Tony Iommi

Anthony Frank Iommi Jr. (, ; born 19 February 1948) is an English-Italian musician. He co-founded the pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and was the band's guitarist, leader and primary composer and sole continuous member for nearly five decades. Iommi was ranked number 13 in Rolling Stone magazine's 2023 list of greatest guitarists of all time. On his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, as a teenager, Iommi lost the tips of the middle and ring fingers of his right hand in an accident, an event which crucially impacted his playing style. He briefly left Black Sabbath (then known as Earth) in 1968 to join Jethro Tull, but did not record any material with the band, and subsequently returned to Black Sabbath in 1969. In 2000, he released his first solo album Iommi, followed by 2005's Fused, which featured his former bandmate Glenn Hughes. After releasing Fused, he formed Heaven & Hell, which disbanded shortly after the death of Ronnie James Dio in 2010 (they toured on Black Sabbath songs when Dio was in the band but changed the name for legal reasons). In 2011, Iommi published his autobiography, entitled Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath. Early life Iommi was born at Heathfield Road Maternity Hospital in Birmingham, the only child of Italian immigrants Sylvia Maria (née Valenti) from Palermo, Sicily, and Anthony Frank Iommi Sr from Marche. Sylvia's family were vineyard owners in Italy. The family was Catholic, though they rarely attended Mass. Their family home in the Park Lane area of Aston also housed a shop which was a popular meeting place in the neighbourhood, with the living room doubling as the shop's stockroom. His mother ran the shop while his father was a carpenter by trade.