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Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Some of the guys never wanted to do that song. ‘This is crap!'': The '70s hit that reinvented a legendary band
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In 1978, guitar hero Ritchie Blackmore reached a crossroads. It was time to revamp his band Rainbow – even if that meant losing one of the greatest rock singers ever to draw breath. After quitting heavy rock pioneers Deep Purple in 1975, Blackmore had enlisted four members of American band Elf for the first line-up of Rainbow, with vocalist Ronnie James Dio his collaborator in chief. After the 1975 album Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, only Dio was retained as Blackmore turned to more experienced players such as powerhouse drummer Cozy Powell. The following albums Rising (1976) and Long Live Rock 'N' Roll (1978) had a grandiose quality enriched by Dio's sword-and-sorcery lyrics – typified by epic tracks such as Stargazer and Gates Of Babylon. But as Blackmore sought to reinvent the band with a more modern, radio-friendly sound, Dio had resigned in late 1978. And with Dio gone, a very different kind of singer joined the band. Graham Bonnet, born and raised in the seaside resort town of Skegness in Lincolnshire, was no new kid on the block. In the '60s pop he'd been one half of pop duo The Marbles and had hits with songs by the Bee Gees. In the mid-'70s he'd been an MOR crooner who made it big in Australia. There had also been some lean years in which he paid the rent singing TV ad jingles for Ski yoghurt and Ritz crackers. In 1978, Bonnet turned down a job with glam rock stars Sweet, whose singer Brian Connolly had left the group. When the invitation to audition for Rainbow arrived a year later, Bonnet was mystified. As he told Planet Rock magazine: 'I didn't know who Rainbow were. When I heard the name I thought it was a hippy-dippy folk group.' He was at least aware of Ritchie Blackmore's past. 'I knew what Deep Purple was,' he said, 'even though I was never into that kind of music.' It was a Deep Purple song, Mistreated, that Bonnet sang for his audition at a French chateau where Rainbow were working on a new album. Dressed in a suit, he belted out this heavy blues number with such power that Cozy Powell exclaimed: 'You're the guy!' Ritchie Blackmore's response was more measured. The guitarist was famed for smashing up guitars on stage, and feared for his volatile temperament, but as Bonnet recalled, 'Ritchie was actually very shy.' Eventually, Blackmore pulled Bonnet to one side and told him: 'You've got the job if you want it.' For a few days, Bonnet remained unconvinced. He didn't fancy singing material from Rainbow's early albums. 'I really didn't like Ronnie's voice or the music,' he said. 'All that dungeons and dragons stuff was a bit airy-fairy.' But the new Rainbow material was more to Bonnet's taste – straightforward hard rock. And after some sober advice from his manager – 'We can make a lot of money out of this' – Bonnet took the job. The album he made with Rainbow, Down To Earth, was aptly named. There was a link to the band's past in the epic track Eyes Of The World, but the main focus was on short, catchy rock songs such as All Night Long and Since You Been Gone, the latter written and first recorded by former Argent singer and guitarist Russ Ballard. In July 1979, Down To Earth reached No.6 on the UK chart. Since You Been Gone also hit No.6, while the second single, All Night Long, made number 12. 'It's funny,' Bonnet said. 'I never thought that album would be as big as it was. And some of the guys never wanted to do Since You Been Gone in the first place. 'Cozy was going, 'This is crap – too poppy!' I thought it was great, but I had no idea that it would become the signature tune for Rainbow.' In that era, Bonnet's image – with slicked-back hair and Hawaiian shirts – was viewed as heresy by longhaired, denim-and-leather-clad headbangers. During the Down To Earth tour, Blackmore tried to talk the singer into growing his hair and wearing regulation rock 'n' roll gear. Bonnet was having none of it. 'Ritchie was stuck in that image of the long hair and the leather pants,' he said. 'He did throw away some of my clothes on tour – some of my best jackets! But in the end he realised: this is how Graham is. It's not how he looks, it's how he sings.' The final date of that tour was momentous – for Rainbow and for heavy metal music as a whole. On 16 August 1980, the first Monsters Of Rock festival was staged at Donington Park in Leicestershire, with Rainbow topping a bill that also featured Judas Priest, Scorpions, Saxon and others. It was the beginning of what would become the biggest metal festival in the world. It also proved to be the last show that Graham Bonnet and Cozy Powell performed with Rainbow. At the time, Bonnet had no intention of leaving the band. Powell, however, had already made his decision – even after Bonnet and keyboard player Don Airey had, in Bonnet's words, 'begged him to stay'. For all the mixed emotions that he experienced during that show, Bonnet remembered it as the pinnacle of his career. Playing to an audience of 60,000, the band powered through new songs and old, with Bonnet mastering those from the Dio era. 'It was the most incredible night I've ever had,' he said. 'I'll remember it for the rest of my life.' What led Bonnet to leave Rainbow, at the height of the band's popularity, was a sense of unease created by Cozy Powell's departure. In late 1980, when work began on the follow-up to Down To Earth with new drummer Bobby Rondinelli in place, Bonnet felt the ground shifting. 'We started rehearsing,' he said, 'and some days Ritchie wouldn't turn up. Don Airey said, 'If it carries on like this I'm going to leave.' I said to Don, 'If you leave, I will too.' I thought the band was coming to an end.' With only one new song recorded – I Surrender, again written by Russ Ballard – Bonnet retreated to his home in Los Angeles to consider his future. This was decided after a call from the band's management. 'They asked me to come back,' he said, 'and they asked if I was okay for them to use another singer on any tracks that I didn't like. So I said, 'No, I don't think that will work.' And I just quit. It turned out that Don stayed, which I should have done really.' Rainbow subsequently recruited American singer Joe Lynn Turner to record the 1981 album Difficult To Cure, and with a new version of I Surrender came the band's biggest hit, No.3 in the UK. For Bonnet, that hurt. 'I felt a little bit envious,' he confessed. 'Dammit! Why didn't I stay?' But even though Graham Bonnet's time in Rainbow was short, it's been good to him in the long run. As the voice of one of the all-time great rock hits, he's still able to tour all over the world at the age of 77. As he told Planet Rock: 'I'm very lucky to have sustained a long career. I can't knock what I've got.' Solve the daily Crossword
Time of India
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Stranger Things introduced another retro track to Gen Z
1 2 The teaser for Stranger Things season finale has been in the news - not just for taking us back to 1980s Hawkins and the lovable monster slayers, but also reintroducing a new generation to another cult classic - Deep Purple's Child in Time . The show has been instrumental in reviving that 80s' nostalgia and interest in pop culture elements. From cassette players to pizza trucks, baggy pants to walkmans. And music has been instrumental in this narrative, turning legendary tracks into chart-toppers for Gen Z. Here's how. Kate Bush conquers charts In Season 5, Kate Bush's 1985 hit Running Up That Hill , was the leitmotif for the show when key character- Max- turned it on to escape their arc nemesis Vecna. The song became a streaming juggernaut and viral sensation. Rolling Stone UK called it 'a song so transcendent it could make even an agnostic believe that Kate Bush actually struck a deal with the Lord to create it'. The show introduced Bush to a whole new generation. Metallica's metal resurgence Standout character Eddie Munson's rooftop performance of Metallica's Master of Puppets (1986) in Season 4 reignited its popularity, with streams surging 650.3% in six days according to Variety. Metallica told Rolling Stone , 'We were blown away by how Stranger Things used ' Master of Puppets ''. Gram duets and fan tributes cemented the track's revival among younger fans, turning it into a heavy-metal anthem for the digital age. Deep Purple's epic anthem The Season 5 teaser features Deep Purple's Child in Time (1970), remixed with strings and synths. Variety calls it a 'bombastic riff, buttressed by a symphonic arrangement and high-pitched, operatic wailing'. Louder adds, '.. a song so gargantuan that one wonders why it hasn't been used for this sort of thing before.' Child in Time's India connect Child in Time draws from Bombay Calling by a band called It's a Beautiful Day. Variety notes its 'soft opening (inspired by the song) that builds dramatically'. Jon Lord, Deep Purple's organist, initially played the introduction from "Bombay Calling" during rehearsals, which the band then developed into Child in Time . Ian Gillan then wrote lyrics about the Cold War to fit the music. 'Bombay Calling' is the name of the live album from Deep Purple's 1995 concert in Mumbai.
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Ozzy Osbourne lived a life that feels impossible to put in rear view
He was a core part of the nucleus of something far greater than himself, while continuing to guide and mentor the monster that he had helped create. It's a testament to how much of a cultural force he was, how many people out there implicitly understood him. Osbourne was never locked into the timeframe of his successes nor reliant on the easy blessings of nostalgia like most figures in our cultural iconography – there was always a generation of teenagers in wait, ready to take the mantle and carry on all that he represented within themselves. The sheer influence, not just on music, but on people as a whole, is indescribable. Read more: I wonder if Brian Wilson ever truly knew how much his music meant to people There has been endless discussion over who or what originated heavy metal. Was it one of the early, harder-edged bands like Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin, or something less obvious like Blue Cheer's gritty 1968 single Summertime Blues? However, the whole discussion seems like a blatant distraction from the one true culprit: the debut album of Black Sabbath. Everything that could possibly be considered heavy metal is on that 1970 release. It's all there, served up helpfully in one neat package. The haunting eeriness of the cover art, the thunderous rain and bells of its opening track, the devil tones and tritones of Tony Iommi's guitar, and, of course, the nasal shrill of Osbourne projecting dark tales of wizards and nightmarish figures in black. He understood the true dramatics of rock music before any of his peers did. He knew that for a group like Black Sabbath to succeed, he had to buy in and cultivate the mythos himself. Ozzy Osbourne's contributions to Black Sabbath were part of the nucleus of the entire heavy metal genre (Image: Getty) Osbourne was never much of a singer. He was, by his own admission, not much of a musician at all. His initial opening into Black Sabbath was predicated on the simple basis of being the owner of a PA system. It made him useful for getting gigs. But he could perform, and he could forcefully bend his limited range to the will of a song. And it certainly helped that he had a knack for playing into the attention, an instinct for the theatrical, of turning a life of raucous intrigue into headlines and a long-enduring artistic persona. He was someone who could always manage to turn limitations into weapons. After being fired from Black Sabbath in 1979, Osbourne expected to burn through his remaining money holed up in a hotel room with cocaine and then return to his parents in Birmingham, ready to rejoin the dole queue as if none of his rockstar success ever happened. His manager and future wife, Sharon, pulled him from the mire and guided his career forward on a personal level, but musically, it was a young guitarist named Randy Rhoads who became his muse, providing the many iconic musical moments that drove reaction to his early solo career. Rhoads was the ingredient that gave the character of Ozzy a fresh air, a new musical dimension for him to dive in and explore. As much as Osbourne benefited from the surrounding musicians, they too saw benefit. His band was often seen as a stepping stone, a boot camp experience for future aspirations. Many now-famous heavy musicians were well-trained in the Ozzy camp. Read more: This extreme metal album blew up over a weekend – now it's accused of being AI Osbourne never lived as an island unto himself; much of the success and the drive relied on who he was surrounded by, and the relationship between himself and his guitarist was always paramount. His long solo career, which could fluctuate between tremendous highs and some garish lows, depended much on the collaborative space. His legacy well and truly stands on its own, yet it's an essential part of his story to remember the contributions of those without their names emblazoned on the marquee. Everyone already knows the mythical Prince of Darkness who bit heads off bats and inspired Satanic worship in the youth. The stories are out there, and they are endless. It was a media creation that he kept well and truly fed. It was so pervasive that he could parlay that into quite the media success of his own. His later years saw him become a big-time festival promoter, reality television star, and a general reference point in culture for everything dark and heavy. Osbourne was more than happy to play into the fantasy and mystique of his persona and all the chaos it created. After all, it was not quite the life that a factory worker from a post-industrial city could have imagined for himself. Or for anyone else.
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
10 songs to memorialize Ozzy Osbourne, the great Black Sabbath frontman
NEW YORK -- There are pioneering music figures, and then there is Ozzy Osbourne, the larger-than-life frontman of Black Sabbath, whose personal mythology is eclipsed only by the strength and immortality of his songs. A godfather and force of heavy metal, Osbourne died Tuesday at 76, just weeks after his last performance. The English icon's idiosyncratic, throaty voice launched generations of metalheads, both through his work at the reins of Black Sabbath and in his solo career. Across his repertoire, there are songs with total global ubiquity and lesser-known innovations with his unique, spooky aesthetic quality. To celebrate Osbourne's life and legacy, we've selected just a few songs that made the man, from timeless tunes to a few left-of-center selections. Read on and then listen to all of the tracks on our Spotify playlist. It would be a challenge to name a more immediately recognizable guitar riff than the one that launches Black Sabbath's 1970 megahit 'Iron Man.' It transcends the metal genre — an all-timer heard around the world and in guitar stores everywhere. One of the great Vietnam War protest songs, Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs' is a rare moment where hippies and metalheads can agree: 'Politicians hide themselves away / They only started the war / Why should they go out to fight?' Osbourne sings in the bridge. Osbourne's heaviest performances are at least partially indebted to Black Sabbath's bassist and lyricist Terry 'Geezer' Butler, and there is perhaps no better example than 'Children of the Grave,' the single from the band's 1971 album, 'Master of Reality.' 'Must the world live in the shadow of atomic fear?' Osbourne embodies Butler's words, a sonic fist lifted in the air. 'Can they win the fight for peace or will they disappear?' Black Sabbath were in a creative rut in the time period leading up to 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,' the opening track from their 1973 album of the same name. It's almost hard to believe now — the song features one of their best-known riffs, and its chorus features some truly ascendant vocals. Would the world know what a vibraslap sounds like without the immediately recognizable introduction to Osbourne's first solo single, 'Crazy Train?' To call it a classic is almost a disservice — it is an addicting tune, complete with chugging guitars and Cold War-era fears. Another classic cut from Osbourne's debut solo album, 'Blizzard Of Ozz' — released one year after Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath for his legendary excesses, — the arena rock anthem 'Mr. Crowley' pays tribute to the famed English occultist Aleister Crowley and features Deep Purple's Don Airey on keyboard. The title track and coda of Osbourne's second solo studio album, 'Diary of a Madman,' runs over six minutes long, features big strings and a choir so theatrical it sounds like they're scoring a medieval war film. He wanted big, he wanted dramatic, and he nailed it. It wouldn't be inaccurate to call 'Mama, I'm Coming Home' a beautiful-sounding song. It's unlike anything on this list, a power ballad featuring lyrics written by the late Motörhead frontman Lemmy and a welcomed deviation. When Black Sabbath comes to mind, most fans jump to an unimpeachable run of albums released in the '70s and early '80s. But 'I,' a cut from Black Sabbath's too often overlooked 16th studio album, 'Dehumanizer,' is worth your ear. And not only because it is the first Sabbath album to feature singer Ronnie James Dio and drummer Vinny Appice since 1981's 'Mob Rules,' though that's an obvious plus. Late in life Ozzy Osbourne was generous with his time and talent, often collaborating with younger performers who idolized the metal legend. One such example is Post Malone's 'Take What You Want,' which also features the rapper Travis Scott. Osbourne gives the song a necessary gothic edge — validating the otherwise balladic song's use of a sprightly guitar solo.
Hamilton Spectator
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
10 songs to memorialize Ozzy Osbourne, the great Black Sabbath frontman
NEW YORK (AP) — There are pioneering music figures, and then there is Ozzy Osbourne, the larger-than-life frontman of Black Sabbath, whose personal mythology is eclipsed only by the strength and immortality of his songs. A godfather and force of heavy metal, Osbourne died Tuesday at 76, just months after his last performance. The English icon's idiosyncratic, throaty voice launched generations of metalheads, both through his work at the reins of Black Sabbath and in his solo career. Across his repertoire, there are songs with total global ubiquity and lesser-known innovations with his unique, spooky aesthetic quality. To celebrate Osbourne's life and legacy, we've selected just a few songs that made the man, from timeless tunes to a few left-of-center selections. Read on and then listen to all of the tracks on our Spotify playlist. 1970: 'Iron Man, ' Black Sabbath It would be a challenge to name a more immediately recognizable guitar riff than the one that launches Black Sabbath's 1970 megahit 'Iron Man.' It transcends the metal genre — an all-timer heard around the world and in guitar stores everywhere. 1970: 'War Pigs, ' Black Sabbath One of the great Vietnam War protest songs, Black Sabbath's 'War Pigs' is a rare moment where hippies and metalheads can agree: 'Politicians hide themselves away / They only started the war / Why should they go out to fight?' Osbourne sings in the bridge. 1971: 'Children of the Grave,' Black Sabbath Osbourne's heaviest performances are at least partially indebted to Black Sabbath's bassist and lyricist Terry 'Geezer' Butler, and there is perhaps no better example than 'Children of the Grave,' the single from the band's 1971 album, 'Master of Reality.' 'Must the world live in the shadow of atomic fear?' Osbourne embodies Butler's words, a sonic fist lifted in the air. 'Can they win the fight for peace or will they disappear?' 1973: 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,' Black Sabbath Black Sabbath were in a creative rut in the time period leading up to 'Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,' the opening track from their 1973 album of the same name. It's almost hard to believe now — the song features one of their best-known riffs, and its chorus features some truly ascendant vocals. 1980: 'Crazy Train, ' Ozzy Osbourne Would the world know what a vibraslap sounds like without the immediately recognizable introduction to Osbourne's first solo single, 'Crazy Train?' To call it a classic is almost a disservice — it is an addicting tune, complete with chugging guitars and Cold War-era fears. 1980: 'Mr. Crowley, ' Ozzy Osbourne Another classic cut from Osbourne's debut solo album, 'Blizzard Of Ozz' — released one year after Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath for his legendary excesses, — the arena rock anthem 'Mr. Crowley' pays tribute to the famed English occultist Aleister Crowley and features Deep Purple's Don Airey on keyboard. 1981: 'Diary of a Madman,' Ozzy Osbourne The title track and coda of Osbourne's second solo studio album, 'Diary of a Madman,' runs over six minutes long, features big strings and a choir so theatrical it sounds like they're scoring a medieval war film. He wanted big, he wanted dramatic, and he nailed it. 1991: 'Mama, I'm Coming Home,' Ozzy Osbourne It wouldn't be inaccurate to call 'Mama, I'm Coming Home' a beautiful-sounding song. It's unlike anything on this list, a power ballad featuring lyrics written by the late Motörhead frontman Lemmy and a welcomed deviation. 1992: 'I,' Black Sabbath When Black Sabbath comes to mind, most fans jump to an unimpeachable run of albums released in the '70s and early '80s. But 'I,' a cut from Black Sabbath's too often overlooked 16th studio album, 'Dehumanizer,' is worth your ear. And not only because it is the first Sabbath album to feature singer Ronnie James Dio and drummer Vinny Appice since 1981's 'Mob Rules,' though that's an obvious plus. 2019: 'Take What You Want,' Post Malone with Ozzy Osbourne and Travis Scott Late in life Ozzy Osbourne was generous with his time and talent, often collaborating with younger performers who idolized the metal legend. One such example is Post Malone's 'Take What You Want,' which also features the rapper Travis Scott. Osbourne gives the song a necessary gothic edge — validating the otherwise balladic song's use of a sprightly guitar solo.
