[excerpt from Loud Wire]
37 Years Ago: Black Sabbath Release ‘Never Say Die!’
By Jon Wiederhorn
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One day Osbourne showed up, told his band mates he was quitting and then disappeared again. At that point Black Sabbath didn’t want to continue without their singer. But when Osbourne didn’t come back or even call, they hired ex-Savoy Brown and Fleetwood Mac vocalist Dave Walker to work with them on Never Say Die! After writing a handful of songs, Osbourne contacted Sabbath and said he wanted to work on the record but he wouldn’t sing on anything they wrote with Walker.
“The situation was a mess,” Iommi said. “We were already behind. So the record label was bothering us and we didn’t have anything to show them. Ozzy wants us to start all over. We’re writing in the day and trying to record at night. I think there was some good stuff there, but it’s hard to keep your footing when you feel like things are falling apart.”
Black Sabbath took three months off after Osbourne’s father died. The rest of Black Sabbath sympathized with Osbourne but didn’t want to wait six more months to finish. They did what they could during that time and even had drummer Bill Ward sing lead vocals on the album closer “Swinging the Chain.”
Finally Osbourne reconvened with his band mates at Sound Interchange Studios in Toronto, Ontario and tracked most of his vocals for Never Say Die!. When the final overdubs were done in May 1978, no one could have been happier than the band. “Let’s just say, well, it definitely wasn’t our finest hour,” Iommi said. “I can tell you that.”
While many have criticized the meandering composition and lack of aggression of Never Say Die!, Ward defended the album, claiming the adventurous forays into jazz on “Johnny Blade” and “Air Dance” were innovative and original.
Thanks in part to the hard rock self-titled single, which was propulsive, upbeat and free or horns and keys, Never Say Die! received a brief push at rock radio and debuted at No. 69 on the Billboard album chart. But the boost didn’t last and a tour with Van Halen was a wakeup call for Black Sabbath, whose groundbreaking sound was being usurped by a new breed of guitar heroes led by Eddie Van Halen.
Never Say Die! went gold in November 1997, more than 19 years after it was released and is still widely considered the least successful album of the original Ozzy era right above or below (depending on who you talk to) Technical Ecstasy. In 2013, Black Sabbath released 13, their first studio album with Osbourne on vocals in 35 years.
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