Here we have a set of Black Sabbath cover songs, all recorded in the 1970s or earlier. The "or earlier" part can be explained; the direction of cover goes both ways, and included here are some songs by other acts that Sabbath themselves covered early in their career.
The earliest recorded evidence of Sabbath being covered live was by Scotland's Iron Claw (link), who played their songs at shows from 1970 onward, sometimes before they had even been released by Sabbath themselves, as you will read below.
You can, however, find 'Paranoid' covered in many places in the 1970s, by musical cabaret troupes like The Les Humphries Singers, on several supermarket pop-cover cash-in LPs of the time, and a punk version by The Dickies in 1978. One that has become widely posted since the dawn of the internet is Cindy & Bert's entertainingly bizarre "Der Hund von Baskerville".
Paranoid was apparently regarded as a catchy, floor-filling, chart hit. German No.1, Dutch No.2 and UK No.4, among other top-10 entries around the world, it achieved platinum sales.
I had to include a few examples of Paranoid covers here, but seeing as I could probably do two whole volumes of just that one song, I have looked hard for other songs that were covered during the '70s, and there aren't many. I was lucky to have come across some of these randomly years ago while delving into various countries on other searches. There is no sure-fire way to find them all, as so few are specifically documented or credited as Sabbath covers, and may have names not related the the original song names, on top of that, in different languages.
This leaves the question, how many more are out there? How many Singaporean show band EPs like The Commandos, or small-town USA private 45s like Meloncolony, containing early Sabbath covers, are left to be discovered?
If anyone would like to contribute some contrasting views on this subject, maybe people who were around to remember the '70s (I was at least alive when one of the songs in this set was recorded), feel free to comment at the end of this post, or via my social media / email. I'd be glad to add them here!
01. Orchestra And Chorus Les Humphries - Paranoid (1971)
from album Singing Revolution
02. Los Shain's - Wicked World (1970)
from album Singles 1969-1970
03. Crow - Evil Woman (1969)
from album Crow Music
live unreleased
05. Tyke - Paranoid (1977)
from album Picture Postcard
from album Rock Today With The Big Heavies
07. Billy Walker - Changes (1973)
from album The Hand Of Love
from album Nemám Hlas Jako Zvon
09. Soreng Santi - Kuen Kuen Lueng Lueng [Iron Man] (1970s)
single
10. Meloncolony - The Wizard (1971)
single
11. Skupina F. R. Čecha - Báječní Muži [Into The Void] (1975)
from album Báječní Muži
12. The Commandos - Penyesalan [Paranoid] (1970)
from EP 'Derita'
from album Live At The Bank
single
15. Crystal Saint - Changes (1973)
single
16. The Norman Haines Band - When I Come Down (1971)
from album Den Of Iniquity
17. Rolf Kühn - Paranoid (1971)
from album New Happy Discothek
from album Anywhere
Les Humphries was a Brit who ran an international music troupe. They covered pop hits of the time and the performances were of a high standard, often including names that have cropped up here in TDATS before, such as Earl Jordan (of Jodo link), John Lawton (of Lucifer's Friend and Uriah Heep) and Inga Rumpf (Frumpy, Atlantis).
Los Shain's appear with a very early Sabbath cover, I can count on one hand the number of bands that had recorded Sabbath covers at this point in 1970. They were one of Peru's popular rock acts, you can read more about them in v104 (link).
Crow have appeared here before (vols 13 & 60), they peddled great horn-laden hard rock. Sabbath covered Evil Woman as their debut single in January 1970 at the urging of manager Jim Simpson, who wanted a commercial track. Tony Iommi replaced Crow's horns with heavy guitar.
Jiří Schelinger & F. R. Čech, two guys who often worked together, were in the former Czechoslovakia. They have two tracks here, Into The Void and A National Acrobat, from two different albums, and both covers are killer. When I eventually investigate the Czech / Slovakian region of Europe further for TDATS, I will surely dig deeper with these guys!
Soreng Santi was a Thai singer, songwriter, and composer for other artists. This exotic 'Iron Man' interpretation appeared on a Finders Keepers comp entitled "Thai? Dai! (The Heavier Side Of The Luk Thung Underground)", after they first put it out as a limited 7 inch. I'm glad to have come across these releases as they will be very useful when I eventually cover more of South East Asia, I have already done a couple of Indonesian volumes 98 & 106. This is the only early Iron Man cover (if you can call it that) I have come across so far. Crazy to think, but understandable as the single did not perform well on release.
"Meloncolony - The Wizard. Here's a really interesting single on a small Iowa label. The catalogue number puts it somewhere around 1971. Again we have a band doing an early cover of Black Sabbath, with a more fuzzy, psychedelic approach. In particular, the stripped-down production and keyboards give this a very different feel.
On the flipside, they give the same treatment to Speed King by Deep Purple. I have seen this for sale on auctions and in one case the seller claimed it was from Des Moines. I must give the band a hats-off for their name, which I had read many times as "Melancholy" before suddenly realising it is melon-colony, and laughing my head off as a result. Gotcha! Soon after posting this, a helpful member of the TDATS facebook group linked us to a picture of Meloncolony (link), this link shows the band as a three-piece with names left to right below: Wayne Groff (keyboards), Bob Curtis (drums) and Chuck Vail (vocals)."
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Meloncolony on stage (source) |
Elf was Ronnie James Dio's first hard rock band before going on to fame in Rainbow and beyond. This track is from a live bootleg that purports to be at "The Bank" in Cortland, NY, 1972. They also regularly covered Led Zep, Jethro Tull and Link Wray among others. At this time the band was still called The Elves but changed to ELF when their album was released later the same year. You have to assume that Ronnie, 'Ronald Padavona' at the time he was in Elf, had no idea he would eventually join Black Sabbath, when he was covering them in New York bars. Guitarist David 'Rock' Feinstein has also become a notable name in US metal since. As such he's appeared here in TDATS twice before in (v126) & (v155).
The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation's track is here as another example of something Sabbath covered for their debut album. The Retaliation was a vehicle for Dunbar, after stints in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and The Jeff Beck Group. He continues to perform occasionally with the World Classic Rockers, a band he has been part of since 2003, which features a rotating lineup of classic rock musicians.
Crystal Saint is a left-field find. The credited writer and (presumably) singer is Lyndy Mar, although she obviously didn't write this side! The 45 is on the Wichita, Kansas label, Kanwic Records.
The Norman Haines Band's tune here may not immediately strike you as Sabbath-related, but this tune was recorded by Earth, the previous form of Sabbath, whose demos have been floating around bootleg land for years. Although "When I Come Down" was not released by Haines' own band until 1971, he shared the same manager as Earth, Jim Simpson, which granted Earth early access to some of Haines' compositions. As luck would have it, this year (2025) sees the first ever officially sanctioned release of the Earth demos, coming in September from Big Bear Records, Jim Simpson's own label. (link). Exciting stuff!
Rolf Kühn was a German jazz composer and performer (clarinet and saxophone), born September 29, 1929, in Cologne. In the early '70s he made a couple of 'Happy Discothek' pop cover LPs, and thanks to those we have this entertaining instrumental of Paranoid! This particular record also has novel renditions of Black Magic Woman and The Kinks' Apeman.
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Thanks for reading! I'm off to nosh on a bat's head sandwich....
Rich
The Day After The Sabbath 105: Goin' Down [covers special]