Ceremonially closing the curtain on a long and storied career that began in 1968, Ozzy Osbourne, more theatrically known as the Prince of Darkness and the Godfather of Heavy Metal, took the stage one last time on Tuesday where it all began: Birmingham, England.

Following a spate of beleaguered years marked by postponed, rescheduled, and ultimately canceled tours, Ozzy returned for a final curtain call, undeterred by a worsening Parkinson’s diagnosis and a debilitating spinal injury. Reunited with Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward under the original Black Sabbath banner, he headlined a lineup stacked with heavy metal royalty. Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Guns N’ Roses, and a host of other legends took the stage in tribute — all of them, in one way or another, indebted to the man who helped forge the genre itself.

Though heavy metal’s origins are endlessly debated, it’s reasonable to say that Black Sabbath, in 1970, released one of the first, if not the first, heavy metal records. Like most new art movements, it wasn’t conjured from thin air. It emerged from the influences that fed the era’s hungriest artists — those who yearned not only to play the music they loved, but to push the envelope and test the limits of what listeners could bear.

Sabbath’s sound came out of hard rock and blues rock, filtered through the acid-fueled chaos of the late ‘60s. Their distorted amps expelled the flowery, technicolor optimism of........

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