Brummie Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath is at number 25 in Rolling Stone magazine's top 100 guitarists. Unlike Richie Blackmore (see Musicians 4.2, 22 April) who I would say is a "hard rock" guitarist, Iommi has a reasonable claim to be the first true heavy metal guitarist. And there is an explanation.
As is recounted in many sources, though I didn't realise it when I saw him, Iommi lost the tips of his middle and ring fingers of his right hand in an industrial accident working at a sheet metal factory. Iommi was aged 17 and it was his last day in that job. Iommi plays left handed so it was his fretboard fingers that were affected. He was told he would never play guitar again.
Two things happened. Firstly, his friendly factory foreman insisted Iommi listen to Django Rheinhardt playing. Listening to guitar was the last thing he wanted to do but Iommi reluctantly did, agreeing that the dude could play. The foreman's motivation was then revealed. He told Iommi that Reinhardt was playing with only two fingers on his fretboard hand because of an injury caused by fire. Iommi was motivated to try.
He toyed with playing right handed and, with the perspective of decades, thinks he should have persevered. But, having a few years of playing left handed behind him he didn't have the patience to re-learn his skills. However, pressing the strings with his right hand was too painful. So he made some home made prosthetics out of Fairy liquid bottle tops, heated to mold them to his fingers and stitched into chunks of leather cut from a jacket.
It worked but Iommi still found it a bit painful to use ordinary guitar strings. So he used banjo strings until lighter guage guitar strings became available a few years later. But then he went a step further and detuned his guitar to loosen the strings and make them easier to bend.
Although the doom laden heavy metal sound probably has numerous origins, many aspiring heavy metal guitarists heard Iommi and followed step and detuned their guitars. It is hard not to conclude that Iommi's tender fingers helped to create one of the most widespread and persistent musical genres. And many metal guitarists pay hommage to Iommi as an influence.
Although there is no explanation on the Rolling Stone website for its panel's ranking, Iommi's influence over heavy metal is presumably a big factor since, much as I love the guitar part in Paranoid, I wouldn't rank him very high out of the people I've seen play. (I'll return to this question of how influential guitarists have been another time).
However, my perception of Iommi as a top guitarist may have been partly due to the circumstances when I saw him play. I went to see Black Sabbath circa 1972 at Manchester's long gone Free Trade Hall. They were supported by a band who were, at the time, riding a wave - prog rock act Curved Air. The music press had noted that Curved Air were going down better than Sabbath on the tour and word had got round so the auditorium was unusually full for the support act. And yes, Curved Air pretty well blew Sabbath off the stage, going off to a rapturous ovation, though Sabbath turned in a decent performance for their more muted reception.
And so it was that Curved Air's violonist, Darryl Way, was the musician who caught my attention that evening rather than Iommi. Curved Air also had Francis Monkman on keyboards, who became fairly well known. And the eye catching Sonja Kristina, who had starred in Hair, singing. But Iommi became the best known over the longest period by some margin.
What happened to Curved Air? Well, they scored one top 10 hit and then it all fizzled out. As did prog, before too long. Partly because, to paraphrase John Peel, the one thing it didn't do was progress. And metal? One would be hard pressed to find much progress there either, but it's certainly had longevity. And just about everyone has heard of Black Sabbath.
Though I hadn't heard about Iommi's fingertips or home made prosthetics until a few years ago, when I read that Iommi had just about run out of his sacrificial leather jacket and, to continue playing, he was going to have to start cutting up another one.
For multiple reasons Tony Iommi is a guitar player of some significance. But he isn't on my guitarists shortlist. You can read about him all over the place but Wikipedia is a good place to start.
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