Rhino Factoids: Black Sabbath Take a Stroll onto the RockWalk

23 years ago today, Black Sabbath joined the illustrious ranks of those commemorated on Guitar Center's RockWalk, on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

No, it's not quite as ubiquitous a tourist location as the Hollywood Walk of Fame or the venue formerly known as Grauman's Chinese Theater, but RockWalk is nonetheless an impressive tribute to an ever-increasing number of musical artists, and it's an effort which - per Dave Wiederman, director of RockWalk - is about “how many musicians you influenced, not how many records you sold." As it happens, Black Sabbath has sold quite a few records over the years, but their influence on rock 'n' roll has been tremendous, and it continues into the present, making them a more than worthy addition to RockWalk.

The band's induction ceremony took place at noon on Wednesday, November 17, 1992, and while it's perhaps notable that the placard that's used to introduced the proceedings actually says “Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne,” that's fair enough, since the illustrious Mr. Osbourne was indeed on hand for the event. After an introduction from no less a metal icon than Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Ozzy stepped up to the microphone, said a few words which were virtually unintelligible as a result of the audience whooping it up, and then put his handprints into cement to commemorate the occasion.

From there, Halford introduces Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler, but during the intro, the camera stays steadfastly on Ozzy, who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else, and his expression doesn't look significantly more excited when his two former bandmates take to the podium. After they've said their very few words, however, they make their way over to Ozzy to make their own handprints, at which point it becomes evident that Ozzy's expression was apparently just because of the weirdness of the moment, because all three gentlemen are quickly smiling and chatting with each other like it's the old days.