{"id":792584,"date":"2019-01-31T08:49:57","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T15:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=787405"},"modified":"2019-01-31T08:49:57","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T15:49:57","slug":"flashback-black-sabbath-play-the-wizard-with-tony-martin-in-1994","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/flashback-black-sabbath-play-the-wizard-with-tony-martin-in-1994\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Black Sabbath Play \u2018The Wizard\u2019 With Tony Martin in 1994"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cBeing in Sabbath was a complete drama,\u201d vocalist Tony Martin said in 2014<\/a> of his time in the iconic metal band Black Sabbath<\/a>. \u201cI never really had the chance to settle into it because I was constantly learning the ropes or reading between the lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Martin appeared on more studio albums than any other Sabbath singer besides Ozzy Osbourne, his tenure in the band \u2014 two separate stints from 1987 to 1991 and 1993 to 1997 \u2014\u00a0remains strangely low-profile, vastly overshadowed by Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio\u2019s celebrated eras.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s fourth album with the band, Cross Purposes<\/em>, came out 25 years ago, and to mark the date, we\u2019re taking a look back at the band\u2019s tour behind that LP. In addition to a few songs from the then-new record, plus a few from the first Dio era, the set list for the Cross Purposes<\/em> dates included a couple older Sabbath songs that hadn\u2019t been played live since the early Seventies. Here, in footage from an April \u201994 London show, you can watch Martin sing one of those: \u201cThe Wizard,\u201d a classic track from the band\u2019s 1970 self-titled debut. Along with Martin and guitarist Tony Iommi<\/a> \u2014 the band\u2019s only consistent member during its roughly five-decade history \u2014 the lineup features bassist and co-founder Geezer Butler, longtime on-and-off keyboardist Geoff Nichols and drummer Bobby Rondinelli, who had worked with both Rainbow and Quiet Riot before Sabbath.<\/p>\n

In other clips<\/a>, you can hear that the Ozzy-era material wasn\u2019t always the best fit for Martin\u2019s lower, grittier voice, but \u201cThe Wizard\u201d seems to suit him perfectly. His delivers a gutsy, thoroughly convincing version of the song, and handles the signature harmonica riff with ease.<\/p>\n

In his 2011 memoir Iron Man<\/em>, Iommi explained the origins of the song, which stayed in the set list through the era of Martin\u2019s final Sabbath album, 1995\u2019s Forbidden<\/em>, and resurfaced in 2001, once Ozzy was back in the band.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then we did a lot of dope,\u201d Iommi writes. \u201cOne night we were at this club, in the middle of nowhere. Ozzy and Geezer saw somebody leaping around outside, being silly. To them it was like an elf or something. I fear it must have been the drugs, but that\u2019s where I think \u2018The Wizard\u2019 came from \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Sabbath last performed the song in 2012. As for Martin, he parted ways with the band in 1997, when Ozzy rejoined. \u201cThe phone stopped ringing 16 years ago and they haven\u2019t spoken to me since,\u201d he said in 2014. \u201cI saw Iommi very briefly for a few hours in Russia a few years ago and he was very complimentary about me but after that I heard nothing.\u201d As for Iommi, surprisingly, he announced late last year<\/a> that he\u2019s turning his attention to a remix of Forbidden,<\/em> an album that, along with Martin\u2019s final officially released Sabbath performances, included a polarizing cameo from Ice T.<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBeing in Sabbath was a complete drama,\u201d vocalist Tony Martin said in 2014 of his time in the iconic metal band Black Sabbath. \u201cI never really had the chance to settle into it because I was constantly learning the ropes or reading between the lines.\u201d Though Martin appeared on more studio albums than any other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-792584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 07:10:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=792584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/792584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=792584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=792584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=792584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}