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
List Of Sources: www.alltheweb.com / www.yahoo.com / www.msn.com / www.google.com / www.iommi.com / www.black-sabbath.com / www.xtrememusician.com / www.rocktron.com / http://hem.bredband.net / www.black-sabbath.de
Z
