We Lost Randy Rhoads 32-Years Ago Today

March 19th 1982 the music world lost a great guitarist, Randy Rhoads, to a plane crash. Randy was Ozzy’s guitarist and while they where on tour for the “Diary of a Madman” release they stopped in Florida to repair a broken AC unit on the tour bus and that is when tragedy struck.

The bus driver took them to a place he knew about so they could fix the AC unit. The privet property he took them to had a couple of planes and an airstrip on it. The bus driver Andrew Aycock who was also a pilot took a couple of band members up for a ride on one of the planes without permission.

After the first flight Aycock took up Randy Rhoads and makeup artist Rachel Youngblood for a ride. Aycock tried to buzz the tour bus that Ozzy was sleeping on when the plane touched the bus. The wing broke causing the plane to spin out of control and killing all three people on-board.

I was lucky enough to see the man play before his death. January 27th Ozzy was to play in St. Louis but due to him biting the head off a real bat in Iowa on the 20th the show was pushed back a couple of weeks. That night we got about eight inches of snow during the show, which made the ride home fun.

Randy was just 25-years-old when he died had only been on two albums with Ozzy. Both of those albums have sold very well and have influenced a whole generation of guitarist. Today for the Four-Tracks I will feature the guitar work of Randy Rhoads.