In the clip below, taken from former Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward's ongoing radio show Rock 50, he pays tribute to keyboardist Geoff Nicholls, who passed away on January 28th at the age of 68, following a battle with lung cancer. Nicholls played with Black Sabbath through many of the band's line-up changes. Ward recalls the birth of the song "Heaven & Hell", which Geoff was part of along with Ronnie James Dio.

Ward: "I can remember when we actually got that part of the song, when we actually got 'Heaven And Hell'. Things had been slow all week. We had been writing but we hadn't really connected with anything that I can remember; we hadn't really connected too much. But it was a Friday afternoon. I was hanging outside, and Geezer (Butler/ bass) was somewhere, Geoff was in the living room, and Tony (Iommi/guitar) was in the living room. I heard that famous riff and I was like, 'Oh my God!' and I just came walking into the living room immediately and I sat down behind my drums. I started playing, and I just went into the backbeat behind Tony's riff, and Geoff was already starting to… getting grooving. He was already on top of that as well. And Ronnie was either in the kitchen or he had just appeared out of nowhere, like a flash of lightning or something, and immediately he started jamming on some lyrics. And literally, about thirty minutes later, we had pretty much 'Heaven And Hell'. Not literally as you hear it, because we did change just a couple of things around, but it was there on that Friday afternoon. I remember actually coming back down here into Orange County. We were up in Beverly Hills when we first wrote the song. And I remember coming back down and going, 'Oh my God! We've got one in the bag.' It was a great feeling. It just kept around my head, like, 'Oh, wow! This is very nice.'"

Nicholls was a member of Black Sabbath between 1979 and 2004, working on 1980's Heaven And Hell to 1995's Forbidden. Nicholls played in the NWOBHM band Quartz prior to joining Sabbath. Most recently Nicholls played keyboards with former Black Sabbath singer Tony Martin in Tony Martin's Headless Cross.

"Geoff Nicholls was a great friend of mine for a long time," Osbourne tweeted. "He will be greatly missed. I'm very saddened at the news."

Tony Iommi stated: "I'm so saddened to hear the loss of one of my dearest and closest friends Geoff Nicholls. He's been suffering for a while now with lung cancer and he lost his battle this morning. Geoff and I have always been very close and he has been a real true friend to me and supported me all the way for nearly 40 years. I will miss him dearly and he will live in my heart until we meet again. Rest in peace, my dear friend."

Geezer Butler remarked: "Very sad to hear of old friend and Sabbath keyboard player Geoff Nicholls passing. RIP Geoff."

Tony Martin stated: "Saddened to hear of the passing of Geoff Nicholls ... keyboard player and friend from Sabbath. Safe journey mate."

Quartz issued the following statement: ”Everyone in the band, and associated with the band, are struggling to find the words to express their feelings and sadness regarding the passing of their dear friend Geoff Nicholls earlier this morning at home. Geoff had been unwell for a long time battling cancer and had under gone extensive radio and chemotherapy plus other trial treatment but all sadly to no avail in the end. In this darkest and lowest moment of time Geoff's lyrics and music speak volumes to us and for us and through these his memory will live on forever."