TheGraveDigger said:
In my opinion the Eternal Idol is an incredible album.
Also I did not know about Halford/Sabbath! Someone fill me in on that whole story.
"It wasn't working out with Ronnie. Playing-wise, it was great. But it didn't feel right. When Ozzy asked us to open his final show in Costa Mesa, things came to a head. Ronnie took a different attitude and refused to do the show. We originally asked Tony Martin to replace him, but he couldn't get a visa on such short notice. So Rob Halford offered to try. He's from Birmingham like us, so we had three hours to rehearse in Phoenix and it sounded great. It was done for fun. We didn't care if people - wait a minute - we did care if people threw bottles, but it was a good time."
- Geezer Butler, Boston Rock, April 1994
"We were really forced to start thinking of someone from outside of the Sabbath family, so to speak. I think Rob's name was the first to come up and after a little bit of thought we just said, 'Yeah, it's obvious isn't it?' The guy is from Birmingham, so he had that going for him, plus, of course, we all knew Rob has an amazing voice. With Black Sabbath we have always had singers with great character, but Rob has that as well as a range that means he can sing pretty much anything we have ever done easily. When we got hold of him it turns out that he really didn't need to learn too much because he had all the albums already. The guy lives and breathes heavy metal. He lived only a few hours away too, so everything locked into place there too. He saved our bacon on the day."
- Geezer Butler, Black Sabbath : Never Say Die!, 2003
"As I recall, the telephone call came completely out of the blue. As I was told, Sharon, Tony and Ozzy had put their heads together and came up with my name... The guys came down to my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona and we soon had something worked out..."
- Rob Halford, Black Sabbath : Never Say Die!, 2003
"Rob called Wendy and I and said, 'Listen, I've been asked to do these Black Sabbath shows, but I really don't want to lose our friendship. If it is going to upset things between us, then I'll decline'. Now, Rob didn't need to do that all, but he's a true gentleman so he did the right thing. I wouldn't say Rob needed our permission, but he wanted our blessing, not that he needed it, and he got it. It didn't matter to me at that stage who was going to do it, but I was glad it was Rob, and I thought some of the song choices were interesting too.
"I knew everything about what was going on. I would see Vinnie in the mornings and I would say, 'Going to rehearsals?' and Vinnie would say, 'Yeah, going to rehearse with Rob'. It was all out in the open."
- Ronnie James Dio, Black Sabbath : Never Say Die!, 2003
And Vinnie Appice was behind the drumkit.
More info here :
http://members.firstinter.net/markster/METALWORKS.html#NOVEMBER%201992:
