Black Sabbath

The first Black Sabbath album (called Black Sabbath, yes the music industry was as original back then as it is now) was released on Friday 13th February 1970. I don’t remember the release as I wasn’t actually born yet, but I do remember throughout the seventies Black Sabbath being the devil incarnate for The Sun. Of course, having a name like that, pulling stunts like biting the head off animals, and putting rumours around that if you played a record backwards then you got some sort of evil chant, doesn’t hinder the publicity machine. This and the fact that the group was Brummie, meant that they were always talked about around where we lived.

It was one of those groups, like the Sex Pistols, that if you were a six-year-old at a disco with your family and you went up to the DJ and asked them to play a record by this group then you got an extreme reaction. I also used to practice headbanging, though never had long enough hair to do it properly, plus it gave me headaches. When you did the headbanging it felt brilliant, like you had a major rush. But when you’d stopped, your brain felt like it was still rattling around and your neck got stiff. And the next day would be hell. I think if I’d have persisted with the headbanging then I might speak like Ozzy Osbourne now. Not a pretty thought.

www.black-sabbath.com

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Josie Henley-Einion, author, blogger, Legend in my own Living Room