Hence Tony’s inclination to consider some sort of solo project. Tony explained that the band’s bassist and usual lyricist Terry “Geezer” Butler was also going through some family issues. He was hardly the only rock star to suffer that fate. Ozzy has been the first to admit that he was his own worst enemy in those days, at a time when his drinking and drugging were completely out of control. Tony confided that the band had just kicked Ozzy out. We got to talking and it turned out that we were both contemplating solo albums. I knew he was the musical leader of Sabbath, the mastermind behind some of the most classic guitar riffs in the history of rock. I was at the Rainbow one night when Sabbath’s tall brooding guitarist Tony Iommi walked in.
They were getting ready to make their next album with Ozzy and I was still thinking about my own next move. It was all very nice and polite, and when we left, I thought no more of it. It was through Wendy’s connection with Sharon that I got invited over to meet the Sabbath guys.
Living with Don at the mansion was Sharon. He was so rich he lived in a vast Beverly Hills mansion once owned by Howard Hughes.
Don had mob connections he liked to boast of, liked it to be known he carried a gun, and had various expressions he liked to employ such as, “Legs do break.” Especially so, the implication was, if you were ever foolish enough to cross Don.ĭon made his money managing artists as diverse as Little Richard, Gene Vincent, the Animals, the Small Faces, ELO, and now Black Sabbath, to name just a few. Sharon was working for her father, Don Arden, one of the most fearsome managers in the music business. Wendy, meanwhile, had struck up a friendship with Sharon Arden, soon to become Sharon Osbourne. But at the same time, he remembers the excitement he felt about starting a new chapter for the iconic band with a song that would later appear on 1980’s platinum success, Heaven and Hell. In this exclusive excerpt, Dio recounts how Sharon Osbourne introduced him to Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and reveals the doubts he had initially about replacing Ozzy Osbourne. In recent years, Dio’s widow Wendy and journalist Mick Wall completed the book, with Rainbow in the Dark: The Autobiography. Around the time of his 2010 death, Ronnie James Dio was writing his autobiography, recounting how he had broken out of central New York State’s regional rock scene to front three mold-breaking heavy-metal groups: Rainbow (with former Deep Purple guitar hero Ritchie Blackmore), Black Sabbath, and his own eponymous Dio band.
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