Written out? Not on this site, mate!

July 21, 2006 by

I’ve been away for a bit again. Not a lot going on in Sabbath land, but a few things poppped up while I was on vacation. One was this article in which Tony Martin makes these remarks about Black Sabbath:

“Yeah, but then it’s almost as if I’ve been written out of the SABBATH history books and I don’t know why really. All the books seem to go up to [Ian] Gillan and stop and then say that it was Ozzy Osbourne again. They seem to have removed those ten years. It wasn’t helped by me being absent for so long either, but it’s not just that people forget that I was in SABBATH for ten years, it’s that they’ve never told!”

Well, I have to say this – NOT ON THIS BLOODY SITE, MATE! As long time visitors to my site know I like to pride myself on pushing the FULL history of Black Sabbath. Not just bits and pieces of it. There aren’t many other Sabbath sites where you’ll read about Joe Burt, Ron Keel, Terry Chimes, as well as Tony Martin (and Ozzy, and Geezer, etc). As long as I run this site, I will always portray the full history – including Tony Martin.
I’ve been accused from time to time of being “Anti Ozzy”. Far from it. If I was anti Ozzy, he wouldn’t be listed, but you can’t do a Sabbath site without Ozzy. My beef is with people who think Black Sabbath ended in 1979. It didn’t. There’s actually more albums under the Black Sabbath name WITHOUT Ozzy than there were with him. Tony Martin sang on 5 of these studio albums. It’s a shame that so many people get caught up in “If it ain’t Ozzy it ain’t Sabbath”.
There’s no denying the contributions to music that the Ozzy era of Sabbath made in the 70’s. But there’s a lot of brilliant music that people are missing by sticking their heads in the sand and ignoring anything else.
So Tony – as long as I’m running this site, no way will your part in the band’s history ever not be told. To those who haven’t seen it, go check out my timeline page which details all the band lineup changes from the late 60’s through to current. You should also check out the albums that Tony Martin was involved in with Black Sabbath. There’s some outstanding tunes on them:

Also, make sure and check out that entire interview I link to above, it’s actually quite a good interview with Tony Martin about his solo album, his son, and of course Sabbath.
UPDATE: Found this. It’s a great example of the Martin era. It’s Sabbath doing “When Death Calls” from Moscow 1989. Check it out – it’s a badass performance for those who doubt that Tony Iommi could still bring it. Also features the late great Cozy Powell, as well as Neil Murray who does a great bass intro here.

Filed Under: Black Sabbath, Tony Martin