FLYING HIGH AGAIN

On the 40th anniversary of Randy Rhoads' death, we celebrate his metal mastery with a lesson devoted to his genre-defining style.

- VINNIE DEMASI

SEVENTEEN SONGS. FOR most artists, that would hardly amount to a substantial career. For Randy Rhoads, however, the 17 songs he tracked during his brief tenure as Ozzy Osbourne’s lead guitarist and co-writer on the albums Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman were more than enough to establish him as one of the truly outstanding rock guitarists of his generation. 

Rhoads came from a musical family and, while in his late teens, taught guitar in his mom’s music store, Musonia, by day, then rocked the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles by night with local heroes Quiet Riot. The group recorded two commercially stylized albums that were released in Japan in the late ’70s, but the band had trouble landing a record deal stateside. When Rhoads was offered the Osbourne gig in September 1979 (he allegedly blew the former Black Sabbath singer’s mind with some warm-up scales), he jumped.

What followed has become the stuff of legend. With Rhoads as his six-stringed gunslinger, Ozzy began one of the most successful solo runs in rock history, reigniting his career and helping to bring heavy metal into the mainstream. Cuts like “Crazy Train,” “Mr. Crowley,” “Over the Mountain” and “Flying High Again” quickly became staples of rock radio, owing to their perfect combination of memorable riffs, anthemic choruses, mystic imagery and Rhoads’ classically influenced guitar virtuosity.