Ozzy Osbourne was in many ways, the perfect everyman rock star, a complete fuckup gifted with a voice that launched heavy metal, a true love and appreciation for his fans and family and a sense of humor and persona that drew millions – including many who knew nothing of Black Sabbath — to their TV sets.

But it was in an upstairs room in a suburban Connecticut town that I first heard Ozzy sing.

The room belonged to Jeff Tropsa, a pal from Boy Scouts (a group my justly-concerned father insisted I join) who had dared to invite me to a sleepover.

We were sitting in the bedroom he shared with his brother, Greg, a pretty decent guitar player who fit the coveted cool older-brother mold. Jeff was a drummer, good enough to own a set of Ludwigs in the corner of the room, the bass drum emblazoned with the name of his band, The Electric Chainwavers. (Hey, it was 1970.)

I was 13.

We talked a lot, and played Greg’s records. His collection still seems impeccable. Cream. Mountain. After we finished spinning King Crimson’s first, there was a pause.

“You like heavy music, right?” Jeff asked.

Sure, I said.

“No, I mean, like TONS heavy? Have you heard Black Sabbath?”

Who? The name itself was scary but I didn’t fully grasp why.

No, I confessed. It was late summer and the record hadn’t been out long. But Greg had it.

“The singer,” Jeff enthused, “is a gravedigger!

“We can listen,” said Jeff, “but…”

This whole thing was beginning to feel like some litmus test of cool. Which I knew I’d never pass. I didn’t want to be here if this was the case.

My Navy brat background had always made cool nearly impossible. Moving every two years had made me disposable. I had developed an outer shell, impenetrable to friends. I’d just get the rhythm of a place and the Mayflower trucks would take our stuff to a new place.

But the Navy was in our past and I was going to have to stay in this pristine little Nutmeg State town for a while. And I didn’t have a lot of friends. So I was going to work at this.

Jeff continued. ….”if we’re going to do this, we have to do it right.”

He pulled out a book of matches.

Wow, I thought.

Then he lit a few candles around the room, turned off the lights, unsleeved the record and handed me the cover.

Whoa! That’s a witch, right?

He dropped the needle onto the LP.

Thunder. Bells. Rain.

And Ozzy.

“What is this that stands before me?”

What we heard was a birth –  heavy metal, doom metal in particular, a mix of blues, hard rock, sludge, horror pulp. Recorded pretty much live, in a single day.

I don’t remember if either of us said anything but we played that entire record over and over again. Thirty-eight minutes on repeat. Until dawn.

And nothing was the same, ever again.

Jeff moved to Arizona a few years later.

I’m not sure I’ve ever listened to that record with the lights on.

I took my oldest son, Ben, to Ozzfest a few times. The family sat around and watched “The Osbournes.”

And just last week my younger son, Dan, and I were sitting around a campfire in Maine, discussing records that had impacted us most deeply.

Sabbath’s Vol. 4, he noted. I sort of beamed.

It reminded me that with the help of the great local artist Eyeformation, our record store, Vinyl Destination, had issued a t-shirt in tribute to that very record’s cover.

Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Ozzy.

One Response to Prince of Darkness, indeed.

1. Paul Marion says: July 26, 2025 at 5:33 am

   Keep ’em coming, Dave. Great stuff. All the better for the personal interweaving with the expert musical testimony. Loose and lasting in quality.