With good reason, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello has been spending the past week celebrating his mom Mary’s 100th birthday. The civil rights and anti-censorship activist who celebrated a century of raging against injustice on Sunday was feted on SiriusXM by her son in a special on Monday during which he played some of her favorite songs by Cypress Hill, Public Enemy and Tina Turner while talking about her life-long support of her Harvard-educated son’s shredding.
But the real party took place when she was honored with a very special command performance from Jack Black, who was joined by a School of Rock-style tween band on one of Mary’s favorite songs, Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr. Crowley.”
Morello posted a video from the set on Tuesday (Oct. 3), in which Black and company ripped through the song about English occultist Aleister Crowley from Ozzy’s 1980 Blizzard of Ozz album with Morello’s 12-year-old son, Roman, on lead guitar, Japanese prodigy Yoyoka on drums, Roya Feiz on bass and Hugo Weiss on keyboards.
“Mary Morello’s 100th bday celebration featured a stirring rendition of @ozzyosbourne & #RandyRhoads “Mr. Crowley” performed by @jackblack and a kick ass band of 12 & 13 year olds! Mary was pleased!,” Tom Morello wrote in a caption to the video in which Black introduced the song by paying tribute to an “amazing mom and an amazing life.”
The actor and Tenacious D frontman then lit the room up, crooning the devilish heavy metal ballad and giving Morello’s son a chance to shine during a killer solo. Rage drummer Brad Wilk loved it, commenting, “SHREDDING!!!!!!! [three fire emoji], while family friend and PE rapper Chuck D gave the performance — which gave each budding rock star a solo moment to shine — a raised fist emoji.
Watch Black’s performance below.
