lunes, 5 de mayo de 2008

Miércoles, cinco de mayo

Era miércoles, cinco de mayo, 60 años atrás (2008-60=1948 para aquellos que se educaron en que la agilidad mental es mala), cuando nacía en Aston, Birmingham (esto cae por Inglaterra), Bill Ward.

Cuando nació no se sabía que iba a ser el primer batería de Black Sabbath; en cambio ahora sí que se sabe. Son las paradojas del tiempo en las que se sustentan las apuestas que deben hacerse antes de que el hecho acaezca.


Aunque la historia siempre tiene puntos de vista diferentes, traigo aquí este extracto de la historia de la wikipedia inglesa en el que se ve que, realmente, los caminos del señor son inescrutables.
Following the breakup of their previous band Mythology in 1968, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward sought to form a heavy blues band in Aston, Birmingham, England. The group enlisted bassist Geezer Butler, and vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, who had played together in a band called Rare Breed. The new group was initially named The Polka Tulk Blues Company, and also featured slide guitarist Jimmy Phillips and saxophonist Alan "Aker" Clarke. After shortening the name to Polka Tulk, the band changed their name to Earth, and continued as a four-piece without Phillips and Clarke.



As Earth, the group played club shows in England, Denmark, and Germany, with sets consisting of cover songs by Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, and Cream; as well as lengthy improvised blues jams. In December 1968, Tony Iommi abruptly left Earth to join Jethro Tull. Although his stint with the band would be short-lived, Iommi made an appearance with Jethro Tull on the The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus TV show. Unsatisfied with the direction of Jethro Tull, Iommi returned to Earth in January 1969. "It just wasn't right, so I left", Iommi said. "At first I thought Tull were great, but I didn't much go for having a leader in the band, which was Ian Anderson's way. When I came back from Tull, I came back with a new attitude altogether. They taught me that to get on you got to work for it".



While playing shows in England in 1969, the band discovered they were being mistaken for another English group named Earth, and decided to again change their name. A movie theater across the street from the band's rehearsal room was showing the 1963 Boris Karloff horror film Black Sabbath. While watching people line up to see the film, Osbourne noted that it was "strange that people spend so much money to see scary movies". Butler wrote a song titled "Black Sabbath" after reading a book by occult writer Dennis Wheatley, and seeing a black-hooded figure standing at the foot of his bed. Making use of the musical tritone, also known as "The Devil's Interval", the song's ominous sound and dark lyrics pushed the band in a darker direction, a stark contrast to the popular music of the late 1960s, which was dominated by flower power, folk music, and hippie culture. Inspired by the new sound, the band changed their name to Black Sabbath in August 1969, and made the decision to focus writing similar material, in an attempt to create the musical equivalent of horror films.



Black Sabbath were signed to the Phonogram subsidiary Phillips Records in December 1969, and released their first single, "Evil Woman" in January 1970. Although the single failed to chart, the band were afforded two days of studio time in late January to record their debut album with producer Rodger Bain. Iommi recalls recording live: "We thought 'We have two days to do it and one of the days is mixing.' So we played live. Ozzy was singing at the same time, we just put him in a separate booth and off we went. We never had a second run of most of the stuff."



Black Sabbath, 1970: Bill Ward, Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, and Geezer Butler The eponymous Black Sabbath was released on Friday the 13th, February, 1970. The album reached number 8 in the UK, and following its US release in May 1970 by Warner Bros. Records, the album reached number 23 on the Billboard 200, where it remained for over a year, selling a million copies. While the album was a commercial success, it was widely panned by critics, with Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone dismissing the album as "discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitized speedfreaks all over each other's musical perimeters, yet never quite finding synch".



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