📍Aston, Birmingham B6, UK
1949 – 1968“Terence Michael Joseph Butler was born in Aston, Birmingham, in July 1949, the youngest of seven children of James and Mary Butler, devout Irish Catholics who had moved to Birmingham from Dublin. His father was an engineer, and the family home had no telephone, hot water or bathroom, just an outside toilet, but Geezer has described an incredibly loving, happy childhood, made happier by having his favourite football team, Aston Villa, just down the road. He was brought up in the Catholic faith, and close to the local church, and he was a clever boy who went to grammar school and trained to become an accountant. But the Beatles changed his life, as they did for millions of his generation, and he started playing rhythm guitar in a school band, The Runes, covering Beatles and Rolling Stones songs. He then joined the Rare Breed, a more theatrical band that wore Halloween face paint and threw flour for smoke at pubs and clubs around Birmingham; he played a red Hofner guitar. After seeing Cream play at Mothers, a Birmingham club, he was mesmerised by the bassist Jack Bruce and switched to bass. In 1968, he answered Ozzy Osbourne's advertisement, and with Tony Iommi and Bill Ward they formed the band that became Black Sabbath. Geezer wrote most of the band's lyrics, drawing on his interest in the occult, science fiction and his Catholic upbringing, in songs like War Pigs and Paranoid, and his heavy bass helped invent heavy metal. He still loves Aston Villa, and he wrote about his Aston childhood in his memoir, Into the Void.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
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