Tony Martin

I suppose that most of you have heard that Sabbath has a box set coming out with the Martin years, but how many of you are aware of the various projects that he was involved with over the years? Some quite good, some at least as good as anything he did with Sabbath...

04.05.2024

Nah, Sabbath was by far his best stuff.

ToB has spoken, and it is so!

Yea, there was talk of him joining them at some point, never went beyond that.

Besides his Sabbath albums (which I like a lot) I know he had a solo album called Scream. 

I could easily go to Wikipedia to see everything he’s ever done. 

He’s a great singer!

Much more recent solo album, "Thorns", much better as well!

Pro-Zak wrote:Much more recent solo album, "Thorns", much better as well!

Unfortunately I haven’t kept up on his career. 

I’ll start looking into it.

Tony joined Sabbath when the band was running on four flat tires and the tank was nearly out juice. That, and probably everyone thought they had become a joke due to all of the line up changes— not to mention the metal landscape was progressing into other realms and extremities.

he was even in the band longer than Ronnie and possibly even Ozzy, but not sure about Oz.

Dustofyears wrote:Tony joined Sabbath when the band was running on four flat tires and the tank was nearly out juice. That, and probably everyone thought they had become a joke due to all of the line up changes— not to mention the metal landscape was progressing into other realms and extremities.

he was even in the band longer than Ronnie and possibly even Ozzy, but not sure about Oz.

As far as I’m concerned, Tony Martin helped to keep the band alive and didn’t get the respect he deserved. 

Although Sabbath with Martin was almost like a “dark” AOR band, I liked it! 

Also Geoff Nicholls was perfect on the keyboards. He created some great atmospheric backgrounds for Iommi to play with.

Geoff was there since Dio joined in 80, all the way till around 97.

Pro-Zak wrote:Geoff was there since Dio joined in 80, all the way till around 97.

Indeed. 

R.I.P. Geoff

TZ75 wrote:

Dustofyears wrote:Tony joined Sabbath when the band was running on four flat tires and the tank was nearly out juice. That, and probably everyone thought they had become a joke due to all of the line up changes— not to mention the metal landscape was progressing into other realms and extremities.

he was even in the band longer than Ronnie and possibly even Ozzy, but not sure about Oz.

As far as I’m concerned, Tony Martin helped to keep the band alive and didn’t get the respect he deserved. 

Although Sabbath with Martin was almost like a “dark” AOR band, I liked it! 

Also Geoff Nicholls was perfect on the keyboards. He created some great atmospheric backgrounds for Iommi to play with.

He absolutely did. He kept the boat from sinking completely. He deserves more credit, when anyone talks about Sabbath he very rarely enters the conversation. Even Ian Gillan is given more credit and talked about more and he was only on one album.

Geoff also played rythm guitar, and sang quite well too! You can see some videos on YouTube of him doing both...

Here's the thing, when Dio joined Sabbath they were very weary of the press, particularly of them calling the band "Black Rainbow." So Geoff was pushed off the stage, and in the album you had some cool chords from Geoff, but never solos. The only time that he was brought out on stage was for the "Seventh Star" tour, photo shots and all for the album. After that it was right back to the broom closet with him! He was Iommi's right hand man, but you'd never know it how he was treated.

I think Geoff's band Quartz had a song that very similar to Heaven and Hell too that BS "borrowed".

Pro-Zak wrote:Here's the thing, when Dio joined Sabbath they were very weary of the press, particularly of them calling the band "Black Rainbow." So Geoff was pushed off the stage, and in the album you had some cool chords from Geoff, but never solos. The only time that he was brought out on stage was for the "Seventh Star" tour, photo shots and all for the album. After that it was right back to the broom closet with him! He was Iommi's right hand man, but you'd never know it how he was treated.

Geoff’s minimalistic (yet effective) keyboards are what I like.

I’m not a big fan of the keyboard noodling… except for Jon Lord and Ray Manzarek.

I certainly like what was done in Rainbow, but yeah, that was tastefully done with Sabbath, but no need to shove him off the stage and not give him full band status.

Pro-Zak wrote:I certainly like what was done in Rainbow, but yeah, that was tastefully done with Sabbath, but no need to shove him off the stage and not give him full band status.

Iommi has been known to be a jerk at times. 

He’s really mellowed out in his older years.