Lee Kerslake

Lee Kerslake was the drummer on Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981), but his career is far larger than that spell. Born in Bournemouth, England, in 1947, he was best known for Uriah Heep, which he joined in 1971 and where he recorded the albums that defined the group, among them Demons and Wizards (1972) and The Magician's Birthday (1972), later returning for a second stint that ran until 2007. His playing had weight and swing in equal measure — it came from the school of 1970s British rock, in which the drums carried the music with groove rather than merely keeping time. That is the quality Ozzy Osbourne was after when assembling the band that would launch his solo career, and it is what can be heard on the original recordings of the first two albums. Those recordings, however, were erased. In 2002, on the reissues of Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman, Kerslake's drum tracks and Bob Daisley's bass tracks were replaced by re-recordings from other musicians, in the context of a dispute over credits and royalties. Kerslake spent years claiming recognition for his part, and the gold discs for those albums' sales reached him only shortly before the end. He died on 19 September 2020, aged 73, of cancer.