Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler Salutes Beatles, Hendrix…And Billie Holiday

You may not be surprised to find Black Sabbath’s Geezer Butler confirming his ongoing enthusiasm for Jimi Hendrix, or the Mothers of Invention. Not quite as many of his admirers would know him as a Billie Holiday fan.

The band’s co-founder, bassist, and lyricist has just had his autobiography, Into The Void, published by HarperCollins, described as “his side of the Sabbath story, from early days as a scrappy blues quartet through to the many lineup changes, the record-breaking tours and the international hell-raising with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, and Bill Ward.”

Amid a round of interviews to promote the memoir, Butler spoke to Spin magazine for their “5 Albums I Can’t Live Without” feature. His No.1 choice, amid a selection of rock LPs that arrived at a formative time in his musical development in the midlands of England, is The Beatles’ Revolver. “When I rushed out to the local record shop and bought this album, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he says. “It was revolutionary.”

Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ is another all-time favorite for Butler, especially for the title track, which he says “spoke for a whole new generation,” and for “With God On Our Side.” He describes the latter as the greatest anti-war song ever written, and the direct inspiration for him to write Sabbath’s “War Pigs.”

Butler says in the Spin piece that he could have chosen any of the first three Mothers of Invention albums, but went for We‘re Only In It For The Money, on which he notes amusingly that “they seem to have recorded [Frank Zappa’s] brain!” Also in the list is the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s Axis: Bold As Love, about which he recalls seeing the revolutionary guitarist on Top of the Pops and buying a ticket for his Birmingham Odeon show, incongruously supporting Engelbert Humperdinck.

Concluding his list is the self-titled 1947 LP by Holiday, featuring the controversial “Strange Fruit.” “I discovered Billie Holliday quite late on – in the 1980s – and immediately fell in love with her voice,” says Butler. “So much emotion and feeling, and completely unique. I like the range of songs on this album, from standards to ‘Strange Fruit,’ but her interpretation of them is magical. I never tire of listening to this album.”

Buy Geezer Butler’s autobiography Into The Void.