After two years of waiting, we actually have a (sort of) release date for the Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath box set! According to Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi in his New Year's greeting video, the box will see the light of day sometime this May. No word on if this also includes all the albums being available on streaming services, but here's hoping it does.
Martin sang for Black Sabbath between 1987 and 1991, and then again between 1993 and 1997. Martin's discography with the band includes The Eternal Idol, Headless Cross, Tyr, Cross Purposes, and Forbidden, all of which are largely unavailable on any format.
"Hello all, I hope you've had a great Christmas. We certainly have here. It's been good fun. Plenty of food and drink. Marvelous, absolutely marvelous.
"Anyway, last year when I did my [year-end video] message, I did say we'd have a box set [of the Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath albums] coming out. Well, now I've been informed that it'll be out in May. It's been held up with paperwork and legal stuff. But anyway, it's coming out in May now, if you're interested, and I hope you are.
"But it's been an interesting year again this year. It's great, great fun. A lot of different things happening. I was working with the Birmingham Royal Ballet with Carlos Acosta on doing the Black Sabbath Ballet, which was absolutely marvelous. I mean, they've done such a brilliant job. And the dancers are fantastic. Just all the people involved in it were just so into it, and it was great fun.
"And I was making an appearance on the end of some of the shows — not all of them; just some of them. But as soon as they put it on sale, the tickets sold out like that, which was fantastic. We had a lot of Sabbath fans come in who really enjoyed it. So, hopefully next year, or this year, of course, by the time you get this message, they're talking of taking it to America and Europe. So hopefully that'll happen, and everybody can get to see it. But it's well worth watching. Fantastic.
"And also, I did a documentary for Sky, which was also very interesting. I'd done it at home and done some away. But it was good fun and I had Brian May come up and we worked together and played together and that was great. And if you can't get that on Sky, you can get it on YouTube, so it is on YouTube all around the world. Also, what else have I done? Well, I've been working in the studio, of course, and doing things that everybody else do, really.
"And I did a show with Johnny Depp and the Hollywood Vampires — Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, and the rest of the gang. Good fun. Really great. Something different for me. So, that was that, really. Hopefully there'll be more going on in the next year. But also I did a thing with Cesar [Gueikian] from Gibson and Serj from System Of A Down. I did a track with them. And that was to raise money for Armenia, which was good. So that's out as well.
"So, we'll see what happens now in the next year and I'll inform you as we go on. But, yeah, I am writing and doing plenty of stuff and it's sounding really good. I'm very happy with it. I might use some orchestration, I might not. So we'll see how it goes.
"Anyway, have a great new year and all the best to you all.Thank you. Bye bye."
