The guitarist who truly invented heavy metal, according to Tony Iommi
Trying to pin the origins of heavy metal entirely on one man is needlessly contentious and more than a little reductive. Still, any mention of metal’s origins that doesn’t include a hearty mention of Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi isn’t worth listening to; whether he is the one true originator of the genre is arguable, but his influence over the scene is certainly not up for debate.
Black Sabbath were the harbingers of hard rock back in the late 1960s, offering a much-needed industrial alternative to the wishy-washy rock of the ‘peace and love’ age. Alongside outfits like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, Iommi’s group carved out a space for heavy, distorted, headbanging rock and roll the likes of which had never been heard before.
In doing so, the Birmingham outfit spawned multiple generations of devotees and pretenders aiming to follow in their proto-metal footsteps.
As with all blossoming rock subgenres, though, the hard rock and metal scene wasn’t formed entirely out of the ether. Iommi and Black Sabbath were undeniably innovative in their output, driving rock into multiple previously unexplored avenues of expression, but they did not arrive at their masterpiece of a debut album without exploring their own personal range of influences beforehand.
Namely, Iommi’s music origins – like the origins of rock and roll itself – are rooted in the timeless sounds of American blues. While ‘Paranoid’ might seem worlds apart from the blues stylings of Robert Johnson or even Howlin’ Wolf, the blues was the first love of Tony Iommi, and its incredible merging with the realm of rock and roll only served to advance his love for the genre.
Citing some of his influences during a 2024 edition of Guitar World, the Sabbath guitarist revealed, “I went from [Hank Marvin] to Eric Clapton’s take on the blues and the John Mayall stuff, all of which I really liked.” John Mayall was particularly influential on the early days of Iommi, taking those blues roots and adding layers of hard rock appeal.
Although he rarely gets credited alongside the likes of Iommi and Jimmy Page, the Black Sabbath guitarist goes as far as declaring that Mayall’s pioneering sound “Kick-started a whole genre of heavy blues players.”
Explaining, “Mayall put forward a lot of guitar legends, from Peter Green to Clapton to Mick Taylor.”
Without John Mayall, then, the realm of hard rock and metal that Iommi soon came to typify might never have occurred in the first place.
His underrated impact on the scene is perhaps derived from the fact that his group, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers never really captured mainstream attention and, by the time 1970 rolled around, they had largely folded.
For those in the know – like Tony Iommi – though, the Bluesbreakers contained the roots of Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, and an untold number of other legendary groups, without which the landscape of heavy metal would be virtually non-existent.
