I’m not much of a fan of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, to put it mildly (a rant likely to come in a future column). But the induction of Ozzy Osbourne into it utterly delights me.
This might surprise regular readers, as he’s stylistically parsecs removed from the music I tend to like and champion. Some of you might also find it odd that the reason why is that I worked doing publicity for Ozzy. And enjoyed doing it and him immensely.
It was late 1983 when I was hired on as the East Coast Office for the LA-based music PR shop Jensen Communications. Among their clients was Ozzy, who firm honcho Michael Jensen had already hooked me up with to interview twice.
I first met Osbourne as he opened the door to the Arden condo at the Helmsley Palace in midtown Manhattan, a palatial space with two-story windows along two sides of the huge open main room (owned his wife/manager Sharon’s music mogul father). Ozzy was dressed in medical scrubs that I assumed were from his recent stint in rehab for alcohol and drugs.
He was immediately warm and welcoming. As we headed to a couch and chairs, his gait was unsteady and both his arms were shaking, I assumed from the DTs. As he struggled to take a cigarette from its pack and went to light it, tremors shook his arms and hands. It felt painful to watch. Yet he succeeded in doing it time and time again throughout our hour together as if it was totally normal.
What won me over was his honesty and sense of humor about everything, even his huge foibles. One tale he told was how started drinking one day in London, “and came out of my blackout three days later in Germany, and had no idea how the f*** I got there,” he said, chuckling at it all. By the end of the hour, I was thoroughly charmed. He was anything but the minion of Satan some believed him to be.
The first show I covered as his publicist on his tour backing his Bark at the Moon album was at Philadelphia’s Spectrum arena. Afterwards, there was a knock on my hotel room door. I opened it, and there was Osbourne, who managed to slip away from his bodyguard. (“The reason Ozzy has a bodyguard is to protect himself from from his body,” Jensen once noted.)
“Got anything to drink?” he asked, as he shuffled towards the minibar.
“Ozzy. Get away from the minibar!” He stopped, not giving me any star of the show attitude, insisting that he could do whatever he wanted. Instead, he shrugged and plopped into a chair. We chatted for a bit and then he wandered off to another room in search of booze.
During the months I worked on the tour, I regularly dealt with Sharon, who’s become a media personality as well. She was firm, but fair, with, like Ozzy – of whom she was very protective – a nice sense of humor and irony. Sharon has proven herself to be something of a marketing genius with the Ozzfest tours and festivals. And, of course, the hit family reality TV show, “The Osbournes.”
I like to quip that I was an occasional secondary walk-on star on “The Osbournes: The Prequel.” People of all ages and stripes are almost always impressed when I mention that I worked with the Blizzard of Oz, His fame has gone far beyond the rock world, in which he has sold some 100 million albums and won five Grammy Awards.
The Ozzy I knew, and in my interactions, was a sweet, rather clever bloke, eminently lovable, super friendly and unpretentiously honest about himself. Superstardom hasn’t seemed to change him one bit.
His life story, to me, epitomizes the redemption rock’n’roll offers. If it hadn’t been for the music, he might well have spent decades working in a slaughterhouse, as he did before his singing career started with Black Sabbath, the band that later canned him. Hence I love the typically Ozzy comment on his HOF induction: “Not bad for a guy who was fired from his last band.”
Rock Music Albums: Tone Wrecker, Play Loud and Boom Boom Boom by The Blue Bonnets – Speaking of the R&R HOF, member Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s has a new all-woman band whose four-to-the-floor rock’n’roll abounds with verve, spunk, sleek grooves and hooks galore. Valentine and Austin hotshot Eve Monsees knit their guitars together like Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood behind singer/bassist Dominique Davalos to take listeners on a soaring musical magic carpet ride. If you like to rock out, all three LPs are roof-raising delights. Girl power indeed.
Rock Music Album: Fu##in’ Up by Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Young and the Horse are my top go-to band when I need raggedly glorious rocking. They’re joined by guitarist Micah Nelson (Willie’s son) on a 2023 live disc that bursts with a shower of bursts and sparks.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2024
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