Happy Birthday Geezer Butler!
The iconic Black Sabbath bassist, named the band that would define Heavy Metal from the Boris Karloff horror movie.
Butler would roar through the 70's with Sabbath in a Hall Of Fame career that inspired every metal band that formed in their wake. Their dark, horror inspired lyrics combined with their powerful live sound, making Sabbath one of the biggest bands of the 70's.
Going into the 80's Butler would and Sabbath would begin their Ronnie James Dio era, after the firing of Ozzy Osbourne and Butler would stay with the band till the late 80's. By decades end he would join his former Sabbath bandmate, becoming part of the Ozzy Osbourne band to tour for "No Rest for the Wicked", which culminated with their involvement with Bon Jovi's Moscow Music Peace Festival.
He would leave Ozzy in the early 90's to reunite with Sabbath's Mob Rules line-up, but left after the "Cross Purposes" tour to join Ozzy again on the Ozzmosis album. He would return to the fold howver at the end of the decade to form Heaven & Hell, which was made up of the Dio lineup of the group. He would stay with Sabbath as it reformed under the original name, even recording with Ozzy again in the 2000's.
Geezer Butler is considered to be one of the most influential metal bassists of his time and a founding father of the genre that has spawned countless bands and sub-genres that populate metal music today.