The gig took place in December 1968 for the filming of The Rolling Stones' film "Rock And Roll Circus". At that time, JETHRO TULL was in need of a new guitarist after the departure of Mick Abrahams.
"Our guitar player by then had left, Mick Abrahams, recalss Anderson. And so Tony Iommi, who we knew and had done a bit of playing together with he, he came in to mime the guitar part.
But he was a little embarrassed. I think his fellow bandmembers in Earth, who, after a name change, became Black Sabbath, I think he had his hat pulled down over his eyes so they wouldn't recognize him as playing with Tull — or whatever. But he was actually miming to the part, and I was singing live to the backing tape that the rest of them did.
It was a bit embarrassing, really, because everybody else on The Rolling Stones' 'Rock And Roll Circus' was indeed performing live, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono and Keith Richards and the members of The Who as well as the members of The Rolling Stones It was all very live and very genuinely a live performance.
And I felt a bit of a charlatan by virtue of the fact that I was singing to a backing track. But we'd been asked to do it. And we explained what the situation was, and they seemed happy enough with that. So we turned up for a couple of days in a TV studio near London."
"Well, everything worked out fine," Anderson told "Out Of The Box". "Tony had a lot of fun playing with us for a couple of days, and he was a great guy. We're good friends today. But Tony's natural place, given his very distinct musical style, was certainly embedded in the prototype Black Sabbath and came to fruition a year or two later when Sabbath became increasingly a major force. And I guess today they are the epitome of what heavy metal is. It was where it really began." (Blabbermouth)
Tony Iommi on his last-minute gig as Jethro Tull's new guitar player.
He may have only played two shows with the band, but the experience helped him push Black Sabbath to new heights
I saw all these musicians waiting in line and thought, 'Forget it.' But one of the crew told me to go sit in a cafe across the road
It’s rarely brought up today, but before he forged the sound of heavy metal on his Gibson SG, Tony Iommi had a short spell in Jethro Tull. (Guitar Player)
Iommi was performing with Earth – a precursor to Black Sabbath that included Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward — when he was asked to join Ian Anderson’s troupe in 1968 as a last-minute replacement for guitarist Mick Abrahams, who had just left the band.
His brief stint saw him appear with the band in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, a live concert extravaganza featuring the Stones, the Who, the Dirty Mac — a supergroup consisting of John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards (on bass) and Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell — plus Jethro Tull.
“That was a strange meeting,” Iommi tells Guitar World. “We did a gig with Jethro Tull and it was the night Mick Abrahams was either fired or left — I don’t know what happened there. I saw them passing notes to each other onstage and thought it was weird. After the show, they asked if I’d be interested in joining, which was really surprising.”
Iommi had secured the gig after a highly competitive audition, for which he traveled 100-plus miles from Birmingham to London.
“I walked in and saw all these musicians waiting in line and thought, Oh no, forget it,” the guitarist says. “But one of the crew saw me and told me to go and sit in a cafe across the road.”
Iommi was the last in line and aced his audition. When Anderson invited him to join following the Stones' gig, Iommi asked his Earth mates what they thought.
