Two years ago I started exploring classic live albums from bands at the peak of their careers, at least up to that point. This final episode is devoted to Black Sabbath’s Live Evil album. If you need a refresher, scroll to the bottom for links to the previous four.
For all intents and purposes, the reign of Black Sabbath - the founding fathers of heavy metal – ended in late 1982 when their second singer, Ronnie James Dio, quit the band. Yes, Sabbath persevered for the next several decades, eventually reuniting with Dio twice (once as Heaven and Hell) and finally with Ozzy, for a few tours and an album, but the records didn’t quite reach the peaks the band saw in their heyday, and other albums with Tony Martin and Dio’s successor Ian Gillan were spotty at best. (More about Born Again later.)
Sabbath never did a proper live album with Ozzy. There was the bargain-bin, label-money-grab Live at Last, but it wasn’t great and wasn’t exactly readily available. Past Lives, released in 2002, was an extension of Live at Last, and it is great – pulled from shows in the early 70s, but released decades after the fact. Live Evil – released in late `82 after the Mob Rules tour, is the first “real” Sabbath live album and the end of a great era.
I first heard the album on cassette. I was walking to a friend’s house in spring `83 when a piece of white plastic caught my eye on the side of the street. I picked it up and read the blue print: “Black Sabbath – Live Evil.” The tape was spewing out from the shell, obviously eaten by some car stereo, and thrown out the window in stoned frustration. Never one to shy from a challenge or some free music, I wound it up as cleanly as I could, shoved it in the pocket of my Levi’s jean jacket, and resumed my journey. Twenty-four hours later, with a small piece of masking tape, a pencil, and a little patience, I had the new Sabbath live album. I still have that cassette (and that jean jacket).
My early-teenage ears were significantly less discerning than they are now, but the production of Live Evil wasn’t great. The performances were there, but the crowd sounded distant and the music sounded thin. I was familiar with We Sold Our Souls For Rock and Roll – a “best of” package the band released that was my gateway to heavy metal, Ozzy, and Visine, but I wasn’t yet hip to Heaven and Hell or Mob Rules – the two amazing records they did with Dio after Ozzy left, so I first gravitated to Dio’s interpretations of those classic-era tunes – “N.I.B.,” “Paranoid,” “Iron Man,” “Children of the Grave,” and “Black Sabbath,” The songs from the Dio-era were new to me. They kicked proper ass, but I was still a way out from fully appreciating them.
It wasn’t long before I was at the local record store buying Born Again on cassette - the NEW Sabbath album, with Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan on vocals! How could this not be great? The match seemed perfect and I was quickly falling all-in on everything metal, including the building blocks like Machine Head, so it was a done deal. Well… it wasn’t great. Plagued by a muddy mix, inconsistent songwriting, and copious quantities of booze & cocaine, it remains a fairly forgettable record. “Digital Bitch,” “Zero the Hero,” and a couple other tracks held my interest, and a remix today would pry my wallet open (rumor has it that they’ve finally found the original tapes), but I wasn’t alone in my opinion that Sabbath’s best days were behind them. It’s fair to note that Born Again has achieved some cult-status longevity and that people stand by that album with hardcore devotion, but album and concert ticket sales don’t lie, Sabbath was on the way down.
Live Evil itself was also the catalyst for Dio’s departure from Black Sabbath. The story goes that the mixing sessions were not only plagued by technical issues, but egos as well, and work done in the daytime was often redone at night as members competed during opposite shifts to make sure their parts were prominent in the mix. Tensions rose, aided by other extraneous factors, and Dio walked out. We’ll never know what a follow-up to Mob Rules might have sounded like had it been in the cards in `83, and perhaps the end was imminent regardless.
Last month, Rhino released the Super Deluxe edition of Live Evil. I’d put off buying the original pressing hoping this day would come, and the wait paid off. Along with the remastered original mix is a newly remixed version, utilizing today’s technology to overcome the issues that plagued the original release. It’s HUGE and fantastic and everything I’d hoped for. The band was on fire, and Dio has arguably never sounded better. The box includes a great hardcover book full of photos and liner notes, and sits comfortably next to my Volume 4 box set, in regular rotation.
And this concludes my “Five Live Albums that Signified the End of an Era” series. Choosing the 5th album was a challenge. I was all set to do At Budokan, staying true to the Pencil Storm demographic, but I don’t think that “era” ended until after Dream Police, at the earliest. I also considered UFO – Strangers in the Night, KISS – Alive II, and a few others, but this Super Deluxe edition fell into my lap and it seemed like fate.
Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
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Twitter: @jeremyportermi | Instagram: @onetogive & @jeremyportermusic
