Tom Morello Inducts Randy Rhoads into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Watch

The post Tom Morello Inducts Randy Rhoads into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Watch appeared first on Consequence.

Randy Rhoads was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday (October 30th) as the recipient of the Musical Excellence Award.

Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello held the honor of inducting the late guitar icon into the class of 2021 via the award, which is given to “artists, musicians, songwriters and producers whose originality and influence creating music have had a dramatic impact on music.”

Morello honored Rhoads via a video message shown at the induction ceremony in Cleveland. Other rock luminaries such as Ozzy Osbourne, Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, and guitarist Zakk Wylde also paid tribute in a video montage.

“Randy Rhoads is a peerless talent,” Morello said. “He revived Ozzy Osbourne’s career as his gunslinger sideman. And it was Randy Rhoads’ poster that I had on my wall… You could study Randy’s songs in a university-level musicology class and bang your heads to them in a 7-Eleven parking lot.”

After making a name for himself as a founding member of Quiet Riot, Rhoads joined Ozzy’s solo band and played on his first two solo albums, the iconic Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman. Tragically, the virtuoso guitarist died in a plane crash in 1982.

Hammett commented on Rhoads’ tragic death, saying, “All of a sudden, the curtain came down unexpectedly and the show was over before it really, really got going.”

On Randy’s legacy as a guitarist, Wylde — who would go on to play in Osbourne’s band in the late 1980s — said his predecessor “sits at” the same table of “greatness” alongside fellow RRHoF inductees Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, and more.

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Ozzy himself spoke with Rolling Stone about his friend and bandmate, celebrating his induction into the Hall. “I knew him for a very short amount of time,” Osbourne said. “But what he gave me in that short amount of time was immeasurable in f**king greatness. To get somebody like Randy Rhoads to play on two albums, and for those two albums to sound as good as the day they were recorded, is something else. And I’m forever in gratitude for that. God only knows where that man would be today. The very fact that he’s not here to breathe the air is just a f**king crime.”

He added: “Thank God that he’s getting recognized by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He finally got there in the end. I’m sad that his mother was not alive to see it, because he was very close to his mom. I know his brother, Kelle, and his sister, Kathy, are going to be really chuffed about it. It shows that he’s not been forgotten. He was a dedicated, true musician, and he was a lovely guy. I still think about him all the time.”

Watch footage of Randy Rhoads’ Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction below. Other highlights included Paul McCartney inducting Foo Fighters and Barack Obama and Dave Chappelle inducting JAY-Z. You can check out the full ceremony on November 20th on HBO and HBO Max, alongside a radio simulcast via SiriusXM.

In related news, Ozzy just announced an expanded 40th anniversary digital edition of Diary of a Madman, arriving November 5th.

Tom Morello Inducts Randy Rhoads into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Watch
Jon Hadusek

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