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Tony Iommi Filmography
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Tony Iommi (born February 19, 1948, real name Frank Anthony Iommi) is a guitarist from Birmingham, UK, who is best known as a member of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath. He picked up the guitar as a teenager, after being inspired by the artists like of Hank Marvin & the Shadows.
In an industrial accident in his youth, he lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand - which, being left-handed, he uses to fret the strings of a guitar. At first he thought his days of playing guitar were over, however after some time, he was convinced to pick up the guitar again. This time, he strings his guitars with extra-light strings and wears plastic covers over those two fingers (though he started off using leather, which slowed his fingering down significantly). This also had an imapact on the Black Sabbath sound - in order to ease the tension on his fingers, Iommi detuned his guitar to C# (from E), making Black Sabbath one of (if not the) first bands to detune, now a mainstay of Heavy Metal music.
In 1967, Iommi had played in several blues/rock bands, and founded a new one entitled "Earth" with three old schoolmates, bassist Terry "Geezer" Butler, drummer Bill Ward, and the infamous John Osbourne a.k.a
Ozzy Osbourne. The group later went on to rename themselves first to Polka Tulk, and then to Black Sabbath. In 1968 Iommi briefly left Earth in 1968, to play in Jethro Tull, however after only one performance Iommi was back with Earth once more.
It may be argued that Tony Iommi was a pioneer of heavy metal riffing due to his guitar playing on now famous tracks such as "Paranoid", "War Pigs", "N.I.B", and "The Wizard". He combined blues-like guitar solos and dark, minor-key riffing with a revolutionary high-gain, heavily distorted tone with his use of a treble-boosting effect-pedal and a Gibson SG guitar. Classic albums by Black Sabbath include "
Black Sabbath", "Paranoid", "Masters of Reality", "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", and "Black Sabbath Vol.4". Albums like these have truly become almost forgotten masterpieces.
By the mid seventies, incessant drug usage had taken its toll on the band, and
Ozzy Osbourne was eventually fired in 1979. With Osbourne gone, the other two members eventually left aswell, leaving Iommi the only original member. Iommi eventually rebuilt the band with constant lineup changes, including volcalists like Ian Gillan who had recently left Deep Purple. The new Sabbath did manage a few hits, but it was nothing compared to the early years. The original Sabbath members reunited for tours in the late nineties.
After Black Sabbath lost vocalist Ian Gillan in 1984, Iommi attempted his first solo album (entitled Seventh Star), but due to label pressures, it was renamed
Black Sabbath featuring Tony Iommi. In 2000, he finally released his first solo album, titled simply Iommi. Iommi featured several guest vocalists, including Henry Rollins, Dave Grohl, Billy Corgan, Phil Anselmo, and
Ozzy Osbourne. In late 2004, Tony's second solo album was released, entitled The 1996 DEP Sessions. This album was originally recorded in 1996, but was never officially released until 2004. It was, however, available as an illegal bootleg called 8th Star. The vocalist on this album was
Glenn Hughes, who was ironically the same vocalist on the Sabbath Seventh Star album from 1996. Tony will release an as of yet unnamed third solo album later in 2005, also with
Glenn Hughes on vocals.
Iommi has well deserved signature Gibson SG, with a narrow (and 24 fret) fret board the way Iommi likes it.
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