LITA FORD: OZZY OSBOURNE 'Changed My Life'

During a July 23 appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", Lita Ford paid tribute to Ozzy Osbourne who died earlier this week at the age of 76. She said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "He changed my life, from the time I was 13 years old going to [a] BLACK SABBATH concert. That was it. That was the day and the night the light bulb went off over my head, and I just thought, 'I have to do this. This is what I wanna do. I wanna make people feel like SABBATH is making everybody feel in the audience that night.' It was the Long Beach Arena in California, Long Beach, California. Everybody was smoking. The place was full of smoke, and the crowd were almost hypnotized by the long black hair on everybody from SABBATH and their big gold crosses. It was kind of all you could see, was just a lot of hair and a cross and a powerful sound coming off the stage that was just jaw-dropping. And so that night I came out of there, and I knew what I was gonna do with my future."

Lita also touched upon the fact that she and Ozzy recorded a duet, "Close My Eyes Forever", for her 1988 album "Lita". It was Ford's highest-charting single, peaking at No. 8 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1989.

"It's just really ironic that I got to have a Top 10 hit single with Ozzy," Ford said. "And I have to say it was one of the highlights of my life. And we will all miss him, but his music will live on. And that's what we have to do, is just focus on the music and all the good things that he's left everybody. And I'm sure he would've probably been gone a long time ago if not for [his wife and manager] Sharon. I mean, Sharon was the best, and she took good care of Ozzy, and so she kept him going and she made him into the superstar that he is today."

Fan-filmed video of Lita performing "Close My Eyes Forever" at KK's Steel Mill in Wolverhampton, near Birmingham, England the day after Ozzy's death can be seen below.

Lita hired Sharon to manage her in 1985, three years before the release of Ford's platinum "Lita" album, which produced two Top 40 singles, including "Close My Eyes Forever".

Back in 2015, Lita told Eddie Trunk about the experience of being managed by Sharon during the late 1980s: "Well, I actually… I had a love-hate relationship with her. I loved Sharon. I thought she was awesome. For me, as a female in the rock world, she was another female in the rock world, and I could relate to her on that level. There was really nobody else to relate to that was female in the rock world, except for maybe one of the record company people. But as far as managers or musicians, there weren't any, except THE RUNAWAYS, but we had already gone our separate ways by then. We weren't really in touch with each other. So Sharon was a godsend for me."

Lita also talked about "Close My Eyes Forever", which came about by accident during a night of drinking and getting stoned with Ozzy.

"It went Top 10, and it was Ozzy's first Top 10 hit single — on my record," Lita recalled. "And I thought, 'Wow! After all these amazing songs and everything he's done for the music industry, he gets his first Top 10 hit single on my record. I guess, because I had… By that point, I had really fallen into this chick who could sing and play guitar and we were able to creep our way up the charts, because it took away some of the darkness that was behind Ozzy's 'Prince Of Darkness' [persona]. And it was okay — it made it okay — for the record to go Top 10. It was politically okay. But I was happy. We were voted 'Best Male Rock Vocalist', I was 'Best Female Rock Vocalist' in all the rock magazines. And then together we did a duet, both managed by Sharon Osbourne. It was a win-win situation."

Ozzy died Tuesday morning (July 22),his family announced in a statement.

"It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time," the family said.

No cause of death was given, but Osbourne had battled a number of health issues over the past several years, including Parkinson's disease and injuries he sustained from a late-night fall in 2019.

Ozzy's death came a little more than two weeks after he took the stage for his final performance with BLACK SABBATH at Villa Park in the band's original hometown of Birmingham, United Kingdom. They performed four songs for more than 40,000 people in the stadium and 5.8 million more on a livestream. Ozzy also played a five-song solo set while seated in a bat-adorned throne.

The legendary BLACK SABBATH frontman was diagnosed in 2003 with Parkin 2 — a very rare genetic form of Parkinson's. During a TV appearance in January 2020, the singer disclosed that he was 'stricken" with the disease which occurs when the nerve cells of the body degenerate and levels of dopamine are reduced. Dopamine is an essential chemical that is produced by these nerve cells which send signals to different parts of the brain to control movements of the body.

Ozzy's health issues, including suffering a nasty fall and dislodging metal rods placed in his spine following a quad-bike accident in 2003, as well as catching COVID-19 three years ago, forced him to cancel some of his previously announced tours.

Despite his health problems, Osbourne had performed a couple of times in the last three years, including at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in August 2022 and at the NFL halftime show at the season opener Los Angeles Rams and Buffalo Bills game in September 2022.