Sharon Osbourne<\/b>, the wife and manager of the late Ozzy Osbourne<\/b>, has released a lengthy response to Jim Simpson<\/b>, the first manager of BLACK SABBATH<\/b>, over Simpson<\/b>‘s plans to release an album of tracks from the pre-BLACK SABBATH<\/b> days of Ozzy<\/b>, Tony Iommi<\/b>, Geezer Butler<\/b> and Bill Ward<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Sharon<\/b>‘s latest comments come a day after Jim<\/b> issued a press release highlighting what he called “inaccurate and unfair criticisms” made by Sharon<\/b> in the latest episode of “The Osbournes”<\/b> podcast.<\/p>\n
Simpson<\/b>, now in his late 80s, claims to have paid for the recordings back in 1969 when Ozzy<\/b> and the other three musicians were youngsters in a band called EARTH<\/b>. He says that he has since restored and remastered each track and plans to release them on an album called “Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes”<\/b>, currently delayed due to what “Sharon<\/b>‘s threats to sue”, according to Jim<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Earlier today (Saturday, November 15),Sharon<\/b> shared the following statement via her social media:<\/p>\n
“In response to Jim Simpson<\/b>‘s press release of 14 November 2025, I am enclosing his original email to Tony Iommi<\/b> and my subsequent emails to Mr. Simpson<\/b>. As you can see, my emails to Mr. Simpson<\/b> were not threatening. I was clearly stating the facts about BLACK SABBATH<\/b>‘s legal position.<\/p>\n
“Regarding his claim that Big Bear Records<\/b> is the ‘longest-running independent record label in the UK’, this is a false claim. ‘Topic Records<\/b>‘ is a British folk music label. It began as an offshoot of the Workers’ Music Association<\/b> in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world. It still operates today. Big Bear<\/b> is not even a Limited company and does not file open accounts in public.<\/p>\n
“Simpson<\/b> also states that he is ‘\u2026.in the process of relaunching Big Bear Records<\/b> in a new distribution partnership with Trapeze Music & Entertainment Ltd<\/b> (director being John Cooper<\/b>),a well-established company with a huge catalogue including the likes of Johnny Cash<\/b>, Buddy Holly<\/b>, Marlene Dietrich<\/b>, Count Basie<\/b>, Duke Ellington<\/b>, Digby Fairweather<\/b> and hundreds of other artists. I seriously doubt that the artists he mentions, or their estates, would have authorized them to be sold in the USA.<\/p>\n
“Let it be known that Trapeze Music<\/b> is an ‘out-of-copyright’ UK based label that is in debt for \u00a3539,000 and the entertainment division is in debt for \u00a31.442 million. A previous entity under the Trapeze<\/b> banner, with the director, (being John Cooper<\/b>),was Discovery Records Limited<\/b>, which went into liquidation in 2018 with an estimated deficiency of \u00a31,407,388. These artist recordings he mentions appear NOT to be out of copyright in the USA, but Trapeze<\/b> sells through a us domestic import distributor called MVD<\/b> who they claim inadvertently put the BLACK SABBATH<\/b> recordings online digitally in the USA and then quickly withdraw them when Simpson<\/b>‘s lawyers were told the BLACK SABBATH<\/b> material is not out of copyright, despite the fact they had agreed not to release them to the public without giving us 14 days prior notice. A full legal opinion from Kings Council was provided to their UK lawyer. Trapeze<\/b>‘s owner previously ran several companies that ended up in bankruptcy.<\/p>\n
“We would never have allowed any BLACK SABBATH<\/b> product to be released through Big Bear Records<\/b> or Trapeze Music<\/b>, and at no time did Simpson<\/b> ever offer the band royalties, and he has continuously refused to let BLACK SABBATH<\/b> hear the recordings that he claims are his. Their integrity is dubious.<\/p>\n
“In closing, Mr. Simpson<\/b> may claim that he invited me to have coffee with him on 4 July 2025 but I was out of contact which he well knew as I was at Villa Park at soundcheck all day, and I later heard that Mr. Simpson<\/b> was busy that day doing a Q&A about his time managing BLACK SABBATH<\/b> from ’68-’70 at a pub called ‘Ye Olde Foundry’ in Dudley for personal commercial gain.”<\/p>\n
When Simpson<\/b> first responded to Sharon<\/b>‘s original “The Osbournes”<\/b> comments, he said that it was “a shame Sharon<\/b>” had “decided to go all out on the attack without sitting down to talk about this.” He added: “It’s also very unfair of her to make such inaccurate and potentially defamatory comments.”<\/p>\n
Simpson<\/b> went on to say that he is the legal owner of the recordings, despite Sharon<\/b>‘s suggestions to the contrary. “The fact is that I did pay for the EARTH<\/b> recordings, and they belong to me,” he said.<\/p>\n
Jim<\/b> also insisted that he gave the members of BLACK SABBATH<\/b> an opportunity to be included in the process of having the recordings officially released, but that they declined.<\/p>\n
“I approached members of the band about this on 24 September 2024,” he said. “The message I got back was that they didn’t want it released and wanted nothing to do with it. This included two very threatening e-mails from Sharon<\/b>. But the band had every chance to be involved.”<\/p>\n
Jim<\/b> also disputed Sharon<\/b>‘s claim that “no major record company” would have wanted to be involved in releasing the recordings, with Simpson<\/b> saying that “the label for ‘Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes’<\/b> is actually on Big Bear Records<\/b>, the U.K.’s longest-established independent recording company that I have owned and operated since 1968.” Simpson<\/b> went on to say that he was “in the process of relaunching Big Bear Records<\/b> in a new distribution partnership with Trapeze Music & Entertainment Ltd<\/b>, a well-established company with a huge catalogue including the likes of Johnny Cash<\/b>, Buddy Holly<\/b>, Marlene Dietrich<\/b>, Count Basie<\/b>, Duke Ellington<\/b>, Digby Fairweather<\/b> and hundreds of other artists. They might not be what Sharon<\/b> calls a ‘major’, but they are certainly not ‘little’. They are our new partner for the relaunch of all Big Bear Records<\/b>, not just the EARTH<\/b> album.”<\/p>\n
Simpson<\/b> added: “My reason for launching this album now is because it will become a crucial segment of music history. It contains recordings that clearly demonstrate what fine music Ozzy<\/b>, Tony<\/b>, Geezer<\/b> and Bill<\/b> were producing right from the very beginning in their pre-SABBATH<\/b> days. It shows how these four young men from Birmingham, barely out of their teens, were already remarkable musicians when they existed as EARTH<\/b>, and that they fully deserved all the success that was to come their way as BLACK SABBATH<\/b>.”<\/p>\n
“Earth: The Legendary Lost Tapes”<\/b> reportedly features three blues covers \u2014 “Blue Suede Shoes”<\/b>, “Evenin'”<\/b> and “Wee Wee Baby”<\/b> \u2014 as well as two versions of a track called “Song For Jim”<\/b>, with the name in the title “referring directly to Simpson<\/b>,” according to Jim<\/b>. Iommi<\/b> plays guitar in the first version, while the second version features a rare performance on the flute. There is also an “Untitled”<\/b> track and three more songs, “Free Man”<\/b>, “Wicked World”<\/b> and “Warning”<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Simpson<\/b> added: “If we can finally release this album, it will be a great gift to the music world and to millions of SABBATH<\/b> fans.”<\/p>\n 15 November 2025<\/p>\n In response to Jim Simpson’s press release of 14 November 2025, I am enclosing his original email to…<\/p>\n Posted by Sharon Osbourne<\/a> on\u00a0Saturday, November 15, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sharon Osbourne, the wife and manager of the late Ozzy Osbourne, has released a lengthy response to Jim…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":381237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,975,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-381236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n