Black Sabbath and the 60's

To start off, in the 60's many genre's had began to form as instruments had been made much more available for middle class people meaning that you didn't have to be rich in order to have a instrument. This mean't that more people had played instruments then and so there was a much bigger variety of creativity in the 60's. Also another reason for new genre's to be formed was the movement in society at the time. This is as in the 60's there was a massive difference in how children were treated as the parents in the 60's were used to having a more strict/rough childhood whereas in the 60's the children were a lot more free and so because of this the youth had rebelled a lot causing protests against the government. A massive influence for this was the U.S.A government being involved in a lot of wars and conflicts as well as in a competition against the Soviet Union as the two battled to show which one is better. This could be seen in events such as the cold war, the moon landing and digging the deepest hole on earth. All these events had influenced Black Sabbath's writing in one way or another as for example the song War Pig's is based on the wars and conflicts happening all around the world for no reason other than greed. This could be seen in the lines: "General's gathered in their masses, just like witch's at black masses" or "Politicians hide themselves away, They only started the war. Why should they go out to fight?" Which shows hte frustration with the government especially in the western society which started many conflicts for no other reason than to for example get the other countries oil.

Moving onto the members of Black Sabbath who already were active as musicians in the mid 60's, Tony Iommi for example had began his musical career in a rock/blues band called "Rockin Chevrolets" which explains Iommi's playing style which consists of many slides and hammer on and pull off's which are very common in blues. Geezer Butler on the other hand was highly influenced by the Beatle's and John Lennon specifically. He even played in a band, before he joined Black Sabbath, which was called Rare Breed which was also a rock band. In Rare breed Butler had played rhythm guitar whereas when he joined Black Sabbath he began playing bass and has named Jack Bruce from Cream " as his biggest influence as a bassist.". Butler was also described by Iommi as "from another planet" as Butler had dressed as a hippie, he had done plenty of drugs such as LSD and he was very peaceful. Ozzy Osbourne had also began his musical career in the band Rare breed along with Butler who recruited Osbourne as their vocalist. After 2 shows Rare Breed had split up which caused Butler, Osbourne, Iommi and Bill Ward to form the band Polka Tulk blues which later was renamed to Earth. After they were accidently booked for a show instead of a different band called Earth they Decided to change their name to Black Sabbath. This shows that Black Sabbath originally was actually a blues band formed in 1967. The name Black Sabbath originated from a movie which was of the same title. The band had then noticed that many people enjoyed horror/thriller movies and that many people actually enjoyed being scared. This had led Black Sabbath into playing "heavier blues" with dark lyrical themes as well as having the majority of their music in major. This is because at that time in the 60's Black Sabbath had realised that there wasn't actually any music that caused horror among people whereas Osbourne and Butler in particular were fans of occultism and so they decided to begin something original which hasn't been done before. Moving onto Bill Ward the drummer of Black Sabbath, he had began his musical journey in a band called The Rest. Bill began playing drums at a young age, being influenced by bands of the 40's such as Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich. He had then began listening to 60's bands and had named musicians such as Ringo Starr and Bernard Purdie as his main influences in his playing style.

https://www.blacksabbath.com/history.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Iommi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geezer_Butler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozzy_Osbourne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ward_(musician)

http://www.academia.edu/7533321/A_look_into_Black_Sabbaths_influence_in_the_genre_of_metal\

https://genius.com/Black-sabbath-war-pigs-lyrics

https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/cold-war-history

https://www.history.com/topics/1960s

http://www.lessonsite.com/ArchivePages/HistoryOfTheWorld/Lesson31/Protests60s.htm