The drummer Ozzy Osbourne called the greatest in the world
When Ozzy Osbourne first struck out on his own, he needed a lot more than a couple of decent songs.
Being a solo hard rock singer after being trashed from a band was a pipe dream half the time, and it wasn’t clear whether he was going to sink like a stone or become one of the greatest figures the world had ever seen. While ‘The Prince of Darkness’ gave his all to be one of the best singers in his field, he was also more than happy to call out the brilliant musicians by his side every step of the way.
Although Tony Iommi was responsible for every classic riff in Black Sabbath, you can’t really get around Osbourne’s solo career without talking about Randy Rhoads. From the first minute he started playing, Osbourne knew he was something special, and by the time he started making classical compositions on his guitar, he was poised to become one of the greatest in his field before his tragic death.
But Osbourne was never going to let his legacy live and die based on one guitar player. The greatest artists are usually the ones who can pick themselves up and keep going even in the face of tragedy, and while he didn’t have everyone to help him half the time, he and Sharon Osbourne were going to do everything they could to make sure every audience never knew what hit them when they got to the venue.
And while Osbourne had a keen ear for picking the right guitar player, he knew that the most important person in the band wasn’t wearing a guitar around their neck. Both hard rock and heavy metal are incredibly forceful genres, and if there isn’t a strong backbeat behind everything, the entire song would fall apart. That’s why Bill Ward hit so hard in Sabbath, and when Osbourne settled into his solo career, he wanted the best of the best by his side as well.
It’s not like he didn’t have a lot to choose from. On many of his later records, there would be glorified supergroups across every one of his songs, but when talking about the glory days, nothing got better than listening to Tommy Aldridge. Lee Kerslake certainly did his part to make every song come alive on the early records, but Aldridge had clearly put in the work on albums by Pat Travers and later on Whitesnake tours.
So when Osbourne first set out on his own, Aldridge was the first person he wanted to call, saying, “An old friend of mine who used to be a roadie was working for Pat Travers, and Pat Travers was looking for a new drummer. I told this guy Dave that I wanted to get Tommy in a band. When I did leave Sabbath finally, I mentioned Tommy’s name to everybody. I said I wanted to play with Tommy. I said he was the greatest rock and roll drummer in the world, and I really sincerely mean it.”
And listening to the way that he hit, it’s no surprise that he wanted him behind the kit. There’s a certain thunder that few were able to replicate with him during his glory years, and since Sabbath already had a powerhouse like Cozy Powell working with them throughout their years without Ward, getting the next best thing with Aldridge really helped kick a lot of Osbourne’s material into motion, especially on albums like Bark At the Moon.
And it’s no surprise that after Aldridge departed, a lot of the best drummers that Osbourne worked with included famous names like Chad Smith and Taylor Hawkins later down the line. Most people may have been to get their point across with their flashiness behind the kit, but what Aldridge was doing was pure muscle half the time.
