“These recordings clearly demonstrate what fine music they produced right from the very beginning”: Early Sabbath demos to be released later this month

Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward and Ozzy Osbourne, circa 1970.

The final Black Sabbath performance this coming Saturday is being billed as ‘Back To The Beginning’, so it’s appropriate that this week it’s been announced that an album of the band’s early recordings is to released, from back when they were still called Earth.

Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes compiles the demos that the band made in 1969 at Zella Studios in Birmingham. This was the period when Tony Iommi had just rejoined the band after a short stint in Jethro Tull, but before they officially changed their name to Black Sabbath in August 1969.