Well, It's Official: Ozzy Osbourne Can't Sing Anymore

[stubhead]

The worse part of it is, the bands that are represented by ONE, two, maybe three songs which very often isn't their best work at all. Talk to hard-core Hendrixites and "The Cry of Love" always comes up - "Drifting", "EZ Ryder", "Angel", "Night Bird Flying" - yikes. He hated "Hey Joe" and "Purple Haze", besides just being tired of playing them, he knew that as songwriting and arranging parts went, they were his "Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "Love Me Do." And the same is true of so many, even most, good acts. Those "Sugar" guys - I always liked their offbeat stuff more than the "rock classics", like "Ruby Tuesday", "Just Wanna See His Face", "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" etc. ZZ Top was only interesting to me when they got weird. And a lot of bands were only it in for the live playing, besides the obvious Dead & Allmans, I'll bet most people had no idea that... Iron Butterfly was a good band. Just never on record... It was hard for me to listen to John Cougar, Segar, and Springsteen's "story" songs because I felt they were trying to write dumber than they were. Maybe not, though!  :icon_biggrin: No danger of this guy arranging dumb parts -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMIIBOaHfD0

(sounds entirely like a Strat into a clean Twin Reverb, too.... The power is is in the shifting, interlocking writing.)

 

[dmraco]

Jeff Beck can still rip it up in total style, and Ian Gillian & Glenn Hughes can too!

Glenn yes.  Ian not so much.  I saw them last year and he was awful  I really felt sorry for him.  Steve Morse was excellent.

 

[Cagey]

I was a huge fan of Ian Gillian back in the day. Helluva voice. But, he's 67 years old now. If you put his balls in a bench vise and squeezed he couldn't hit the notes he used to.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

For Hendrix, Hey Joe and Watchtower weren't his.  He thought enough of their arrangements to cover them.  Though, short as his career was, how tired of playing them could he have been?  It's staggering to think that I may have played Hey Joe more than Jimi ever did.

 

[Cagey]

...short as [Hendrix's] career was, how tired of playing them could he have been?  It's staggering to think that I may have played Hey Joe more than Jimi ever did.

Hah! I never thought of it that way, but that's gotta be true for me, too.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Improv-wise, Hey Joe is great.  It's slow enough and has enough changes to do just about anything you want on top of.

 

[swarfrat]

Ok, I have a confession to make. I didn't grow up listening to the radio at all. So I missed a lot of 'my generation's music the first time around.

I actually LIKE "Hit me with your best shot", though I'm sure I would have really been tired of it had I been exposed to the height of its radio blitz.

 

[AutoBat]

I hope you're happy. I googled Brown Sugar.  The radio stations I grew up with it didn't play it very often.  It's vaguely familiar but that's all.  The rotation they played would make you think that Angie, Shattered (shadoobie), & Satisfaction were all the Rolling Stones ever made.

 

[Cagey]

We were much luckier in the Detroit area. Used to be there were several FM stations that played very large and broad selections of music from a lot of different artists, and in fact that was where we were introduced to many bands for the first time. But, things were different back then. At that time, the scandal was that the producers would pay DJs to play their new stuff so it would get noticed, accepted, and eventually purchased. Plus, there were real DJs who you could call and ask for a particular thing to be played. The radio station was a much more social thing then.

Today, the RIAA and various other rent seekers have things so screwed up that the stations have to pay the studios to play anything, so the list of what they'll play is necessarily small. I haven't even turned my stereo on in about 3 years now. No point to it. The few stations that play anything I'd listen to apparently only own about 3 albums, and can only play one or two songs off each. It's ridiculous.

 

[dmraco]

Back to Ozzy.  I must say he CAN STILL SING.  Last nights show in Philly was great.  Sure, there were some flat spots, probably only audible to 5% of the audience who are actually musically inclined.  He was 100% more in tone than DLR was on the last VH tour.
Ozzy was messing with his monitors during the show a bit.  He should probably stop dumping water on his head!!


Tony and Geezer were amazing.  So happy to have been able to see them play.  I also must say their new song Is God Dead was one of the highlights of the show...along with NIB, War Pigs, Fairies Wear boots...the list goes on.

Recommendation....go see them while you still can.  All are old and Tony is still getting Chemo treatments every six weeks....

 

[Cagey]

I saw them at Cobo back about 100 years ago - I think it was the "Master of Reality" tour. Leslie West & Mountain warmed up for them. Leslie West was great. Sabbath - not so much. Too stoned, I suspect. Those tunes were dead simple - it was teenage garage band fodder - but they were sloppy as... something very sloppy.

It was funny - there was actually a third unbilled band that warmed up for Leslie West, and we thought that was Leslie West. They sucked bad. Couldn't believe it. Then Leslie West came on, and we thought that was Sabbath. Again, couldn't believe it. Didn't expect them so sound so good. Then Sabbath finally came on, and we got that slop.

I know, it sounds like we must have been stoned out our gourds to be so confused. Truth be told, we probably were. This was the early '70s, after all. But, you have to remember that back then, you didn't see any of these bands on TV, and there was no such thing as the internet, so you had no idea what to expect or what anybody looked like.

 

[Johnny]

Been busy the last couple of weeks and just saw this. We go see a number of concerts with friends of ours and saw BS a couple of weeks ago in Austin. Yes, Ozzie was off on a number of tunes but after buying tickets I was pleasantly surprised to see that they actually were all still healthy and able to do the show. Never was a big BS fan but was afraid I'd never get another chance. Tony and Geezer were great. In fact, Tony looked really good and I'm happy to see him doing well.

 

[Johnny]

Oh, and since nobody asked, the next concert with our friends is at the end of September with a band I really am a big fan of....Steely Dan.

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

No, Ozzy's not sounding his best, but if you wanna hear a few guys who have plunged from grace, give a listen to Don Dokken or Mark Slaughter.  Sad...very sad.

 

[sixstringsamurai]

Shoot...
Probably 3/4 of the bands that peaked in that era play a half step down from the original arrangements.

 

[dmraco]

Shoot...
Probably 3/4 of the bands that peaked in that era play a half step down from the original arrangements.

I was surprised that when Led Zep did their show 5 years ago, only ONE song was tuned down....Good Times Bad Times....

 

[stubhead]

I really feel sorry for Roger Daltry - the most famous YEEEAAAH! in the biz, on "Won't Get Fooled Again." It doesn't matter how much EQ, reverb and delays you put on it - you can't change an old man's croak into

YEEEAAAH!

  :-\​