Black Purple — The Inspiration Behind Spinal Tap

Black Sabbath’s Born Again appeared in 1983 with a disturbing cover that reminded me of the final fade out scene from the terrifying Rosemary’s Baby film.

Departed vocalist Ronnie James Dio was replaced with ex-Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan. Unfortunately despite the anticipation this latest dream team didn’t really mesh, with Gillan’s high pitched frenetic screaming not best suited to the Sabbath sound.

More metal in sound the album was also marred by a rushed and muddy production, however tracks like Zero The Hero with its dirty low down riffing did recall former glories. Ironically Digital Bitch also recalled former glories of… Deep Purple, being pretty much a remake of Highway Star.

The Hawkwind like instrumentals Stonehenge and The Dark showed the Sab’s had (through regular backing member Geoff Nicholls) finally mastered fruitful use of the synthesizer after some amateur attempts on earlier records.

The Born Again episode was also characterised by a farcical tour. Gillan, who could not grasp the lyrics to Sabbath’s back catalogue, struggling to read his script through dry ice surrounded by oversized Stonehenge monoliths and a dancing dwarf. They even took to doing Smoke On The Water for goodness sake — talk about Wheels of Confusion. You couldn’t make it up and evidently the Spinal Tap script writers didn’t need to!