What Sharon Osbourne Really Thinks About Ronnie James Dio
Sharon Osbourne was a special guest on the "Wild Ride! With Steve-O" podcast on July 16. During the interview, Sharon Osbourne was asked what she thinks about Ronnie James Dio, who replaced her husband on Black Sabbath.
On a similar occasion, back in 2019, Wendy Dio, widow of the legendary Ronnie James Dio, gave an interview to the podcast "The Church Of What's Happening Now With Joey CoCo Diaz" and during said interview, Wendi talked about the relationship between Dio and Ozzy Osbourne.
Asked if there was any kind of friction between Ozzy Osbourne and Ronnie James Dio because of one replacing the other in the lead role of Black Sabbath, Wendi replied: "No way, no. No way. We saw him many times at Rainbow - the famous bar located in West Hollywood, California - or in different places, and they just said 'Hi, how are you? What's going on?'. They were not great friends, but they were always very polite, very kind to each other. Always."
Let’s remember that the original Black Sabbath line-up ended in 1979 with Ozzy Osbourne's resignation due to his alcohol addiction and use of other drugs. He was replaced by Ronnie James Dio, former Rainbow vocalist. After recording two albums with Dio, Black Sabbath faced numerous changes during the 80s and 90s, which included vocalists Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Ray Gillen and Tony Martin, as well as several drummers and bassists.
In 1992, Tony Iommi and Butler teamed up with Dio and drummer Vinny Appice to record “Dehumanizer”. The original line-up got together in 1997, when they recorded the live album “Reunion”. Black Sabbath's last studio album, entitled 13, was released in June 2013 and featured Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Ozzy Osbourne. Between 2016 and 2017 they did "The End Tour", a tour that officially marked the end of the group's career.
Now, in a new interview with Sharon Osbourne and Steve-O, Sharon shared her thoughts about the time Black Sabbath and Ronnie James Dio spent together.
“They had two hit albums,” she said. “They did, they had two good hit albums, they had two good tours together. Then it was the band were fighting. There was a lot of fighting in the band with Ronnie.”
Sharon Osbourne also added her thoughts regarding Ronnie James Dio’s vocal capabilities: “Ronnie had a great voice but to change a band that had a kind of bluesy type vocal, real gritty bluesy vocal to a rock opera vocal, it was so different,” she said. “I always looked at Ronnie as a Rock opera type singer. Ozzy had such a bluesy voice, I never got it.”
Despite thinking that Dio’s voice was a big change from Ozzy’s style in Black Sabbath, Sharon confesses herself to be a fan of the late singer: “He’s good,” she said. “On his own, Dio’s great.”
After Dio left Sabbath, Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Ray Gillen and Tony Martin also performed with the group, as well as several other bass players and drummers, until Ozzy returned to Black Sabbath, and Sharon commented on this period that the band had several members going in and out of the group. “Well, they kept getting all these different guys in,” Sharon Osbourne said. “Every week it was somebody else and somebody else.”
Still about this troubling times, Sharon commented that she didn’t like seeing the fact that Black Sabbath weren’t as big as they once were: “They were doing really badly and taking silly gigs, like playing under somebody. They weren’t the headliner anymore. Always when you go from that headliner to okay, now you’re underneath and you’re on somebody else’s tour. For so long it’s your tour and you’re the headliner, then you drop, it’s very humbling.”
Do you agree with Sharon’s comments? What’s your favorite Black Sabbath era?
Watch the full Sharon Osbourne “Wild Ride! With Steve-O” interview below:
Source: Cheatsheet.com
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