walking upstream…
Black Sabbath
photo: warner bros. records · public domain ↗Black Sabbath
Forged in the industrial gloom of Birmingham, England, Black Sabbath took the blues-rock of the late '60s and detuned it into something ominous, slow, and enormous — inventing heavy metal more or less by accident while trying to sound heavier than everyone else on the bill. Tony Iommi's doom-laden riffs and Ozzy Osbourne's wailing, haunted voice gave rock and roll its darkest new vocabulary. Nearly six decades later, that vocabulary still underwrites every band that plays loud and low.
the sound in question
1970
ParanoidBlack Sabbath
walk the tributaries ↓
Cream1960s · Blues rock / Psychedelic rock
Black Sabbath started out as a blues band called Earth covering Cream and Hendrix in Birmingham clubs — Cream's heavy power-trio blues was the direct model they were chasing before they slowed it down and made it sinister.
listen: upstream & here
1967
Sunshine of Your LoveCream
1970
N.I.B.Black Sabbath
listen forHear Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love" next to Black Sabbath's "N.I.B." — both hang on a huge, simple, descending riff played dead-center of the beat, the same heavy-blues DNA before Sabbath dragged the tempo down into doom.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience1960s · Psychedelic rock / Blues rock
Tony Iommi has said Hendrix and Cream were simply the heaviest bands around when Sabbath was forming, and the band's early sets were built on covering exactly this kind of blues-drenched guitar heroics.
listen: upstream & here
1967
Purple HazeThe Jimi Hendrix Experience
1970
Iron ManBlack Sabbath
listen forSet Hendrix's "Purple Haze" against Sabbath's "Iron Man" — both turn a thick, distorted riff into the entire architecture of the song, guitar tone doing as much storytelling as the lyrics.
Blue Cheer1960s · Proto-metal / Psychedelic rock
Blue Cheer were already pushing blues-rock into fuzzed-out, overdriven extremes a couple of years before Sabbath's debut, part of the same late-'60s scramble toward heaviness that Sabbath eventually won.
listen: upstream & here
1968
Doctor PleaseBlue Cheer
1970
War PigsBlack Sabbath
listen forPlay Blue Cheer's "Doctor Please" next to Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" — both bury a simple blues progression under distortion and volume so extreme it stops sounding bluesy and starts sounding threatening.