Meet Norman Hood. Norman first met Black Sabbath in 1968 when he booked them (as Earth) to play at a pub backroom venue he was running with some friends in Lichfield, Staffordshire about 15 miles north east of Birmingham.

Norman got the DIY promoting bug when he was helping out a local band called The Levi Set with the odd booking round Lichfield. Norman was at the gig at Le Metro, Livery Street, Birmingham where Peter Green who was playing with John Mayall at the time, met The Levi Set’s guitarist Jeremy Spencer. Green invited Spencer to join him in a new band called Fleetwood Mac.

Norman would later work for Big Bear Music and run an agency called Tramp (named after the band) who had an early version of Judas Priest on their books, before teaming up with Tony Iommi as part of the IMA management agency.

Norman Hood describes Black Sabbath playing at The Pokey Hole blues club by Home of Metal.com
We visited Norman recently to record his recollections of the time and photograph some of his extensive collection of memorabilia.

You can find some of the results of our visit on our archive. We’ll be adding more items from Norman in the coming months and – where we can we’ll add clips of Norman describing the stories behind them. For now the highlight is a flyer from a gig on 1st August 1969.

We thank Norman, now a professional cartoonist  for his time and contribution to the Home of Metal project. Please show your appreciation by voting for the artefacts we obtained from Norman  – use the \m/ symbol to the top right of the objects and watch these items rise up our top forty archive list.