Remembering Ozzy Osbourne: A First-Rate Talent Scout

One hundred Cypriot lira used to be serious money. Still, for a beginner’s Washburn electric guitar and a 10-watt amp? Not a bad deal. My chug–chug-chugging sounded like the rotor blade of a defective helicopter: assume the brace position. But I’ve a kid brother who can lay down a solid drumbeat. That’s it, we’ve got it: the main riff of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” Admission into the princedom of darkness for CYP£100. Not a bad deal at all.

John Michael Osbourne wasn’t the greatest musical talent. A first-rate second-rater, really, next to his old schoolmate Tony Iommi, who had to fret his six-string with makeshift plastic thimbles after he sliced off his fingertips in a sheet metal factory. (Last thing Tony must’ve wanted was to spend the rest of his life shaping metal: it was fated.) And every one of the vocalists Sabbath had in the Eighties was more technically proficient than the original. But Ozzy was a first-rate talent scout. Whether or not he tried very hard. In 1968, Iommi and drummer Bill Ward materialized at his doorstep. Daemons summoned by a poor man’s prayer posted to a bulletin board: “OZZY ZIG Needs Gig — has own PA.”

About the Author

Vahaken Mouradian

Vahaken Mouradian is the literary editor of National Review.

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One hundred Cypriot lira used to be serious money. Still, for a beginner’s Washburn electric guitar and a 10-watt amp? Not a bad deal. My chug–chug-chugging sounded like the rotor blade of a defective helicopter: assume the brace position. But I’ve a kid brother who can lay down a solid drumbeat. That’s it, we’ve got it: the main riff of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.” Admission into the princedom of darkness for CYP£100. Not a bad deal at all.

John Michael Osbourne wasn’t the greatest musical talent. A first-rate second-rater, really, next to his old schoolmate Tony Iommi, who had to fret his six-string with makeshift plastic thimbles after he sliced off his fingertips in a sheet metal factory. (Last thing Tony must’ve wanted was to spend the rest of his life shaping metal: it was fated.) And every one of the vocalists Sabbath had in the Eighties was more technically proficient than the original. But Ozzy was a first-rate talent scout. Whether or not he tried very hard. In 1968, Iommi and drummer Bill Ward materialized at his doorstep. Daemons summoned by a poor man’s prayer posted to a bulletin board: “OZZY ZIG Needs Gig — has own PA.”