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Why Sharon Osbourne thought Ronnie James Dio wasn’t the right fit for Black Sabbath after Ozzy was fired
Sharon Osbourne has seen it all. The wife of Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, she’s been the glue of the family for years, as her prominent role in the hit reality TV show The Osbournes displayed. Ozzy and Sharon met through her father, Don Arden, the music mogul who started managing the metal legends in the mid-1970s, and since then she has been an ever-present in his life, watching all his soaring lows and crushing highs, and his rock throughout all.
Notably, one of the most divisive times in Black Sabbath’s career came after Ozzy was ejected in 1979. In reaction, their former frontman embarked on a solo career that saw him team up with guitar hero Randy Rhoads for 1980’s Blizzard of Ozz, which was a resounding success, featuring tracks such as ‘Crazy Train’ and ‘Mr. Crowley’. This response to being fired confirmed to everyone that Ozzy was not just a one-trick pony and that he wasn’t going anywhere. No one would ever take his crown as ‘The Prince of Darkness’.
Meanwhile, for Sabbath, they recruited former Rainbow member Ronnie James Dio to replace Ozzy, with his wailing vocals seeing them follow the metal path more than ever before, turning up the darkness and theatrics considerably.
However, it was a decision that was polarising, as many original fans of the band believed that there was no Sabbath without Ozzy, particularly when they noted how much their sound had changed with the inclusion of Dio. Whilst the first two albums Dio released with Sabbath, Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules are brimming with highlights, they’re nothing in comparison to their earlier work.
When appearing on the Wild Ride! with Steve-O podcast in July 2020, the host asked Sharon her thoughts on Dio joining Sabbath, and she did not waste any time in making her thoughts clear. “They had two hit albums,” she explained. “They did, they had two good hit albums, they had two good tours together. Then it was the band were fighting. There was a lot of fighting in the band with Ronnie.”
Sharon then revealed that whilst she believed that Dio was a “great” musician, she never thought he was the right fit for the group, which is interesting, as by all accounts she was the one that first suggested him as
Ozzy’s replacement. Despite this though, on Steve-O’s podcast, she claimed that Dio’s voice never suited Sabbath because of how to different to Ozzy’s it was.
“Ronnie had a great voice but to change a band that had a kind of bluesy type vocal, real gritty bluesy vocal to a rock opera vocal, it was so different,” she opined. “I always looked at Ronnie as a Rock opera type singer. Ozzy had such a bluesy voice, I never got it.”
“He’s good,” she caveated her point. “On his own, Dio’s great.”
