The master of the dark riff, Tony Iommi celebrates a birthday today, born on February 19, 1948 in Birmingham, England.

Despite the lymphoma he's been treated for, he's back at work on a new Black Sabbath album, and also plans to put together a "riffs" album with Queen's guitarist.

According to rollingstone.com, the upcoming assemblage of riffs will "allow fans to build their own songs around the musician's unused material."

Brian May apparently got the idea for the album when he noticed how many recorded riffs Iommi had lying around in his studio and thought it would be cool to put it together for musician fans to be able to use.

There are no firm plans for that particular album, but Tony has been working on the upcoming Black Sabbath album, 13, due out in June.

More From 105.7 The Hawk