Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe by Mick Wall

Author:Mick Wall [Wall, Mick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466869691
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-04-14T07:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

TRAIN WRECK

‘Ninety thousand dollars I was given. And told to fuck off!’ It was June 1979 and I had just been introduced to Ozzy Osbourne, back in London briefly after being booted out of Black Sabbath. We were at a stag party for former Rainbow bassist Jimmy Bain and anyone who was anyone on the rock scene was there that night, including members of Thin Lizzy, UFO, Iron Maiden and several other bands. Everyone was on an up, all save Ozzy who had been on a bender seemingly working his way through his 90 grand as quickly as he could. On closer inspection, he appeared to be drooling. ‘Left to fucking die, I was,’ he continued, staring right through me. ‘I mean, what would you do?’ But he wasn’t waiting for an answer and staggered off, flanked by two Brum-accented minders who led him around the room like a prize exhibit. ‘Ninety thousand dollars … Told to fuck off…’ he blabbered in the direction of the next outstretched hand.

‘I thought, that’s it, my life’s over,’ Ozzy would reflect when I reminded him of the occasion some years later. ‘I genuinely thought I was on my way to the fucking dole queue.’ With Sabbath already on the comeback trail with Ronnie James Dio, Ozzy’s plight looked all but hopeless. It was at this precarious juncture that two things occurred which would both transform the life and times of Ozzy Osbourne and eventually undermine any chance Black Sabbath had of maintaining their own high place in the rock god firmament beyond the novelty of their first ‘comeback’ album without him. The first was the decision by Don Arden’s daughter, Sharon, to take Ozzy under her wing, both personally and professionally. Sharon had a point to prove to her father, whom she had so adored as a little girl, but now began to loathe, as his preposterous lifestyle, fuelled by his enormous earnings from ELO, had seen him forsake Sharon’s mother in England for a new life in Hollywood, alongside a new American girlfriend, named Meredith Goodwin. Using Ozzy as a way of freeing herself from her father’s clutches, Sharon was determined to make Ozzy a star again. For his part, Ozzy, always so low in his own estimation, always on the lookout for approval from on high, saw Sharon simply as his saviour.

‘It was shit or bust for both of us, I knew that going in,’ she told me. ‘Ozzy, bless him, was just glad someone cared, I think. Whereas I knew that if I could get him back on his feet and prove I knew what I was doing people would have to take me seriously too. We both had a lot to gain – and a lot to lose if we fucked up and got it wrong.’ ‘I was always attracted to Sharon,’ Ozzy said. ‘And we just get on together. For a long time, people would think we were brother and sister, that we even looked alike. Then one

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