STEAL AWAY THE NIGHT – An Ozzy Osbourne Day-by-Day
With a wealth of metal tomes to his name, Martin Popoff is a highly a prolific rock writer and specialist in this sort of document which gathers together all sorts of snippets from quotes and reviews to images of posters, badges, discs and all manner of souvenirs.
This particular one does exactly what it says on the tune; focussing purely on Ozzy and taking his Sabbath days at a premium, covering in detail the solo years in a day to day, diary entry style fashion. As usual there’s a whole gamut of images laid out in a scrapbook style from record sleeves to candid and concert photos, backstage passes, tour programmes and badges to the massive range of shirts all in the name of Ozzy. Naturally, there are the slightly off the wall items, the pick probably being the bottle of Ozzy holy water. In fact it goes some way to demonstrating the cult and marketing machine that is Ozzy Osbourne.
Most stones are pretty much turned over including the wonderful eighties when Ozzy, like many rock stars, bowed to the fashion god and towed the hair rocker line, including some classic stage costumes – the chain mail outfit and what looks almost, but not quite like leggings and leg warmers.
The text is not so much minimal but all arranged in bite sized chunks for those of us who, like Ozzy himself, don’t have the propensity for reading prolonged narrative. Quoted throughout the book is Ozzy himself together with most of the major players in his solo career, including plenty from Zakk Wylde and several contributions from long time cohort, the highly regarded and loyal, yet undervalued bassist Bob Daisley. There’s not often a page goes by without an outpouring of some words of wisdom from Ozzy himself on a number of topics ranging from ‘Ozzy on….having a wife for a manager, staying healthy on the road, and battles with Zakk.’ The quotes have been collated from a range of author interviews and a mass of rock and metal magazines, although some editing may have been prudent as the text at times tends to be punctuated with the profane or simply reported as spoken, which doesn’t always make for the best sense when read as prose.
However, that slight bleat aside, Steal Away The Night is an interesting dip into the land of Oz and more than adequately shows up the author’s enthusiasm for the music and the phenomenon which is Ozzy Osbourne.
Author: Martin Popoff
Publisher: BACKBEAT BOOKS
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