tony iommi Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Black Sabbath “Master of Reality”

sfilzen — Wed, 21 Jul 2021 19:28:42 +0000

Black Sabbath “Master of Reality” released 50 years ago today, July 21st, 1971. Iconic heavy, heavy doom metal, Master of Reality is recognized by those that recognize such things as the first stoner rock album. It hit #8 in the US and #5 in the UK. The well-known story about the heavier sound is that guitarist Tony Iommi downtuned his guitar to make playing less painful after the tips of two of his fingers were severed in a factory accident. The rest is dark, dark history. The other great backstory is in regards to the creation of the stoner rock genre: when recording, Iommi’s coughing fit after inhaling a giant joint was captured on tape, that coughing fit was then included at the start of the lead track “Sweet Leaf” which is, of course, about pot. It’s a great track and now a stoner anthem. Black Sabbath released at least a couple of singles from Master of Reality: “After Forever” was a single before the LP’s release, but it failed to chart (too bad, it’s also great); they also released “Solitude” as a single, also a chart failure. Though not a single, the closing track “Into the Void” is hailed by many other musicians as their favorite Sabbath tune ever, including folks like James Hetfield, Eddie Van Halen and Soundgarden.

Our copy has the title Master of Reality embossed in black making it utterly useless in photographs. “In his autobiography Iommi describes the cover as “Slightly Spinal Tap-ish, only well before Spinal Tap.” (Wiki) Later represses have the title in un-embossed gray, not nearly as cool but a helluva lot easier to read.

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Black Sabbath “Black Sabbath”

sfilzen — Thu, 13 Feb 2020 18:10:03 +0000

Black Sabbath “Black Sabbath” released 50 years ago today, February 13th, 1970. So I guess Happy 50th, Heavy Metal! (This is, of course, debatable but Black Sabbath is widely recognized as the first metal album and its title track “Black Sabbath” the first doom metal song. Also – yes, I know this isn’t an original LP from 1970 so no need to tell me 🙄) Black Sabbath went to #8 in the UK and #23 in the US, showing that a lot of youth were pretty sick of the happy-hippie flower power days of the 60′s and looking for something much, much darker. While the album incorporates a lot of rock-n-roll blues riffs and sounds (ie the blues harmonica, played by Ozzy Osbourne, in “The Wizard” – Cream was a big influence on Butler in particular) and elements of psychedelia and Tolkien-esque themes (guitarist Tony Iommi was in Jethro Tull for a bit; “The Wizard” is inspired by Gandalf) popular in the 60′s, Black Sabbath took those elements and twisted them into something dark and menacing with Iommi’s unique guitar playing (literally metal on metal) and punctuated with Geezer’s bass playing which he explains saying, “Back then the bass player was supposed to do all these melodic runs, but I didn’t know how to do that because I’d been a guitarist, so all I did was follow Tony’s riff. That made the sound heavier.“ Our copy is the US release which differs from the UK version: the US B-side has “Wicked World” and “A Bit of Finger/ Sleeping Village/ Warning” while the UK’s B-side has a cover of “Evil Woman” (originally by Crow), “Sleeping Village” and “Warning” (originally by Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation). (reblog of myself from July 2019)

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Black Sabbath “Black Sabbath”

sfilzen — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 14:31:43 +0000

Black Sabbath “Black Sabbath” 1970. Today, July 17th, is Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler’s 70th birthday (b. Terence Butler, 1949). Black Sabbath, the band’s debut LP, is widely credited as the first true heavy metal album and the opening title track the first doom metal song. Black Sabbath went to #8 in the UK and #23 in the US, showing that a lot of youth were pretty sick of the happy-hippie flower power days of the 60′s and looking for something much, much darker. While the album incorporates a lot of rock-n-roll blues riffs and sounds (ie the blues harmonica, played by Ozzy Osbourne, in “The Wizard” – Cream was a big influence on Butler in particular) and elements of psychedelia and Tolkien-esque themes (guitarist Tony Iommi was in Jethro Tull for a bit; “The Wizard” is inspired by Gandalf) popular in the 60′s, Black Sabbath took those elements and twisted them into something dark and menacing with Iommi’s unique guitar playing (literally metal on metal) and punctuated with Geezer’s bass playing which he explains saying, “Back then the bass player was supposed to do all these melodic runs, but I didn’t know how to do that because I’d been a guitarist, so all I did was follow Tony’s riff. That made the sound heavier.“ Our copy is the US release which differs from the UK version: the US B-side has “Wicked World” and “A Bit of Finger/ Sleeping Village/ Warning” while the UK’s B-side has a cover of “Evil Woman” (originally by Crow), “Sleeping Village” and “Warning” (originally by Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation).

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