Except Ozzy Osbourne, he Is the singer who has the largest number of albums with "Black Sabbath" - a total of five studio albums.
He has a powerful and amazing voice, and no, this is not Ronnie James Dio. So let's get to know Tony Martin a little bit.
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He was born in Birmingham, England on April 19, 1957, as Anthony Philip Harford.
Although he is known to everyone as a singer, he is a phenomenal and talented musician - a multi-instrumentalist who plays an unimaginable variety of instruments, such as: guitar, bass, drums, violin, keyboards, harmonica, bagpipes, pan pipes, and more...
Tony joined Black Sabbath in 1987 as a replacement for singer Ray Gillen who did not "deliver the goods" during the recording of the album "The Eternal Idol". Tony was brought to the band to re-record all of Ray Gillan's singing roles to enable the release of the album. Since he arrived after the album was already finished he did not participate in the creation process, however, after his arrival, he participated in writing two new songs: "Black Moon" and "Some Kind of Woman" which were not included in the original album and came out only as side-tracks.
In 1988, Martin took a short break from Black Sabbath and joined the "Forcefield" supergroup that included drummer Cozy Powell. This was while co-recording the band's second album, Forcefield II. The talisman.
In 1988 Martin returned to "Black Sabbath" and brought drummer Cozy Powell with him, to record the album "Headless Cross". This time Martin co-wrote all the songs on the album.
In 1990, Martin released the album "Tyr" with "Black Sabbath". This time, too, he co-wrote all the songs.
In 1991 Dio returned to work with "Black Sabbath" and Tony Martin was simply pushed out of the band. During this time he worked on his first solo album "Back Where I Belong" which was released in 1992. Tony played all the instruments during the demo recording. The album features some interesting guests such as Brian May of "Queen", drummer Zack Starkey - son of Ringo Starr and Tony's friends from Sabbath - keyboardist Geoff Nicholls and bassist Neil Murray.
In 1993, Tony Martin participated in guitarist Misha Calvin's "Evolution" album.
That same year, Dio left "Black Sabbath" once again and Tony Martin was again invited by Tony Iommi to return to the band. Amazingly, Martin swallowed his pride and agreed to return to the band and started to work on the 1994 album "Cross Purposes". Before Geezer Butler left the band, "Black Sabbath" recorded one of their performances from April 13, 1994, which will be released as "Cross Purposes Live". This is Black Sabbath's only official recording with Tony Martin and it includes a beautiful rendition of "The Wizard" (with the famous harmonica played by Martin), a song the band has not played live since the early 1970s.
In 1995, Sabbath's latest album with Martin "Forbidden" was released, followed by Sabbath's longest break that lasted almost two decades.
(Photo: Rockandrollgarage.com)
After Black Sabbath, Martin collaborated with several artists, including Dario Mollo, Giuntini Project, Rondinelli, Empire, Mario Parga, and more.
In 2005 Martin will release his second solo album "Scream". The album included an instrumental track that was originally recorded as a demo back in the days of Black Sabbath, just before the sessions for the "Dehumanizer" album. Martin used this demo and recorded the opening track from the "Scream" album - "Raising Hell".
In 2006 Martin formed the band "Tony Martin's Headless Cross" with which he appears with songs from his solo career alongside songs from his time with Black Sabbath.
Starting that year, Martin will be featured on several albums by other artists, including: "Phenomena", "Candlemass", "Black Widow", and more.
In 2014 it was announced that Tony was working on a third solo album to be titled: Black Widow Angel, to date no release date has been announced.
In 2016, there were rumors that Tony Iommi was interested in returning to work with Tony Martin. The rumors were not verified.
On January 14, 2022 Martin released his third solo album "Thorns".