'Black Sabbath loved Workington and we loved them'
"Ozzy was no stranger to Cumbria," Mr Rumney, 60, said. "Black Sabbath and Workington go hand-in-hand. "People from Workington who are into their rock music scene, they all know about the Black Sabbath past with Workington, and there's a lot of people who still remember it, who were there."There is even a plaque to prove it, placed at the town's Carnegie Theatre after Mr Rumney and his band fundraised to mark the Black Sabbath Cumbrian connection.
The people of Workington watched history being made on 26 August 1969, when a band called Earth played at Banklands Youth Club. Formed in Birmingham, Earth featured Tony Iommi on guitar, Bill Ward on drums, Geezer Butler on bass and Ozzy Osbourne on vocals. The band were touring across Cumbria, also playing in Silloth, Carlisle, Low Hesket and Wigton.And after a successful tour in Germany, the band had decided to change their name to Black Sabbath, announcing it to the excited crowd that had packed out Banklands.
When Ozzy and Butler wrote the lyrics for a song called Black Sabbath, inspired by the horror film of the same name, it pushed the band in a darker musical direction.This genre did not sit well with everyone in Cumbria in the weeks running up to their famous name change at the Workington gig.Music promoter Andy Park had booked Earth across 20 venues, but can remember one particular night at Low Hesket Village Hall, in Carlisle, for all the wrong reasons.He told BBC Radio Cumbria: "They died an absolute death and all I can remember is the caretaker kept coming into the hall looking for me and he came across to me and his words were so simple - 'it's a dance, make them dance'. "So he expected me to get 150 people up on the dance floor."Mr Park said the crowd at the village hall were more used to country dances."I cringe at that it even now," he added.
But it was a different story at other venues across Carlisle and Workington.Mr Rumney said he was studying at Workington Technical College when the band last played in the town on 13 February 1970, the day the self-titled debut album Black Sabbath was released."Ozzy himself came back to Cumbria on numerous occasions, the last time I can remember him being around this area was in 1980 at the Matador," he said.One night at that Workington hotel, he claimed, Ozzy told the landlord "if you don't keep the bar open, I'm going to buy the pub".
"He was a larger-than-life character," Mr Rumney added."He wasn't one of these stuck-up rock stars...he was about being with the fans, he was just a normal, working-class bloke."Ozzy's eagerness to connect with his fans was proven to Mr Rumney over the many times he saw him perform as a solo artist."Ozzy was always welcoming people coming on stage at his gigs and having a party," he said. "The best time was when I got up on stage at Donington, that was something special."
After being fired from Black Sabbath, Ozzy played Donington's Monsters of Rock festival in Leicestershire several times, in 1984, 1986 and in 1996.It was during the 1984 performance Mr Rumney got his moment of fame. "I managed to get onto the stage and I can remember looking out over the crowd, Ozzy with his arm around us just looking at over the crowd...it was just a fantastic moment in my life."There has been a couple of embarrassing times when I've been on stage when he gave us a microphone and I sung right out of tune for Bark at the Moon."
Mr Rumney, who plays in a band called Zero, said Black Sabbath had been a "big part" of his life since he was 12.He and his bandmates paid tribute to the momentous day Earth became Black Sabbath with a blue plaque in Workington in 2022.The unofficial blue plaque, which Mr Rumney and his bandmates fundraised for, sits on the walls of Carnegie Theatre, as the Banklands Youth Club site now houses a school. "I wanted the plaque so people recognise that such a big band loved this area."They loved Workington and we loved them."
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