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Black Sabbath music biography continued...

friends from Aston, near Birmingham, England: Anthony "Tony" Iommi (guitar); William "Bill" Ward (drums); John "Ozzy" Osbourne ,(vocals); and Terence "Geezer" Butler ( bass). They took their name in 1969 from a popular occult novel of the time. The quartet's self- titled 1970 debut, recorded in two days, went to number 8 in England and number 23 in the U.S. A single, "Paranoid," released in advance of the album of the same name, reached number 4 in the U.K. later that year, it was the group's only Top Twenty hit. Beginning in December 1970 Sabbath toured the States relentlessly. The constant road work paid off, and by 1974 Black Sabbath was considered peerless among heavy-metal acts, its first five LPs all having sold at least a million copies apiece in America alone.
Over the years Sabbath members got in a number of spats, leading to several personnel changes, including the addition of Ronnie Dio in place of Osbourne on vocals. By 1986's Seventh Star, only Iommi remained from the original lineup. Despite bitterness expressed in the press between Osbourne and Iommi, the original foursome reunited in 1985 at the Live-Aid concert in Philadelphia, and again in 1992, at the end of what was supposedly Osbourne's last tour. Currently, the early 1980s line-up of the band featuring Iommi, Butler, Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice are touring under the moniker Heaven and Hell, a title taken from the 1980 Black Sabbath album of the same name. The original and best known line-up is frequently credited as being the inventors of the heavy metal genre. The band has sold over 100 million albums and Black Sabbath songs continue to get constant air play on classic rock stations in the U.S. and abroad.