The artist Tony Iommi said “breathed new life” into Black Sabbath
The core of Black Sabbath always comes back around to Tony Iommi. No matter who is singing for them in whatever incarnation, Iommi’s habit of making demented riffs that send shivers down people’s spines is half the reason why their songs have worked so well after all these years. He couldn’t get to the top of the mountain alone, though, and when the future of Sabbath looked dark, he thought that Ronnie James Dio gave the entire band an unholy resurrection when he joined.
Then again, Dio was going to have some massive shoes to fill with Ozzy Osbourne. Iommi may have written all the demented riffs, but hearing Osbourne’s thundering voices above everything was half the reason why people stuck around like they were hearing a bluesy version of John Lennon if he had grown up with darkness running through his soul.
No matter how far Osbourne took Sabbath, there were going to be limitations on what styles they could do. They had run the gamut with different veins of stoner metal and progressive metal across their records, but on the last few albums, Osbourne seemed to be more concerned about being anywhere else but the studio, including some days when he didn’t bother to show up.
‘The Prince of Darkness’ would officially be out by the time the group released Never Say Die, but the idea of getting Dio back into the fold was probably signalling some alarm bells as well. This was not the Dio of his future solo career, and while he had led Ritchie Blackmore to success in Rainbow, albums like Rising and Long Live Rock and Roll weren’t exactly lighting up the charts the same way Paranoid did back in the day.
Once Dio started writing ‘Children of the Sea’ with the group, they knew they had found someone they could depend on. Since he also had a far greater range than Osbourne had, a lot of Sabbath’s riffs started to change ever so slightly, being more in tune with what was happening with newer metal acts like Judas Priest.
While Sabbath did eventually go out on their own terms with Osbourne behind the microphone, Iommi always felt that Dio should be given equal footing as a part of the group, saying, “Ronnie was someone who we could sit down and work with. He brought new life to the band. Ozzy didn’t participate that much towards the end and wasn’t coming up with ideas, and when Ronnie came along, he came in with some input.”
For all of the great moments that Dio brought to the group, he wasn’t going to be given the best breathing room creatively. No matter what he added, it would be in the shadow of Osbourne, which led to him taking a break after The Mob Rules to focus on his own solo career.
Compared to the other acts coming out of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the Mk. II version of Sabbath was more than capable of changing with the times, even reuniting for a kickass album in the 2000s, The Devil You Know. Sabbath’s reputation may have taken some dents after Osbourne left, but by not getting a clone of their former singer, Heaven and Hell felt like being introduced to a completely different band.
