Gotta love Crazy ex’s!
April 1979 and Ozzy get’s the boot from Black Sabbath and Sabbath went and hired Ronnie James Dio as the Ozzman’s replacement!
In this corner you have Ozzy Osbourne(ex Black Sabbath singer) and in the far corner you have Black Sabbath (with than current vocalist) Ronnie James Dio.
April of 1980 Sabbath release the Dio fronted Heaven and Hell album. Ozzy counters in Sept of 1980 with the release his debut album Blizzard of Ozz.
November 4th 1981 Sabbath releases the Mob Rules album while just 3 short days later(Nov 7th 1981) Ozzy rolls out his second solo album Diary of A Madman.
December 1982 Ozzy puts out the double live Speak of The Devil album which features all Sabbath tracks.(Ozzy to his credit said the record company wanted a double live album of late guitar hero Randy Rhoads but Ozzy quashed it saying there was going to be no cash grab as Randy had died just six months earlier in March of 1982)
Also in December of 1982 Sabbath put out their own double live album titled Live Evil. (Great cover as well)
Haha..these guys(Ozzy and Sabbath) took pissy pants to whole other level as one was trying to outdo the other with releasing albums the same month and even days apart. Silly Old Farts!
Anyways Dio and Sabbath put out a pretty good document of the Mob Rules tour with Live Evil but during the mixing of this album both Dio and drummer Vinnie Appice exited Sabbath and in the band it was two Americans (Dio and Appice) vs two Brits(Iommi and Butler). A Black Sabbath Royal Rumble with accusations and turmoil in regards to stuff being tweaked in the studio when the two other guys weren’t around. On Live Evil Ronnie James Dio is listed as just Ronnie Dio and Vinny while he was credited as a full-time member on the studio Mob Rules album but come on Live Evil Vinny falls under the Special Thanks category.
Well it’s safe to safe to say Geezer and Tony wanted to stir things up now …
Having said that…
Live Evil though is a great listen even in 2017 and to be honest I enjoyed this album more now in 2017 than in 1982 (Thanks Aaron). 14 tracks all together. 8 of the track are from the fronted Dio albums and I can tell you all that the songs Neon Knights/Mob Rules/Childern of The Sea /Voodoo/Sign of The Southern Cross are all played brilliantly.
Ronnie does justice on the Ozzy tracks and I admit back in 1982/83 it took a while to wrap my noggin on how Ronnie sang songs like Black Sabbath/NIB/War Pigs/Iron Man but he pulls it off on his own terms.
Amazing how in the span of just under 2 short years(1980-82) Dio/Appice’s tenure in Sabbath would be done with two studio and one live album under their belts….
Of course Dio/Appice return to Sabbath in 1992 with the Dehumanizer album but by late 1992 Dio/Appice are out again.
Until…
2006 when Dio/Appice hooked up once again with Butler/Iommi (this time calling themselves Heaven and Hell instead of Black Sabbath)until Ronnie’s untimely passing in 2010….
deKe's Vinyl Reviews & More... 
‘Special thanks’, one upping, on-again-off-again… there’s a documentary drama waiting to happen.
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For sure Danica. I always knew there was sour grapes back in the early 80s with Dio and Ozzy but these Sabbath guys(Geezer and Butler) went squirrelly even with dudes in there own band…
I laughed at how competitive they were battling against the Ozzman…
You sometimes cannot beat old dude drama…
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Pissy pants indeed! The stories of how Geezer would sneak in and turn up the volume, and then Ronnie would sneak in and turn it down. Who knows how it really went down. Tony went as far as to call Ronnie a “little Hitler”.
But…
It’s the first “official” live Sabbath album, it’s historic and I think later releases like Hammersmith are better, I will always love Live Evil.
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This is a good live album Mikey…checked out your review on it as well.
It amazes me how much product in such short time that DIO Sabbath punched out in the early 80s..
Ozzy was smart though as he recorded those 2 solo albums at the same time..hahaha…
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Yeah and between the two groups, you had four studio amazing records. Really it was a great time to be a fan if you resisted taking sides!
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I didn’t resist as in 1981 I was 14(and didn’t know better) and Mob Rules was my fist Sab listen as well Blizzard of Ozz was my first Ozzy listen…
Never really heard any Ozzy Sabbath until Speak of the Devil…
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And Ian Gillan was my first Sabbath! I didn’t know there was another singer.
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Fair enough ..
Still remember i was in high school raving about the Mob Rules album at the time of its release and one dude told there was 8 Ozzy Sabbath records….I was like …Whut? haha
I knew he was on some albums but not 8!
My buddy Muc has Heaven and Hell at the time as well so I knew about that one…
Simpler times man….
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I used to think Love Hunter and Come An’ Get It were Deep Purple albums, because Whitesnake only had two albums, right? LOL
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Silly young minds..
That would be a great post idea…
Bands and albums we were fooled on
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Meanwhile Bill Ward be like, I’m going drinkin’ while you guys figure this crap out!
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Whats on tap on Bill?
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I’ve passed this one up a few times, as I’m a bit ignorant to non-Ozzy Sabbath (I have Mob Rules and Heaven and Hell here, but I haven’t really given them much attention, to be honest). I may just have to investigate further.
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It gets a bad rep this one, so I always swerved it.
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Nothing worse than old farts being pissy pants!
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Makes for an interesting read though Geoff…
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Glad you dug it, you’re welcome, man! hahaha Silly Old Farts. Excellent write-up, as usual. I’ll refer to it when I give this my own proper go-through (and not just my casual glancing as has happened so far)…
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Look forward to that!
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