Ozzy Osbourne: Black-Sabbath-Frontmann died | Stern.de

The legendary heavy metal singer and reality TV star Ozzy Osbourne is dead. He died on Tuesday at the age of 76. This was announced by his family. Just a few weeks ago, Osbourne, who had Parkinson, had given a acclaimed farewell concert in his hometown Birmingham.

In a statement by his family, about which several British media report, it says: “With more grief than expressing words, we have to tell that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne died this morning. He was surrounded by his family and love,” it says. The family therefore asks to respect privacy.

Osbourne achieved international fame in the 1970s as an energetic front man of Black Sabbath. The influential heavy metal band was founded in Birmingham in 1968. Osbourne was born there in a working -class district on December 3, 1948.

With their dark, heavy sound, the hard guitar riffs and the cynical texts, Black Sabbath became pioneers of the genre. Her most famous songs include “Paranoid”, “Iron Man” and “War Pigs”.

Osbournes striking, nasal voice was the formative element of music next to the dark guitar sound by Tony Iommi. In addition to the rather introverted lead guitarist and the almost stoic bassist Geezer Geezer, the showman acted on stage like an insane, jumped around on stage and clapped his hands wildly. The band fired him in 1979 because of drug and alcohol problems.

With the help of his manager Sharon Arden, whom he later married, Osbourne started a solo career. With hits like “Crazy Train”, “Mr. Crowley” or “I Don’t Know”, his debut album “Blizzard of Ozz” (1980) became a commercial success. Overall, the notorious rock star is said to have sold around 100 million records.

His wild appearance, the game with the provocation and with horror elements delighted the fans, but screamed conservative and religious groups, especially in the USA.

Again and again the musician caused scandals. At a concert he bent his head off a bat that a viewer had become on stage because he thought it was a rubber animal. Again and again he was accused of being a devil worshiper, but Osbourne always rejected it, with black magic he had nothing to do with.

He is primarily known to a younger audience as an eccentric family of the award-winning documentary soap “The Osbournes”. In 2002, the world was able to experience his marriage and the crazy life with the no less dazzling children Kelly and Jack up close when the Osbournes could be filmed for MTV day and night. That also helped his musical career.

He teamed up again several times with Black Sabbath. In 2013, the band shot back to the top of the charts with the comeback plate “13” before saying goodbye to their fans with their “The End Tour” in 2016 and 2017. Shortly afterwards, Ozzy Osbourne started his own farewell tour as a solo artist, which he had to stop for health reasons.

In recent years, the legendary front man, who was called John Michael Osbourne, has had to deal with numerous health problems. In 2019 Parkinson’s was diagnosed. At that time he was combative. “This is not the end of Ozzy Osbourne, I promise you that,” he told Guardian at the time.

And in fact he fulfilled a long -cherished dream and appeared on July 5th one last time. In the Villa Park stadium in his hometown Birmingham, he gave a big farewell concert with the last strength, in which he could only sing a few songs and made his appearance while sitting.