Product Description

Black Sabbath are the ultimate heavy rock band. They have sold millions of albums worldwide, with ardent fans across the globe. Dave Tangye and Graham Wright were in the crew during the seventies, the band's heyday, and have the stories to prove it. For the first time they cover in detail the early days of the group, including a certain gig in the Scottish borders, where they were almost beaten up by local farmers. As the Sabs rose to fame and notoriety, touring Europe, Australia and America, delighting fans and disgusting law-abiding members of the public, incidents of bad behaviour stack up alarmingly.

Full of new information, How Black Was Our Sabbath is a real Spinal Tap story, a warm, funny, poignant tribute to four mates from Birmingham who became the biggest heavy rock band in the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #145299 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 236 pages

, 1 May, 2004
An entertaining behind-the-scenes look at the band whose employees knew them as 'Slack-Haddock'.

Classic Rock, May 2004
A happy and unchallenging meander through the defining years of heavy metal's greatest band. A warm and gentle read.

Front End, May 2004.
Warm and wry, there's plenty here that will get you giggling anew.

Customer Reviews

Awesome book on the early Ozzy years (and more)
This is an absolutely wonderful book written by David Tangye & Graham Wright. There's been plenty of books on Black Sabbath before. Some good. Some not so good. This one falls in the category of being EXTREMELY GOOD. The difference between this book and the others on the Ozzy history of the band is the fact that this one was written by folks who were there. A lot of these things are written by people who retell stories, regurgitating things that are already out there. Not this one. David was Ozzy's personal assistant, and Graham was Bill Ward's assistant. So these stories are told from folks who lived them. There are some other stories by other folks who were involved with Sabbath directly as well.

This book goes into some areas of the band's history that have never been talked much about before. Specifically the days when they were known as Polka Tulk, as well as Earth. There's tons of stories about life on the road, the legendary "Satanist attacks Tony Iommi on stage with a knife" story, to one their hotel room doors being painted with a bloody red Cross, to the story about the band blowing out the candles of a group of Satanists in the hallway by singing "Happy Birthday" to 'em. There's other things, like Ozzy's first wife Thelma, and the kids Oz had with her. That's something that's almost never talked about. Graham tells stories about Bill's drive over the Australian Outback in 1974 for about 500 miles to avoid flying. And a few about how some vehicles ended up in swimming pools.

What's best about this book to me is that it's an easy free flowing style. I've read many books, and some are hard reads, but this was one that I could quite easily have read in one sitting, had I had that much time available when I read it. David & Graham are to be applauded for their work on the book, both in content and in style.

The only negative thing I have to say about it is that it's not the easiest book to get in the US. There's no direct US publisher that I'm aware of, and as such, it can be a bit expensive to get it here in the States. In fact, if you're in the US, it might be cheaper to buy it from the UK site That issue aside, I feel it's well worth it due to the quality of the stories and the writing in the book. You can't go wrong reading this if you're a fan of Black Sabbath.

Joe Siegler

great book!
i stumbled upon this book online by accident as, since it is " unauthorised" ,it has had no advertising what so ever!
i must say i really enjoyed this book- it contains lots of pictures that i had never seen before which were obviously from the authors own collections. The book explains alot about sabbath's early times with ozzy indeed right up until ozzy's dismissal. Indeed ,it is very candid and a pleasure to read - I really think that any true Sabbath fan will really enjoy this book. Perhaps, If you are new to the band, a less personal " warts and all" book like this isn't the best introduction to the band.

Researched Well and an Interesting Read
Having just read an unauthorised biography on Ozzy, and enjoyed it so much, I decided to order this book. It has been researched well and contains lots of information primarily based around there music tours (as one would expect from the author). Madison Square Gardens, California Jam and The Royal Albert Hall are all there.
There isn't much information on individual songs, albums or studio stories (although every album is mentioned as is a whereabouts of the studio they recorded in and there length of stay).
One thing that comes across is how hard Black Sabbath worked towards there success with relentness touring and this comes across in the book. It goes into most detail about Ozzy, Tony and Bill. There isn't much on Geezer (which is a shame) but from what is said in the book he is a rather quiet individual and that's probably why. Bill is described with great fondness within the book and I didn't know how much he got involved with managing the band and there finances. Funnily enough Ozzy comes across as someone who didn't have much musical input as most the songs were written by Tony and Geezer (especially the lyrics) but instead he brought great humour and charisma (especially on stage).
Tony is clearly the leader of the band and is described as such.
There is also a lot of detail about pre-Sabbath history and how they formed which was really interesting to read and contains information that would otherwise be hard to find.
Sabbath's run in and friendships with other bands of the time is also interesting.
There are various unique black and white photos in the book (including one of Ozzy's ex wife which was really nice).
This book primarily focuses on the years when Ozzy was in the group so don't expect much information on the RJ Dio years or most recent years (which I found a shame).
If you want a book packed with tour detail and touching slightly on the group's personal life then this is the one for you!