Wednesday 1 October 2014

Tony Iommi, "Iron Man" (2013)

Sub-titled: "My journey through Heaven & Hell with Black Sabbath".

As do many music autobiographies, this one starts off really fascinating. Iommi talks about his early years: exposure to music, upbringing, early influences, and how he met the people who would later on influence his work and life. Unlike the members of the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, however, the pre-Sabbath years of Black Sabbath members is not particularly widely known. Iommi's story is also unique in that a work injury as a young man left him without a few fingertips on one hand. The resulting experimentation and solutions he arrived at to enable him to play provide some unique insights into his playing style, and thus the 'Sabbath sound'.

Iommi's details on some of Black Sabbath's most notorious exploits are light, unsurprisingly. He does not shy, however, from taking what might be perceived as pot-shots at some of his bandmates, Ozzy included; suggesting, for instance, that Ozzy is rather scatter-brained and lazy.

With Ozzy's departure from the initial Sabbath line-up, Iommi would remain the only person who would play in all permutations of the band working under that name. His perspective on all of these changes, what makes the band continue on (really, what makes Iommi keep working under that band name), would provide compelling reading for a fan. His analysis and depth of discussion really begins to taper off with the end of the Ian Gillan era. Most of the 80s and 90s get slim discussion. To Iommi's credit, perhaps, he admits that several of the releases of this period were sub-par, either being cobbled together with changing line-ups where personalities were not gelling, or products that were rushed out without the sort of reflection and improvement that they might have deserved.

Iommi's work isn't as amusing as Ozzy's "I Am Ozzy", but is far more informative about the musical decisions, particularly of the 1970s, and the Sabbath reunion. See my review of Ozzy's work here.

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