Jim Simpson was a musician who played the jazz trumpet. He was also the manager of a Brummie band named "Bakerloo Blues Band". Unable to find a place where he could promote the band, he opened his own place called "Henry's Blues House". Henry's, located at Hill Street and Station Road was an instant success. It wasn't long before the club had to stop accepting new bands. A band that was just starting out, Led Zeppelin, would also be one of the first to play Henry's.

In 1969, the four members of Earth approached Jim and asked if they could play at Henry's. They also wanted him to be their manager since they knew nothing of the business sense of things. He told them that they could open for the band "Ten Years After", which pleased them. Happy to have a manager who cared for their interests, they recorded a song in tribute to him, "Song for Jim". The song was a spoof of their manager and the jazz music he played. This elusive song is still sought after by Sabbath fans worldwide. Simpson would also give the band some of his jazz records to inspire them to write songs.

It is of interest to mention that around this time, Tony left to join Jethro Tull. While Tony did not appear on any of Tull's albums, he did make an appearance at the "Rolling Stone's Rock and Roll Circus" which was never released, because the Stones were upstaged by other acts. Tony and Jethro can be heard on a bootleg called "Archangel Rides Again". The movie was eventually released in the movie festival circuit.

Tony's stint with Jethro Tull was very brief (for two weeks). He left Tull and was soon back with Earth.

While waiting to go into a rehearsal one day, they noticed a Boris Karloff movie playing named "Black Sabbath" (1935). Geezer mentioned it was strange that people would go to a movie to scare themselves silly. Until this time they had only played other artists' material. They decided to use the name of the movie as the name for their first original song.

One day the band showed up to do a gig at Henry's. There, someone mentioned they liked the bands' single. The only problem was the foursome had never released one! They had been mistaken for another band with the same name. The audience was of upper class and expected something totally different. Unable to back out of the show, the scruffy four played blues and rock. It was a disaster! The band did have some fun, watching the crowd try to dance to their music.

As a result, Geezer came up with the idea to change their name to that of the Karloff movie, "Black Sabbath" to avoid being confused with the other band named Earth. They now had a song and a band name taken from the movie's title. This would also reflect the groups interest in the occult. It has also been said that the name Black Sabbath came from Geezer's interest in occult writer Denis Wheatley.

Not having any money, the band relied on Tony's mother who owned a chocolate shop, for the use of a van, food and cigarettes. Sometimes the group would get gigs on their own, other times they would show up at a place where another band was to be playing. In the event that the scheduled band failed to show up, the Sabs would take their place. They played the Star Club in Hamburg in January of 1969, a place the Beatles had made famous. They were so popular that they were booked to come back for 5 more shows. They would play 7 shows a day, and write new material as they went along. This would also explain why their early songs had lyrics that differed from the final album versions.

February, Friday the 13th, 1970, Black Sabbath's first album "Black Sabbath was released under the Vertigo label. It was recorded in 8 hours on two four track machines and cost about $1200 to make. Ozzy couldn't wait to bring the record home and say "Look dad, it's me on a piece of plastic!" After his dad listened to the record, he asked Ozzy "Are you sure you're only smoking cigarettes?". On the gatefold of the album, the record company decided to put an upside down cross with a poem in the middle of it. The band had no idea they did this. The poem read as follows:

"Still falls the rain,
the veils of darkness shroud the blackened trees,
which, contorted by some unseen violence,
shed their tired leaves, and bend their boughs
toward a gray earth of severed bird wings.

Among the grasses, poppies bleed before a gesticulating death,
and young rabbits, born dead in traps,
stand motionless, as though guarding the silence
that surrounds and threatens to engulf
all those that would listen.

Mute birds, tired of repeating yesterdays terrors,
huddle together in the recesses of dark corners,
heads turned from the dead, black swan
that floats upturned in a small pool in the hollow.

There emerges from this pool a faint, sensual mist,
that traces its way upwards to caress the feet
of the headless martyr's statue
whose only achievement was to die too soon,
and who couldn't wait to loose.

The cataract of darkness forms fully,
the long black night begins, yet still
by the lake a young girl waits.
Unseeing she believes herself unseen, she smiles faintly
at the distant tolling bell, and the still falling rain."

As Black Sabbath made news, a group of Satanists asked them to play at their "night of Satan" in Stonehenge. They refused. The head witch of England, Alec Sanders who was a regular fan of Sabbaths, informed them that these Satanists had placed a hex on the band members. Being totally freaked out by this, Ozzy had his father make aluminum crosses for them, to keep evil spirits away. In a recent interview, Bill Ward said he is the only one that still has his. The cross remains a well known Black Sabbath symbol even to this day.

The "Paranoid" album was recorded in four days at Regent Sound and released in January 1971. The cover shows a person running out of a forest with a sword and shield in hand. This seemed to be a strange representation of paranoia. The truth is that, originally, the album was to be named "War Pigs". The record company objected to the album title due to the Vietnam war. The song "War Pigs", came about when Sabbath heard of horror and war from soldiers, while playing at an American air force base. "Paranoid" was actually recorded as just a filler song at the last minute in the studio and was never intended to become such an anthem to the group. The Paranoid album reached FIRST place in the UK charts and 12th in American charts. During the span between the Paranoid and Master of Reality albums, Jim Simpson was fired as the band's manager.

In 1971 "Master of Reality" was released, charting 5th place in UK and 8th place in USA song charts. Ozzy also married his first wife, Thelma Riley and became a stepfather to her son, Elliot. This album would take an interesting turn with the release of "After Forever" which was clearly a pro-religious song. The church called this blasphemy. People disliked the band, perhaps for their After Forever song or perhaps for what they represented. In any event, 1971 saw some strange events: At a show in Memphis, their dressing rooms had crosses painted in blood on the walls. During the show a Satanist jumped on stage with a sacrificial knife. The local witches coven later gathered outside the band's hotel and Geezer tried to scare them away with a fake hex. It was also the year that threats were made that the band would be shot sometime during their US tour. At one show the lights suddenly failed into their 3rd song and Ozzy stood frozen solid with fear. The band also included a song titled "Sweet Leaf" which openly talked about the band's usage of marijuana. The song begins with a coughing sound (as if someone had just inhaled the drug). In actual fact, Tony had just finished smoking drugs in a water pipe and the sounds were included in the final version.

The following year "Volume 4" was released. As with the inverted cross case and the "War pigs" album title, the record company would again take authority over the bands wishes. Volume 4 (hence the fourth Sabbath album) was to have originally been called "Snowblind", another drug reference. The record company thought this was too controversial and so they had to change it. The band was becoming involved in hard core drugs by this time (including cocaine). During the recording of Volume 4, the band sat around in a Jacuzzi snorting coke all day and would get up every so often to record a new song. We can see why Snowblind was an appropriate album title. Not being allowed to use it as an album title, they came up with this amusing line on the cover sleeve of the record: "Thanks to the COKE-Cola Company". It was also during this year that Ozzy and Thelma had their first mutual child, Jessica.

In 1974, the Album "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" was released. This album featured the very first song for which Ozzy wrote the lyrics and music to, "Who Are You?" (Geezer wrote 95% of lyrics to all Sabbath songs Ozzy sang.) In February it hit #4 on U.K. charts and #11 in the U.S. Within a year it had sold a million copies. April 6th, the band performed at the Cal Jam in Ontario, CA. The band hadn't performed live for over 6 months and were given a day's notice. The band got paid $1000 each, but later learn that they really earned $250,000 which their manager screwed them out of.

It was 1975, and once again, Black Sabbath fired their management, trying to take matters into their own hands. "Sabotage" was released. This album featured a song entitle "The Writ" which told their true feelings about past management problems. It hit #7 on U.K. charts and #28 in the U.S. Ozzy's first son was born, named Louis Jon Osbourne.

With all the bad management problems and constant touring, Ozzy took some time off. He went home and got rid of some of his frustration by shooting all the chickens around his house. In April 1976, a "best of" album entitled "We Sold Our Souls For Rock And Roll" hit #35 in the U.K. and #48 in the U.S. The band hired Don Arden. This was how Ozzy was introduced to Sharon, Don's daughter: They met when Ozzy walked into Don's office wearing a tap faucet around his neck and sat on the floor - refusing to use a chair. Sharon was terrified of Ozzy upon first sight. She even tried to get another woman working in the office to bring him a cup of tea, rather than bring it to him herself. The two of them would get to know one another quite well over the years as Don and the Sab four conducted business.

In late 1976, the "Technical Ecstasy" album was released. It hit #13 on the U.K. charts and #51 in the U.S. This album was considerably less heavy then previous ones, perhaps was due to the band just being fed up with it all. They had succeeded in making a lot of money, owned as many cars as we own socks. They were getting burned out from constant touring. T.E. would contain a song titled, "It's Alright" featuring Bill the drummer on vocals, a very gentle song. The album cover also set the stage for something entirely new from the band. No more dark images, this artistic cover showed two robots having sex (or so it has been said). Sadly, Technical Ecstasy did not sell very well.

On January 20,1978 Ozzy's father passed away. Here is a small portion of an interview with Ozzy regarding his father: "In England, they don't tell you, y'know. What they did to my father was, he hadn't eaten a fucking thing because of his -- whatever the fucking tube -- he had a lump here like a fucking black ball, in his sagophagus or whatever the fuck it is; he couldn't eat any food. Plus the fact that he had cancer of the fucking intestines, the bowels, so he couldn't shit. He never ate a thing for thirteen weeks. They operated on him about a fucking week before he died. They took the whole tube out and put a plastic one in. I don't know what it's like in the states, but in England...they put him in a fucking closet with the fucking mops and buckets, because he was on the death ward and it was too distressing for the rest of the patients so they put him in a cot, sort of a crib thing, a giant crib. They strapped him...like a boxer, fucking bandages on his hands, with a glucose drip going into his arm. He was stoned out of his head. You know, the most amazing thing he said to me. I told my father one day, "I take drugs. I said to him, "Before you go, will you take drugs?" He says, "I promise you I'll take drugs." He was on Morphine. Totally out of his mind on Morphine, because the pain must have been horrendous. They had the operation on a Tuesday, and he died on Thursday...No one could understand what he was talking about, because he was so out of it. He says to me -- he only understands drugs as "speed" -- he says, [whispers, a drawn-out, rattling imitation] "ssspeeeeed." And he died in my arms. I haven't got over it yet. The twentieth of January, I'll go freaking like a werewolf. I'll cry and I'll laugh all day long, because it's the day my daughter was born and the day my father died. Like a fucking lunatic. When they go, they're out of their misery. But what freaked me out more than anything else was the funeral. I was singing fucking "Paranoid" in the church...Seconal, drunk... it blew me away. All the family came that I'd never seen for fucking years, and they were making comments. In England, it's a weird scene at a fucking death. My father hated his brother Harold -- my whole family's fucking nuts."

This took a toll on Ozzy and he decided to quit Black Sabbath. Ozzy's father, Jack, who thought his son would either end up in prison or end up being someone very special, died knowing his son had made something out of himself. While on his leave of absence, Ozzy asked Glenn Hughes (another vocalist who would eventually spend some time in Sabbath) about the two of them forming a band. Ozzy was fed up with Sabbath by this time, though he kept his feelings about this to himself. Glenn did not join Ozzy in his desire. Meanwhile the band had to continue work on its upcoming album, "Never Say Die".

By now, all four members of the band were staying in their rooms all day and doing hard drugs and booze. They had cars, success, and perhaps little motivation to release another album. Ozzy himself has said he only wanted to release an album to make money and get fat off of beer. Ozzy would subsequently not show up for weeks at a time for practice. They were to begin work on their next album, "Heaven and Hell". Tony, having met Ronnie James Dio (ex-Rainbow) by this time, then asked Bill to get rid of Ozzy. Tony was fed up with Ozzy and was interested in having Dio as a vocalist. After the 1978 NSD tour, Ozzy was told by Bill, that they no longer wanted him in the band. Bill felt bad about doing this because him and Ozzy were best of friends and yet Bill wanted Ozzy out of the band as well. People still ask how Ozzy left, the truth is that both him and Tony Iommi say he was fired. Ozzy also adds that he was relieved at this. In actual fact Ozzy was asked many times on the last day to leave before being fired. For some time now Ozzy wanted to go into a new musical direction and perhaps was unable to do so with the politics of the band being the way they were. Tony, being the transportation, would never be spoken against by the other members of the band. 1978 saw the end of the original Black Sabbath. Their last tour would be the "Never Say Die" tour. Appropriately named.