It was nothing new; problems in Black Sabbath had reached a head with Ozzy Osbourne before. Last time around, in 1977, it had been Osbourne who walked out voluntarily before the band were due to start demos for theirNever Say Die album. It seemed he had gone for good, and the remaining three – Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward – took it seriously enough to get a replacement. They looked close to home and picked another local singer, Dave Walker from Walsall. Walker was best known for singing with Savoy Brown, among others, but was still a largely unknown quantity in the UK. He flew over from San Francisco in November 1977 and spent a few weeks writing and demoing material. Part of his contributions included being involved in writing the lyrics.
Unexpectedly, the new lineup of Sabbath appeared on the BBC’s Midlands magazine showLook Hear on 6 January 1978. They opened the show with the intro to ‘War Pigs’ and then appeared again later with a full version of what would become ‘Junior’s Eyes’. The lyrics were completely different (written by Walker), and most fans who saw it paid special attention to Walker’s performance. His more R&B vocals and the bluesy feel of the song were, to be honest, less than inspiring and rather workmanlike. You can see and hear it on YouTube for yourself. It’s hard to imagine how this lineup could have developed, but speculation at the time was cut short when Osbourne decided he’d made a mistake and asked for his job back. The others were only too keen to let bygones be bygones.
The ensuingNever Say Die album came out in September 1978, accompanied by a UK and North American tour. The album had its moments, including one or two fine songs, but noticeably, the live setlist steered clear of the album. Only the title track made the cut until they added ‘Shock Wave’ later in the American tour. The tour saw them do enough to keep them from sinking, but generally, they struggled to hit top gear. The band were sounding tired and in need of a creative spark. The truth was that they were all burnt out from the ‘album/tour repeat’ lifestyle that had occupied them for most of the 1970s.
The best they could manage at this critical juncture was to relocate and spend time, plenty of it, working on the next album. This would be a kind of break, at least. The band had good memories of recordingVolume 4 in Los Angeles andTechnical Ecstasy in Miami, so from early 1979, they booked a rental house in Bel Air, Los Angeles, for 11 months to recuperate and work up new material using the garage studio. From there, they intended to head down to Criteria Studios in Miami to record the album. Tax reasons probably had something to do with this relocation, which wouldn’t have helped the domestic problems in the band. The biggest immediate problem, though, came as Butler, Iommi and Ward settled in at Bel Air – there was no Osbourne. While they waited, Butler says they worked on two or three ideas, one of which would become ‘Children Of The Sea’ and another one was likely the germ of ‘Lady Evil’. What they needed now was O
