How did Ozzy Osbourne stick it out this long? And would you really bet on his retirement from live performance being permanent, given the vicissitudes he has already weathered? The irrepressible 74-year-old former Black Sabbath frontman has dealt with decades of drug and alcohol addiction; coped with Parkin syndrome, a form of Parkinson’s; and the quad bike accident in 2003 that nearly killed him. Certainly, though, in both the 2011 documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne and The Osbournes, the TV series that turned him from moral threat to cuddly hero, you could always see the frailty only just below the surface.
Osbourne’s triumph as a rock star – as a founding father of metal, then as an MTV-friendly caricature of a wild man (though the wildness was very real), then finally as an elder statesman of heavy music – was startlingly unlikely. His voice had none of the rich, bluesy tone that dominated in British rock singing when Black Sabbath emerged at the end of the 1960s. Osbourne sang in a blank, desolate wail, with no vibrato. Where Rod Stewart sounded like he was singing from the bedroom doorway, Osbourne’s voice seemed to come from inside a padded cell.
