A new, free weekly performance of live rock, blues and soul music is to be launched by the original manager of Black Sabbath in Birmingham this Friday 10 April.

The first ‘Brasshouse Rocks Friday’ gig, featuring soul man Brad Henshaw and His Band, starts at 6pm at The Brasshouse, a large canalside pub on Broad Street, the centre of the city’s live music activity.

The regular Friday night party is being launched by Jim Simpson, who managed Ozzy Osbourne and Tony Iommi’s band called Earth in 1969, relaunching them as Black Sabbath.

Simpson went on to release the band’s first two legendary albums called Black Sabbath and Paranoid in 1970, before he lost control of Black Sabbath shortly afterwards.

But more than 55 years later, Simpson is still ubiquitous on the Midlands’ music scene with his Big Bear Music company.

Big Bear Music already organises ‘Henry’s Blueshouse’ every Tuesday and ‘Birmingham Rocks’ every Sunday, both at Snobs Bar, on Broad Street, plus a spin-off ‘Henry's Blueshouse’ every Friday night at West Bromwich Indoor Market.

Other upcoming bands set to feature in the ‘Brasshouse Rocks Friday’ gigs include:
- Friday 17 April – Jamie Thyer & The Worried Men from Gloucestershire
- Friday 24 April – Honeyboy Hickling Blues Band, featuring guitar hero Bob Wilson
- Friday 1 May – High Wycombe’s Stuart Maxwell’s Blues Raiders
- Friday 8 May – the ever-rocking Slide Boy Roy