Rock and Roll Hall of Fame guitarist Randy Rhoads left us 40 years ago this Saturday, on March 19th, 1982.
He was a passenger in a small plane that failed to regain height while buzzing Ozzy Osbourne‘s tour bus, crashing into the garage of a home nearby in Leesburg, Florida.
It was being piloted, without permission, by Ozzy’s tour bus driver and private pilot Andrew Aycock.
There is speculation that Aycock, who had been doing cocaine the night before the crash, may have attempted to crash the plane into his estranged wife outside the bus when one of the wings clipped the top of the bus sending the plane spiraling out of control. Rhoads was killed instantly.
Keyboardist Don Airey, who is now in Deep Purple, was the only member of the band to witness the crash, saying, “I had my camera and was taking photos of the plane to give to Randy afterwards. I had my telephoto lens on and could tell that there was some sort of struggle going on board the plane. The wings were rapidly tipping from side to side. At one point the plane almost became perpendicular, no more than six feet off the ground. That’s when I put down my camera and saw the plane right in front of me. I quickly crouched to avoid getting hit and looked over my shoulder and watched it clip the bus, crash into the tree and explode on impact into the garage.”
Ozzy’s official statement to crash investigators was: “At approximately 9:00 a.m. on Friday, March 19th, 1982, I was awoken from my sleep by a loud explosion. I immediately thought that we’d hit a vehicle on the road. I got out of the bed, screaming to my fiancée, Sharon, ‘Get off the bus.’ Meanwhile, she was screaming to everyone else to get off the bus. After getting out of the bus, I saw that a plane had crashed. I didn’t know who was on the plane at the time. When we realized that our people were on the plane, I found it very difficult to get assistance from anyone to help. In fact, it took almost a half-hour before anyone arrived. One small fire engine arrived, that appeared to squirt three gallons of water over the inferno. We asked for further assistance, such as telephones, and didn’t receive any further help. In the end, we finally found a telephone and Sharon phoned her father [Ozzy and Black Sabbath manager Don Arden].”
Ironically, Rhoads was afraid of flying,but he wanted to take some aerial photos of the countryside for his mother. He tried to get bassist Rudy Sarzo to accompany him, but he wanted to get some extra sleep.
Rhoads was a founding member of Quiet Riot and co-wrote songs for and played on Ozzy’s first two albums — Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman.
Just 25 years old, Rhoads was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, honored with the Musical Excellence award.
Ozzy Osbourne says the song “Diary of a Madman” features one of his favorite guitar solos by the late Randy Rhoads.
“His guitar solo in “Diary of a Madman” at the end of that middle eight section is like the same buzz you’d get off of an old Zeppelin album, that kind of solo. It’s like ghostly, y’know.”
Ozzy Osbourne on writing one of the first songs of his solo career, “I Don’t Know,” with Randy Rhoads and Bob Daisley.
“We were writing that in a farmhouse in Wales and Randy had just joined the band and he’d got this riff [sings it]. I just come up with this melody line and Bob and I sat down and write the lyrics. That was the initial start of the Ozzy thing, and I knew at the time that I had something there, y’know. You can feel it. And I’ll always remember when Randy Rhoads got the guitar solo my hair stood up on the back of my hand and I thought, ‘That’s got to be a winner!’”
