The idea of the black magic act came from the drummer Clive Box. Box
was always full of good idea's that Jim Gannon (guitars) at the time put
to music. Although this concept was very successful it worked against them
in many ways.
The radio stations were very off about playing records that related to black
magic on the air (this was in 1970) so their stage hit; "Come To The Sabbat"
got very little airplay. In addition to all the lyrics containing nothing
but pure evilness, much in the way of witchcraft etc., Widow didn't exactly
change the view people had on them when teaming up with the "most powerful
man in Europe" at the time. The self professed "King Of Witches", Alex Sanders.
Sanders was the head of a cult of modern Wicca witches and had a certain interest
in Black Widow's music. He gave them advice on the art of witchcraft
and of the occult. Widow even did a film documentary together with Alex,
where they played "Come To The Sabbat" live with a bunch of witches dancing
naked all around them. This film has not yet been recovered.
Performing live, Black Widow had the help of a girl, Alex's
wife Maxine Sanders in their show. She played the role of Lady Astaroth and
ended up naked, having sex with the vocalist (not for real though) and sacrificed
(not for real either) on stage. This, an extravagant mystic show (choreographed
by members of Leicester´s Phoenix Theater Company) and outrageous
effects like a magic circle on the stage, swords, candles, incense, and
Alex telling them the correct words to say to conjure up the right spirits
made the press to show up allot, but also other groups of people....
At concerts, the crowd where often met by Vicars turning up, waving
crosses and telling the audience to leave and beware of the evil dark magic
of Black Widow. Religious fanatics would preach at the waiting queues
urged on by journalists looking for a story. But, of course, the crowd never
did leave and clubs were forced to put up notices warning about the bands
stage show and act. This only made kids show up by the thousand, so it was
not a success for the church - but for Black Widow!
At a show at the Lyciam in London (where miss World was held in those days),
Black Widow were told they could do the show if the girl wasn't
naked at the end. Of course they agreed, but the girl ended up naked anyway
and all hell broke loose.
The audience went mad when the owners tried to stop the show and everyone
was searched for camera's when they left because of the nude girl. But a
picture was smuggled
out and made the Sunday papers the next day. News writer Paul Green said
that Black Widow's music and stage show was not an example of
Satanism, but more an example of Satanic bad taste. This was another reason
why people where shocked by them.
The band were due to go on tour to the USA (together with Black
Sabbath), but at the same time Charles Manson did his black magic
murders and the powers in the States decided that it would not be a very good
idea to let them tour at that time. It is not certain why though.....where
they thinking about the bands safety or that it might be bad publicity for
them to let Black Widow into the country. Also when the album was released
in the UK it came out on CBS the same week as they released Simon and Garfunkel's
"Bridge Over Troubled Water". That song was such a seller that they stopped
printing Sacrifice and concentrated on that album(!) This left Black
Sabbath free to go to the States because they always denied that they
were involved with occult magic and Satan. It seemed like everything Black
Widow tried to do was doomed all around. Still, the album Sacrifice
reached the number 32 in the U.K. charts, and the group toured throughout
Europe and appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970.
Their management wanted them to drop the black magic, hoping to get
more sales and good publicity this time. This was something that split the
band. Reasons were that Kip Trevor (vocalist) & Jim wanted to drop the
ideas while Box and Clive Jones (flute, sax) were for keeping it and to hell
with the bad publicity. They where "forced" to move away from the black magic,
Box left in protest and their relationship with Sanders dropped. In the words
of Jones; "We lost, and so did the band". Gannon and Trevor later worked
on a project to turn the Black Widow stage show into a Broadway musical.
This never happened...
Black Widow recorded three more albums after Sacrifice,
but since none of them contained Sacrifice's occult witch style material,
they are not added to this page.
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