How Jimi Hendrix split opinion in Black Sabbath: “Geezer Butler said he was crap!”
The subjectivity of music is what makes it so beautiful. Whether we’re talking about rock, rap, punk, pop, or everything in between, there is no set opinion on anything.
That being said, there are some bands where you think, no matter what kind of music someone likes, who their favourite artist is, they have to be somewhat enamoured. One of these bands is Black Sabbath, as they were the pioneers of heavy metal, and one of the first bands to really channel that heavy style of rock. How can you not love them?
There was a reason that the entire musical world was stopped in its tracks when Ozzy Osbourne passed away, and that’s because of how much of a mark he left on the world of rock with Black Sabbath. So much of the heavier rock music that we like listening to stems back to Black Sabbath and their innovative style. James Hetfield once commented on the band, highlighting how much they managed to impact his life.
“Sabbath was the band that put heavy in my head,” he said, “That first Sabbath album I would sneak out of my brother’s record collection and play on the forbidden record player. I wasn’t supposed to touch any of that stuff, but I did, and the first Sabbath album got in my head. That initial song, ‘Black Sabbath’, was the one when you’d put your headphones on and sit in the dark and get scared to death. Then the Devil’s riff comes in, and it got you!”
Of course, it’s not just Black Sabbath who deserve to be universally loved. Another artist who deserves to receive praise for being one of the greatest names in the history of music is Jimi Hendrix, as his style of guitar playing completely revolutionised how people perceived the instrument. It wasn’t even a guitar with Hendrix, rather it was just an extension of his body, something which came incredibly naturally.
When he moved to London, there wasn’t a single set of lips that didn’t have Hendrix’s name escaping them. Music lovers dotted around the capital would tell everyone about this must-see master of the fretboard, and it led to Hendrix becoming one of the most universally loved artists of all time.
Eric Clapton was a fan almost immediately, as he shared a stage with the guitarist and was instantly blown away. “It was funny, in those days, anybody could get up with anybody if you were convincing enough that you could play,” said Clapton, “He got up and blew everyone’s mind. I just thought, ‘Ahh, someone that plays the stuff I love in the flesh, on stage with me’. I was actually privileged to be [on stage with him]… It’s something that no one is ever going to beat; that incident, that night, it’s historic in my mind but only a few people are alive that would remember it.”
How funny, then, that out of two universally loved icons, Black Sabbath were split down the middle on what they could make of Hendrix. Ozzy Osbourne, like the majority of people who saw him, was instantly obsessed with Hendrix the moment he laid eyes on him, but the same couldn’t be said for Geezer Butler. Butler wasn’t a fan at all of Hendrix’s style of music, and the band would frequently sit there and debate how valid all of this praise that had been heaped on Hendrix was.
“I seem to remember Jimi was great, but Geezer Butler said he was crap!” said Osbourne. Eventually, the two of them agreed to disagree and put their difference of opinion down to the fact that they weren’t on the same drugs.
“I don’t know, mate,” concluded the Prince of Darkness, “I think he was taking a different drug than me, but we were only kids.”
