Black Sabbath Paranoid

As we edge closer to the “final shows” by Black Sabbath, one not unexpected thing has happened. We have an announcement of a new compilation from Universal. The compilation is called “Black Sabbath: The Ultimate Collection”. This is a two CD compilation from Sanctuary/BMG. I’ve written about this in the past on the site, but this means that it won’t be released domestically, as this is based off the European record contract that covers from 1970-1987, whereas the Warner/Rhino contract covers US/North America. The two territories can’t sell in each other’s area unless something special has been worked out license wise. Anyway, this is a good cross section of the 70’s Ozzy era material. It’s not the usual Iron Man / Paranoid / War Pigs we get on things like this. Spans 31 songs, and includes the Bill Ward sung “It’s Alright”, so that alone is worth the price of admission given all the bullshit that’s gone on with Bill and the band.

Almost five decades ago, the toll of a bell and rolling thunder marked the conception of an ear splittingly monolithic riff. In that moment, Black Sabbath and the sound of Heavy Metal were forged. The band embarked on what Ozzy describes as “the most incredible adventure you could think of”, a journey that would go on to define a genre.

Parisian Bitch is a 1997 bootleg CD by British heavy metal band Black Sabbath. This, a soundboard recording, was recorded in 1983 during their Born Again tour, which means Ian Gillan was their vocalist at the time so it's a chance to hear Gillan sing "Paranoid" and "Children Of The Grave", plus a Sabbath version of "Smoke On The Water". On top of that, Electric Light Orchestra's Bev Bevan was their drummer as well. This was released by the Bondage Music label.

This show was professionally filmed at the Olympia theatre in Paris, France on December 19, 1970.
This show is quite rare, and this is one of the best versions of it available. There have been a couple of other versions of this show in circulation that were sourced from 2nd or 3rd Generation VHS copies.

More than a box set of Remastered materials, Rhino's release of The Rules Of Hell is a five-disc testimonial chronicling one of the most exciting yet underrated episodes in hard rock/heavy metal history: that of Ronnie James Dio's contributions to the Black Sabbath mythos…

Surprisingly, Warner Brothers never released a live Black Sabbath album in the U.S. during Ozzy Osbourne's years with the band. It wasn't until 1982's double-LP Live Evil (which featured Ronnie James Dio instead of the Oz) that Warner finally put out a live Sabbath album in the U.S. Released in England in 1980, Live at Last is a single LP that was recorded before Osbourne's departure but didn't come out until after he had left. Unfortunately, this LP's liner notes are problematic. Nems lets you know that Live at Last was recorded in Manchester, England, and at the Rainbow in London, but no recording dates are given. And Osbourne's first name is misspelled "Ossie."