Robert Plant and Jimmy Page paid tribute to Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne, who died aged 76 on July 22.
Plant said: “Farewell Ozzy … what a journey … sail on up there .. finally at peace .. you truly changed the planet of rock!”
In a social media post on July 23, Page said: “To dear Ozzy, Rest In Peace. My respect and love goes out to his family and friends.”
The members of Led Zeppelin have a long history with Black Sabbath. It’s likely that members of both bands jammed together at Morgan Studios in London in September 1973 when Black Sabbath was recording its album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.
“We were recording in Morgan Studios in London, and John [Bonham] came down to see us,” Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi told Classic Rock Magazine. “He brought Planty and John Paul Jones – Jimmy Page was the only one who wasn’t there. They came in and John’s going, ‘Let’s play Supernaut!’, cos he loved that song. So he sat behind the kit and we started to play it. Of course, he didn’t play it right, but we just carried on and went into a jam.”
Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward has disputed claims that tapes of the so-called “Black Zeppelin” jam session exist. He told Back Page in 2011 that “there was a moment during that jam where we all kind of got this crazy notion and said, ‘Let’s put something down on tape – but nothing transpired and no tape rolled.”
“Nothing was recorded: We were just pissing about,” Ward continued. “I believe at one point Geezer Butler and Robert did a bit of writing together – but that was their own personal thing, between them. The Black Zeppelin recordings didn’t ever exist.”
Plant and Bonham were familiar with the members of Black Sabbath from being part of the Birmingham music scene prior to the formation of Led Zeppelin.
“We knew Robert Plant and John Bonham from back in Birmingham,” Osbourne told Classic Rock Magazine. “We had checked Robert out with his early bands, and he’d told us he was joining The Yardbirds. Then one day we were in this club in London called Blazes, and the DJ started playing this song. So I go up and say, ‘What’s the name of the band that’s playing? That’s fucking Robert Plant singing, he’s a big shot in Birmingham.’ And she goes, ‘It’s The Yardbirds, but they’ve just changed their name to Led Zeppelin.’ I was, like, ‘Fuck me!’”
Plant and Osbourne remained in touch in recent years, with Osbourne’s son Jack Osbourne revealing in a 2016 interview that his father accidentally sent a text message to Plant while looking for his cat.
The friendship between Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath also extended to some members of Led Zeppelin’s crew, with tour manager Richard Cole appearing in a 2003 episodes of “The Osbournes”:
“I don’t even know if he plays any more, but I thought getting Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page meant having the greatest guitarists on the planet,” Osbourne told Metal Hammer. “But I never heard from him. Maybe he’d lost his phone or something!”
