Black Sabbath are rightly enshrined as one of many forefathers of heavy metallic. The band’s authentic line-up – singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Invoice Ward – have been accountable for one of many best run of albums in music historical past, stretching from 1970’s self-titled debut to 1975’s Sabotage.
However following 1976’s Technical Ecstasy, the wheels began to wobble on the Sabbath wagon. The band themselves had simply emerged from a pricey battle with their ex-manager, tax payments have been mounting up, their life have been lastly catching up with them and report gross sales have been beginning to tail off.
“I’d had sufficient,” Ozzy wrote in his 2009 autobiography, I Am Ozzy. “There didn’t appear to be any level any extra. None of us was getting on. We have been spending extra time in conferences with legal professionals than we have been writing songs; we have been all exhausted from touring the world just about continuous for six years; and we have been out of our minds on booze and medicines.”
In late 1977, Ozzy lastly snapped. “In the future, I simply walked out of a rehearsal and didn’t come again,” he stated of his choice to abruptly give up the band he co-founded almost a decade earlier.
For the remainder of Sabbath, it left an enormous downside: how do you exchange such a charismatic frontman as Ozzy? Fairly than undergo the chore of sitting by way of infinite auditions, the band determined to faucet up somebody they knew. Enter Dave Walker.
Born in Walsall, just a few miles northwest of Sabbath’s hometown of Birmingham, Walker had been a member of early 60s band The Redcaps, who counted Tony Iommi as one in every of their followers. Walker subsequently went on to switch future ELO chief Jeff Lynne in his pre-fame band The Idle Race, report an album with choogle-rockers Savoy Brown, and even briefly joined Fleetwood Mac (he sings on two tracks on 1973’s largely forgotten Penguin album). However by 1977, he might see his possibilities of hitting the massive time disappearing within the rear view mirror. After which he received a message asking if he wished to sing for Black Sabbath.
“I used to be in California with a band referred to as Mistress that was falling aside,” Walker instructed Basic Rock in 2014. “I received a name from Sabbath’s highway supervisor, and I flew over to start out rehearsals at an outdated mill close to Rockfield Studios in Monmouth.”
The remainder of the band had continued writing songs for the follow-up to Technical Ecstasy regardless of Ozzy’s departure, which they performed for Walker.
“Immediately they let me hear the tracks they’d been engaged on and instructed me they wanted lyrics,” he stated. “There wasn’t what I’d name one full tune, simply reels of tape with little concepts on them. I wrote a shitload of lyrics, however I had no concept that Geezer was their fundamental lyricist.”
Initially, Black Sabbath appeared dedicated to creating it work with their new singer. On January 6, 1978, the band and Walker appeared on Look! Hear!, a neighborhood TV present produced in Birmingham, the place they carried out Sabbath traditional Battle Pigs and a model new tune titled Junior’s Eyes. No footage exists of the present, although audio of the latter tune seems on YouTube, illustrating how totally different Walker’s bluesy vocals are from Ozzy’s demented howl.
Ozzy himself had tried to launch a brand new band, an early model of Blizzard Of Ozz that includes members of the band Necromandus, however was struggling to get it collectively. Sabbath themselves hadn’t fully severed ties with their former singer. Walker instructed Basic Rock that he even met his predecessor.
“Ozzy got here to fulfill us in the future in a pub,” he stated. “I felt actually unhappy for him, as a result of he was actually shaking. I’ve been across the block with medicine however once I noticed poor Ozzy I assumed, ‘God almighty.’ There was no suggestion that he may come again, however I had the sensation he was having second ideas.”
Walker’s instincts proved proper, although it was additionally turning into obvious that issues weren’t figuring out for him in Sabbath.
“I knew issues weren’t going effectively musically, and it was made worse by the truth that my spouse and Invoice Ward’s spouse clashed,” he recalled.
The tip, when it got here, was sudden. “In the future I turned up the place they have been rehearsing close to Evesham and so they have been having a gathering, after which Invoice instructed me, ‘We’re in, you’re out,’” Walker recalled. “No warning. I nonetheless don’t even know if Ozzy had agreed to come back again then.”
Regardless of the chronology, Walker’s tenure within the band had lasted just some months. When Sabbath launched their subsequent album, By no means Say Die!, in September 1978, it featured the reinstalled Ozzy on vocals. Junior’s Eyes, the tune which Walker had sung on that lone TV look, made it onto the album, albeit with retooled lyrics.
As for Sabbath, they ploughed on with Ozzy, however the underpowered By no means Say Die! had did not recapture previous glories, and the singer’s alcohol and substance issues have been turning into an insurmountable subject. In April 1979, he left the band as soon as extra – although this time he was fired by his bandmates, who changed him with Ronnie James Dio and made 1980’s traditional Heaven And Hell album.
Dave Walker would proceed enjoying music together with his eponymous band and, later, a reunited Savoy Brown. And in his defence, he wasn’t the one singer to have been recruited by Sabbath after which allotted with shortly afterwards – the identical destiny befell David Donato, who was briefly a member in 1984. Walker himself was sanguine about his transient stint in Black Sabbath.
“I knew that on the creative facet we actually weren’t suitable,” he stated. “It was type of cool, however there was lots left to be desired.”
