Tony Iommi

Rock Aid Armenia was a humanitarian effort by the British music industry to raise money to help those affected by the Leninakan Earthquake of 1988... that struck Armenia. Initiated by the international charity campaigner Jon Dee, the project comprised a number of singles, compilations and a documentary. The first Rock Aid Armenia project was a remake of 'What's Goin On' which featured Boy George, Aswad, Errol Brown, Richard Derbyshire and various other British artists. The record was produced by Steve Levine and the Executive Producers were Fraser Kennedy and Jon Dee. This was released as a single on Island Records in Germany. The project is most remembered for a re-recording of one of Deep Purple’s famous hit songs, "Smoke on the Water", with different vocalists singing each verse. The single made it to the British Top 40. The track was recorded by an elite group of contemporary hard rock and heavy metal musicians who gathered at the historic Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, London. Recording began on July 8, 1989 and was completed over 5 different sessions.
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Heaven & Hell were an English and American heavy metal supergroup active from 2006 to 2010. The band was a collaboration featuring Black Sabbath... members Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler along with former members Ronnie James Dio and Vinny Appice. The four members of Heaven & Hell recorded and toured together as Black Sabbath from 1980 to 1982, and again from 1991 to 1992. After the foursome reunited to record three new songs for the 2006 compilation album, Black Sabbath: The Dio Years, they embarked on a 2007–2008 tour. Iommi, owner of the Black Sabbath name, decided to call the touring group Heaven & Hell to differentiate the project from the Ozzy Osbourne-led Black Sabbath. The moniker was taken from the first Dio-fronted Black Sabbath album, Heaven and Hell. The group disbanded following Dio's death from stomach cancer in 2010. In an October 2005 interview with the programme "Masters of Rock", aired on BBC Radio 2, Ronnie James Dio revealed his plans to work with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi once again. He stated that two songs would be penned, and were to feature on a "project" entitled Black Sabbath - The Dio Years.
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I.R.S. Records was a record label, started in the United States in 1979 by Miles Copeland III along with Jay Boberg and Carl Grasso. Miles was also the manager of Wishbone Ash, The Police, and later, Sting, as well as other bands. I.R.S. was the sister label of Copeland's Illegal Records . I.R.S.... releases were distributed by A&M Records until 1985, by MCA Records until 1990, and finally by EMI until the label folded in 1996. In 1985, Copeland brokered a deal to switch the label's distributor to MCA Records. Under the agreement, A&M continued to release the label's pre-1985 catalog, much of which still can be found under the A&M banner. In 1990, the band Green Day included a mock letter from then-I.R.S. college radio rep Lori Blumenthal in one of their last cassette releases for Lookout Records. The fictional letter expressed IRS' interest in signing the band to the label. A mock reply letter from Lookout, also included in the cassette artwork, deemed I.R.S. a "cheesy" and "washed up" record label. The last IRS release was the 1996 Buzzcocks CD All Set before it folded. Shortly after, Copeland formed Ark 21 Records.
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Rhino Entertainment Company is an American specialty record label and production company. It is owned by Warner Music Group. Rhino was originally a novelty song and reissue company during the 1970s and 1980s, releasing compilation albums of pop, rock & roll, and rhythm & blues successes... from the 1950s through the 1980s. They were also known for releasing retrospectives of famous comedy performers, including Richard Pryor, Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, and Spike Jones. Starting during the late 1980s, Rhino transitioned into a complete entertainment company specializing in home video/DVD re-issues of television programs such as The Transformers, G.I. Joe, Jem, The Lone Ranger, My Favorite Martian, The World of Sid & Marty Krofft collection and Mystery Science Theater 3000, and Compact Disc releases of select artists and movie soundtracks. Rhino started as a record shop on Westwood Boulevard, Los Angeles, during 1973 by Richard Foos. It became a record distributor five years later thanks to the effort of then-store manager Harold Bronson.
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Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the... United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound. The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles.
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Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was... born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th century American popular music. Its West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note. As the music has developed and spread around the world it has drawn on many different national, regional and local musical cultures giving rise, since its early 20th century American beginnings, to many distinctive styles. . Among these styles are New Orleans jazz, dating from the early 1910s, big band swing and Kansas City jazz from the 1930s, and on through bebop from the mid-1940s to cool jazz, modal, hard bop, free jazz, fusion and Latin jazz in various forms. Late in the century it was influencing significant strains of new forms like electronic dance and rap. In a 1988 interview, trombonist J.J. Johnson said, "Jazz is restless. It won't stay put and it never will".
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