UPDATE 4/10:It appears that calling these recordings "Earth" is not correct. They do exist, but some further research since I posted this story tells me that this is not from the "Earth" portion of Black Sabbath’s history. I hope to have some more details in the next few days.
Bad title pun aside <g>, a news story that has been making the rounds recently has turned up which tells of early recordings by Black Sabbath. Here’s the news story…
The first recordings made by Black Sabbath, cut in 1969, when the band was still known as Earth, have been uncovered in a sound archive, RC can exclusively reveal. The multi-track tapes comprise both the eponymous debut album and its follow up, Paranoid, in both mixed and raw form. The tapes also include several previously-unreleased tracks, which should be featured in a future archive-based release. In addition, songs that surfaced on Sabbath’s third album, Master Of Reality, were apparently laid down at the same time as well, mostly on multi-track stereo tapes."
– Record Collector Magazine, March Issue
This has been going around on the net for a couple of weeks now, but I didn’t want to say anything until I got my own confirmation of the information. I spoke with one of my two contacts at Tony Iommi’s management company, and was told this…
Just to get back to you on that Record Collector query; we have looked in to this and can confirm that the tapes do exist. They are from the earliest incarnation of Sabbath but as yet we have no track listings etc. If we get any further info….one of us will drop you a line to keep you posted.
So it appears that these recordings are real. What is on them, or where they may turn up is as of yet unknown. As was stated above, when there’s more info, I’ll pass it on.
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