Hannah Karp of Billboard reports:
When Ozzy Osbourne died in July, the world remembered how the Black Sabbath legend had shaped both modern rock and many aspects of today’s music business — showing artists how they could build massive merchandising empires and turn reality TV stardom into a new revenue stream, while also pioneering the concept of a genre-focused touring festival.
But while Ozzy was the face of those innovations, the creative force behind the blueprints was his wife of 43 years, Sharon Osbourne — a supremely talented music executive in her own right who’s not yet done changing the industry.
“All of the creative direction for visuals at Ozzfest was mine. I can’t sing a note — I’m tone-deaf — but I can be creative, and I like to create things,” Osbourne, 73, reminisced in December from a hotel room on New York’s Upper East Side, perfectly coiffed and sipping tea after a late night out at a star-studded private rock show at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, N.Y., that featured Slash, Eddie Vedder, Anthony Kiedis, Yungblud and Bruno Mars, among others.
“I’ve been talking to Live Nation about bringing [Ozzfest] back recently,” she continues. “It was something Ozzy was very passionate about: giving young talent a stage in front of a lot of people. We really started metal festivals in this country. It was [replicated but] never done with the spirit of what ours was, because ours was a place for new talent. It was like summer camp for kids.”
First, Osbourne says, she’s working with Live Nation to launch a classical tour of Black Sabbath’s catalog, performed by local orchestras and set to state-of-the-art visuals, as well as a scripted feature film about a portion of Ozzy’s life…
…[Ozzfest] would tour everywhere, just like it used to, she says, but of course, she has a new vision for it: “I’d like to mix up the genres.”
Read the entire column at Billboard.