Daryl wrote:
I was absolutely "bonkers" over Sharon when she was on America's Got Talent.
I actually have a lot of respect for both Sharon and Ozzy, especially because they were both willing to stick their heads out to protect Marilyn Manson's free speech rights in the late 90s and early 2000's, including to defend him from nonsense accusations of being responsible for columbine, mainly coming from the religious right.
In fact the New Jersey Sports Authority wanted to prevent Ozzfest 97 from happening because 'Manson was billed to play in it, and with Ozzy's help him and Manson sued them, and they won, and Ozzfest 97 went on with 'Manson playing, obviously on first amendment grounds.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/971/875/1872479/I believe Sharon actually had him as a guest on her talk show that she had for a while as well, they are friends or at least were at one point.
I'm still bummed that the pandemic caused me to miss my chance to see Ozzy perform live.
I do know that Ozzy appears to be a stand up guy for sure, and of course Black Sabbath is typically credited with starting off the genre of "heavy metal".
I do have "Blizzard of Ozz" on vinyl, as well as the original Black Sabbath record, Vol 4, and I think a couple others on vinyl and even 8-track.
One of my favorite Ozzy tracks, "Miracle Man", where he calls out televangelist Jimmy Swaggart who was constantly accusing Ozzy and his music of being "satanic", but then was caught using the services of prostitutes'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j34juXrJWqw