From their start as a heavy blues-rock band called Earth in 1968, Black Sabbath survived over four decades with a total of 19 studio albums and numerous hits, but only “Paranoid” reached the top 10 UK Singles Chart, putting together one of the greatest rock bands of all time and setting the standards for music in their genre.

Virtually every single heavy metal band has cited the early Black Sabbath albums as a major musical influence and Black Sabbath have at least played some part in laying the foundations for most of heavy metal’s sub-genres, including thrash metal (“Symptom of the Universe” and “Into the Void”), doom metal (“Black Sabbath”) and stoner metal (“Sweet Leaf”). The band also explored many rock sub-genres, including hard rock (“Paranoid”), blues rock (“N.I.B.”), psychedelic rock (“Planet Caravan”) and, of course, the traditional heavy metal, being one of the precursors of this genre.

They were ranked by MTV as the “Greatest Metal Band” of all time and placed second in VH1’s “100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock” list. Rolling Stone magazine ranked them number 85 in their “100 Greatest Artists of All Time.” They have sold over 70 million records worldwide. Black Sabbath were inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. They have also won two Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance.

(Original members at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

Last line-up:

Tony Iommi: guitars (1968-2017)
Geezer Butler: bass (1968-1979, 1980-1985, 1991-1994, 1997-2017)
Ozzy Osbourne: vocals (1968-1978, 1978-1979, 1997-2017)

Other important members:

Ronnie James Dio: vocals (1979-1982, 1991-1992)
Bill Ward: drums (1968-1980, 1982-1983, 1984-1985, 1994-2012)