Tony Iommi
Frank Anthony " Tony" Iommi ( born February 19, 1948 in Birmingham, England ) is a British guitarist and founding member of heavy metal band Black Sabbath.
Biography
The beginnings
The guitar playing the son of Italian immigrants began as a teenager, he was inspired by this, especially the groundbreaking instrumental group The Shadows with her guitarist Hank Marvin. Prior to joining Black Sabbath, he played in several rock bands Blue. In the initial phase of the band, as this is still called Earth, he had in 1968 a short exposure to Jethro Tull, but he left after just one appearance. With this lineup of Jethro Tull Iommi played with the appearance in the Rolling Stones film "Rock and Roll Circus". Iommi has never gotten the only musician with Black Sabbath, and you can call him rightly regarded as the driving force behind this band.
A momentous accident
In a serious accident while working in a steel and sheet metal factory, he lost parts of the fingertips on the middle and ring fingers of his right hand: He was distracted and fell with his hand in a machine press, after which he withdrew this reflexively and so the fingertips of both lost fingers, which he used as a left-handed for gripping the strings. Although such an accident for a guitarist usually means the End of career, Tony Iommi continued. The motivation for this he was referring to the remark of a friend on Django Reinhardt, who developed despite the crippling of ring and little finger of his left hand by a severe burn one of the best jazz guitarists of all time. That's why Tony Iommi carries plastic fingertips and used only very thin strings, in order to play at all. In earlier times, he had composed his String Sets of thin banjo strings. In addition, the band is guitar and bass agreed to three semitones down from E to C sharp so that the strings were less tense.
Disease
On 9 January 2012, the press officer of Black Sabbath announced that Iommi was diagnosed with a malignant lymphoma in the early stage ( "early stages of lymphoma" ).
Euro Vision Song Contest 2013
Tony komponisierte the Armenian contribution Lonely Planet for the band Dorians to Euro Vision Song Contest 2013 in Malmö. Second days later they were able to qualify for the finals and reached the 18.Platz.
Musical influence
The influence of his guitar playing on the modern rock music is immense. His short, dark and distinctive riffs in minor keys, he combines with innovative at that time solos in the style of the blues, or the Hard Rock. As a composer, he was and is in Black Sabbath the main supplier of the song material. Its greatest feature is the frequent repetition of his short riffs, where he varies over again. Because he had difficulty in grasping some riffs due to his injury, he tuned his guitar deeper, so as to relieve his fingers. The resulting sound led together with the excessive use of distortion pedals to the great heaviness in the music of Black Sabbath. Shutting tune the guitar was specially in the 90s an important hallmark of modern metal bands.
On November 19, 2013, the Coventry University Iommi awarded an honorary Doctor of Arts for the invention of heavy metal.
Solo albums
Besides his work with Black Sabbath, some of which already can be considered a solo career since 1985, Iommi published in 2000 his self-titled debut, on which he with a number of guest musicians (among Ozzy Osbourne, Serj Tankian, Henry Rollins, Billy Corgan, Phil Anselmo, but also Billy idol and Ian Astbury ) mostly made music in the Black Sabbath style of the 70s. The following two solo albums in 1996 DEP Sessions and Fused he played one with singer and bassist Glenn Hughes.
His trademark was the black " John Birch " SG guitar, which was custom-made for him with crosses as inlays. He currently plays Gibson " Tony Iommi " Signature models (SG with cross inlays ) and amplifies a Laney amp GH100TI, also a Signature product.
Solo discography
- 2005 Fused (also with Glenn Hughes )