Customer Reviews

How Black Was Our Sabbath

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a most intriguing and fascinating insight into the world of rock music, a concise interpretation into one of the most sucessful and highly original bands on the planet today.
The book covers Black Sabbath from their inception in 1968 through to the departure of their lead singer Ozzy Osbourne in 1979.

The authors manage to cover in great detail the incarnation of Black Sabbath, their tours and recording sessions, at home and at play.
This book is unputdownable, The photographs (of which there are many) are incredibly candid, from the authors own private collection.

If you would like to re-visit this historic period in time, and also read some very funny stories.
I most certainly recommend.

Fantastic view of the band as real people from the very beginnings before even the Polka Tulk Blues Band until the fateful year Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath went their separate ways. Anecdotes abound! Some hilarious and some just plain strange. Another positive thing is the roadies that wrote it were straight forward and upfront about their role. They didn't try to overgrandize or endulge their egos at all. The facts are written as they are. And done quite nicely. A real blast from the past.

This book will give you a new appreciation for up and coming musicians to with the touring/recording stories from Earth/Black Sabbath's earliest days.
No matter how die hard you are there are things in this extremely well-written book you do not know.
5 stars only because there aren't 10.

Unlike your last reviewer who seems to have wanted to read an fictional take on Black Sabbath; purely to satisfy his cravings for supercilious tales of debauchery, backstabbing, and gross indecency (does he know something that the authors don't??).

I have a totally different view on this book, the fact that it does cover quite succinctly the bands history, for the specific reason that it has corrected many mis-informed time line details of the bands rise to fame and notoriety.

This book goes farther than many other of the 'Rock Bios' that I have read recently, It never strays from the storyline for one, so you get a free flowing book that is a real pleasure to read.

Furthermore; the content is compiled from 100% genuine people who were with the band during the whole time from the beginning of the book right through to the last chapter. The writing is honest and frank, witty and humorous. The anecdotes are very funny and sometimes sad, but nevertheless a great insight into a great band.

The biggest selling point for me regarding this book was the fact that it was written by people very close to Sabbath. I expected a lot of 'insider' information and stories you wouldn't find anywhere else. There is a great deal of this type of thing contained in the book, but I have a strong feeling that the authors' closeness to the band is actually what prevented them from giving us the REAL insider 'dirt'. Being close friends of the band members means they have no interest in giving us a "warts and all" biography. They make no attempt to show the band members in any negative light, and fans of Black Sabbath know that there are certainly unflattering tales that could be told about the goings on in the band. This is a wonderful book that any Sabbath fan will enjoy, but it just feels like it could have contained so much more.