Carlos Zaldívar: The Complete History of Black Sabbath

BLACK SABBATH

The Complete History of Black Sabbath. 2016.

By Carlos Zaldívar

The Book

An excellent book by Joel McIver that takes us on a walk through the beginnings of Heavy Metal, where even the term was not well coined. When four poorly behaved young people converge in Birmingham and decide to form a band under the name of Earth, who would later evolve into BLACK SABBATH.

A broad text about the origins of the best band on the planet and the molding of what we know today as HEAVY METAL and more precisely: DOOM METAL.

Starting in 1968 as a band of Blues and little by little, they evolved to Rock and later turned their sound into something more dense, deep, powerful, dark, mythical and today, in 2019 already considered as the Fathers of METAL.

Iommi, Iron Man, considered the best METAL guitarists with that pair of magic fingers and manufactured by the devil himself to reach those hidden notes; Osbourne as the multifaceted possessed on stage, and “bat – eater”; Ward, in tireless companions of Ozzy and enormous beast behind the drumsticks; and finally to Butler, the bassist "from another planet"; and this is how these four super human guys form the enormous legend of this wonderful musical universe, the band under the name of BLACK SABBATH.

A book full of anecdotes, experiences, bad behavior, drugs, alcohol, fights, demands, prisons and even reconciliations and rehabilitations. Facts that I mostly know (obviously, being a Sabbath fan) and others that I had not the remotest idea that they had happened.

McIver walks our imagination through a very pleasant paper conversation, with real actors that today and forever are our super heroes.

I emphasize the role of Sharon, as the great woman and true Iron Lady, after the band and its success and obvious, also with the negotiations for meetings and mediations of those who have paraded through the lineup of the band.

Robb Flynn (Machine Head) recounts in the introduction the tremendous incursion to hear the first track of Sabbath: Iron Man; and then, never stop listening to it.

And so, great moments of concerts and the personal life of each one of them, always feeding the music industry with excellent material and first class music.

Very recommendable.