Black Sabbath: birth of heavy metal

I find it impossible to pin down the starting point of rock 'n' roll.

Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Ike Turner, Elvis Presley, Little Richard and many others played key roles around the same time in the early 1950s and before.

But heavy metal, goes my column running in today's Herald, began on this day in 1970 with the release of "Black Sabbath."

Here's a snippet:

Ominous rainfall.

Church bells.

Thunder.

Crushing guitar riffs.

The sonic equivalent of a slow, scary journey through mental hell.

And then the ... “Oh, nooooooooooooo!” howl of lead singer Ozzy Osbourne, who sounds as if he were just thrown into a lake of fire.

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