Ozzy Osbourne was born on December 3, 1948. Raised in Aston, Birmingham, he became the singer on Black Sabbath’s first eight studio albums before starting a solo recording career with Blizzard of Ozz in 1980. Those two catalogs would eventually bring him separate inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Sabbath’s original lineup put Osbourne alongside guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward. Their self-titled debut and Paranoid both arrived in Britain in 1970, with the second album reaching No. 1 there. “War Pigs” confronted war and the people who sent others to fight it, while “Iron Man” and the title track gave the band two more defining songs. Osbourne’s voice carried that material through a group whose heavy riffs also left room for blues, jazz influences and abrupt changes of pace. Master of Reality, released in 1971, placed “Children of the Grave” alongside the quieter “Solitude” and the instrumental “Orchid.” The following year, Vol. 4 included the ballad “Changes.” The quieter songs gave his voice room to sound vulnerable, a contrast already present in Sabbath’s records before he began working under his own name.
His dismissal from Sabbath in 1979 forced him to build a new musical partnership. With guitarist Randy Rhoads, he found someone willing to work closely on the vocals. “Randy was the first guitar player to really help me,” Osbourne recalled in Classic Rock’s account of his solo beginnings. He described a patient collaborator who helped him develop his singing rather than simply handing him a finished guitar part.
Bassist Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake completed the quartet that recorded Blizzard of Ozz. Daisley told Classic Rock that he and Rhoads developed the guitar riffs into songs, while Osbourne supplied vocal melodies that were central to the writing. The band recorded at Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey, completing the album in four weeks. “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley” emerged from those sessions, establishing a solo repertoire that could stand beside his Sabbath work.
Diary of a Madman followed in 1981, adding “Flying High Again” and “Over the Mountain.” It was Osbourne’s second and final studio album with Rhoads, who died in a plane crash in March 1982. Their partnership had produced two albums in quick succession, but its importance extended beyond the guitarist’s solos: it had given Osbourne a way forward after losing his place in the band that made him known.
The Sabbath connection endured, too. Osbourne returned to the studio with Iommi and Butler for 13, released in 2013. It reached No. 1 in Britain, putting Sabbath back at the top of the same chart they had led with Paranoid. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted Black Sabbath in 2006 and Osbourne as a solo artist in 2024, recognizing both sides of his recording career.
Osbourne died on July 22, 2025. Before his death, he brought those two bodies of work together at Birmingham’s Villa Park on July 5 for Back to the Beginning. As ITV News reported, he sang a solo set that included “Crazy Train,” then reunited with Iommi, Butler and Ward. Their four-song performance ended with “Paranoid,” returning his final show to a song from Sabbath’s second album.
