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OZZY and SHARON OSBOURNE explain why early RANDY RHOADS rehearsal demos have never been released

08-11-2023

Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, along with their children Jack and Kelly, have released the ninth episode of their revived podcast. During the chat, they discussed what has been described as former OZZY OSBOURNE bassist Bob Daisley‘s “Holy Grail” — Bob‘s rehearsal tapes of the original “Blizzard Of Ozz” band with late Ozzy solo band guitarist Randy Rhoads.

When Jack suggested that it should be up to Randy‘s family to decide whether those recordings should see the light of day, Sharon said: “Exactly.” But Ozzy offered a more practical reason for why those tapes have not been made available to the public. “The quality sucks,” he said. “The quality is fucking dreadful.” Sharon concurred, saying: “It was recorded on a little cassette machine — on a tiny little cassette machine. And yeah, it’s not for us to do anything with.”

Back in March 2014, coinciding with the 32nd anniversary of Rhoads‘s death, Daisley posted some excerpts online of the seven hours of audio he recorded during the writing, rehearsing and recording sessions for Ozzy‘s first two classic solo albums, 1980’s “Blizzard Of Ozz” and 1981’s “Diary Of A Madman”.

Daisley told Rock Cellar in a 2012 interview that the 30th-anniversary reissues of both albums could have featured the material as bonus content. He explained, “I offered to supply tapes of our rehearsals and writing sessions, to go as proper bonus material. And I just said that I wanted a royalty out of it, because it’s my stuff. But they wouldn’t do it because they didn’t want to give me a royalty — they just wanted to buy it.”

Rhoads and two others were killed on March 19, 1982 when the small plane they were flying in at Flying Baron Estates in Leesburg, Florida struck Ozzy‘s tour bus then crashed into a mansion. Rhoads was 25 years old.

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