![]() ![]() But a half-century ago, they were the furthest thing from legends, just four scrappy roughnecks from Birmingham, England, playing the blues. These days, the band’s status as the progenitors of heavy metal is practically undisputed. If a Martian were to land on Earth and ask, “What is heavy metal?” the best answer would be to play “Black Sabbath.”īut because so much music has drawn inspiration from Black Sabbath, it’s difficult to imagine how the band started, where its members came from, why they sounded so morbid. Yet on its own, Black Sabbath still sounds unique. The echoes of the macabre imagery, powerful guitar riffs, and athletic drumming on Black Sabbath haven’t just rippled through the music of bands like Slipknot, Rage Against the Machine, and Pantera they’ve also made their way into punk, indie rock, and even hip-hop. These bands might have existed (Judas Priest did exist at the time of Sabbath’s debut), but it’s hard to imagine that any of it would have sounded the same. Without Black Sabbath, Metallica wouldn’t have had the blueprint to write “Enter Sandman.” Judas Priest might never have broken the law, Iron Maiden wouldn’t have run to the hills, and Slayer would have never reigned in blood. Now, with 50 years’ worth of hindsight, you can hear that the album represented the start of a new epoch. The album sleeve depicted a witchy-looking woman holding a black cat in a supernatural world, and the music inside delivered on the cover’s mysteriousness. record stores in February 1970 - on a Friday the 13th to capitalize on the album’s unsettling look and sound - it showed the world what “heavy” really meant. When their debut album, Black Sabbath, hit U.K. The six-minute horror vignette was spooky yet thrilling, and the song, “Black Sabbath,” would serve as the prototype for a genre poised to captivate the world.Īrtists like Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and Led Zeppelin had spent the late Sixties edging into darker, denser terrain, but it was Black Sabbath who made heavy a way of life. “Is this the end, my friend?” he wonders aloud. The guitar chords lurch seismically, each one like a gut punch before quieting down just enough for Ozzy Osbourne to paint his own vivid portrait of fear - “What is this that stands before me/Figure in black which points at me?” It’s a scene so unnerving that he eventually pleads to the heavens, “Oh, no, NO, please God help me,” before the guitar riff and church bells come around again to strike him down. The song opens with the sound of a powerful thunderstorm and ominous church chimes before crashing into its lumbering, iconic riff. ![]() Largely unknown outside of their home country, WITCH finally got the exposure they deserved when Now Again Records reissued their entire discography in 2012.Half a century has passed since Black Sabbath first scared the bejesus out of rock fans with their eponymous anthem. Now a man in his 60s, he spends his time mining gemstones hoping to strike it rich, until very recently the band being just a nostalgic memory of his youth. Jagari retreated to a life of quasi-anonymity as a university music professor before being wrongfully arrested during Zambia’s toughest hour. As Zambia’s economy stagnated and the country buckled under the AIDS crisis, WITCH fell apart. Jagari is the charismatic sole surviving original member of the band. At t the peak of their popularity, the band often needed police to keep fans at bay while their lead singer Jagari - whose name is an Africanisation of Mick Jagger’s - riled up crowds by stage diving from balconies and dancing manically as the WITCH’s blend of psychedelic rock and African rhythms permeated the surrounding atmosphere. (We Intend To Cause Havoc) were the biggest rock band in Zambia in the 1970s and spearheaded a new genre dubbed Zamrock, fusing influences that ranged from the Rolling Stones to Black Sabbath and James Brown and mixing them with traditional African rhythms and bush village songs. ![]() $25 Advance/ $30 Day of Show / Doors at 8:00
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