Ozzy Osbourne, who passed away at age 76 early on Wednesday, once bit off the head of a bat – needing rabies shots after – and was known as the Prince of Darkness, but he brought joy and light into countless lives with his music.

He also gave rock music some of its greatest guitarists.

Osbourne, who was frontman of the 1970s British band Black Sabbath, created the blueprint for heavy metal as we know it.

The ‘Godfather of heavy metal’ did not just lay the groundwork for famous names like Metallica, Slayer, and Iron Maiden – he kept on reinventing himself as an artist and pop icon, backed by a talent to recruit gifted musicians.

Toni Iommi

Black Sabbath lead guitarist Tony Iommi is arguably the biggest fan favourite when it comes to ranking collaborations with Ozzy.

And Iommi is probably the only guitarist after Django Reinhardt who can lay claim to inventing a new genre after an accident affected his fingers.

Iommi severed the tips of his middle and ring fingers on his fretting hand in a factory accident when he was 17. Like Reinhardt – who practically invented Gypsy jazz after his left-hand fingers were burnt – Iommi turned his limitation into innovation.

Iommi is credited with making power chords – a truncated version of a chord played usually with only the first and fifth notes of the major scale – a staple of the music that would come to be known as heavy metal.

Iommi’s dark and monolithic guitar tone, embellished with Ozzy’s theatrical and haunting voice in the early 70s (Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs) became the backbone of heavy metal.

Beyond Black Sabbath, Ozzy’s storied solo career is also marked by a succession of influential guitarists across multiple genres, with each player bringing a distinctive sound and character to define different eras of his music.

Randy Rhoads

According to the Black Sabbath frontman, Randy Rhoads was the best of all for his ability to read, write and even teach music.

A classically trained virtuoso guitar player, Rhoads features in this list as Ozzy’s most musically gifted collaborator.

His neoclassical solos and heavy riffs made tracks like Crazy Train and Mr. Crowley commercial hits. Albums like Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman became landmark heavy metal albums.

Rhoads died in a plane crash while on tour with Osbourne in Florida in 1982.

Jake E. Lee

Often underappreciated but critical to Ozzy’s genre-defying 1980s sound, Jake E. Lee came in after his predecessor Rhoads died. His notable contributions include Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin, albums which were more bluesy and raw, with a funkier, looser feel compared to Rhoads’ disciplined style.

Lee’s induction marked a significant turning point in Ozzy Osbourne’s style, with the classical elements being replaced by a more upbeat music and faster rhythm, in line with the mid-80s metal scene.

Zakk Wylde

Known for his signature “bullseye” Les Paul tone (although he mostly plays a Flying V nowadays), heavy pinch harmonics, and southern-rock influences, Zakk carried Ozzy into the grunge-dominated ’90s and became his longest-serving solo guitarist, embodying the modern era of Ozzy’s sound.

The album No More Tears is considered an Ozzy-Zakk masterpiece. Their other notable works include No Rest for the Wicked, Ozzmosis, and Black Rain.

Ozzy, the guitarists’ singer

The world was not lucky enough to witness the full magic of a Steve Vai-Ozzy Osbourne duet. The two embarked on a single song-writing collaboration in the mid-1990s, which turned into a promise for a full album.

Ultimately, the sessions didn’t materialise into anything owing to management decisions and project expenses. The only track to be officially released was My Little Man under the Ozzmosis album. However,

Vai has maintained that a whole Ozzy record exists, which remains shelved to this day.

Ozzy Osbourne’s broad musical reach is not just confined to heavy metal. His collaboration with Joe Bonamossa, widely considered as a top blues guitarist, introduced mature blues-rock as a perfect balance to Ozzy’s usual heavy-metal canvas.

Additionally, on recent albums like Ordinary Man and Patient Number 9, a number of guest guitarists have contributed, including Slash, Tom Morello, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton.

It was also perhaps fitting that the man who stood out at Osbourne’s farewell concert in Birmingham, titled back to the Beginning, was Nuno Bettencourt, the guitarist from Extreme who has returned to the top of the shred-rock pile with his jaw-displacing solo in the single Rise.