Anthony Philip Harford (born 19 April 1957), better known by his stage name Tony Martin, is an English heavy metal vocalist, best known for his time fronting Black Sabbath, initially from 1987 to 1991 and again from 1993 to 1997.

Despite performing almost exclusively as a vocalist, Martin is a multi-instrumentalist, stating in an interview[2] that he plays guitar, bass, drums, violin, keyboards, harmonica, bagpipes, and pan pipes.

On his 2005 solo album Scream, Martin performed vocals, bass, drums, violin and additional guitar parts.

[3] During the recording of The Eternal Idol (1987), Martin was brought in to re-record Ray Gillen's tracks, alongside former Electric Light Orchestra drummer Bev Bevan who had previously been in Black Sabbath during 1983–84 on the Born Again tour.

[citation needed] Before the release of the new album, Black Sabbath accepted an offer to play six shows at Sun City, South Africa during the apartheid era.

After nearly a year in production, Martin's debut with Sabbath The Eternal Idol was released on 8 December 1987 and ignored by contemporary reviewers.

AllMusic said that "Martin's powerful voice added new fire" to the band, and the album contained "some of Iommi's heaviest riffs in years".

[7] Bassist Dave Spitz left the band shortly before the tour, and was replaced by Jo Burt, formerly of Virginia Wolf.

[8] Iommi enlisted ex-Rainbow drummer Cozy Powell, long-time keyboardist Geoff Nicholls and session bassist Laurence Cottle, and rented a "very cheap studio in England".

[citation needed] Queen guitarist Brian May, a good friend of Iommi's, played a guest solo on the song "When Death Calls".

Black Sabbath was one of the first bands to tour the USSR, after Mikhail Gorbachev opened the country to western acts for the first time in 1989.

[7] Tony Martin returned to the studio with Black Sabbath in February 1990 to record Tyr, the follow-up to Headless Cross.

[citation needed] The album would receive mixed internet-era reviews, with AllMusic noting that the band "mix myth with metal in a crushing display of musical synthesis",[11] while Blender gave the album just one star, claiming that "Iommi continues to besmirch the Sabbath name with this unremarkable collection".

[12] The band toured in support of Tyr with Circus of Power in Europe, but the final seven UK dates were cancelled because of poor ticket sales.

[4] Butler officially rejoined the band after the end of the Tyr tour ahead of the Dehumanizer (1992) album with the intention of putting something back together with Tony Iommi and Cozy Powell.

At the demo level for Back Where I Belong, Tony Martin played all the instruments and the album itself featured former Black Sabbath members bassist Neil Murray and drummer Cozy Powell, as well as Brian May on guitar, among others.

The recording of this album has been made possible due to the contributions of the following people who have all given their individual and very special talents to this project, for which I would like to express my eternal thanks!

He, Geoff Nicholls and Cozy Powell worked on a song called "Raising Hell" during these sessions which subsequently ended up on Martins second solo album Scream (2005).

"[16] Martin's return to Sabbath at this stage was again short lived as Warner Bros had paid a huge amount of advance money for Dehumanizer, and again, record company pressure forced another change, they wanted either Ozzy Osbourne or Dio.

[4] Tony Martin famously met Dio on the Dehumanizer tour after being invited to the show by Iommi & Butler.

After Iommi & Butler realised that the Ozzy Osbourne reunion talks were breaking down they enlisted former Rainbow drummer Bobby Rondinelli, and reinstated Martin.

[19] AllMusic's Bradley Torreano called Cross Purposes "the first album since Born Again that actually sounds like a real Sabbath record".

In the wake of their departure Iommi then reinstated former members Neil Murray on bass and Cozy Powell on drums, effectively reuniting the TYR line-up.

The album featured a guest vocal on "Illusion of Power" by Body Count vocalist Ice-T.[22] The resulting Forbidden was released on 8 June 1995, but failed to chart in the US or the UK.

As for the rest of the band, Neil Murray was working with Cozy Powell in Peter Green's (founder of Fleetwood Mac) 'Splinter Group'.

Records released a compilation album in 1996 to fulfil the band's contract, entitled The Sabbath Stones, which featured songs from Born Again (1983) to Forbidden (1995).

The album featured again former Sabbath member Geoff Nicholls and some drum tracks from the late Cozy Powell.

well, when I fronted Cozy Powell's Hammer, he gave me 20 drumming tracks to write some songs with, I forgot I had them until I found them recently in the move to my new house.

[28] In January 2016 Martin announced on his Facebook page that he "was greeted by Tony Iommi VERY warmly" at the unveiling of the Cozy Powell memorial (also attended by Neil Murray) and that they may work together again.

[citation needed] In a Myspace blogpost, he calls his choice to release a Christmas single "a kind of strange thing considering i dont believe there's a Christ", but goes on to explain that the song - titled "Who Put the Devil in Santa" - says that none of the Christmas message works, and in the first few lines writes that the promise of a man called Jesus "No ones seen and doesn't seem to exist".