The entire music world lost an icon when Ozzy Osbourne died at age 76 on Tuesday. In Quebec, fans and collectors have begun calling local vinyl shops, looking for albums that are sure to rise in value, both sentimental and financial. At Aux 33 Tours on Mont-Royal Avenue in Montreal, Black Sabbath and Ozzy’s solo records have never had trouble selling, but are now sure to go even faster. “Since he died yesterday, a lot more people have been calling because he died, his records are going to go up in value,” said Judynn Valcin. “He had a massive impact.” Valcin said a lot of Quebec music lovers put Sabbath at the top of their to-buy list. “Whenever those types of records come in, because we’re strictly a used record store, it really doesn’t stay long in the store,” said Death of Vinyl co-owner Steven Ludvik. One record that Montreal vinyl heads are likely to snatch up quickly if they see it is the live recording, Hang In Ruins: Live in Montreal. On July 28, 1981, the Prince of Darkness stepped onto the stage at the Théâtre Saint-Denis in Montreal as part of his Blizzard of Ozz tour as a recent solo act. The show was recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour, which was hosted on ABC radio. “It’s a historical recording because Ozzy recorded his first solo album with a bunch of studio musicians, but decided to go on the road with a new band that included hotshot guitarist Randy Rhoads,” said CTV News reporter and metal aficionado Stephane Giroux. “Before YouTube and the internet, it was hard to listen to live music if you weren’t at the show, so people relied on bootlegs. This is the earliest known from Ozzy’s career, and a fine one at that.” It was the first of a half-dozen times Giroux saw Osbourne in concert, and he wasn’t alone among CTV News staff. Multimedia technician Ken Dow was 16 when he and his fellow metalheads first saw the legendary act. “Having heard the first album, Blizzard of Ozz, we were really excited to see him perform live,” said Dow. “It was an exciting show. It was an exciting time.” Guitarist Rhoads died in a plane crash on March 18, 1982, and the recording was later rereleased on the 1987 Randy Rhoads tribute album. The Théâtre Saint-Denis show was one of many stops for Osbourne in Quebec, both with Black Sabbath and as a solo artist. “There’s something about the Quebec market that loves hard rock, that loves heavy metal, that loves rebellion,” said CHOM 97.7 music director Pierre Landry, who’s seen Ozzy live many times. “I think there’s something in the essence of rock music that strikes a chord with Quebecers in general.” “Ozzy always stopped here on his tours, even in the late ’80s, early ’90s, when he wasn’t selling out arenas like he used to, he always came to the Old Montreal Forum, where I saw him many times,” said Kevin Jardine, who toured with Black Sabbath as part of nu metal band Slaves on Dope. “Canada and Montreal, especially, is very important for what he did, and the bands that are here, that carry the torch and still perform and still do stuff, they all owe everything to Ozzy, and they know it.” Since the first Sabbath concert in 1971, Quebecers have always been loyal to the band. “There’s a certain amount of appreciation and tip-of-the-hat to everyone who comes through here,” said Ludvik. “Montreal embraced them right away.” Ludvik said that Quebecers responded to Osbourne’s working-class roots and message as much as his music. “They just spoke about dark and deep things because they were from a poor area in Aston, in the Midlands in England, where everything was pretty crap, and so, they sang about it,” he said. “Some of these guys, like Ozzy, didn’t want to work in the factory, and so they tried to get a gig.” Ludvik said the Black Sabbath rep of being a satanic band is ridiculous and misses the point. Jardine knew Ozzy well and said he was always a gent and an easy person to get along with, despite his status as a rock icon. Slaves on Dope recorded on Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne’s Divine Recordings and toured as part of Ozzfest in 2000. “When we moved to LA in ’99, they were one of the first people we met when we were there, when Jack was young and Kelly and Amy were really young, and we used to babysit the kids and hang out at the house all the time,” said Jardine. “We were pretty close for a few years.” Jardine said Ozzy was a Second World War buff and was always deeply respectful of veterans’ sacrifice. He was also, Jardine said, “the most personable, nicest” person. “If you caught him alone, he talked to you forever until somebody grabbed him and told him he had to go on stage or he had something else to do,” he said. “He was the most genuine, personable, nicest guy, you know, not even talking music, just a really, really humble, happy guy all the time. He was fantastic.” It’s evident that Osbourne left a mark that will not soon be forgotten. “In simple terms, if there is no Ozzy Osbourne, there is no heavy metal,” said Landry. “The blueprint is all there in the first Black Sabbath album.” He continued, “Bands like Metallica do not exist without Ozzy Osbourne and what he did for music. It’s a game changer at a time where music was already evolving very, very quickly in the late 1960s but what he did with Black Sabbath was reinvent parts of blues music, parts of what had come before, but with down tuning, with more aggression, with darker themes being inspired by Boris Karloff and all of these cinema noir things and horror films, and turning it into a new musical genre that, more than 50 years later, still resonates.”
