Ozzy Osbourne: the working-class Brummie who became heavy metal royalty

Black Sabbath's frontman Ozzy Osborne, the people's 'Prince of Darkness', has died aged 76

Ozzy Osbourne
(Image credit: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music/Getty Images)

The teenage John “Ozzy” Osbourne did “not seem like someone with a glittering future ahead of them”, says Alexis Petridis in The Guardian. He had a troubled childhood in his native Birmingham and struggled at school. His prospects when he left at 15 “seemed non-existent”. He could not even make it as a burglar – some comically inept escapades ended in jail.

But on his release, he wrote “Ozzy Zig needs a gig” on a card in the window of a local music shop, says the BBC. The rest is rock-music history. But no one was more surprised at the success of what became Black Sabbath than Ozzy himself. Ozzy, who died this week at the age of 76, once said the thing he was most proud of was that his band was not the creation of some music mogul. It was just four ordinary guys who decided “let’s have a go” and “succeeded beyond their wildest expectations”.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.