Unconventional Wisdom: Ozzy Osbourne, Requiem For A Nice Man

The sudden loss of metal pioneer Ozzy Osbourne was a shocker, even at a time in my life when it seems there’s an endless parade of painful losses of the legends – artists and executives – who shaped the business we love so much.

Perhaps Ozzy should have been on our deadpool, but for me, somehow, he wasn’t, mostly because a world without Ozzy seemed hard to imagine. I always imagined Ozzy as being out there somewhere, doing something strange, with his wife and manager Sharon not far away, looking after him. Ozzy certainly had the makings of the original metal frontman, the charisma, the “it” factor, the willingness to cross lines that made him the first (and possibly last) of his kind. But it was because of Sharon’s love and professional instincts that Ozzy became the unlikeliest of household names.

Of course, I was aware of Ozzy Osbourne as a rock fan back in the ’70s, in no small part because of the song “Iron Man” and its opening stanza (which we always thought name checked its lead singer). Even at a time when rock stars could often live private lives, tales of Ozzy’s exploits were well known. And, unlike many rock star rumors of the era, most of Ozzy’s were actually true. He really did bite the head off a bat. He really did snort a line of ants. He really did piss on the Alamo (OK, it was actually the Cenotaph at Alamo Plaza, but the actual Alamo makes for a better story). And Ozzy’s mayhem even reached my hometown of Nashville when the singer was MIA for a show at Municipal Auditorium in 1978 because he went to the wrong hotel room and could not be gathered in time for the show. The opener was a baby band known as Van Halen, who did their set that night, and both returned for a make-good three months later.

But there was much more to Ozzy than prodigious drug and alcohol consumption, and, thanks to Sharon’s creativity and toughness, the world came to know and love him for other qualities. Ozzy wasn’t the best singer in the world, but his vocals inspired generations of metal fans to “go f*cking crazy.” He could incite rowdiness with “Crazy Train” and “Paranoid” or evoke tears with “Changes” or “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” He wasn’t a pinup guy by any stretch, and clearly never aspired to be, but he found true love for the ages in Sharon, as devoted and loyal a partner as ever found in rock ’n’ roll. In an era known for groupies and sexcapades, the debauchery legends surrounding Ozzy were … DIFFERENT.

And, despite what his tales of infamy would have one believe, one thing Ozzy wasn’t was stupid. Crazy, maybe, but not dumb. I can personally attest, having met him a few times, that Ozzy actually owned a sharp wit, keen observation skills, and was staunch in his opinions. An intellectual lightweight could have never hung with Sharon, whose insight and business acumen remain as astute as it gets. Those of us who had the good fortune to be around Ozzy and Sharon together – always together – saw how close they were and how much Ozzy relied on Sharon to navigate life away from the stage. Intensely loyal and tough as nails, Sharon looked after Ozzy’s career expertly; I consider Sharon’s management of Ozzy Osbourne one of the all-time great artist management successes, starting in 1979 when he was unceremoniously booted from Black Sabbath. I would go so far as to say that it’s doubtful another manager could have built such a successful and remarkably consistent career for this particular artist.

Sharon’s management skills were not lost on her star client. Certainly, being married in both career and life would have its own special dynamic. “Sometimes I wonder, ‘Is she telling me this as my wife or is she telling me this as my fucking manager?’” Ozzy admitted to me in a Billboard interview. “Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it ain’t. But you know what, she ain’t done such a bad job with me over the years.”

I came to know Sharon, and later Ozzy, by way of promoter Louie Messina, and covering the beginnings of the Ozzfest, which Louie promoted while still helming PACE Concerts. If Ozzy was known for biting the heads off bats, Sharon was fully capable of biting the heads off people – sweetly. That discipline included her husband. “I need that kind of thing,” Ozzy said. “When my ego kicks in, she’s one to go, ‘Get the fuck out of here.’ She just tells me the way it is. We’re in it together.”

Through my job I have been fortunate enough to interview many music stars, and British rock royalty like David Bowie, Pete Townshend, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Frampton, Roger Daltrey and, absolutely, Ozzy Osbourne are among my favorites. British rock, like the previously mentioned, are enamored of American culture and tend to be endlessly curious about livin’ in the USA. My takeaway from knowing Ozzy a little bit is not that he was crazy; it’s that he was quite intelligent and most of all he was NICE. Believe me when I say not all artists can be described like that, just like not all of any group can be. Even me, sometimes.

More than anything, Ozzy loved his fans, and the fans loved him back, and he never phoned it in, whatever state, or STATE, he might be in. “I want to give the audience my heart and soul every night, but sometimes I pull it off and sometimes I don’t,” Ozzy told me in that interview for Billboard some 15 years ago, even then realizing the challenges wrought by biology for a singer. “We’re human. I don’t use any tricks, I don’t lip sync my voice, what you see is what you get. I’ve done my fair share of bad gigs, and I’m not embarrassed to say that.”

Metal fans are notoriously hard to please and ridiculously loyal, often to the exclusion of every other act. For the fans, loving Ozzy sometimes meant NOT loving Sharon for whatever career decision might piss them off, being the lineup of Ozzfest to whatever venue was played, or not played, as the case may be. Sharon took a beating from fans on the message boards more than once. Personally, I believe Sharon won the grudging respect of these hard-bitten fans, and when I told Sharon as much in our most recent interview, she remained unconvinced. “I don’t know about that. Fans, I don’t know,” she said. “As long as they respect Ozzy, that’s all I care about.”

And that, really, was the crux of it. If Sharon was tough, and she most certainly was, it was because she had to be. “It’s expected to be a hard businessperson when you’re a man, especially in this genre of music that we deal in,” she told me once in another Billboard interview. “We’re not like the Philharmonic Orchestra, where people are gentle. But when a woman’s hard, it’s like, ‘Whoa, she’s a bitch.’ Women are not supposed to be tough, but you have to be.”

Something else Ozzy told me in that old interview that seems appropriate now: “People ask if I have any advice to give them. The only thing I could say really is that if you’ve got any dreams of a better life or you want to do something, hold onto the dream because sometimes they come true,” he said. “That’s the case for me. My prospects for the rest of my life weren’t that good when I was a kid. The whole journey for me has been magical.”
RIP, Ozzy Osbourne, you were one of the all-time greats.