Friday, November 16, 2012
Book Review: Iron Man: My Journey through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath - Tony Iommi
Biographies have never really been my reading preference in the past. I have always rather chosen to read books that would broaden my understanding, education, or worldview. However, a couple of years ago I read a biography of someone musical that I was a fan of more or less. At first I was thinking, why read this, it is about the life of someone else, and dealt with things that are not directly affecting me. However, I found it to be really enjoying. As a musician myself, and with so many years being so involved in following the music scene in general, and with such a wide range of musical likes, I guess musical related biographies appeal to me a bit more than other types.
I chose to read this one on Tony Iommi at this time for three main reasons. One, I had heard good things about it from other music fans; two, I have never been much of a fan or follower of his music and wanted to learn more; three, it had just been returned to the library the day I went in looking for a book, so I grabbed it.
Honestly, I was only a nominal Black Sabbath fan, as they were sort of before my time of getting into heavy music (which started around 1978). Well, classic Sabbath was before my time at least. When I first got into heavy music, it was the Dio years for Sabbath, and I only followed them at that point, and then I followed the Dio and Ozzy solo paths, basically ignoring Sabbath before and after. I was familiar with early Sabbath mainly from listening to Ozzy doing them (ala Speak of the Devil for instance), but that was about it.
It has only been in the past ten years or so that I have really started going back and getting into the amazing classic bands that were before my musical tastes had ripened. Bands like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and a few select others were on my list of great bands I spent time listening to, but still not much Sabbath.
Then, just a couple of years ago, I started buying the remastered/deluxe edition releases by bands, and delved into the Sabbath catalog more. So, with that being a recent happening, and hearing good things about this book, I decided to jump into it.
The book was a great journey for me, reading of so many amazing musical things this band did and what they went through. I was captivated by the stories of how they did some of what they did, in an age when their were no computers, and recording was very much harder and more complicated.
The best parts were hearing all of the behind0the-scenes antics that are not as public, as well as the large amount of big-named celebrities that have interacted and been a part throughout the Sabbath timeline. Sabbath was, as were most bands of their time period, a band with a long history of drugs and alcohol, and with some of the stories, it is amazing that not only are they all still alive to this day (if you can call Ozzy "alive"...lol), but that they are also still making amazing music.
The book covers from Tony's childhood all the way through 2010, shortly after Ronnie James Dio's death. Talk of a future recording with the original band has surfaced, but nothing has started. Now, here I am sitting in late 2012 reading this, knowing that the original band (minus Bill Ward - which makes more sense now that I have read this book) are currently recording a new album.
Overall, a real page turner for someone like me who is so much into music. And throughout the reading of the making of each album, I found myself listening along to the releases, or buying them if needed. What a wealth of music that has been made by this man over the last forty years.
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