Ozzy has visited Russia multiple times, and he has a massive fanbase in our country. In 2014, Black Sabbath held a concert at the Moscow "Olympic" venue, with Ozzy Osbourne leading the way, of course. They presented their first collaborative album in decades, titled 13, and took the stage in their original lineup. Naturally, I attended the concert as well. Before the show started, I popped into Ozzy's dressing room, and although I was prepared for his legendary eccentricity, I saw something I definitely didn't expect. There were dumbbells and a treadmill in the dressing room. It turned out that Ozzy had started doing quite an intense warm-up before each concert for some time now. Unexpectedly, a workout routine had entered the wild rocker's life, especially since he would pour several buckets of water on the front rows during the concert. Ozzy explained, with an ironic grin: "Training before the concert is a tradition I owe to my dearest wife Sharon. She treats me like a child..."
That evening, just like before, we spent quite a long time chatting. Ozzy was not only a natural joker but also an engaging storyteller, always sharing tales from his past. For instance, us Ozzy fans know his stage persona to be dark and mystical, often dressed in gothic elements predominantly in black. I had always been curious if his image was like that from the beginning. I asked him once, and yes, indeed, in his early years, he was completely different. During the peak of Black Sabbath's success, Ozzy's favorite outfit was the top of a pajamas set and a plumbing faucet that he wore around his neck. It would be great to find a recording of some old concert to see the wild rocker in his pajamas with a faucet necklace!
During our meetings, Ozzy usually appeared healthy and cheerful, always doing a bit of stretching before the concert. The famous Sharon kept a close eye on the routine and even nipped any hints of unhealthy behavior in the bud. Not just any woman, but a rock, although it was always evident how tenderly they cared for each other. In the past, as Ozzy recounted, he was kicked out of Black Sabbath due to his unhealthy lifestyle. He had harmful habits that he later gave up, but there was also one less obvious habit—Ozzy preferred to go barefoot even in winter. Whether this was a form of hardening or just another provocation, I never quite figured out... Before the concert at the "Olympic," I couldn't help but ask if Ozzy would be biting the heads off bats during the performance. In his characteristic style, he joked: "You have a mouse shortage in Russia..."
In fact, my distant acquaintance with Ozzy Osbourne happened back in my student years. In 1972, when I already had a couple of Black Sabbath vinyl records—an incredible treasure in the collection of a conservatory student in Saratov—I once saw a TV segment on Soviet television (which, of course, was the only option back then) that has stuck with me for life. In a news report reminiscent of the popular segment "Their Morals" at the time, the presenter exposed the rock band Black Sabbath as a prime example of the "decay of Western mass culture," promoting violence and religious obscurantism, while the band's leader, Ozzy Osbourne, was labeled a classic example of a person with mental health issues and a fragmented personality...
“I’m not as crazy as everyone thinks; I’m even worse,” Ozzy teased the press, which, even in the West (of course, without the ideological rhetoric we had then), also occasionally nipped at him, poked fun, and sometimes openly mocked him. Some journalists of that era, seemingly devoid of a sense of humor, took this statement at face value...
Now, of course, many laments from those years seem comical. With the passage of time, or rather, eras, it has become abundantly clear that Ozzy Osbourne's music was indeed revolutionary. He was at the forefront of heavy metal and had a significant influence on the evolution of rock music. The eight albums he recorded with Black Sabbath from 1970 to 1978 shaped the genre and determined its development for decades. The musicians based their sound on blues-rock, deliberately slowing down the tempo, heavily distorting the sound of the electric guitars and bass, and rejecting love lyrics in favor of dark, occult-themed imagery, laying the groundwork not only for the main direction but also for subgenres like glam metal and doom metal, which we also know and love! Ozzy has never shied away from experimenting with sound and style—this is part of what makes him unique.
All of this was strikingly fresh, and Osbourne's career is impressively lengthy. He endured a 43-year gap between chart-topping appearances! His first appearance was in 1970 with the album Paranoid, and his loud return came in 2013 with the album 13, which he promoted with a tour that included a stop in Moscow. At that time, he broke Bob Dylan's record, which had stood for 39 years. Osbourne also managed to collaborate with two generations of keyboardists. In 2010, nearly 40 years after keyboardist Rick Wakeman from Yes participated in the recording of the 1973 album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, his son Adam began working with Ozzy on the album Scream. Just look at how long and eventful the journey of the great Ozzy—rock legend—has been, something I believe no one would dispute. Like all his numerous fans, I passionately love his music...
At the memorable meeting in the "Olympic," Ozzy grabbed a marker and tried to "pierce" my heart with it, as if responding to the question—was he really that terrible? Don't worry, during the shoot, no Sandlers were harmed; it was just a harmless joke, completely in the style of the cheerful and life-loving Ozzy Osbourne.
Happy birthday, Ozzy! Peace, Love, Music.