“Ignored by everyone”: The 1972 riff Tony Iommi crowned the greatest of all time
Tony Iommi‘s unique artistry has created an impenetrable legacy. He is a multi-instrumentalist, a genius songwriter, a guitar god, a founding father of heavy metal with Black Sabbath and even a shrewd author.
His complexity as an artist has saturated all of his work throughout his long and illustrious career and arguably reached its zenith in his candid 2011 memoir, Iron Man, a warm and revealing chronicle of his life. In fact, strangely enough, despite the darkness of his pioneering guitar tones, he’s always been a pretty warm fellow.
Although aesthetically, you might take Iommi to be a man solely concerned with all things metal, that would be a very reductive viewpoint, particularly in this day and age. Like most titans of rock, he is actually a rather perceptive gentleman, and everything he does is calculated and considered.
He is one of those rare figures you could listen to all day talking about any subject, and his extensive wisdom is admired. He knows the value of light and shade in an anecdote, as he demonstrated in the following Sabbath skit: “At one gig, we had three women turn up dressed as witches. And when we went on stage in crosses, they all ran out!”
Of course, beyond production hijinks, if there was one subject you would be most interested in listening to it is Iommi’s thoughts on the guitar. Though not quite as revered as some of his heavy metal forefathers, Iommi’s contribution to the rockier sound of the six-string is undeniable.
Much like Keith Richards, Iommi might not always be flashy but he is always impactful. Meaning, when he has a few words to saw about music, one should pay attention. As Brian May once proudly put it, “Tony Iommi is the real father of heavy metal, a constantly evolving genius, a master of riffs and one of the greatest people in the world!’’
It is fitting, then, that when Iommi has shared his thoughts over the past, we have listened. Given the length of his career, he has discussed a whole host of topics. Ranging from his favourite songs or singers to books and even religion, even if I don’t entirely agree with his takes, they’re an eye-opening source of thought. One thing is clear, though, that he is, above all else, a music lover.
This is no surprise. You’d be hard-pressed to find any musician of any status who does not live and breathe the discipline. After all, can you imagine, say, Christopher Lee hating acting, Quentin Tarantino hating cinema, or Lionel Messi hating football? It just wouldn’t work. Like with any artistic craft, an unwritten rule states that you have to be totally and utterly devoted to it.
As he was there during rock’s most momentous era, the 1960s and ’70s, Iommi is brimming with stories and opinions regarding his contemporaries and the generation itself. In 2019, he offered up another brilliant take on that heady and pioneering time. He revealed to Metal Hammer what he thinks is the greatest guitar riff of all time.
Iommi believes the iconic 1972 single ‘Smoke on the Water’ by British hard rock legends Deep Purple is the pinnacle of guitar work. When asked “what’s the greatest riff of all time?” by the interviewer, Tony gave a typically balanced answer. He said: “There’s so many great riffs out there from the past, and up to date stuff. But you’ve got to have Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’. And, of course, there are a lot of Zeppelin songs. Jimmy Page has some great riffs.”
He’s got a point, too. Not the most technical riff of all time; it is undoubtedly one of the most instantly recognisable ever recorded. Sure, Jimmy Page also penned many of the best riffs ever put to wax, and many of them were a lot more technically incredible than his peers’, but were any of them as extensively well-known as Ritchie Blackmore’s work on Deep Purple’s biggest track?
‘Smoke On The Water’ is the go-to riff for Iommi because it is the go-to riff for every guitarist. Ask any new six-string player what their first riff was, and it would be a safe bet that Blackmore and co would be the first thing that came to mind. If you needed further proof of Iommi’s understanding of the elements of rock, there it is.
It is not without irony, therefore, that it took a while before it became a classic rock hit. “’Smoke On The Water’ was ignored by everybody to begin with,” Ian Gillian once recalled. “We only did it in the shows because it was a filler track from ‘Machine Head.’ But then, one radio station picked up on it, and Warner Bros. edited it down to about three and a half minutes. It then started getting played by lots of different radio stations.”
