Who wrote "Black Sabbath"?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Paulette, Nov 8, 2017.

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  1. Tim1954

    Tim1954 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cincinnati, OH
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  2. sandimascharvel

    sandimascharvel Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ USA
    Wow, very interesting! I never knew that.
     
  3. Tim1954

    Tim1954 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cincinnati, OH
    My issue with Burke Shelley's comments was that's he's admittedly clueless about Black Sabbath, Deep Purple and Uriah Heep.

    As such, the BBC shouldn't have been asking him to contribute to a documentary about Heavy Metal.

    That he's heard "Paranoid" and thought it sounded like a variation of "Communication Breakdown" doesn't change that.

    Btw, keep in mind that Sabbath have that Birmingham humility about them in their old age. Unlike some aging rock stars, they downplay instead of brag. They have nothing left to prove. They give credit to Led Zeppelin and Cream and bands they feel made it possible for them to take music into the heavier direction they did. Jimmy Page is still a good friend to the group and has attended Sabbath shows in recent years. It's probably something they have a laugh about with him. My guess is that they want to be inclusive and give him credit and props, unlike the Keith Richards of the world who think everybody outside his little rock 'n' roll bubble is a joke or substandard.
     
  4. sandimascharvel

    sandimascharvel Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ USA
    I wasn't the one that said the music needed updating. I never said that or anything along those lines. Tony Iommi is one of my favorite guitarists and the original Sabbath albums are timeless.

    To each his own and what makes the world go round regarding Randy. His tone was huge (as Don Airey put it) in 1982 and different from anything else on official releases and his best fills fit the songs well. I personally didn't care for the random high-pitched squeals he did but I love the the more thought-out and melodic fills he would often repeat in other shows and change around. "Children of the Grave" and "Paranoid" in particular have a lot of energy to them. The soundboard from 1-15-82 is particularly good but others from then up through March had really cool fills. The complete King Biscuit Flower Hour from 1981 has some great fills and what some regard as his best tone and best live show. It is amazing. The tone on Tribute was altered from the original but I didn't care for the original mix and tone or final mix and the performance isn't as good as the KBFH. Tommy Aldridge himself called Tribute "sloppy and all over the ranch" and said he has board tapes that blow it away.

    All that said, there would be nothing without the originals and I listen to them all the time.
     
  5. DHamilton

    DHamilton Forum Resident

    Location:
    Earth
    it does sound kind of contrived to me...
     
  6. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Ok, let's start at the top. What's an obverdub?
     
  7. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I like the thread hijacking. I'm here to learn.
     
  8. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Omgosh, you're a new member and a Sab lover? Glad you're here.
     
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  9. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
    Putting something down over a basic track. For example, putting a rhythm guitar track down on tape and then playing a lead line over it or different rhythm figure added to the original basic track. It’s a well known technique in recording.
     
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  10. GodShifter

    GodShifter Forum Member

    Location:
    Dallas, TX, USA
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  11. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Is this just for albums?
     
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  12. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

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  13. Tim1954

    Tim1954 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cincinnati, OH
    Well, the thing is that Sabbath themselves had already taken the originals to their logical conclusion in terms of a live sound. You listen to any show especially from the mid 70's, and they are just TEARING through everything in sight. BUT, there is no wanking. Sabbath never wanked DURING the songs themselves.

    So come 1976-1978 and you listen to some of the shows from those tours and Iommi was playing so sizzling fast you'd think his fingers would just fall off from the heat, but it's kept to a portion of the show and mainly done on newer songs like "Dirty Women" and "Shock Wave." The classics are taken up a notch, but they are played with reverence because that is how they sound best.

    And in 1978 also along comes Eddie Van Halen. And Eddie Van Halen profoundly changes guitar. And guys like Randy Rhoads follow in that path. That path traces to Hendrix in terms of the wanking during songs and for him it worked. For Van Halen it worked. For Ozzy it worked. But for Sabbath it does not work, IMO. Their sound was always very orchestrated. There was room for some creativity and improvisation, but never at the expense of the arrangements playing second fiddle to individual showmanship. They did do their share of "flash", but it was a separate part of the show, really. And it could be argued that Iommi overdid it. Often standing out there just blazing for 15 minutes. Amazing stuff, but it wouldn't fit into most of the songs. Ozzy's band were just not able to recognize this, IMO.

    Some have the same opinion about how Dio tackled Ozzy-era Sabbath. That he overdid everything. I do think that argument has merit, but for some reason with a singer I have a bit more empathy in terms of he or she having to retain their own sound even when interpreting the work of someone else. With an instrumentalist, there is dialing it up or dialing it back, and both have their place. But there is also just wanking, and that's how Ozzy's bands always sounded when playing Sabbath to me. I wouldn't walk across the street to see Zakk Sabbath even though I know Zakk Wylde worships Sabbath and is just trying to do his thing with it. Same with Speak Of The Devil. I hated it from day one and thought Ozzy in particular sounded like a robot they overcooked it so bad. I tried to listen to it a couple of years ago and it was even worse than I remembered. I just do not get the appeal of 70's Sabbath played like 80's Van Halen. YMMV.

    As far as Rhoads' tone, we just disagree. I've heard people blame Max Norman for how thinned out his tone is on Blizzard, but I think it sounds better there than some of the live stuff. If Don Airey thinks his sound was "huge" I guess that's why he's a keyboard player. Loud does not equal huge.
     
    Last edited: Nov 9, 2017
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  14. sandimascharvel

    sandimascharvel Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ USA
    It's for studio and live albums. So if something doesn't come out the way an artist wants on a live multi-track tape, they can either record over the original vocal track with a total "re-do" or do just lines they want to fix or they can use an open track on the tape. In the case of the Speak of the Devil and Tribute tracks mentioned before, the vocals were redone in the studio and then he sang again on another track to double the vocals.
     
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  15. sandimascharvel

    sandimascharvel Forum Resident

    Location:
    NJ USA
    Interesting about the live Sabbath eras. I've always stuck to the studio stuff with them. Randy Rhoads and Jake E Lee were the two players that I always enjoyed certain live recording of. Randy's sound was very thick and huge sounding in 1982 on those board tapes so I can see what Don was talking about. Even when Ozzy released another live RR album recently, when they mixed a track from the KBFH, they once again totally dried up and thinned out his tome compared to the original. There is no original tape floating around for the rest of that show to compare but the tone also sounds thinned out and not like his thick 1982 tone. It's too bad most have never heard it and never will.
     
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  16. Tim1954

    Tim1954 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cincinnati, OH
    I heard the Ozzy KBFH show when it first aired and recorded it. I remember how shaky it started off with Ozzy's voice cracking during "Over The Mountain".

    Anyway, when I think of KBFH in a Sabbath thread, I think of Asbury Park '75, rightfully considered one of the greatest bootlegs of all time. It also features the tone to end all tones, IMO.

     
  17. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    OMGosh Tim thank you. I have gotten so much great stuff out of this thread.

    "Killing Yourself to Live" is my favorite song after "Sabbra Cadabra". Anyway, I am saying this because I just pressed play and it is the first song on the recording. A question, however lame it may be. Is the lyric "smoke it" or "smokin'"?

    More about lyrics, "You think that I'm crazy and baby I know that it's true" are some of the best lyrics ever, IMO. Someone had mentioned that Ozzy may have written them. Of course I would think so too since I love them so much.

    I die to hear Ozzy's voice and I love the sound when it cracks. But it is not good and hurts to see him strain so much. This I do not understand. Why was it this way?

    I am dying right now thanks to you Tim. This is amazing.
     
  18. Erik Tracy

    Erik Tracy Meet me at the Green Dragon for an ale

    Location:
    San Diego, CA, USA
    Smoke It.

    Killing Yourself is one of my favs as well: I'm a firm believer of "Never give your trust away, you'll end up payin' til your dyin' day"
     
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  19. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Wow. That's a lot of work, right?
     
  20. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Thanks :)
     
  21. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I just quickly looked at the YouTube site and couldn't tell but does this person do a lot of these? This is amazing work. It doesn't seem derogatory. It is very interesting.
     
  22. Tim1954

    Tim1954 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cincinnati, OH
    In the 70's his voice didn't crack that often, but bear in mind Ozzy was from a school of pushing his voice to the limits and beyond. Or maybe Tony pushed him in this way, I don't know. I don't think it's ever really been addressed. But he would regularly have to sing stuff live that would seem impossible. These days, it WOULD be impossible. Stuff like "Supernaut" or "Symptom Of The Universe" and so forth.

    Starting with Vol. 4., Ozzy's voice took on a certain high-pitched character that has remained to this day. I suppose the one downside of having such a long career and many "off" nights when he got older is that some people forget what you were in your prime.

    In his prime, there was no one who he could even be compared with, IMO. Not saying better or worse, just entirely different and the way he would let it just fly was really something. When I hear people talk about other singers being more "trained" or whatever it makes me kind of laugh. Self-taught, trained, whatever, NOBODY ever sang like this...

     
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  23. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Something weird happened with our posts about this I think. One of the staff deleted a bunch of posts because they were really just rude. I think I may be semi good at discerning what is meant to be funny. IDK, maybe not. Anyway, were they deleted maybe?

    I was super thankful for your post. That woman sings like crazy, and as I had said in my response I have always wanted to sing in this way. So, my ear was right? There wasn't any kind of riff "stealing"?
     
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  24. Paulette

    Paulette Forum Resident Thread Starter

    *SIGH*
     
  25. Vinyl Socks

    Vinyl Socks The Buzz Driver

    Location:
    DuBois, PA
    Right...I was only kidding...but Sister Rosetta Tharpe was FABULOUS! And this video clip is great!
     
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