Ozzy Osbourne Donates Cash After Video Of Kentucky Kids’ Group Goes Viral

Ozzy Osbourne has donated $10,000 to a Kentucky school after a video of a group of musicians playing his song “Crazy Train” on xylophones went viral.

The group is made up of 60 kids from the Louisville area, and after Osbourne saw the video of their performance, he felt compelled to help them out. The Louisville Leopard Percussionists count on donations and album sales to fund their classes and events, so the money will go a long way in helping them out.

“Myself, my whole family and my fans all loved your rendition of ‘Crazy Train.’ Keep up the good work,” Ozzy wrote in a letter to the group.

Diane Downs, the founder of the group, teaches the children in a “modular” style, meaning small groups of kids learn different parts of the song. Their success has earned them gigs with stars like Dave Samuels, My Morning Jacket, Louie Bellson, and Ruben Alvarez, and has garnered praise from legends like Jimmy Page after they released a cover of the Led Zeppelin song, “Kashmir.”

Ozzy and his band, Black Sabbath, made headlines earlier this year when their drummer, Bill Ward, released a statement saying he expected an apology from Osbourne for things he allegedly said that were untrue. Ward also said he refused to play any shows with the band — who reunited and toured in 2011 — until they presented him with a better contract.

“I will not participate in any musical undertakings until a righting of the wrongs spoken against me has been achieved … I’m looking for an honest accountability of all of Ozzy’s statements that I felt were untrue. I would want Ozzy to amend his opinions and exaggerations. I would want him to be forthcoming about his unrealistic viewpoints. And because I was chastised publicly, I would want him to amend publicly in his words, and not through an Ozzy representative, the nature of the wrongs,” Ward said.

Ozzy Osbourne said earlier this year that Black Sabbath would be releasing their final studio album in 2016, but said he wasn’t sure about who might be included in the lineup.

“We all live in different countries and some of them want to work and some of them don’t want to, I believe. But we are going to do another tour together, then at the beginning of next year, I’m going out with Sabbath. The Sabbath thing is folding up after the next tour … our last hurrah. Then it’s no more Sabbath at all. We’re disbanding the name and everything. They don’t want to tour anymore. I get it. But I love it,” Osbourne said.

[Photo courtesy YouTube]