The end of the classic Black Sabbath lineup was difficult for all involved. Left without a band, Ozzy Osbourne had to build a new career from the ground up. As for Tony Iommi and the rest of Sabbath, they were left rudderless as they searched for another singer to lead them into a new era.
Ozzy found his answer in of Randy Rhoads , a young, talented guitarist he hired after bassist Bob Daisley had a premonition he’d lead the group to greatness.
Sabbath, meanwhile, turned to five-foot-four powerhouse vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who had just been fired from Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow and was down on his luck. After a serendipitous meetup at L.A.’s Rainbow bar brought them together, Iommi and Dio forged an instant musical connection when, at their first jam session, they wrote “Children of the Sea,” one of the key tracks from 1980’s Heaven and Hell Black Sabbath’s first album without Osbourne.
Though the task of winning over the Ozzy faithful fanbase wasn’t going to be easy, Dio’s vocal talents helped launch Sabbath to their highest chart position since 1975’s Sabotageoutdone only by the monster catalog albums Paranoid and Master of Reality.
Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, who was Iommi’s best man when he married Susan Snowden in 1973, was one of those many fans impressed by what Dio brought to the band. However, his habit of straight-talking caused him to put his foot in his mouth when he intended to flatter Dio. It was left to Iommi to prevent the diminutive Dio from tearing into the much larger Bonham.
“Yeah, there was some kind of a word,” Iommi admitted when asked about the kerfuffle while being interviewed by Bill Burr in 2011. “John came to the gig when we played at Hammersmith in London. And we were going to go out after the show to a bar.”
According to a Black Sabbath fan sitethe band played four consecutive nights at London’s Hammersmith Odeon between May 7 and 10, 1980, with Girlschool in tow. It’s not clear which night Bonham attended, but it was in the English capitol that his remarks were taken in the wrong light.
“John’s drinking on the side of the stage, drinking Guinness,” Iommi says, coloring the scene. “We came offstage, and as we walked past John, John said to me, ‘Oh, man, he’s got a great voice for a midget.’ And, of course, Ronnie heard that, and he didn’t really like that.
“He actually meant, ‘What a little body, and he’s got a big voice!’” the guitarist explains, interpreting Bonham’s poorly dressed pleasantries. “But the way he said it…
“Of course, Ronnie popped up and… I won’t repeat what he said. They were gonna fight.”
Suddenly, Iommi found himself at the center of the ruckus and astutely defused the situation by telling the pair to “just get along.” Eloquently put. Tragically, Bonham would pass just months later, on September 25, 1980, the victim of too much drink.
Black Sabbath are set for one last hurrah at Villa Park next month, as the Tom Morello-curated Back to the Beginning farewell gig finally comes around.
However, Iommi has voiced his concerns over the health of Ozzy and Geezer Butler ahead of the show.
