You can win Tony Iommi’s Gibson while supporting cancer care

According to BBC News and reported by MetalSucks, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi plans to raffle off one of his Gibson SG guitars in order to generate money for the hospital where he received cancer treatment. In 2013, Iommi, 77, received treatment at Heartlands Hospital in Birmingham, UK, following a lymphoma diagnosis. Iommi revealed that his cancer was in remission after four years, and in 2017 he underwent surgery to remove a noncancerous tumor from his throat. In an effort to raise £150,000 (about $195,625) to restore Heartlands’ cancer treatment facility, he joined hospital staff on November 5th to mark the start of the fundraising campaign.

It was a terrible shock. It’s really hard when you’re going through that. You just never think until you’re in that situation, and I know how difficult it is, and how they feel. I like to be able to give something back and be involved and help.

He also spoke to BBC about how he was treated:

The more comfortable you can make the patient, the better. I know when I was in, they treated me so well, that everybody was so nice, the nurses were nice, everybody was great. To have the right environment means a hell of a lot.

Iommi has stated that he will announce the raffle on social media as soon as it goes live.

They call him The Iron Man. The Riff Master General. The Godfather of Heavy Metal. Inspiration for many thousands of hard rock guitar heroes. As the lone strand of consistency in the genre-shaping career of Black Sabbath, over a period of more than half a century, the name of Tony Iommi has become synonymous with heavy rock, his innovative, de-tuned, dark riffs a blueprint for successive generations of bands that followed.

Just like the three fellow members of the original Black Sabbath — singer Ozzy Osbourne, bass guitarist Terry ‘Geezer’ Butler, and drummer Bill Ward — Anthony Frank Iommi hails from the Aston area of Birmingham. Back then, born into an industrialised, post-war city, few options were open to those entering the job market, with the youth usually funnelled into one of the city’s many factories… until Tony convinced his parents to buy him a guitar.