Ozzy Osbourne released Under Cover in the United States on November 1, 2005, through Epic Records. His ninth studio album revisited songs by musicians he admired, with a few of those musicians joining him. Mountain’s Leslie West played the solo on “Mississippi Queen,” while Ian Hunter added vocals to the Mott the Hoople favorite “All the Young Dudes.”
The project had already begun reaching listeners that March. The fourth disc of the Prince of Darkness box set collected Ozzy’s cover recordings, including “In My Life” and “Working Class Hero.” Under Cover gave that material a separate release and expanded the selection with songs including John Lennon’s “Woman,” Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” and “Go Now,” associated with the Moody Blues. The standard album contained 13 tracks, taking the covers beyond their original place inside a four-disc career retrospective.
For Ozzy, the Beatles connection went back to wanting to sing in the first place. Speaking with Brooke Anderson on CNN’s Showbiz Tonight shortly after the album’s release, he credited the band with setting him on that path. Choosing a Beatles song also presented a practical problem: he wanted something that hadn’t already been covered endlessly, and acknowledged that there weren’t many candidates left. He described making the record as easy and enjoyable, with results that exceeded his expectations. He wasn’t presenting it as a permanent move into recording only covers.
“In My Life” also provided a way to look back at Ozzy’s own career. Its music video used archival footage spanning his history, and appeared on the album’s DualDisc edition alongside Dinner With Ozzy and Friends. That feature gave him room to tell stories with guests including his son Jack and Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister.
Producer Mark Hudson worked with a band that included Jerry Cantrell on guitar, Mike Bordin on drums and Chris Wyse on bass. Their assignments covered considerable ground: the same collection paired the Beatles’ “In My Life” with King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” and Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love.” Robert Randolph contributed to “21st Century Schizoid Man” and “Sympathy for the Devil.” Recording “Woman,” meanwhile, put Ozzy unexpectedly close to Beatles history. In a January 2006 interview with Classic Rock, he recalled working at Abbey Road and finishing the song’s final line just before George Martin walked in with his son. The timing caught him completely off guard. “That did my head in,” Ozzy said.
The connections to his own musical past extended beyond Lennon. In that interview, Ozzy identified Cream as an important influence on Black Sabbath and remembered Mountain as one of the first bands Sabbath had opened for. West’s appearance on “Mississippi Queen” reunited musicians whose history went back to those early shows. Hunter’s contribution offered a different connection to an original recording: the Mott the Hoople frontman returned to a song he had helped make famous.
His recording exchange with West continued. In 2007, Mountain released Masters of War, an album of Bob Dylan covers, with Ozzy singing on the title track. West later discussed their appearances on each other’s records with Classic Rock. After lending his guitar to Ozzy’s version of a Mountain song, he had Ozzy’s voice on a Mountain record.
