Black Sabbath had left the band. Walker, who was at that time fronting a band called Mistress, flew to Birmingham from California in late 1977 to write material and rehearse with Black Sabbath. On 8 January 1978, Black Sabbath made their only live performance with Walker on vocals, playing an early version of the song "Junior's Eyes" on the BBC Television programme "Look! Hear!" Walker later recalled that while in Birmingham he had bumped into Osbourne in a pub and came to the conclusion that Osbourne was not fully committed to leaving Black Sabbath. "The last Sabbath albums were just very depressing
Speak of the Devil (Ozzy Osbourne album) drinks between songs) who suffered from dwarfism and who the vocalist nicknamed "Ronnie", a joke aimed at Ronnie James Dio. Dio had replaced Osbourne as Black Sabbath's lead vocalist and stood only 5' 4" tall. "Speak of the Devil" was released one month before Osbourne's former band, Black Sabbath, released their own live album entitled "Live Evil", a situation which contributed to a growing rivalry between the two camps. In the US, sales of "Speak of the Devil" were much better than those of "Live Evil", while in the UK it was "Live Evil" which attained the higher chart-placing: figures