{"id":232845,"date":"2025-06-04T20:21:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T19:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=232845"},"modified":"2026-03-27T17:28:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T17:28:34","slug":"how-to-manage-ozzy-and-more-music-industry-advice-from-sharon-osbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/how-to-manage-ozzy-and-more-music-industry-advice-from-sharon-osbourne\/","title":{"rendered":"How to manage Ozzy, and more music industry advice from Sharon Osbourne\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

MBW\u2019s World\u2019s Greatest Managers series profiles the best artist managers in the global business. Sharon Osbourne is a star in her own right, but for more than four decades, she has also managed her husband, and true rock revolutionary, Ozzy. Here she discusses that relationship, their success, and Black Sabbath going out on a high in July. This interview originally appeared in the Q1 issue of Music Business UK<\/em>, printed in March. World\u2019s Greatest Managers is supported by Centtrip<\/a>, a specialist in intelligent treasury, payments and foreign exchange \u2013 created with the music industry and its needs in mind.<\/p>\n

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Let\u2019s take this opportunity to settle one of the biggest debates in music.<\/p>\n

Black Sabbath were the first heavy metal band. They are, thematically and sonically, pioneers. Very few acts scheduled to headline a stadium in 2025 can claim to have defined a genre of music and paved the way for over a dozen other musicians on the same line-up.<\/p>\n

In July, Black Sabbath\u2019s original four members return to their hometown of Birmingham, the birthplace of heavy metal, to play their final concert at Villa Park with support from giants of the metal world: Slayer, Metallica, Pantera, Lamb Of God, Mastodon and more.<\/p>\n

According to the concert\u2019s musical director Tom Morello, the final reunion of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, will be \u201cthe greatest heavy metal show ever\u201d.<\/p>\n

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For Sharon Osbourne, Ozzy\u2019s wife and manager of more than four decades, the planning of Back To The Beginning \u2013 as the charity event has been dubbed \u2013 is \u201cvery bittersweet\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been our lives together for 45 years,\u201d she says of hers and Ozzy\u2019s storied careers in music. \u201cIt\u2019s great, but it\u2019s sad at the same time,\u201d she adds of her feelings about the final show.\u00a0 \u201cBut it\u2019s definitely time to say goodnight. It\u2019s time for Ozzy to do whatever he wants and not have to plan anything or be anywhere at any particular time.\u201d<\/p>\n

After guiding heavy music\u2019s original provocateur to solo megastardom, Sharon Osbourne built an empire across music management, festivals (Ozzfest between 1996\u20132018) and television (The Osbournes, The Sharon Osbourne Show<\/em> etc). She\u2019s also a best-selling author and was a judge on multiple series of hit talent shows America\u2019s Got Talent and the UK\u2019s The X Factor<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Osbourne was, in her own words, \u201cborn into the industry\u201d.<\/p>\n

She witnessed the birth of the rock\u2018n\u2019roll business in London in the 1960s as the daughter of infamous music executive Don Arden \u2013 who worked with stars from Gene Vincent to Jerry Lee Lewis, and later Electric Light Orchestra, Black Sabbath and more.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just saw something in Ozzy. I saw that spark that he had. It was electric.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI watched my father go from an artist himself, to an agent, to a manager to running his own record label [Jet Records]. I worked for him for several years,\u201d Osbourne says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned everything I knew from my father. I watched him make terrible mistakes, and I learned a lot of good things and also things that you just don\u2019t do in the industry. I was like an apprentice. I learned it all from him, good and bad, because I definitely have my father\u2019s temper, but I don\u2019t take other people\u2019s money!\u201d<\/p>\n

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The first artist Sharon managed on her own was guitar player Gary Moore, but would later go on to manage Ozzy\u2019s solo career by herself after his split from Black Sabbath in 1979.\u00a0 \u201cI started with Gary, and I was doing day-to-day management for ELO at the time,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I just saw something in Ozzy. I saw that spark that he had. It was electric. Ozzy would walk into a room, and everybody would look at him. In two minutes, he had everybody laughing on the floor.\u00a0 He was a very charismatic young man. I just believed in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That belief manifested into significant success. Ozzy\u2019s first solo album Blizzard Of Ozz<\/em> (1980), featuring the classically trained late great Randy Rhoads on guitar and co-songwriting duties, has sold over six million copies worldwide, hit No.21 on the US album chart and included iconic tracks like Crazy Train<\/em> and Mr. Crowley<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just exploded,\u201d Sharon recalls of Ozzy\u2019s transition from Sabbath frontman to solo star in 1980. \u201cAs soon as Crazy Train came out on the radio, it was just instant. Ozzy was blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ozzy has since sold over 100 million albums worldwide across his work with Black Sabbath and his 13 solo studio albums. His most recent LP, the Andrew Watt-produced Patient Number 9<\/em> (Epic), hit No.3 on the US album chart and won the Grammy for Best Rock Album in 2023. He also won Best Metal Performance that year for Degradation Rules<\/em> (feat. Tony Iommi).<\/p>\n

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