08/08/2025
DID YOU KNOW…
of / Earth (as they were known) was in the Rolling Stones Rock and roll circus ???!!
I’ve watched this a grillion times and never noticed… here he appears as the guitarist in
See below from ultimate guitar with Geezer Butler.
“This brief stint was back in the heavy metal band’s formative days, just as Iommi, Butler, Ozzy Osbourne, and Bill Ward underwent their first name change, going from Polka Tulk to Earth. However, Iommi’s time in Ian Anderson’s retinue proved to be short. The Riff Lord didn’t stay long enough to record any material with Tull, but did get to mime to “A Song for Jeffrey” on “The Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus” and made another live appearance on BBC.
“Yeah, he enticed Tony away. We were a blues band at the time, and we supported them in Birmingham. And as Tony was doing his guitar solo, we saw Ian Anderson slowly come into the gig, stand right in front of Tony, and he was just like, mesmerized.”
“And we were thinking, ‘Oh no, this looks bad.’ Because we were doing nothing at the time. And afterwards Tony came, when we were got in the van, going home, he says, ‘Ian Anderson has asked me to join Jethro Tull moving.’ ‘We’ve got nothing, you may as well go for it.’”
“I went down to London with him because he needed company. And after a week, he said, ‘I don’t want to join Jethro Tull.’ ‘Why? You’re getting proper wages, you’re gonna go to go to America at the end of the month. Why don’t you want to do it?’”
“’Because Ian told me what to play, and nobody tells me what to play.’ And that was it.”
Iommi noted how his short stint with Jethro Tull was an invaluable experience, as being in a band with a rock-solid work ethic meant that he could bring that knowledge back to Earth/Sabbath.
Well well well… you learn something mad everyday 🤌🏻👌🏻.
