy guitarists used much less distortion than most metal bands today… and yet they recorded music that was both groundbreaking and timeless. This lesson in tone has stuck with me. As the years went by and heavy metal developed as a style, the guitars became much more extreme, overdriven and distorted, sometimes sounding like swarm of killer bees at 110 decibels, or in the worst cases, like a thundering dentist’s drill.
As Black Sabbath lost and gained new members (eventually only Iommi remained) Iommi’s tone became more processed and distorted, his style less bluesy and more conventionally metal, and his music less inspired. He recorded a few dreadful albums in the 1980s that are better forgotten, believe me. He seems to have, anyway. In the past decade his bread and butter has been touring with various lineups of members from Sabbath’s classic era. This is as it should be!
So it’s really in Black Sabbath’s early era that you will find the good stuff. Specifically, the band’s eponymous debut, Paranoid, Master Of Reality, Volume IV, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and Sabotage. Every one of these albums is a classic from beginning to end, and I continue to throw one of them into heavy rotation every few months or so.
So, here’s a few examples. First up is their classic ode to marijuana, “Sweet Leaf”:
I often describe this riff as one of the stupidest (and most awesome), ever written. Basically, it's a three-chord, repetitive slog that that begins to really get under your skin by the second verse. This song’s famous riff (which is one of the first any metal kid learns), though indisputably great, is like a teaser, deceiving you into thinking the band is a bunch of unsophisticated galoots incapable of playing any more than these three notes.
Many aspiring guitarists have been lulled into a sense of complacency by this awesome and easy-to-play riff, including yours truly. This song is actually very difficult to play, because of the speedy middle section. The band speeds up, building to a crescendo as Iommi whips out a major-key lick that splits the sky with lightning. There is then a tornado of virtuosic double soloing backed with the band whipping itself into a wind-lashed frenzy before the main riff comes crashing back in at the original tempo. This song also features one of the first uses of sound sampling in popular song – the dry hack of Butler coughing is looped into an instantly recognizable intro to the song. I speak from experience: cover this song at your peril!
Next song. “Wheels Of Confusion” is probably my favorite Sabbath tune, though again, I hate to pick favorites.
The introduction is a slow, mournful blues that collapses into a droning one-chord riff. Again, deceptively simple. There is a short turnaround at the end of each section that I have never been able to master. This song again follows the tried-and-true template, first pioneered by Sabbath, of a sludgy verse section followed by a speedy middle only to slow down again for the climax. Hey, it works! This is a great example of a song that just draws you in with its hypnotic groove only to explode with fury in the middle section with a strangely beautiful guitar lick in the middle that sounds like a shooting star. There is also a great coda to the song with a very nice solo… for some reason they titled it “The Straightener”. The lyrics are some of their best, about a dark night of the soul or depression or something, but they fit the song perfectly. It’s a masterpiece of rock dynamics and the band plays like a single instrument, each member’s simple part contributing to create a mighty mountain of stark, hard rock beauty. It’s the perfect example of why they were one of the great classic rock bands.
Finally, anyone who doubts Sabbath’s greatness needs to watch this awesome performance of the band’s anti-war anthem “War Pigs” from 1970, by a young and hungry Sabbath with something to prove.
Just look at the way Ozzy wails, Butler flails, Ward beats his drums to death…. and Iommi actually moves around a little! Sabbath cut its teeth in the days before MTV, and Iommi’s stage presence was usually not very rock star-ish. He generally just stood there on stage right, whipping out these amazing riffs and solos. But here he is clearly rocking even more than usual. What I like most about this video is that this was filmed before the whole “arena rock” conceit. There are no stage props, no pyrotechnics, no fancy lighting. Heck, there ain’t even a riser for Ward’s drums! Just a ripping band at the peak of their powers, clearly enjoying themselves and rocking out... and I love the size of Ward's bass drum, which is much bigger than on the average modern trap set.
Sabbath will never go out of style. All hail Sabbath!
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