Ozzy Osbourne & Jake E. Lee - what the HECK HAPPENED??

I always thought Jake E. Lee was the perfect replacement after RR died. Bark at the moon and Ultimate sin are just stellar albums (though I know there are those who would disagree with the latter).

Anyway, in my opinion, Ozzy's albums took a toboggan slide downward after Ultimate Sin.

And I always thought that getting rid of Jake E. Lee was a very, VERY bad idea.

Thoughts? Info??

 

I was under the impression Jake left Ozzy. Jake wasn't happy with release of tribute. Trying to live in Randy's shadow from the first two albums then Ozzy releases a live album. On last week's That Metal Show it was brought up that Jake wrote most or all of "Bark At The Moon" but it is all credited to Ozzy. While I do like "No More Tears"', I like Bark and Ultimate Sin as much as anything Ozzy released.

 

Jake is a great guitarist (I love his work on the 3 Badlands albums). IMO Bark At The Moon and The Ultimate Sin are, at best, mediocre albums. Not a reflection on either Lee or Osbourne but most likely due to the fallout/aftermath of Randy Rhoad's passing. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Daisley was not involved in these albums.

I'm not sure of the circumstances regarding Lee's departure.

 

Daisley was definitely involved on 'Bark at the Moon' in that he wrote a lot of the music and lyrics for the album. 'The Ultimate Sin' was Phil Sousson on bass who co-wrote 'Shout in the Dark'. Sousson had played in an earlier band with Vince Neil.

From my understanding, Lee and Ozzy just kind of burned out on each other pretty quickly and the creative well ran dry in terms of collaborating thus Jake moving on to Badlands and Ozzy finding Zakk Wylde to replace him.

 

Ozzy somehow has had a succession of great guitarists - although I'm not really familiar with the last one (Zakk's replacement). Of the big 3, Jake is certainly the most overlooked. I always kind of dismissed Zakk due to all his antics - but then I saw a youtube clip of him sitting and playing something on an acoustic which I could barely believe - the guy is unbelievable!

 

I think Zakk is a great guitarist also. For me, I love all the Ozzy albums up until No More Tears which I think is his last good album. After that he dropped off on me. I love Jake also. I loved The Ultimate Sin when it came out. I was a freshman in high school and one of my buddies used to jam it in his car all the time. Yes the production was a sign of the times but Jake's talent shines right through it. Having Ozzy (ahem I mean $haron) deleting it from his catalog is a big disservice to the fans. But then again $haron doesn't want to pay the fair royalties to who actually wrote the music. Sigh...

 

According to Phil Soussan, he, Jake. E Lee, Randy Castilllo and John Sinclair were supposed to be rehearsing new material while Ozzy was promoting the Tribute album. As it was, Jake E. Lee was usually either many hours late or didn't arrived at all. Eventually the word got back to Ozzy and Sharon who told that if Jack wasn't there by one o'clock next morning he was fired.

"As a favour I told him that he really needed to be there tomorrow and he had to be there on time. He told me in no uncertain terms that he ran this band that was that. I've never actually seen him since. I've heard that Jake kind of holds me responsible for his dismissal."

 

Who is this quote attributed to?

 

I made it up - just to keep this thread hot!

No, it's from Garry Sharpe-Young's book The Story of The Ozzy Osbourne Band. He also wrote a brilliant book about the latter era of Black Sabbath called Never Say Die. Both are recommended.

 

But who said the quote? Is it Ozzy? Is it Sharon?

 

Ah, sorry! It's Phil Soussan.

 

Ozzy must hold some sort of grudge. He mentioned Jake in passing in his book. Only spent about two pages on him. If that.

 

They even lived together for awhile, as an attempt to write some songs together. It didn't work. After Jake got fired, he told the press stories about Ozzy, how he used to stumble in Jake's room in the middle of the night, extremely drunk, and speaking very incoherently about some new song ideas.

I guess neither Ozzy or Sharon liked Jake telling such things.

 

Jake is very underrated. Too bad the partnership didn't last longer.

 

No doubt about it. Another scenario where Daisley holds animosity towards Ozzy and Sharon. The reality is that without Daisley and Lee, Bark At The Moon never exists -- yet, if an unsuspecting consumer were to obtain the most recent version of the album, they would think Ozzy was a genius due to his sole writing credit.

 

No one would ever listen to Baek At the Moon, with the possible exception of the title track, and mistake it for "genius."

 

In some ways, I'm glad it didn't. Ozzy's next two albums were still pretty good, and the split allowed Jake to do Badands, which was even better. He would not have been able to record those types of song with OO.

 

This was my memory of it, too. Tribute needed to be released, but it seemed like some kind of final straw for Jake.

It took me awhile to warm to Zakk because I thought that Ozzy was just starting to cycle through guitar players. I didn't give him a fair hearing because I thought that Ozzy should have kept Jake.

 

That is true; I was referring to the idea that any artist who can solely write and arrange an entire album worth of material (particularly an album as successful of BATM) is going to be automatically put into an upper-echelon of musicians/writers as far as reputation goes.

I agree that BATM is an overrated album - if that is what you are implying.

 

Frankly, I think George Lynch was a superior guitarist and was a perfect replacement for RR. It is unclear as to why it did not work out with George, but Jake ultimately got the job. In some ways it was for the best because George ended up creating some wonderful music with Dokken. Had George stayed with Ozzy, there would be no "Tooth And Nail," Under Lock And Key," and "Back For The Attack" -- and while those albums aren't perfect, they do contain some of the best guitar work to come out of the '80s.

 

Here's an interesting interview Jake did for Guitar World in 1986. It's clear that The Ultimate Sin sessions were not easy, and that Jake had a big role on that album.

http://www.jakeelee.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=108

 

Ozzy's new guitarist is a Greek guitarist and keyboardist named Gus G, a metal guitarist who has played in a few bands:

Firewind
Nightrage
Dream Evil
Mystic Prophecy

Firewind is his main band.

 

I think Jake was "technically" the best metal player of the 80s, except for people like Malmsteen, Paul Gilbert, and other hardcore shredders.

 

I certainly agree with Opinion of Not getting paid the right $$ & band members not getting credited for writing what they did ....
Heck look how ugly it got when they Resorted to having the bass/Drums re-recorded for Blizzard & Diary , that right there says a LOT about the OZZY camp .

 

IMO that's what sets Jake apart from those other players. Yes they may be technically superior to Jake, but the thing I love about Jake, and Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen for that matter, is while they had technical chops, they had that slight bit of slop to their playing which made it more real and emotional for me. They were always big inspirations to me. Jake is such a monster player and completely underrated IMO.