Bill DeNoyelles: July 2025

Thursday, July 31, 2025

Ellsworth, ME

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Monday, July 28, 2025

Sunday, July 27, 2025

Time, two selfies and ragged glory.

Hampton Beach, NH - Last week

Mount Tamalpais, CA - July 1999

Saturday, July 26, 2025

Friday, July 25, 2025

Remembering Jazz Great Chuck Mangione, RIP...

(In the early 1970's this was a WNEW- FM Radio staple)

Thursday, July 24, 2025

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Ozzie Osbourne (Dec. 3, 1948 - July 22, 2025)

(My daily photo appears at the bottom of this post today)

Black Sabbath helped navigate the rocky waters of my adolescence. From 1971 - 1975 they were the world to me. I pasted the walls of my bedroom with posters of them, read every article in every Rock n' Roll magazine about them and eagerly awaited every release. In 7th grade (1973/4) I was given an assignment in music class to make a visual interpretation of a song. Easy - Black Sabbath from their self titled first album. I made a shadowbox diorama out of an old shoebox - spray painting the outside black I drew in an ancient background of gnarled trees, castles, grassy fields and a graveyard. For 3D FX I cut out skeletons and tombstones from the monster magazines I read. I drew ghosts and tombstones & made backings with popsicle sticks as support for them, I even made fog out of pulled cotton balls. My first installation so to speak. I wish I still had it. I presented it to the class and played the record, everyone seemed to love it. We all loved Black Sabbath. They took you on a journey. Perhaps not a bright one but late 20th century life wasn't always that. The hippies were done. And here were these guys singing about the other side of things. They created a dark phantasm rooted in war, death, the perils of drug use, horror, science fiction, even hope and redemption. Ozzie was the voice of those places. I'll always be grateful for that.

On July 5th this year Black Sabbath and Ozzie did their last gig. Everytime I watched parts of it (live and recorded) I teared up, and sobbed at times. Part of it had to do with my upcoming 65th birthday (the first birthday I did not look forward to - don't worry dear readers it passed and I had a blast)...The thing was....that stadium of people loved that man so much they sang along with every line, cried, cheered, made pure sound and gave off so much genuine love it was hard, if not impossible, not to feel it. For me, and probably many others, that July 5th Back to Beginning Concert is perhaps the finest moment of Rock n' Roll - even trouncing Woodstock in my opinion!

Ozzie Osbourne was one of us. Working class, he overcame adversity at every turn - personal demons and, at the end, enduring a debilitating illness. More so than a John Lennon, Springsteen or a Patti Smith he was warts and all, real. His battles with addiction were well documented. He had no choice but to wear his battle scars. The same scars many of us shared with him. He was out front. He didn't hide. He was honest. There is a vast shortage of "honest" these days. Especially in all the arts. And he was loved for it! Deservedly so.

Every morning when I go for my daybreak walk through the tiny NH town I live in, I pass a car with a bumper sticker that reads "Black Sabbath Saved My life!" and I nod "Mine too!"

Thank you Ozzie!

Light a candle for "The Prince of Darkness" and know that he was so much more than that! God Bless him!