Tony Iommi swaps Black Sabbath for cathedral choir
ROCK icon Tony Iommi has this week launched a special piece of music for Birmingham Cathedral after wanting to give something back to his home city.
The Black Sabbath lead guitarist, widely credited with creating the heavy metal music genre, worked together with the Dean of Birmingham the very reverend Catherine Ogle to write the five-minute song which was performed by Birmingham Cathedral Choir.
Iommi said: “The Dean and I met through a mutual friend, quite a few years ago and I always had this idea of us doing something together. We thought it would be nice to do something for Birmingham and for the Cathedral and it evolved from there really.”
How good it is is a celebration of peace, harmony and the Cathedral’s role in the city and is intended as a gift for the people of Birmingham.
“To do something for Birmingham was different and by doing something with both of us amalgamating it was different, certainly from what I’ve done before and probably from what Catherine has done as well.
“I started thinking what would work well with choir and the strings and the mellow tone seemed appropriate rather than something heavy – that would have probably been weird,” Tony added.
The lyrics, which are a combination of Latin and English were written by the Dean herself and echo recent projects they have been working on at the Cathedral.
Catherine said: “The words emerged from work that we’ve been doing over several years now which is about how Birmingham is a really good place, and that lots of really good things come out of Birmingham including Black Sabbath and lots of music and also that we’re at our best when different people come together and work together.”
‘How good it is’ refers to verses from the bible stating how good it is when people come together and live in harmony.
“That’s what Birmingham is for many of us, a very diverse place where people live together in peace, so actually bringing together different musical styles really illustrates that.
“So bringing together our wonderful choral trained choir at Birmingham Cathedral with Tony to make something beautiful is very significant,” Catherine added.
The song – which was launched by the Dean, Tony and the Choir on Thursday at the Cathedral – will be available on the Cathedral’s iTunes account and also to download for free on the Cathedral’s website too.
Catherine said: “The friendship between Tony, myself and the Cathedral exemplifies the best of Birmingham really, about people from different backgrounds and areas, coming together to do something good together for the city.”
