Born Frank Anthony Iommi in Aston, Birmingham, England in 1948, he would become one of the most influential hard rock guitarists of all time. But Tony Iommi almost never became a part of rock and roll history. Iommi started playing guitar when he was a teenager, but at the age of seventeen he suffered an accident while working at a sheet metal factory. He lost the tips of his middle and ring fingers on his right hand and was about to give up music. Iommi then strung his guitar with extra light strings and wore plastic covers that he built himself over his damaged fingers.
In August 1968 Iommi’s band Mythology broke up at the same time that another band named Rare Breed broke up. Rare Breed’s singer was a young lad named John “Ozzy” Osbourne. The pair, along with Terry Butler and Bill Ward formed a new band called…Polka Tulk (I know you were expecting Black Sabbath, but stick around for a second.) They then named their band Earth but there was another band named Earth so to avoid confusion they called themselves Black Sabbath in August, 1969.
Due to his factory accident Iommi used to detune his guitar from E to C# to avoid causing more pain in his fingers. Because of this, Black Sabbath were one of the first bands to detune and launch a new sound in heavy metal music. One accident at a young age could have derailed what eventually became a lengthy career in rock and roll but instead it ushered in a new sound that made Black Sabbath pioneers of hard rock.
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