From Osbourne To Dio

It was nothing new; problems in Black Sabbath had reached a head with Ozzy Osbourne before. Last time around, in 1977, it had been Osbourne who walked out voluntarily before the band were due to start demos for their Never Say Die album. It seemed he had gone for good, and the remaining three - Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward - took it seriously enough to get a replacement. They looked close to home and picked another local singer, Dave Walker from Walsall. Walker was best known for singing with Savoy Brown, among others, but was still a largely unknown quantity in the UK. He flew over from San Francisco in November 1977 and spent a few weeks writing and demoing material. Part of his contributions included being involved in writing the lyrics.

Unexpectedly, the new lineup of Sabbath appeared on the BBC's Midlands magazine show Look Hear on 6 January 1978. They opened the show with the intro to 'War Pigs' and then appeared again later with a full version of what would become 'Junior's Eyes'. The lyrics were completely different (written by Walker), and most fans who saw it paid special attention to Walker's performance. His more R&B vocals and the bluesy feel of the song were, to be honest, less than inspiring and rather workmanlike. You can see and hear it on YouTube for yourself. It's hard to imagine how this lineup could have developed, but speculation at the time was cut short when Osbourne decided he'd made a mistake and asked for his job back. The others were only too keen to let bygones be bygones.

The ensuing Never Say Die album came out in September 1978, accompanied by a UK and North American tour. The album had its moments, including one or two fine songs, but noticeably, the live setlist steered clear of the album. Only the title track made the cut until they added 'Shock Wave' later in the American tour. The tour saw them do enough to keep them from sinking, but generally, they struggled to hit top gear. The band were sounding tired and in need of a creative spark. The truth was that they were all burnt out from the 'album/tour repeat' lifestyle that had occupied them for most of the 1970s.

The best they could manage at this critical juncture was to relocate and spend time, plenty of it, working on the next album. This would be a kind of break, at least. The band had good memories of recording Volume 4 in Los Angeles and Technical Ecstasy in Miami, so from early 1979, they booked a rental house in Bel Air, Los Angeles, for 11 months to recuperate and work up new material using the garage studio. From there, they intended to head down to Criteria Studios in Miami to record the album. Tax reasons probably had something to do with this relocation, which wouldn't have helped the domestic problems in the band. The biggest immediate problem, though, came as Butler, Iommi and Ward settled in at Bel Air - there was no Osbourne. While they waited, Butler says they worked on two or three ideas, one of which would become 'Children Of The Sea' and another one was likely the germ of 'Lady Evil'. What they needed now was Osbourne to appear on top form, but instead, when he arrived, two weeks late, it was clear that he had reached the end of his tether, lacking in inspiration and motivation.

As time went on, record company pressure grew. Iommi outlined to Classic Rock's Paul Elliott in June 2025 that 'I was the one who used to go to meetings with the record company. I'd go over to Warner Brothers and they'd say: 'How's the album coming along?' - 'Oh, alright' - 'When can we hear some tracks?' - 'Um, soon.'' Iommi was running out of excuses, and the feeling that Osbourne was the main drawback grew and grew. There is a curious aspect to this accepted narrative. We know that, musically, Iommi and, to a lesser extent, Butler, were the main contributors, and we know that Butler was the main lyrical force. While Osbourne usually did pitch in with lyrics and vocal melodies, it seems reasonable to think that Iommi and Butler could have come up with more themselves. Their 'two or three ideas', which Butler mentioned, weren't exactly a lot to work with.

That must have had a lot to do with their own issues. Aside from Osbourne, Butler was to leave for a while to sort out his divorce, so his motivation and inspiration were low, and Ward was grieving over his recently deceased parents while being a functioning alcoholic. As for Iommi, Ronnie James Dio referred to him later as being in a 'snowstorm' a lot of the time. Was this already a problem for him in 1979? The point here is that it looks unfair for Osbourne to shoulder the burden of blame for the predicament they found themselves in. Iommi admitted in Iron Man that they were all capable of being 'out of it', but Osbourne was 'on a totally different level altogether.' So, that was the difference.

After six months of lethargy, they still only had two or three ideas, although Osbourne had added some vocals to what became 'Children Of The Sea'. Iommi decided he had had enough. At one point during this period of stasis, he even thought that it might be better to call time on Sabbath completely and work on a solo project. One sticking point was that a solo album wasn't what the record company wanted. What they wanted, and expected, was a new Black Sabbath album. Iommi was to fall foul of this again later on with his Seventh Star (1986) solo project being credited to Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi.

One alternative to the dilemma might have been a stopgap retrospective live album to buy the band time with the label. We know there were several well-recorded concerts through the years that could have been used, as several have come out on reissues and video, such as Asbury Park 1975 or Hammersmith 1978. There was a real vogue for live albums from rock bands in the mid to late 1970s, and one from Black Sabbath would have gone down well with the fans. Sabbath were pretty much the only major 'first division' rock band around who hadn't released a live album. All the major British bands had done so, including big releases from Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Yes, ELP, Genesis, Uriah Heep, Queen, Judas Priest and UFO. Had they put out such an album, it might have thwarted former manager Patrick Meehan in releasing Live At Last in 1980, which angered the band because of the sound quality and packaging. But the strong imperative from the label was not for a marking-time live album but for a new Sabbath studio album.

Meanwhile, also in Los Angeles, former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio was considering his future prospects - to look for another band or maybe even try for a solo deal. He was 36 years old, with his 37th birthday looming in July 1979. He might have wondered if his big-time success had now been and gone, and, according to his autobiography, he was running out of money. It had been a long, long road for him to the big time. Ronald James Padavona (to give him his real name) was born on 10 July 1942 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Amazingly, his music career started in 1957 - earlier than The Beatles, to put it into context! His first recorded lead vocal was with Ronnie & The Redcaps on their 1960 single 'An Angel Is Missing'. By this time, he had changed his professional name to Ronnie James Dio - 'Dio' being Italian for God. Why he did this is open to conjecture. It's either because his grandmother said he had a gift from God and should be named Dio or, as Dio claimed in his autobiography, it was after New York gangster Johnny Dio. He later mentions his grandmother's influence again, this time regarding the 'devil's horn' sign, but even that is open to another attribution.

Dio persevered with his career, with Ronnie & The Prophets (as The Redcaps had become) morphing into The Electric Elves, then The Elves and finally Elf. For Elf's self-titled debut on Epic in 1972, Dio credited himself under his birth name so that his parents would see the Padavona name on a record. Producing the album were Roger Glover and Ian Paice from Deep Purple. Elf had been picked up by Deep Purple, who they later supported on tour. Their second album, Carolina Country Ball (1974), was a continuation of their boogie rock style and was also produced by Glover. By this time, Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was a fan, particularly of Dio - maybe only of Dio. Despite the awareness within Purple's ranks of his talent, no story has emerged of Dio being considered to replace Ian Gillan in the band a year earlier, when Glover had also left. The idea of Dio's voice blending with Glenn Hughes in Deep Purple is food for thought. Glover, not Blackmore, was the first to call on Dio's services when his Butterfly Ball project came to fruition in 1974. The single from it, 'Love Is All', got radio play in Britain, but it didn't trouble the chart, unlike in the Netherlands and Belgium, where it hit number one. It was the first time Dio's voice had become more widely known in Europe. There was one more Elf album, 1975's Trying To Burn The Sun, but by the time they recorded it, they were already moving on to bigger things - well, most of them were.

In December 1974, Blackmore had recorded two tracks for a speculative solo single, using Dio and some other members of Elf. Pleased with the results, he then recruited the entire Elf lineup, minus guitarist Steve Edwards, for his...