The Rumored Jam Session Between Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath
For many years, fans have talked about a possible jam session between members of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. This may have happened sometime in the 1970s, when both bands were very popular. But no one has ever had clear proof.
Recently, on the Metal Mayhem ROC podcast, Denny Somach, author of a book about Led Zeppelin shared what he learned from Geezer Butler, the longtime bassist of Black Sabbath. Butler told him about the rumored session, which some fans call “Black Zeppelin.”
According to Somach, some fans claim they heard that Tony Iommi confirmed the jam and told the studio engineer not to record it. But in the music world, people often record things anyway. This leads to the big question: if tapes exist, where are they?
“I didn’t know anything about that supposed ‘Black Zeppelin,’ Geezer told me about it,” Somach said. “And I said, ‘I’ve never heard that’.”
“And there are some Black Sabbath fans that claimed that they heard rumors, and that Tony Iommi said, ‘Yeah, we did the jam, but I told her engineer not to record it.’ But obviously, that doesn’t mean anything in the music business: people record everything.”
Somach said that no recordings have ever been found. He thinks that if the tapes were ever made, they might show up online someday, but nothing has appeared yet.
Because of that, no one can prove the session really happened but no one can fully deny it either. Still, the musicians who were supposedly there remember it happening. The lineup was said to include Robert Plant, John Bonham, Tony Iommi, and Geezer Butler, and they jammed for about an hour.
“No one’s found it,” Somach admitted. “And he believes that at some point it may surface on YouTube or something. But so far, none of it has surfaced anywhere. So, nobody can prove it or disprove it.”
“But the guys remember the session. It wasn’t the whole band: it was [Robert] Plant and [John] Bonham and Iommi and Geezer that jammed for an hour, and played a bunch of songs.”
Tony Iommi’s 2014 Memory of the Session
Tony Iommi talked about this in a 2014 interview with Classic Rock. He said that Led Zeppelin members (except Jimmy Page) visited Black Sabbath at Morgan Studios while they were working. John Bonham asked if he could play, and the planned recording session stopped as everyone began to jam together.
Iommi remembered Bonham asking to play Supernaut, one of Sabbath’s songs he liked. They played that song and then made up other music as they went. The jam session messed up Sabbath’s work for the day, but Iommi said it was still a fun and memorable moment.
“We actually jammed with Zeppelin,” said Iommi. “We were in Morgan Studios, doing an album, and they turned up. Only Jimmy Page wasn’t there. John [Bonham] said, ‘Can I have a play?’ So our session went totally out the window. We just started jamming.”
“John said, ‘Let’s play that song of yours I like.’ That was ‘Supernaut’. So we played that and, well, I don’t remember what else. We were just jamming, making stuff up. It was good, but it totally ruined our session. But it was good fun.”
