There was nearly one more Black Sabbath album. Andrew Watt, the producer of Ozzy Osbourne's last two solo records, told the Lipps Service podcast how close it came and where it stopped.
The sequence he describes is the striking part. After Ordinary Man and Patient Number 9, Osbourne wanted to make another record but not the same record, so a Sabbath album was on the table. Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne sent Watt to telephone each man in turn. Tony Iommi said yes, as long as Bill Ward was there. Osbourne said if Ward did it, they would do it. Geezer Butler said if the others were in, he was in.
Every yes had the same condition attached to it. Watt then had a forty minute call with Ward, which he calls one of the strangest and funniest of his life, and at the end of it Ward was not going to be able to make the record, for what Watt describes as a multitude of reasons.
None of which is new ground for this band. 13, in 2013, was made without Ward too, after contract talks he described as producing an unsignable agreement. The original four never recorded together again, and this is the story of the last time it was tried.