Ozzy Osbourne, the gloomy, demon-invoking lead singer of the pioneering band Black Sabbath, died Tuesday, just weeks after his farewell show. He was 76.
“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time,” a family statement from Birmingham, England, said. In 2020, he revealed he had Parkinson’s disease after suffering a fall, reports AP.
Osbourne formed Black Sabbath in 1968 in Birmingham, a city then known for its heavy industry that became the crucible of the British metal scene. Black Sabbath’s devil imagery and thunderous sound made them one of the era’s most influential — and parent-scaring — metal acts.
Black Sabbath’s 1969 self-titled debut LP has been likened to the Big Bang of heavy metal. It came during the height of the Vietnam War and crashed the hippie party, dripping menace and foreboding. The cover of the record was of a spooky figure against a stark landscape. The music was loud, dense and angry, and marked a shift in rock ’n’ roll.
The band’s second album, “Paranoid,” included such classic metal tunes as “War Pigs,” “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots.” The song “Paranoid” only reached No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 but became in many ways the band’s signature song. Both albums were voted among the top 10 greatest heavy metal albums of all time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine.
Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979 for his legendary excesses, like showing up late for rehearsals and missing gigs.
He reemerged the next year as a solo artist with “Blizzard of Ozz” and the following year’s “Diary of a Madman,” both hard rock classics that went multiplatinum and spawned enduring favorites such as “Crazy Train,” “Goodbye to Romance,” “Flying High Again” and “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll.”
Osbourne was twice inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — once with Sabbath in 2006 and again in 2024 as a solo artist.
The original Sabbath lineup reunited for the first time in 20 years in July for what Osbourne said would be his final concert. “Let the madness begin!” he told 42,000 fans in Birmingham. Metallica, Guns N Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon all did sets.
Osbourne embodied the excesses of metal. His look changed little over his life. He wore his long hair flat, heavy black eye makeup and round glasses, often wearing a cross around his neck. His outlandish exploits included relieving himself on the Alamo, snorting a line of ants off a sidewalk and, most memorably, biting the head off the live bat that a fan threw onstage during a 1981 concert.
Osbourne’s fame expanded into the mainstream in the early 2000s, when he joined his wife Sharon Osbourne, and two of their children in the MTV reality TV show “The Osbournes.” He has struggled with health issues since 2003 following a near-fatal quad bike crash. He paused touring in 2023 after spinal surgery.
Osbourne is survived by his wife Sharon Osbourne and his children.