Those of you know who my website will know that I’ve never shied away from the full history of the band. To that, I’ve always championed the Tony Martin era, which has largely been passed over by history, which is a shame. However, there’s a lot more to Tony Martin than the handful of Black Sabbath albums he’s been on (5 studio, 1 live, 1 compilation). Check out a couple of my favs:
If any of these videos don’t work, please email me and tell me that.
1) The Raven Ride
A song by the band Empire. They have several studio albums, most with Tony Martin on vocals, actually. There’s a total of four Empire albums. Tony sings on the middle two. Don Airey (brief Sabbath contributor), and Neil Murray is also a member of Empire. But one of my favorites is the title track from the third album, “The Raven Ride”. It came out in 2006, and has a really great guitar sound to it.
2) The Naughty Dragon
This is from a band called “Rondinelli”, who has only put out two albums. The song this song comes from is from the second (2002’s “Our Cross, Our Sins“). The other Rondinelli album is from 1996, and was called “War Dance”. That one features another former Sabbath vocalist, the late Ray Gillen. Of course, the band’s namesake is Bobby Rondinelli, who also founded the band with his brother. Big time Sabbath connection in this band.
Anyway, Naughty Dragon was the leadoff track from the Our Cross album, and like Raven Ride, has a great guitar sound I’m big time into.. And look, Neil Murray is on this, too! :)
3) Scream
This is the title track from Tony Martin’s own second solo album, “Scream” (2002). This continues the remark I said above about great guitar sound. But what makes this song stand out from others is that Tony does a violin solo! That’s definitely something you don’t see often. It works even better live, IMO. If you look at this video (starting at 9:34), you’ll see a live performance of “Scream”, including the violin. Most excellent tune.
4) Wicked World
Finally is the track “Wicked World”, from the third Cage album. The Cage is a project that Tony has done with guitarist Dario Mollo. This third album came out in 2012, and was not surprisingly called “The Third Cage”. This one actually had a formal promotional video made for it, which I’ve included below.
These songs are all good, but they barely tip the surface of what Tony’s done in his career. You really should seek out his other non Black Sabbath work, there’s some really good shit in there. Thing is a lot of it was never made available in the United States (where I am), so you have to work at it a bit to find the stuff. But do so. It’s worth the effort.
To finish up, here’s my complete “Tony Martin” playlist from iTunes. :)
