Ozzy Osbourne, wild rock star, pioneer of heavy metal with Black Sabbath who became a global star with a “prince of darkness” reputation has died. The two oddities of his life are that he became and stayed famous from unlikely beginnings as an under-educated loser with a prison record who couldn’t sing. And that he lasted to 76 after a drug and alcohol fuelled life and Parkinsons. He left Black Sabbath for a successful solo career before reuniting with the band and latterly became the unlikely star of a hit TV reality show which showcased his erratic domestic life.
He was born 3 December 1948 10am Coleshill, England, with a Sagittarius Sun Mercury square an 8th house Saturn in Virgo. He did have an intense 7th house Pluto square Venus in Scorpio and Midheaven giving weight to his approach. But what more than anything marked his temperament was a rumbustious Jupiter Mars conjunction in Capricorn opposition Uranus – high-vitality, adventurous, volatile, explosive. Mars Jupiter is associated with successful creative activity and also childbirth – the baby’s first cry – so kickstarting a new musical genre was in his astrological genes.
His Capricorn Moon was square Neptune.
It isn’t an especially horrifying chart but he was blessed by finding a stalwart wife in the formidable Sharon who stood with him for 63 years through thick and thin, revived his career and even managed to absorb a murder attempt when he was drunk.
She was born 9 October 1952 (2 days after Valdimir Putin) and is a Sun, Saturn, Neptune and Mercury in Libra square Uranus; with a determined Mars in Sagittarius trine Pluto; with Pluto in a super-confident square to Jupiter in Taurus.
Their wedding chart from 4 July 1982 had a can-be-cruel/unfair Mars Saturn (Pluto) conjunction square Sun conjunct the North Node; and wounded Chiron exactly conjunct can-be-destructive Algol – which seems fitting for all the drama that followed.
Their relationship chart did have an affectionate composite Sun, Venus, Mercury trine a reassuring and lucky Jupiter trine Uranus so there would be enough to hold it together, even with an unfair-treatment composite Saturn South Node square Mars.
On July 5th this year with Black Sabbath he gave his last concert in Birmingham to thousands of fans, which raised his spirits but took its toll and he passed away unexpectedly quickly in the aftermath.
For fans – a rundown below on his life and music from Alex Petridis, the Guardian music critic.
Michael Parkinson did an interview with Sharon where they spoke about her very challenging father. Michael Parkinson knew him well. Sharon met Ozzy at her dad’s music management office when she was 14.
There’s also a “Sharon” episode of “Who do you think you are?” revealing as you’d expect, an interesting and tragic family history.
Both on youtube
Ozzy and Sharon stepped on some people and ripped off collaborators who made considerable contributions to Ozzy’s solo career after he was fired from Black Sabbath in 1979.
Bassist Bob Daisley (February 13, 1950 – Sydney, NSW, Australia) and drummer Lee “The Bear” Kerslake (April 16, 1947 – Bournemouth, Dorset) played on Ozzy’s first two albums, Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman, but neither was credited on the latter album when it was released. Both had to sue in order to be recognized for their contributions. For nearly forty years, Sharon refused to send Kerslake platinum albums in recognition of his work on Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman, and it was only after Ozzy was informed that Kerslake was dying of cancer that Ozzy relented and sent the platinum discs to Kerslake.
As for Jake E. Lee (February 15, 1957 — Norfolk, Virginia, USA), he foolishly let Osbourne use his music for the Bark at the Moon album without a contract protecting his rights. Lee was presented with an ultimatum to sign a contract whereby he gave up his publishing rights. If he did not sign, he was told that he would be dismissed from Osbourne’s band and that another guitarist would re-record his parts after his were erased. Wisely, Lee refused to let Ozzy have access to his music for The Ultimate Sin album until a fair contract that recognized Lee’s rights was signed.
Ozzy may have been a great heavy metal frontman, but he and his wife were petty, stingy and greedy people who cheated and exploited others, denying them their just rewards.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Daisley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kerslake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_E._Lee
Thank you Marjorie for a very informative article. Pluto’s long grind through Capricorn must have taken it’s toll especially with the Parkinson’s disease.
James Brown once said :“Go
in important, leave important”.
That’s exactly what Ozzy did in
his turbulent life. The first five
Sabbath albums were initially
critically derided, but they are
now acknowledged as classics
of the genre now.
They also sold in their millions,
much to the critics’ chagrin who
thought the group was very low
brow, unlike the pompous
likes of Yes, ELP and
Greenslade.
Charles Bradley performed a
very moving version of
“Changes”,which apparently
moved Tony Iommi to tears.
Ozzy would nod in bemused
approval over the glowing
world wide tributes to him,
wherever he is now.
Several sources cite Ozzy’s time of birth as 6am which would give him a Scorp ascendant which seems more in keeping with heavy metal and the whole prince of darkness thing than Capricorn…
His appearance is all scorp..so I was not expecting sag but then saw his venus
Oh yes, he’s definitely far more Scorpio than Capricorn.
On the other hand, Capricorn the Goat-Fish is the Sun sign associated with The Devil card in the Tarot’s Major Arcana. The Waite-Smith deck image even has large bat wings on the goat-footed ‘Devil’ figure. It all circles back to the god Pan, goat-footed and rumbustious, full of sensual appetites. The Devil card is mostly about being imprisoned by the material world, addictions, ambitions…..it is not ‘Satanic’. Saturn, Capricorn’s ruler, also has a Pan-like persona during the period of freedom the god enjoyed at the wild celebrations of Saturnalia in Ancient Rome. That coincides more or less with our Solstice and Christmas holidays when the Sun is in early Capricorn, just like Ozzy’s ascendant, Jupiter and Mars. His Sun in playful Sagittarius squares Saturn too, so acting out the wilder side of Capricorn might help deal with that tension. And Capricorns can have a strongly hedonistic streak.
Scorpio’s Tarot card is Death, meaning transition and transformation – linked to the 8th house.
Sharon, with an Aries Point Moon in the 7th, opposite Chiron in the 1st; she’d be able to hold together a partnership come hell or high water.
i have a question my bd is the 12th of oct 1952/ 5:51// usa and my husband has jan.28 1948 usa//time 11:15 est how do we purchase a chart from your interpretation in this manor that you work .. I love your stories i read always read for the last 10 years…i see the same pattern like my husband and i similar my husband is ferial like and cand be so together… i was somewhat on the top of the ladder when we met. I feel that anyone cand make it now mater how upside down and Casos your life is if you me the right partner Neptune Saturn is an amazing combine to dream and build. Timing and skill and wanting to better oneself. Love won for then.
I heard about scorpios being devoted partners but 1st time I m reading that a venus is scorpio got devoted partner…standing despite murder attempt and that too for 63yrs….only scorpio can do….in hinduism venus is wife and here, she is aptly seen.
Love does make lives…as v say in our regio,” right person can fly one highest and wrong one can dive to worst like a kite is dependent on its thread”
Hi Rachana. I have Venus in late Scorpio. Conjunct Nep almost to exact degree. All in my seventh house. I consider myself devoted to my husband and have worked diligently, trying to help him improve his health and have encouraged his musical talent (which no friends or relatives did before he met me). I’m a Sag sun. He’s a Scorpio ascendant opposite my Taurus ASC. I don’t have a wandering eye and am loyal to him, as well. Textbook -classic astrology for us. 🙂
My sister has Sun/Venus in Scorpio, her husband has Moon in Scorpio as do I. We both are loyal to the enth degree despite being told by all and sundry that we’re dark and Machiavellian. There’s no loyalty like Scorpio loyalty. Not even Leo can rival it.
Thanks Marjorie. He was undoubtedly a beloved British character and will be missed by many. Ozzy Osbourne’s wife, Sharon must feel his loss intensely since they were together for so long, rare in rock and roll marriages.
His generation of heavy metal trailblazers arrived in this world during or just after WW2 and it’s interesting they all have Uranus in Gemini and that many of them have their generation’s Saturn/Pluto in Leo tied into their natal charts and personal planets, a marker for the ‘heavy metal’ genre in popular music – lead and plutonium and a childhood spent in the aftermath of a war that unleashed chaos and destruction.
Therefore it’s interesting to look at other hugely popular performers in the genre, such as Lemmy (24/12/45) a Capricorn with Capricorn rising, who has a line-up of Saturn in Cancer, Mars, Pluto in Leo, a Mars/Jupiter Square and Uranus in the 6th opposite a Sagittarius Mercury/Venus in the 12th. Lemmy had a Scorpio MC conjunct BML, which reflects his public image beautifully, I think.
Richie Blackmore (14/4/1945), lead guitarist of ‘Deep Purple’ one of the first bands to pioneer the genre has Uranus in Gemini square Mars in Pisces, with Mars opposite Jupiter in Virgo on the MC and Scorpio Rising.
Rory Gallagher (2/3/1948), lead guitarist of ‘Taste’, a band more in the Irish R&B genre, but nonetheless as a guitarist he was influential and had a stellium of Pluto, Saturn and Mars in Leo, part of a Fire Grand Trine and Uranus in Gemini opposite Jupiter in Sagittarius forming a Kite with the Fire Grand Trine. Incredibly talented and brilliant but he sadly died young as a result of addiction.
Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin (9/1/1944) has Mars conjunct Uranus as well as Saturn in Gemini opposite Venus in Sagittarius. Again, Scorpio rising. Jupiter in performing Leo conjunct MC.
As I say, it interests me that these talented musicians who pioneered a totally new genre called ‘heavy metal’ emerged during the end and aftermath of a brutal and destructive World War. I doubt we’ll see their like again, sadly.
Freddie Mercury is described as the greatest showman – even assuming a power stance whilst on-stage. His chart has the Saturn Pluto conjunction in Leo, and most likely, his Moon was in Capricorn – he was sent to boarding school and didn’t see his parents (especially his father) for lengthy periods.
Tony Iommi – Pluto Saturn Mars in Leo. Jupiter in Sag opposition Uranus in Gemini (conjunct Moon). Mean BML and Sun in Aquarius.
“Iommi is one of only two guitarists (the other being Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page) that can take full credit for pioneering the mammoth riffs of heavy metal.” (Wiki).
Freddie was born 5.10am in Tanzania which would put Leo on the ascendant and his moon in Sag which, given his regal showmanship, seems more plausible than a Cap moon with a Libra or Sco ascendant.
That’s only a rectified time though? Astrodienst and Astrotheme have his time of birth as unknown. Astrodienst have a quote from Lesley-Ann Jones, who wrote ‘Freddie Mercury: The Definitive Biography’, that Freddie’s mother stated she had given birth during office hours, and it was conveyed to Freddie’s father who was at work at the time. I think Moon in Capricorn, ruled by Saturn (conjunct Pluto) in Leo, fits well – his showmanship was
captivating.
Yes, he was a talented and remarkable performer. He really channeled that regal Saturn/Pluto with his charming and gracious Libran stellium. This generation of performers have an electricity to them
Brian May (19/7/1947) has Saturn/Pluto/Moon in Leo at the apex of a mini kite sextiling Neptune in Libra and Mars and Uranus in Gemini. May also shares a Mars sextile Pluto with Freddie Mercury. Mercury’s Libran Mars sextiles Pluto in Leo too.
This generation tend to have that Air/Fire Gemini Uranus/aspecting Personal planet trine Neptune in Libra, both sextiling Pluto/Saturn/aspecting Personnal planet in Leo. Highly talented generation and innovative with the Uranus/Neotune trine and not just in music, but also in acting, writing, journalism, etc.
Your comment about all these musicians coming out of the society formed at the end of the Second World War is interesting. People born in the late 1940s into the 1950s would likely have had parents and grandparents who had experienced in one way or another two cataclysmic global conflicts since 1914. Moreover, they grew up in a society that feared the pause in bombs falling was only temporary and that the next time it happened nuclear weapons would be involved. Living through the Korean War, Suez, the Cuban Missile Crisis etc would have only increased that feeling. This unease existed long after society had repaired most of the physical damage from the world wars. Indeed, the normalisation of a relatively prosperous peace probably made the underlying worry that it could all end in an instant even worse. Hardly surprising that many of them adopted the sound of the urban American blues which had grown up industrial Chicago and turned it into something even more hard edged and doom laden. Somehow Black Sabbath
managed to tie that underlying unease into the older folk and blues tradition that saw the supernatural and the devil bringing death, destruction and God’s judgement onto humanity and the world. In fact it is a theme of a number of Black Sabbath’s early 1970s album tracks such as Electric Funeral where both war and the powers of darkness take centre stage. It is quite interesting that the group managed to help create a commercially successful musical genre that essentially told its listeners they were going to die in nuclear annihilation before being carried off to hell
Thank you, Hugh. Yes, the Cold War loomed large in the developing minds of the post-war generations and into the late 80s, early 90s after the fall. We all grew up fearing the worst, having nightmares about the bomb, hoping that in the event of WW3 we would be vapourised rather than suffer the agony of melting skin and radiation sickness. ‘The War Game’ and ‘Threads’ were seared into the British public’s minds as documentary/dramas which reflected the real possibility of Mutally Assured Destruction or MAD as it was aptly shortened to and its grim aftermath of nuclear winter and gruelling survival.
Hardly surprising that from this fertile ground of fear and anxiety about the precariousness of both the present and the future, popular music blossomed and morphed into all these different forms.
I noticed today that one of the 1944-48 generation’s stars, Alice Cooper (4/2/1948) is touring this year, still popular (perhaps the Fixed Saturn/Pluto in Leo gives them their stamina, endurance and long careers in an industry which is notoriously fickle and short-lived) and known as one of the ‘nicest guys in Rock’. His Moon in Sagittarius is tied into the Jupiter/Uranus opposition which in turn makes a T Square on Venus in musical Pisces, his Aquarius Sun opposes that Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Leo. He was born just two days after my husband.