MUSIC GIANTS: TONY IOMMI

His full name is Anthony Frank Iommi and he was borned on February 19, 1948, in Birmingham of England. He began to play guitar as a teenager after being inspired by the likes of "Hank Marvin" and "The Shadows". At the age of 18 he was working on a sheet metal factory and at his last day to work, on an accident, he cut off the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand. The tragic of the story is that, he had decided to quit his job for having more time to play music. After this, and being left-handed, he tried with his right hand to play in the fret board of his guitar, but he couldn’t play well. A friend of his, encouraged him to follow the example of a gypsy guitarist, Django Reinhardt, who had lost two fingers at a fire, and he played his guitar like nothing to have be going wrong. So, Tony decided to wear plastic covers, that were made from melted dish soap bottle, over those two fingers (which he covered with leather, so he could grip the strings properly) in order to play properly. He tuned his guitar 3 semitones lower and he played slow and stable, for not to strain his prosthetics. And the miracle was done. A heavy, solid and dirty noise came out of his guitar.

After playing in several bands, among them Jethro Tull, he forms his own band, “Earth Blues Band”. They renamed to “Earth” and they had a minor success to England. One day as they watched a Boris Karloff film, they decided to use two words taken from there, to rename again the band. These two words was “BLACK SABBATH”. Black Sabbath debuted with the “Black Sabbath” album on February 13, 1970, when Tony was 22 years old. The release of the album was a thunder stroke to music scene. Never before a band sounded the way Black Sabbath did. Iommi combined at his songs, blues-like guitar solos and dark, minor-key riffing with a revolutionary high-gain, heavily distorted tone with his use of a modified treble-boosting effect-pedal and a Gibson SG, as well as plugging his guitar into his amp's bass socket.

From then Tony has released almost 30 albums, both with Black Sabbath and as a solo musician, and he keeps composing beautiful music. He had participated in many other albums as a guest and also to albums with charitable character, such as “Rock Aid Armenia”. He keeps touring the earth with Black Sabbath and his solo band. Tony is also a fan of Aston Villa F.C. in English Premier League. Ending, Tony Iommi is a living legend of music, as he had made his name as a synonym of heavy rock music.