A confession: Somewhere around 1988, I lost the plot regarding Ozzy Osbourne.
Oh, I had been a fan. The Ultimate Sin was the very first CD I purchased with my own money, back in a time when not every single release was available on those plastic discs. But something happened that just caused me to lose interest. Maybe it was my disappointment in No Rest For The Wicked, maybe I hadn’t adjusted to the switch at lead guitar from Jake E. Lee to Zakk Wylde. Truth is, I dunno.
In 1990, a stop-gap live EP, Just Say Ozzy, hit the bins, featuring Osbourne’s reunion with former Black Sabbath bandmate Geezer Butler on bass. And, while it’s not fantastic, it’s definitely not bad, and brings a new level of life to a few songs that initially were dead on arrival to me.
The one-two punch of “Miracle Man” and “Bloodbath In Paradise,” both from No Rest For The Wicked, inject a bit of life that were sorely missing from their studio counterparts. I’m still not a huge fan of either song, but I have to admit that these versions proved that maybe, just maybe, there was something more to these songs than I had originally heard. I can’t really say the same thing about “Tattooed Dancer,” even though the energy levels in the performances from Osbourne’s backing band of Wylde, Butler, drummer Randy Castillo and keyboardist John Sinclair, do keep the listener’s interest.
Perhaps the strongest argument for Just Say Ozzy being a must-own disc is the live version of “Shot In The Dark”. Wylde is given room to make his own mark on the song while trying to stay true to the rhythm that Lee initially recorded. Simply put, this one is fun to listen to.
That leaves us with the two Sabbath covers, “Sweet Leaf” and “War Pigs”. Aside from a lyrical flub from Osbourne on “War Pigs” and shortening “Sweet Leaf” by dropping the last verse, the performances here are tolerable. They’re not to-the-bone accurate as the versions we’ve come to know and love, but the efforts are respectable.
In fact, “respectable” is the perfect word to describe Just Say Ozzy. It’s not meant to be a full-on live album, but it was something to keep his name in front of the fans while he was leading up to No More Tears one year later. Where it actually succeeds is that it leaves the listener wanting to hear more than the mere six songs presented to them… and, right there, that’s a win in my book.
Just Say Ozzy is, as of this writing, not the easiest disc to find out in the wild. Hopefully, even as the public interest in Osbourne following his death in July 2025 begins to die down, this one will find its way into listeners’ hands so they could discover how good Osbourne could actually be in a live setting. This one is well worth searching out – and possibly suggests I lost out on a lot when I fell out of interest in all things Ozzy.
