Now THIS is a good tribute record!! Great musicians, great songs, great performances make a great CD! Flying High Again- The World's Greatest Ozzy Osbourne Tribute (Magick Records) is probably just that.
This CD features the Vocal talents of Tim "Ripper" Owens, Lemmy, Mark Slaughter, Jack Blades of Night Ranger & Damn Yankees fame, Dee Snider, as well as the guitar wizardry of Yngwie Malmsteen, George Lynch, Richie Kotzen, Reb Beach, Brad Gillis, Steve Lukather, Doug Aldrich and many more. You even get the awesome Children of Bodom doing the Ozzy classic "Shot in the Dark"!!
The CD gets a great start with Ripper Owens & Yngwie just tearing up "Mr. Crowley". Ripper shows instantly what makes him one of the best singers on the Metal scene today! And of course, Yngwie is Yngwie. Love him or hate him, he does what he does and is great on this track. One of the stand out covers is the band Forever Say Die, featuring Guitarist Jeff Duncan of Odin & Armored Saint fame, just nailing the "Bark at the Moon". Jake E. Lee would be proud!!
Included is a live version of Lita Ford doing her once duet with Ozzy, "Close My Eyes Forever", Lemmy & the GREAT Richie Kotzen doing the Lemmy written "Desire", Icarus Witch, featuring the legendary George Lynch on lead guitar, doing S.A.T.O. Also the amazing & very underrated & over looked guitarist of Winger & Whitesnake, Reb Beach joins Jack Blades, Ex-Dokken member Jeff Pilson, & Ratt's Bobby Blotzer on a great rendition of "I Don't Know". Guitar Wizard extraordaire, Steve Lukather adds his chops, along with a raspy voiced, Joe Lynn Turner on another co-penned by Lemmy track, "Hellraiser".
Now there are a couple of definite departures from the original versions here. And one of them is "Revelation (Mother Earth)" by November's Doom. An interesting Death Metal voiced version of the hauntingly beautiful classic, which does actually seem to work. And the other being done by on again off again Testament guitarist, Alex Skolnick and his Trio. They end the CD with a smokey café styled Jazz standard-ish version of the Randy Rhoads classic, "Goodbye to Romance". Skolnick gets to show off his best George Benson themed riffs that have kept him busy since leaving Testament, many years ago. A fitting way t0 end this CD after all of the fury and mayhem that precedes it.
Overall, this is a great Ozzy tribute record. Many of Metal's & Hard Rock's favorite players from the past 20 years get to put their stamp on the Ozzy classics that we've all grown up with. A little bit from each of Ozzy's many incarnations over the years and Randy, Jake & Zakk are all represented, as they each should have been!!
Track Listing
1.) Mr. Crowley
2.) Shot in the Dark
3.) S.A.T.O.
4.) Bark At The Moon
5.) Close My Eyes Forever
6.) Desire
7.) Crazy Train
8.) Over The Mountain
9.) I Don't Know
10. Hellraiser
11.) Revelation (Mother Earth)
12.) Goodbye To Romance
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