Best Black Sabbath ‘Seventh Star’ Song – Readers Poll

Black Sabbath's 1983 album ‘Born Again’ was so poorly received, singer Ian Gillan was almost happy to join a reunited Deep Purple -- and that's saying a lot, considering the band’s various acrimonious relationships. Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler wasted all of 1984 trying to launch yet another doomed comeback -- this time with unknown singer David DiDonato -- before calling it quits.

Finally resigned to Sabbath’s demise, Iommi began working on a solo album with the help of no-name session musicians, ever-loyal keyboardist Geoff Nicholls and, just to add a little star power, former Trapeze and Deep Purple singer-bassist Glenn Hughes, who was recruited to sing just a song or two. But he wound up singing on the entire ‘Seventh Star’ album that came out in 1986 -- an eclectic LP that mixes familiar head-bangers (‘In for the Kill,’ ‘Turn to Stone,’ the title track) with departures like the bluesy ‘Heart Like a Wheel’ and the lovelorn ballads ‘No Stranger to Love’ and ‘In Memory …’

But once the suits at Waner Bros. Records got their hands on the finished product, they greedily turned ‘Seventh Star’ into a “Black Sabbath Featuring Tony Iommi” project, doing further disservice to the band’s legacy. But, in a curious twist, it also provided a tenuous lifeline that kept Black Sabbath alive.