Live Evil (40th Anniversary)

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It included the original album remastered and a remix of the album from the original analogue master tapes by longtime band associate Wyn Davis across four compact discs and four LPs. Ronnie and I would ride in one car, Geezer and Tony in another car, and everybody was breaking away from each other a little bit.

I can now say I’ve heard everything on Live Evil including the Ozzy era songs because I heard them during the times I saw Black Sabbath between 1997 and 2013. The original Sabs lineup had become my favorite band, and Jason knew that, but at first he was upset he had gotten me one that didn’t have Ozzy on it. Each of these WB CDs came in its own jewel case, complete with artwork, rather than a 2CD jewel case. In the same interview, asked to choose "a track that the engineer didn't cock up", he said: "I liked 'Heaven and Hell' flowing into 'Sign of the Southern Cross'. Geezer Butler has referred to this album a few times in interviews as “Live in the Studio Evil”, a reference to a lot of the overdubs on it.Dio has stated that while he and Appice were not interested in drugs, Iommi and Butler were using cocaine very heavily at that time. I also remember playing it in my friend’s garage and we couldn’t listen to all of it because we all felt jealous about being at the show. A DVD released was talked about with studio overdubbing, but, sadly, it never happened due to quarrels within the band during this release and up to Dehumanizer. When Iommi arrived days later, he asked the engineer what Dio had been doing in his absence and was told that he had frequently requested that the vocals be brought up higher in the mix. Dio steadfastly denied that he altered the mix and accused Iommi and Butler of fabricating the story.

Iommi, a founding member of the band, reckoned he had a power struggle on his hands and he wasn't about to relinquish creative control of Black Sabbath. When Dio and Appice arrived at the studio to begin the Live Evil mixing process, Iommi and Butler never showed up. citation needed] It seems this was not a mistake, rather a money-saving exercise, since the running-times of the two sides of the tape were more-or-less equal in this configuration.Iommi, in his drug-addled state, misunderstood what he was being told and came to the conclusion that Dio was not only mixing the album without him, but was trying to push his own vocals much too prominently in the mix.