Tony Iommi - GuitarZone.com FORUM

Finally I hear you say YES!! the last one and yes you are right this legends special has come to an end but we end on a cracker in my opinion we end on the Godfather of the metal riff Tony Iommi

Biography

Tony Iommi born Anthony Frank Iommi on February 19th 1948 in Birmingham England was believe it or not a Blues/Jazz influenced guitarist. Iommi was eager desperate you could say to escape the industrial life of Birmingham and especially his job as a typewriter repair man. So Tony set about trying to make something of himself and started off with a few small-time bands including Polka Tulk and Earth until he finally formed Black Sabbath in 1969 with Iommi on guitar , Ozzy Osbourne on vocals, Terry " Geezer " Butler on bass and Bill Ward on drums . The band became a metal band as they were considered at the time they based their sound on the idea of horror movies as they realised people went to see horror movies to be scared so why don't they write scary music and that they did . This band is where Iommi got his reputation as a skilled guitarist with his Crushing riffs soaked in Distortion and his soloing style why is instantly recognizable if you look carefully at his right hand when he is playing guitar you will notice an unusual set of plastic finger tips on his right hand (he's a lefty) this the result of an accident which If i remeber rightly happened in some big industrial factory or something.

Iommi is instantly recognizable the tall dark moustached man who doesn't move about much on stage which he is also known for . Although everyone seemed to be going great for the band they became the victims of their own success Ozzy to be more precise was getting out of control with his drug abuse it was known that at this time ozzy would just sit in a bath 24 hours a day and take heroin continuously so to say things were unstable would be an understatement so Tony had to fire him ad he did . Ozzy was replaced in January 1979 by American Ronnie James Dio who later left in 1982. With the departure of the singer the band went into an unstable phase and it was Iommi who was managing to keep the band together. In 1986 Seventh Star was released under the heading "Black Sabbath Featuring Tony Iommi " according to record company wishes. Iommi has however intended it to be a solo effort giving the songs a different emphasis than a Black Sabbath album the band were not long in going their seperate ways . It was almost 15 years later that Iommi came back to the spotlight with the release of a solo album featuring the likes of Billy Corgan , Henry Rollins , Ian Astbury , Billy Idol and Dave Grohl who contributed and performed their own material . Tony shows no signs of stopping just yet amd will still be knocking out the riffs when he's 80. Rock on Iommi

Discography

Black Sabbath:1970

Paranoid:1970

Master Of Reality:1971

Volume 4:1972

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath:1973

Sabotage:1975

We Sold Our Soul For Rock And Roll:1975

Technical Ecstacy:1976

Never Say Die:1978

Heaven And Hell:1980

Mob Rules:1981

Live Evil:1981

Born Again:1983

Seventh Star:1986

The Eternal Idol:1987

Headless Cross:1989

TYR:1990

Dehumanizer:1992

Cross Purposes:1994

Cross Purposes Live:1995

Forbidden:1995

The Sabbath Stones:1996

Reunion:1998

Past Lives:2002

Symptom Of The Universe:The Original Black Sabbath 1970-1978:2002

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