On This Day In Led Zeppelin History

Zep's fifth member checks out

2010-11-23T03:00:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1995, Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant died from a heart attack. The 60-year-old was in a car with his son when he suffered from a fatal heart attack.

Many considered Peter Grant to be the fifth member of Led Zeppelin, among them author Chris Welch, who closely followed the band while he was a music journalist for the Melody Maker. In a 2009 interview for the U.S. radio show "Get the Led Out," Welch said:

"Peter Grant was the fifth member of the band in the sense that he traveled with them everywhere. There was a very small team behind Zeppelin. They didn't have many people with them. Most bands nowadays have a huge entourage of hangers-on, assistants and technicians, and ... In Zeppelin's case, it was just them and Peter Grant really. It was just the band."

Robert's new obsession

2010-11-07T03:00:00.001-05:00

On this day in 2004, Robert Plant first sang with bluegrass star Alison Krauss. Their initial pairing took place at a tribute concert to Lead Belly, held at Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio.

For the moment, Plant and Krauss's onstage collaboration consisted of two songs Lead Belly had made famous back in his day, "In the Pines" and "I'm Alabama Bound." They also took a stab at Plant's own "Red Dress," backed by Justin Adams and the band Los Lobos.

For the moment, there were no further plans for Krauss to work with Plant again. He changed that, however, when he later approached her about collaborating in the studio.

Three years after their initial performance together, Plant and Krauss released their album, Raising Sand, which was destined for huge sales, critical acclaim and several awards.

Knives out to (Jimmy) Page and (Roy) Harper

2010-11-06T03:00:00.004-04:00

On this day in 1984, Jimmy Page appeared on British television in one of the weirdest settings ever for an interview.

He was sitting on the mountainside of Scafell Pike, next to folk singer Roy Harper, both of them with acoustic guitars in their laps and getting ready to perform "The Same Old Rock" and "Hangman" for the show, just as they had in some performances since June.

Before they performed the songs, they were to engage in an interview with Mark Ellen about Whatever Happened to Jugula?, which was the album they were preparing to release in a few months, as well as discuss their friendship of the past 15 years.

At the interview's onset, Ellen introduced Page and Harper as "seventies rock stars" despite their objections. "Seventies?" said Harper, suggesting, "Eighties. Nineties!" A few seconds later, at Ellen's mention of the 2,000-foot altitude, Harper chimed in, "I thought you were going to say we're 2,000 years old!"

The next thing Ellen picked on after their status as aging musicians was their undesirable physical shape. Page, who is seen chain smoking, smiled silently as Harper replied with some self-condescending humor.

In the next segment, Ellen asked a series of rapid-fire questions without allowing time for either to answer. Harper chided him, saying, "I appreciate that you're trying to go faster than I'd like to go, Mark, but let me try and answer that question."

Harper spoke about his beginnings and then humbly refused to answer when Ellen asked who were some of the artists influenced by him; Harper said he preferred not to speak for anybody else.

Next, Ellen asked why stardom eluded Harper; in other words, why aren't you famous? Harper answered diplomatically that he can make a living without being a star and, by doing so, manage to make idiosyncratic changes in his career.

In the setup for his first question to Page, Ellen stated, "We've seen very little of you in five years." He asked what attracted Page to Harper, and Page's reply was inaudible behind the sound of Harper's noodlings on acoustic guitar.

Again, Ellen pointed out that little had been heard of Page in five years, so he asked what he wants to do now in re-entering the music scene. Page said, "I'm such a masochist. I'm trying to get as good as I was when I stopped."

Ellen had a big grin on his face as he asked, "Are you not as good now, then?"

Instantly, Page fired back, "No, I'm better."

"You're better," said Ellen, his grimace portraying his skepticism.

"Yeah. I'm actually working at it now, which I didn't then. Yeah. I mean, I didn't play a guitar -- I mean, I didn't touch a guitar for 18 months at one point."

Ellen asked if it was because Page had been "fed up with the whole thing."

Page said there had been "no sort of impetus for me to pick it up. And that's quite serious, I didn't touch one for 18 months. ... I mean, I wanted to, but I was afraid looking at it. And when I did pick it up, I couldn't even change chords properly, so I've been, sort of, moving --"

Ellen interrupted Page to begin on a series of combative questions on Led Zeppelin's latter years, challenging him on whether the band's sound on later albums left the guitarist wishing for more. Page was stoic in his responses, defending Led Zeppelin as always what he wanted it to be.

Harper came to Page's defense in dismissing the suggestions that latter-day Led Zeppelin music was any less satisfying or more excessive or overblown. He said if it weren't for John Bonham's untimely death, Led Zeppelin would have gone on tour again and presented their new material to audiences, thereby helping them appreciate it more.

In the next segment, Harper described the music he and Page were making together as "more live, and more human, more down-to-earth than has been seen for the last six or seven years." He painted a simplistic view of their collaboration as "something which anybody can do: You just sit down with two guitars and do it."

Page became sidetracked about his dismal opinion of modern pop music bogged down with computerized enhancements:

"The thing is, there are [still] verses and choruses like there were in 1960. And with all the technology they've got, and all the outspoken statements they make, I'd think they would come up with something special."

When pressed for examples of musical acts he's talking about, Page unleashed a generalization:

"Any of them! They all sound the same to me. Yeah, they've just got different singers. And the singers, if you want to listen to them, you can differentiate. They all sound the bloody same, you know. They've all got computers. Why don't they come out, you know, with their batteries?"

The interviewer, who has been muffling his laughter, then tried to cut off Page, who had started to raise his voice and wave his finger. He had a point to make, and he wanted to be heard loud and clear.

"Now, what I'm saying is -- I'll tell you what I'm saying is this. They, you know ..."

By this point, Page's speaking volume returned to the quiet side of normal -- almost inaudible in places -- as he clarified:

"They had a field day because it was quite fashionable to knock bands that really worked on their instruments, you know, as a craft, OK, and that's all it is because you're nothing more than that, you know. But the fact is, it really comes down to, well, what are they doing? Verses and choruses. That's the same as Herman's Hermits as far as I'm concerned. And the pop charts at the moment sound like that to me."

When the interview was broadcast on Old Grey Whistle Test, Depeche Mode members Dave Gahan and Alan Wilder criticized Page's expressed views on electronic music. Said Gahan:

"They've sort of done their thing at their time, and I think it seems a bit silly, you know, to put down what's happening now with technology. Now, you can do so much more, and it's enabling musicians to do so much more with their music now."

Wilder interjected, starting off almost with a conciliatory message:

"The thing is, he did talk some sense in that there is a lot of rubbish around these days, but the thing about computers is you're only limited by your imagination and ideas, you know? And I think people who knock computer or modern music are a bit scared that maybe they haven't got the ideas, you know?"

Gahan agreed:

"The thing is you've got to have an idea in the first place. It's not like, these things, you push a button and it will write the song for you."

Answering the moderator's next question, Wilder then denied that his concerts become staid and unchanging as a result of the programming.

But perhaps the big news of the day was an early announcement by Page that he was forming a new group and going out on tour. He didn't volunteer the names of the other people in it, but when Ellen asked if one was Paul Rodgers, Page said, "Yep." He said they'd been rehearsing for about 10 days, had about an hour's worth of material and were still without a name.

This would be The Firm, and they would kick off a tour in Stockholm, Sweden, the same month, with U.K. gigs following early in December.

All-night ticket grab

2010-01-31T05:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1977, tickets went on sale for a concert at the San Diego Sports Arena that was scheduled to take place in March. (It later was rescheduled for June.) Thousands of people waited outside the arena box office, some at least a day in advance, to purchase their tickets. A local TV station was on the scene reporting about the crowds and interviewing young people.

Happy birthday, Gene Krupa, an inspiration on John Bonham's drumming

2010-01-15T12:15:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1909, the legend in jazz drumming Gene Krupa was born.

Krupa served as a great inspiration to John Bonham. Here's journalist Chris Welch recalling what Bonham said backstage to his fellow members of Led Zeppelin when they first played Carnegie Hall in New York in 1969:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Photographer Larry Ratner also remembers hearing firsthand from Bonham about the respect he had for Gene Krupa:

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Last of the recordings

2009-12-18T03:00:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1978, Led Zeppelin was heading home after four weeks of recording the album In Through the Out Door. They'd been holed up for weeks at a studio facility in Stockholm, Sweden, owned by the pop group ABBA. That Christmas, Jimmy Page was said to be mixing the new material, most of which would make it onto the album in the new year.

What kept the album from getting out right away had to do with the album artwork. Led Zeppelin insisted on doing something with the album that had never been done before: There would be six different album covers, each a variation on the theme of a man in a bar who has just received a "Dear John" letter.

The same company that had designed the covers of Houses of the Holy and Presence took the job, designing a typical New Orleans barroom, taking a few shots of the same scene from six points of view, and shading them with a sepia tone to look like vintage photos.

Executives at Atlantic Records didn't know about the six different album covers until just before the album was released.

Acknowledgment

2009-12-17T03:00:00.005-05:00

On this day in 1987, Robert Plant made history by incorporating Led Zeppelin songs into his stage act as a solo musician for the first time.

He was about to release his fourth solo album, and he had with him a band of young musicians whose positive energy was, to him, like, quote, "the second summer of love."

For his first dip into the Led Zeppelin catalog without Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones at his side, Plant covered "In the Evening" as the concert opener. The show also included versions of "Trampled Underfoot" and "Misty Mountain Hop." At the next show, Plant and his touring band also threw in "Rock and Roll."

Since the breakup of Led Zeppelin, he'd gone solo and knocked his own past, refusing to play and sometimes even acknowledge Led Zeppelin. But the mid 1980s was a turning point for Robert.

Family dedication

2009-12-16T03:00:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1972, Led Zeppelin played a show in Birmingham, England, that was a homecoming for half the band.

Both Robert Plant and John Bonham lived near Birmingham, where they found themselves playing a pair of shows on the fifth destination on their U.K. tour.

Before the band launched into "Heartbreaker" during the encore, Robert dedicated the song to his sister and to John Bonham's father.

Honeydrippers Christmas

2009-12-15T03:00:00.011-05:00

On this day in 1984, Robert Plant appeared as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live," performing with his band The Honeydrippers.

Brian Setzer, best known at the time as the guitarist for the Stray Cats, joined the band for the two songs they performed: "Rockin' at Midnight" and "Santa Claus is Back in Town."

Here's a classic pre-taped sketch from that night featuring Eddie Murphy, who was hosting the episode as a former cast member.

Achilles' return

2009-12-14T03:00:00.005-05:00

On this day in 1976, Led Zeppelin was preparing for an upcoming world tour.

The group hadn't played any concerts all year long thanks to the near-fatal auto accident of singer Robert Plant some months before. Instead of taking the year off, Led Zeppelin completed work on the film The Song Remains the Same and then released it late in the year.

Thanks to the film, worldwide audiences had a taste of some live Led Zeppelin, with better glimpses of the band than ever before. Ready for another round of some live Led Zeppelin, the band was booking a large North American tour for early in the following year.

One of the new songs that would carry over to the next tour was the epic track "Achilles Last Stand," which Robert Plant named after the mythological character whose immortality was disproved when an arrow struck his heel. Plant had figured he'd already once escaped death and transcended the plight of Achilles.

The band of nods

2009-12-08T03:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1972, Led Zeppelin's fans in Manchester, England, were treated to a rare performance of "I Can't Quit You Baby," one of two blues songs on the debut Led Zeppelin album.

By this point in time, the band's fourth album was out, and so the group no longer played most of the material from their first album live. But around this time, "I Can't Quit You Baby" was starting to make a four-month comeback as a part of a medley played all within the context of "Whole Lotta Love."

Now the fun thing about this was how much things would still change from one night to the next. Sometimes, "I Can't Quit You Baby" was as short as two and a half minutes, but once around that time, it stretched to longer than 13 minutes. Most of the time, the band played it for six or seven minutes only.

In 1990, John Paul Jones recalled in a promotional interview:

"As far as structuring the stage stuff was concerned, certain songs wouldn't really change that much, but other songs would really have points where you could -- anybody could do anything. We used to call it the band of nods in those days because you could just, one nod, and [laughs] -- and we could just go play something else: start a blues or start a country piece or start a bit of James Brown or something like that, and then everybody would follow until that idea would run its course, and then off it would go somewhere else, you know. There are several songs that we could do that -- we allowed ourselves the space to do it, and that was really good, really enjoyable stuff."

Light of the love that I've found

2009-12-07T03:00:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1979, Led Zeppelin released the song "Fool in the Rain" as a single for the U.S. market. With a playing time of six minutes and eight seconds on the A-side, "Fool in the Rain" had to be released as a seven-inch single, but DJs had a promotional edit of the song that lasted only three minutes and 20 seconds.

The single showcased Led Zeppelin's musical diversity as the B-side was the country-inspired "Hot Dog" and the A-side was directly inspired by the South American samba music that fans of World Cup soccer would have heard on TV the year before. The members of Led Zeppelin knew because they were soccer fans, and they wanted to imitate that sound.

"Fool in the Rain" also features a long guitar solo from Jimmy Page using an octavizer effect and playing in the C major scale. The single charted in the U.S., becoming Led Zeppelin's sixth Top 40 hit and peaking at No. 21 in the Billboard Hot 100.

Calling it a day

2009-12-04T03:00:00.003-05:00

On this day in 1980, Led Zeppelin announced their breakup to the world.

John Bonham had died unexpectedly on Sept. 25, bringing a halt to plans for a Led Zeppelin tour in the United States and, in fact, to anything else related to the band.

And that's what the statement issued by the band's Swan Song label tried to get across in only 48 words. It read:

"We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were."

Reacting to the statement, the world speculated on those words "as we were." Did the statement provide enough wiggle room to make it possible for Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones to replace John Bonham with another drummer and continue in some manner other than as they were? Candidates for the position were hyped in magazines and touted to manager Peter Grant to the point that he no longer wanted to pick up his phone. The survivors ultimately resisted every temptation to revive the name of Led Zeppelin for a tour.

Fifteen years to the day of Led Zeppelin's breakup announcement was Grant's burial, in 1995.

Beat Beep, beat Beep, yeah!

2009-12-03T03:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1972, Led Zeppelin was only four days into a tour of the U.K. when their publicist was beaten up by fans at their show in Glasgow, Scotland.

Outside the concert, Zeppelin's publicist, a guy by the name of B.P. Fallon, approached some people who appeared to be selling counterfeit tickets. He said he told them, "Excuse me, there seems to be some confusion about the tickets you're selling." This prompted them all to jump on him and beat him up.

When word reached the stage, the members of Led Zeppelin decided to end their concert early. Fans went home without hearing an encore, which prompted an angry letter from one fan to the New Musical Express. The reader complained about there being no encore and also the way Robert Plant mentioned their forthcoming album over and over.

Generous applause

2009-11-30T03:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1972, there was an enthusiastic reaction among fans at the first concert of Led Zeppelin's U.K. tour. Reportedly, the audience at the City Hall in Newcastle, England, applauded for 30 full minutes after the band had left the stage and the concert was over. Guitarist Jimmy Page told the press, "For a first night, the reaction was just tremendous."

Over the next two months, Led Zeppelin would be playing 24 dates in front of more than 110,000 people. It was about half the rate of previous tours.

Page was heard to comment on the breakneck speed of Led Zeppelin's previous venture in the United States, saying, "The last American tour just got silly." He was right. Over the summer of '72, Zeppelin played 18 concerts in only 23 days.

Both Page and singer Robert Plant said they fought off some nerves before the first show of their U.K. tour. For one thing, they were debuting some unreleased material that would appear on their next album, Houses of the Holy, whose release was being held up by problems with the cover art.

But the audiences in the U.K. were up for anything. All the tickets for the entire tour reportedly sold out in four hours.

Furious Plant

2009-11-27T03:00:00.001-05:00

On this day in 1975, the Rolling Stones arrived at Musicland Studios in Munich, West Germany, to begin recording their next album, Black and Blue. Led Zeppelin had just been using the same studio the previous day, to complete the recording and mixing of the album Presence. All it took to record and mix that album was 18 days.

It's an album that features many guitar overdubs, a so-called "guitar army" of sorts on the opening song, "Achilles Last Stand."

As it was getting toward the end of Led Zeppelin's booked time in Munich, Jimmy Page knew it would be crunch time, so it's been said he and engineer Keith Harwood worked 18 to 20 hours each day, taking only quick naps and then waking up. Page apparently stayed up for two days straight to get it all done on time.

As for Robert Plant, his attitude at the time definitely affected the lyrics he was writing. He once explained:

"Presence was the most difficult record for me, in my career, to ever come up with, to be a part of because I spent the whole process of preparation and delivery, vocally and otherwise, in a wheelchair. So, I -- physically, I was really, really frustrated. I had to travel from Europe to America lying down in the plane with my foot up in the air 'cause of the -- my foot was so badly smashed up that I had to keep the blood supply a certain way, and all that sort of thing.

"In the end, I did actually rent cars in L.A. I lived in Malibu Colony for a while. And I rented a pink Cadillac with a white soft top. And I used to drive with just my left foot. Stick my right foot up on the bench seat and drive and just watch everybody because otherwise I was marooned in this house with Benji, the sound operator guy, later to become co-producer on [my] solo stuff. He used to sit with me and try and relieve the tedium. But I couldn't -- I was living in Malibu Colony; I couldn't even see the sea.

"So, the whole Presence thing was really quite extraordinary. And I think my vocal performance on that is pretty poor. I find, all the way through, it's very strained and it sounds tired.

"So, when it got round to something like 'Candy Store Rock,' I find that was the saving grace of the album -- that and 'Achilles Last Stand.' 'Cause 'For Your Life' was really a bitter treaty with rock 'n' roll, with the rock 'n' roll spin-offs, the women and all the girls who in 'Sick Again' were wonderful. Now, suddenly, they were 'Hung on the balance of a crystal paying through the nose.' It was like a -- I was really angry. 'Hots on for Nowhere' was -- I was furious with Page and Peter Grant. 'Royal Orleans,' I was having something to say about somebody else. I was just sitting there furious in that wheelchair. 'Tea for One,' I couldn't get back to the woman and the children that I loved, and I was just thinking, is this rock 'n' roll really anything at all? You know.

"But 'Candy Store Rock' was, for me, being Ral Donner. I finally could be Ral, you know? He'd always been my hero, the guy who wasn't Elvis but really was Elvis. At one point or another, they actually exchanged bodies. And the kind of bridge section in 'Candy Store Rock,' it's sheer and pure Ral Donner. And it was great because Jimmy's guitar playing on it was incredible!

"It was like the whole band moved into another gear there. Bonzo's rhythm with Jonesy playing. The two of 'em, the rhythm section, on that and 'Achilles Last Stand' is -- it just goes beyond pop music and beyond anything -- jazz, rock 'n' roll. It's just so inspired."

Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T03:00:00.003-05:00

On this day in 1975, Led Zeppelin gladly finished the work on the studio material for the next album after Physical Graffiti.

This new album consisted of seven songs quickly written as the full band gathered together for the first time since the auto accident that put Robert Plant in a wheelchair, unable to walk, and nearly took away his wife.

From a telephone at Musicland Studios in Munich, West Germany, Jimmy Page called the London office of Led Zeppelin's record company, Swan Song, to tell them the music for the next Led Zeppelin album was ready and now all they had to do was come up with a title and a concept for the theme.

Jimmy Page took a hint from the holiday season, since he was thankful the band was back together and productive. He suggested calling the album "Thanksgiving."

It was a nice thought, but the band ultimately decided on the album name Presence, to reflect the presence of a combined element in Led Zeppelin beyond all four of them.

The hip press

2009-11-25T03:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1971, Led Zeppelin played at Leicester University in England, and one writer who was obviously with the times wrote a positive review of Zeppelin's show.

The piece said that all the tickets to the Zeppelin show had sold out within hours of the campus box-office opening and probably would again if Zeppelin would schedule another date there the following week.

This was in a newspaper at the university, far removed from the kind of scene Rolling Stone represented, that preferred instead to print negative reviews of Led Zeppelin and otherwise ignore the band.

An author named Robert Godwin conducted research to find and summarize hundreds of articles and reviews about Led Zeppelin from the '60s and '70s. Having published a book called "Led Zeppelin: The Press Reports," he says:

"The epiphanies that I had doing this [were] that the press that I found on Led Zeppelin did not support the historic contention that they were always slagged off by the press. I found that there were at least as many, but generally more, good write-ups than there were bad. That surprised me 'cause, you know, I'd bought into that for years myself, that the press had always been incredibly mean to them, and it turns out they really weren't -- especially the music press.

"They turned on them once punk rock came along, but they didn't just turn on Led Zeppelin. They turned on pretty much all classic rock. You know, if Led Zeppelin thought they had it bad, you should see the things they used to write about Emerson, Lake and Palmer, and Yes!"

Early Days and Latter Days

2009-11-23T03:00:00.006-05:00

On this day in 1999, Led Zeppelin released the first half of a 2-CD collection called Early Days and Latter Days. Both discs focused on a chronological segment of Led Zeppelin's studio output.

The cover art, which laughably depicted the band members' faces superimposed over astronaut suits, has been the subject of much criticism, some of which comes from Jimmy Page himself. For a 2007 radio show on Led Zeppelin's studio work, Page stated:

"We had a piece of product which was going to be in two sections -- one called Early Days and [another called] Latter Days. And then, of course, in true sort of marketing spirit, they were sort of shunted together as Early Days and Latter Days, two CDs now, and ... Personally, I felt that there was quite a deterioration with the quality -- not the music of course -- but with the quality of the packaging, I just thought that it was worse and worse and worse, when you compared it to any of the other Led Zeppelin product, it just didn't really have that stamp of authority about it, you know?"

The Early Days and Latter Days CDs were discontinued when, eight years later almost to the day, Led Zeppelin released a similar 2-CD collection of Led Zeppelin's best studio output.

Titled Mothership, this new release on Nov. 13, 2007, took on Page's idea to improve on the packaging -- and also the sound, as the tracks chosen for that 2-CD set were enhanced for the second time in the digital age.

Electric Magic

2009-11-20T03:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1971, Led Zeppelin played the first of two shows at Wembley Empire Pool in London, with two opening acts and an array of circus-type attractions. There were trapeze artists, trampoline experts, saucer jugglers, and even costumed dancing pigs.

The pair of Electric Magic shows, held on a Saturday and Sunday, were unlike anything ever attempted before in the world of rock music, and it turned out to be highly successful in terms of ticket sales.

But in execution, there was at least one gaffe, when one pair of dancing swine refused to perform. Their trainer was quoted in the press as saying, "They were good in rehearsal!"

Led Zeppelin played two hours and 40 minutes each night. And counting all the other acts on the bill, each show lasted a total of five hours in all.

Shortly after the gigs, Robert Plant remembered them this way:

"We did two nights. The first night, we had nerves, and we were hopping up and down, saying, 'Let's get on,' because it was really cold there. It's an ice rink! An ice skater's paradise. And they hadn't put the heaters on until a half an hour before [laughs]. Nine and a half thousand people freezing, and we were freezing. But it was good. It was really good 'cause once we got started, everybody was up, you know, everywhere. On the second night, they left the heating on all night long, so everybody was in a different -- a different mood again. It went really, really well."

Misty martian bop

2009-11-17T03:00:00.008-05:00

On this day in 1997, Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" video made its world premiere online to a reported audience of 1,400 fans. Also that night was an online chat between John Paul Jones and Led Zeppelin fans.

The video was a promotional gimmick made to support the newly issued double album, BBC Sessions, which contained material Led Zeppelin recorded for the British Broadcasting Corporation between 1969 and 1971. It was 21 years since Led Zeppelin had commercially released a live performance.

Both the album and the "Whole Lotta Love" video contained previously unreleased elements that appealed to fans. The video revealed unseen clips from the band's own 8 mm footage and professionally shot video from many key performances throughout Led Zeppelin's career. These included Paris 1969, Royal Albert Hall 1970, Bath 1970, Atlanta 1973, Earl's Court 1975, Seattle 1977 and Knebworth 1979. It was a fan's dream to discover what performances were in the archives and had the potential to be released by the band someday.

Fans using the Internet service America Online were also able to join John Paul Jones for a question-and-answer chat session. Besides talking about playing bass and keyboards for Led Zeppelin in the 1970s and dealing with the inevitable questions about why he had not been on tour with his Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when they reunited in 1994 ("Their plans didn't include me, although it did seem to include my music"), Jones gave the world something new to await: a solo career from the talented multi-instrumentalist.

What fans really wanted to hear was that Led Zeppelin was going to reunite. What Jones told them was:

"There is no Led Zeppelin, and there's certainly no plans for any reunion of the 3 remaining members... that I know of."

When asked whether he would play again with Page or Plant, Jones commented that they have now lost their chance.

In lieu of a reunion, Jones said he was working on recording a solo album. He reported it would be:

"Instrumental -- no vocals, no guitar, no jazz. Pure rock (with some funny noises)!"

He also hinted toward the inclusion of "computer processing and electronics over a live rhythm section" and mentioned that he'd just received a new 10-string bass from manufacturer Hugh Manson.

Of course, Jones mentioned BBC Sessions. He described the sound:

"the very raw sound of a cocky, young, enthusiastic band at the height of its powers."

And he also commented on the "Whole Lotta Love" video:

"There's a funny little bit where Robert [Plant] and I seem to be doing some strange Martian dance together. Don't know where they found it, but it's a good video. I must be biased."

Albums covering groups' BBC sessions were becoming more and more common in the late 1990s. Progressive rock band the Nice had released its BBC sessions in 1995, and Van Der Graaf Generator followed suit in 1996. Unfortunately for some bands, BBC tapes had long been lost or destroyed, rather than preserved. Some people in the 1960s lacked the ability to foresee the intrinsic value of such tapes as historical documents.

Cognomen conundrum

2009-11-16T03:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1968, it's possible that Jimmy Page's new band played under the name "Led Zeppelin" for the third or maybe even fourth time. A Led Zeppelin concert at the College of Science & Technology in Manchester, England, on this date is believed to have happened but cannot be substantiated.

The new name had been implemented with the Surrey University concert on Oct. 25. Since then, any references in the billing to Page's previous band, the Yardbirds, had to be dropped once and for all. At this point, it was a challenge for Led Zeppelin to survive using its strange, new name in the competitive British music scene. Yet without a record deal, Led Zeppelin was scraping to survive in the business. In Manchester, the group received a meager wage of 225 pounds. The band was scheduled for only one gig each week that month and was making little money from the infrequent schedule.

"It was just a joke in England," Jimmy Page recalled. "We really had a bad time. They just wouldn't accept anything new. It had to be 'the new Yardbirds,' not 'Led Zeppelin.'"

Perhaps the Yardbirds' name attracted attention due to its familiarity among club owners and concertgoers; maybe the name helped to sell a few tickets. Then again, the Yardbirds' name may have carried its own disadvantages, too. Even that name seems to have had a poor connotation among many fans in Britain. After a round of U.K. dates in the summer of 1967, the Yardbirds had spent most of the next 12 months touring America and France. During this time, the British turned their backs on the Yardbirds, and the group earned a bad reputation because it had gone a year without touring in its home country.

Because of this, suggested John Bonham, the Yardbirds' name became a stigma in England. "In the very early days, I suppose we did lose faith in Britain," he said. "Everyone's attitude was that the Yardbirds hadn't done anything in England for so long, and they didn't want to book us." Many clubs in England resisted having them under any name.

Only seven gigs in England have been substantiated during the two-month period following the Oct. 25 concert debut of the Led Zeppelin name, although four disputed dates between October and December could bring that total to as many as 11 gigs in two months. Either way, there wasn't much to show at the time.

Page was the recognizable guitarist both groups shared. Some elements of the music carried over from the Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin, many of them revolving around the guitarist. By Page's mere presence, Led Zeppelin was irrevocably linked to the one-time pop sensation that had basically stopped touring in Britain.

Since the Yardbirds had been big in America, it was only natural that's where the band eventually showed up to spend Christmas and begin touring immediately thereafter.

Still reeling in Chicago

2009-11-15T03:00:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1980, Led Zeppelin would have performed the last of four concerts at the Chicago Stadium as part of a North American tour, a fate that was no longer possible.

The tour had officially been canceled on Sept. 27, two days after John Bonham died in his sleep following an all-day drinking binge.

Thousands of fans hoping to see Led Zeppelin play in Chicago were lined up on Sept. 25 to purchase that day's edition of the Chicago Tribune, which included mail order ticket request forms for the band's four planned concerts in the city.

At around the same time fans in Chicago were filling out their ticket request forms, Bonham's body was found at Jimmy Page's Windsor home in England.

The subsequent cancellation of the 1980 tour prompted the promoter to send letters to would-be ticket buyers, refunding the money submitted.

The Chicago Stadium was only one planned location for Led Zeppelin concerts in North America that year, along with:

the Forum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
the Capital Centre in Landover, Md.
the Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pa.
Richfield Coliseum near Cleveland, Ohio
Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Mich.
the War Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, N.Y.
the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, Pa.
the Saint Paul Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota

Plans were also under development for continued touring in 1981 including outside North America. The group had been eyeing a return to Japan for the first time since 1972 as well as its first-ever dates in South America and parts of the Far East.

Progress, and waste no time

2009-11-14T03:00:00.005-05:00

On this day in 1969, progress on Led Zeppelin's third album was under way even though the band's previous album had only just been released and hit the U.K. charts.

Shortly after returning to England from its fourth U.S. tour of the year, Led Zeppelin went into Olympic Sound Studios in Barnes, London. It was there that Led Zeppelin had recorded its entire first album and parts of the second.

Led Zeppelin II was out for only a few weeks when Led Zeppelin III was in its infancy in the studio. The band, not content to rest on its laurels, pressed on to begin building up its third studio album in just over a year.

Among the new material tried out, one was a 12-bar blues in a minor key, which would become "Since I've Been Loving You." Featuring John Paul Jones on organ, the seven-and-a-half-minute track showcases all four band members at their bluesy best and darkest.

The band also recorded a pair of acoustic blues medleys, one of which was later given the title "Hats Off to (Roy) Harper." The other remains unreleased on any official Led Zeppelin album. Roy Harper was a friend of the band whose latest album at the time, Folkjokeopus, was another in a long line of the artist's catalog of experimental acoustic work.

Another piece recorded at Olympic during this time was titled "Jennings Farm Blues," named after Plant's farmhouse. The band recorded several takes of this electric rock number, none of which have ever turned up on any official Led Zeppelin collection. For the time being, "Jennings Farm Blues" did not have any lyrics. However, when the band attempted it again in 1970, the arrangement switched from electric guitars to acoustic guitars, and at that time Plant added lyrics about his beloved dog, Strider. The song was renamed "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" by the time it was released on Led Zeppelin III.

Giving Jerry Wexler his due

2009-11-13T03:00:00.005-05:00

On this day in 1968, Led Zeppelin was playing the odd show here and there in England as an unsigned band. They'd recorded an album but weren't yet ready to release it, not until they could acquire a suitable record contract.

Peter Grant ended up getting them signed to Atlantic Records, where they ended up working so closely with label cofounder Ahmet Ertegun that the only times Led Zeppelin publicly reunited in the past 24 years were to pay tribute to Atlantic Records and to Ertegun.

But Ahmet wasn't the one who signed Led Zeppelin. That feat actually goes to his partner at Atlantic, Jerry Wexler. As the band's confidant Phil Carson recalled in an exclusive interview for the U.S. radio show "Get the Led Out" conducted earlier this year:

"Jerry signed the band. Later, they changed the name to Led Zeppelin. Jerry never got involved in the production of the group or really had anything to do with them after that. He handed them over to Ahmet Ertegun because he knew that Ahmet was the guy who could move it to the next level. Of course, Ahmet was Jerry's partner and really his boss at that time, and it was the right thing to do, to put this fantastic band to the right level at the company."

Wexler passed away in August 2008, one year and eight months after Ertegun died. Now, they are presumably together at the big record label in the sky.

Mighty Atom Smasher launched

2009-10-04T03:00:00.003-04:00

On this day in 2002, Robert Plant attended the launch party for a record label run by an old bandmate of his and John Bonham's from before the Led Zeppelin days.

Kevyn Gammond, a music instructor at Kidderminster College in England, set up the Mighty Atom Smasher label -- or M.A.S. Records -- as a way to help local bands in being heard.

Gammond was also known as Carlisle Egypt in 1967 and 1968, when he played guitar for a Midlands group called the Band of Joy. Plant was the singer, and Bonham was the drummer for some of that time.

Gammond also teamed up with Plant again in 1999 and 2000 in the band Priory of Brion, which spent two years playing sporadically throughout the United Kingdom and mainland Europe.

Plant became a patron of the M.A.S. Records label.

At the time of the M.A.S. Records launch, the label issued the first of a long-running series of compilations highlighting young musicians in the area.

That first compilation also included one surprise bonus track: a song called "Curse the Evil Woman" that was actually a previously unreleased Priory of Brion studio track recorded at Monnow Valley Studios during the summer of 2000. It was a cover of "Evil Woman," by songwriter Larry Weiss as heard on albums by the Canned Heat in 1968 and Spooky Tooth in 1969.
The second volume, released in November 2003, included another Priory of Brion studio outtake called "Flames," although the track was attributed to Johnny Volcano. This cover song was originally recorded by Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera.
A third Priory of Brion studio outtake, "Bitter Blue Morning Dew," was issued in February 2005 on the third M.A.S. compilation. It was a cover of "Morning Dew," written by Tim Rose and Bonnie Dobson. This studio recording by the Priory of Brion from 2000 predated the version of "Morning Dew" Plant and the Strange Sensation recorded for the 2002 album Dreamland.
That third M.A.S. compilation also included the Band of Joy's 1967 demo "Adriatic Sea View," which featured Bonham on drums and Plant on vocals with Gammond on guitar.

Incidentally, M.A.S. Records announced last month it has been preparing an eighth compilation CD. In addition, the label was presented with an award in England called Access to Music.

The final tragedy

2009-09-25T03:00:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1980, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones were together in the afternoon getting ready for their next rehearsal at Page's Windsor home.

With a Led Zeppelin tour coming up in North America the following month, the band had just gathered the previous day to run over material including "Carouselambra," never played at any prior Led Zeppelin concert.

The three band members and their assistants wondered where John Bonham was. Nobody had seen Bonzo since about midnight, when Bonham was passing out on a couch. He'd been drinking all through the first day's rehearsal, throwing back "a couple of large ones every hour."

Around midnight, Page's assistant, Rick Hobbs, helped him up to his bed. He left Bonham on his side, propped up with pillows.

Now, the band sent Plant's assistant, Benji LeFevre, to check on Bonham in the room. John Paul Jones came with him. They discovered Bonham lying on his back in a pool of vomit. Jones phoned an ambulance, but Bonham was far beyond resuscitation and had apparently been dead for several hours.

Responding to the tragedy, Plant drove to Bonham's home at the Old Hyde Farm to console Bonzo's wife, Pat Bonham, and their son Jason and daughter Zoe. Jones went home to his own family, "terribly shocked," he said later. Page remained at his own house, trying to cope.

Once the news had broken across England, Page stood inside, watching at his window as a group of fans held a silent vigil outside.

A time of rebirth

2009-09-24T03:00:00.003-04:00

On September 24, 1980, John Bonham gathered with his fellow members of Led Zeppelin for the last time.

Bonham started out the day at his home, where he left his wife Pat and their children, Jason and Zoe, and immediately started drinking. He stopped off at a pub, where he downed a ham roll and four quadruple vodkas.

Then he met up with all the other members of Led Zeppelin at the Old Mill House, the Windsor home of Jimmy Page, for a rehearsal. It was their first time playing together in three months. Zeppelin's last tour had ended two-and-a-half months earlier, on July 7. So, first, there was a bit of catching up to do for Page, Bonham, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant.

When it came time to playing music together, the guys mostly fooled around. The band was excited to be back together again. They had a tour coming up in North America, so they made a plan to rehearse an arrangement of their 10-and-a-half-minute song "Carouselambra" to play on the road. The song was on their latest album, In Through the Out Door, but they'd never played it live before.

John Paul Jones remembers feeling "great excitement" during this first day of rehearsal. He said it was "a time of rebirth."

Through the day of rehearsal, Bonham kept on drinking. Heavily. Eventually, he passed out and was carried up to bed.

We'll drive our ships to new lands

2009-09-23T03:00:00.003-04:00

On this day in 1971, Led Zeppelin performed its first-ever concert in Japan. At the Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Zeppelin opened with "Immigrant Song," which had been No. 1 on the charts for a record stretch.

Onstage, between songs, Robert Plant talked extensively to the crowd about how much fun Zeppelin was already having in the country, even before one show was underway. And it's no wonder, based on the stories that have been told since then of Zeppelin's stay at the Tokyo Hilton, which resulted in a ban of any further stays there by the group.

Evidently, there was some mistaken peeping tom activity going on -- and an incident with a samurai sword where John Bonham cut up the wall of the hotel and left John Paul Jones sleeping in the hall. And finally, a fruit fight among Zeppelin's entourage clinched the Tokyo Hilton ban on Led Zeppelin.

Far behind the music

2009-09-20T03:00:00.004-04:00

On this day in 1979, a sheet of paper was typed up within Led Zeppelin's organization to be submitted to the Melody Maker so it could run as a full-page ad. This action was aimed at publicly absolving the band of any wrongdoing related to two recent concert appearances in England.

Under the signature of Frederick Bannister, director of Tedoar Ltd., and dated at top "Sept 20 1979," the letter catches Freddy Bannister at a time when he and his wife, Wendy, were making the unhappy decision to declare bankruptcy and to withdraw from the business of music promotion. This happened quickly after they promoted Led Zeppelin's only U.K. concert dates after 1975, a pair of shows billed as the Knebworth Festival 1979, held Aug. 4 and 11.

There was a much more elaborate reason for the promoters' decision to close up shop, as Freddy Bannister eventually wrote in his book, "There Must Be a Better Way: The Story of the Bath and Knebworth Rock Festivals 1969-1979." He summed it up succinctly in concluding his narrative, published in 2003: "So why did we retire so abruptly? In a word, fear. By this time Peter Grant was in such a terrible state, both mentally and physically, we thought he was on the way out and would be delighted to take us with him. As it happened, he lived another 16 years and, I believe, became a born again Christian."

Much has already been said regarding Led Zeppelin's music at the Knebworth Festival in August 1979. Just read Dave Lewis's new book, "Then As It Was: Led Zeppelin at Knebworth 1979 -- 30 Years Gone," for dozens of perspectives from the field concerning the music. But, even as Lewis acknowledges inside the pages of his book, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than just rehearsing and performing.

The way Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant handled his flagship band's return to the live stage 30 years ago has been the subject of much focus. Jack Calmes, founder of the sound and lighting company Showco, recently discussed this aspect of the story in a piece printed in this August's issue of Total Production magazine. In it, he references Grant and "the main interface for Zeppelin production," tour manager Richard Cole. He comments, "They were always very secretive about their operations, and Richard could be a difficult person at that stage because he was on the other side of the moon."

Cole, when interviewed earlier this year by Dave Lewis for the U.S. radio show "Get the Led Out," critiqued his own temperament from around 1979. "I must admit," he said, "my memories of Knebworth aren't that great. I was a little bit, um, not myself, you might say." Sober today, he continued. "I was making it difficult for myself. I mean, um, the job wasn't really any more difficult."

As for Bannister, most of his dealings with Led Zeppelin were directly with Grant himself, one on one. Bannister reflects in his book on the many times over several years he and Grant met. He recounts the pleasantries they exchanged while booking Led Zeppelin at both of the Bath festivals held in 1969 and 1970.

Bannister also discusses their other meetings and conversations, often to pitch events for Grant to consider booking Led Zeppelin to play, and sometimes for them to bond over their shared love of antique motorcars. Bannister also muses, "While we were never close friends, we knew each other well enough for Peter to phone me when his wife, Gloria, left him."

The change in Grant's personality after the separation did not go entirely unnoticed by Bannister. "He had totally changed from the Peter we knew and trusted in the sixties and early seventies," he writes. "I had already started to notice the difference when he pulled the band out of the first Knebworth concert in 1974." Rather, it was the extent to which Grant's personality changed that he never expected, Bannister says.

When he first approached Grant in 1979 with an offer to play outside of Knebworth House on two consecutive weekends, the veteran promoter thought he would have everything under control. "I had been warned that Peter had changed," Bannister writes, "but I suppose I was arrogant enough to think that, because we had got on so well in the early days, that I could handle him."

Bannister now surmises that, at some point along the way, Grant "had begun to believe his own hype." He credits Grant with always having possessed "judgment and taste that belied his humble origins." Nevertheless, Bannister admits his inability to foresee "the effect that drugs had on his judgment." For one thing, Bannister recalls hosting a 26-hour meeting at his residence to negotiate fees for Led Zeppelin and Showco, the sound and lighting company. He says that around 4 a.m., "Peter was keeping himself going with long lines of cocaine plus the occasional Mogadon [a brand-name hypnotic sedative] to maintain the balance. Wendy and I stuck to coffee, a rather more prosaic and decidedly cheaper stimulant. ... Twenty-six hours after he had arrived, Peter went home. God knows how much cocaine he got through during the course of the meeting."

From Bannister's account, his interactions with Grant, and with others connected to him, made him appear less like the manager of old and more like the mobster character he'd portrayed for cinematic effect in The Song Remains the Same. Now, Grant also had a criminal record to boot, since he had been arrested on an assault charge during Led Zeppelin's previous North American tour and since been given a suspended prison sentence. Bannister vividly describes several incidents in which Grant and his henchmen exuded intimidation in order to get their way.

Basically, Bannister says any last-minute concessions to Grant were enacted only to avoid further aggravation and headaches. For one, just before the band took the stage at Knebworth on Aug. 4, Bannister relinquished all rights to any filming made "for the princely sum of a shilling (5 new pence)." He initially refused but changed his mind after an argument and Richard Cole's declaration, "With the mood Peter's in these days you really don't need the aggravation." Bannister later arrived at an understanding that "the only way someone signs their rights away for 5 pence is under duress, as I was, and this, I was told sometime afterwards, totally invalidates the contract."

It does not appear that Bannister ever sought redress on that point. As Graeme Hutchinson notes in an appendix contained in Lewis's "Then As It Was," a company called TV International filmed both of Led Zeppelin's Knebworth appearances in their entirety -- 193 minutes of professionally shot video from Aug. 4 and 161 minutes from Aug. 11. Led Zeppelin used seven songs from Knebworth on the band's official DVD released in 2003, and the video footage comes almost entirely from what TV International shot.

Other disputes with Grant went unresolved, says Bannister, for a fear of the potential for violence. At Grant's Horselunges Manor house on Aug. 7, Freddy and his wife, Wendy Bannister, were discussing with Grant and Atlantic Records executive Phil Carson the number of tickets that had been sold for the first performance. The Bannisters maintained only 104,000 had been sold, while Grant and Carson insisted a quarter of a million people had been in attendance. The ticket sales would have determined how much money Tedoar had earned.

Bannister claimed ticket sales weren't enough to cover paying Led Zeppelin in full for a second concert, while Grant accused the promoters of lying to withhold profits. Bannister writes: "At one point when Wendy, close to tears, tried to explain something to him, this 20 stone bully lunged at her, waving his fist a foot away from her face. 'Don't get smart with me,' he snarled. That was it. There was no point in trying to reason with him so we left. He did have the good grace to apologise to Wendy when he walked with us out to our car. However, it was too late."

Whatever Grant told the band about the Knebworth attendance debacle stuck with Jimmy Page, as evidenced by comments made to journalist Mick Wall years later. Page repeated the assertion that more people attended Knebworth than however many tickets were declared as being sold and, therefore, "we were partially paid ... Peter Grant told me and the rest of the band that Freddy Bannister reneged on it."

On Aug. 8, the Bannisters were visited by "an American calling himself Herb Atkins" who "was wearing an over-smart, cheap, dark suit, dark shirt and dark glasses" and drove "an equally sinister dark Volvo, fitted with tinted glass. ... If he wasn't ex CIA, I thought, he obviously fantasised that he was. ... It was clear that he had been sent to intimidate me. He ... was accompanied by a rather seedy looking Englishman in his fifties who was introduced to me as a former Metropolitan Police superintendent." They spoke to him of super-high-resolution aerial photographs -- the kind that were "so detailed you could read the time on watches that members of the audience were wearing." These photos, they told him, had supposedly been analyzed by NASA to reveal the number of audience members present on Aug. 4 was more to the tune of 250,000.

Bannister told them he couldn't even imagine how that many people could fit onto a plot of land 36 acres in size. Citing a 1976 report on the same staging area when used for a previous event he promoted, Bannister notes that 4.5 acres of the 36 acres contained "medical tents, caterers, entertainers, lavatories, lighting towers and trees." Further, he says, three or four other acres of the original 36 also "contained the stage and backstage area."

Bannister does credit the Led Zeppelin organization with one concession, however, and it is the important one that is the subject of the letter appearing in the Oct. 6, 1979, issue of the Melody Maker. As Bannister explains in his book, on the evening of Aug. 9, Peter Grant and the aforementioned Herb Atkins met the Bannisters at their home, this time accompanied by "a great bull of a man" they said was their driver. Finances was naturally the topic of conversation as Led Zeppelin and the supporting acts -- the New Barbarians (featuring Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards), Todd Rundgren & Utopia, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, and Chas & Dave -- were scheduled to perform the second Knebworth show two days later. "After a great deal of discussion, Grant told us that although he still didn't believe the figures we had given him, he was prepared to reduce Led Zeppelin's fee for the second show, to enable us to pay the rest of the bands." Bannister says Grant's operation became more interested in ensuring the security staff and supporting acts were all paid for the Aug. 11 date before Led Zeppelin's own fee would be collected.

The second concert took place, and the U.K. music press had its say. Bannister writes that he evaded questions from reporters who sensed a juicy story about Tedoar's financial struggles. Also during the week Bannister called a "nightmare," he says, "Herb Atkins had made it fairly clear, with his talk of people from Miami, that there were American interests who could be something of a problem if we, to quote him, 'misbehaved ourselves.'"

One final encounter with this intimidating figure took place in September, Bannister writes. After "a phone call instructing me to meet him at The Dorchester in Park Lane and to come alone," Atkins presented Bannister with a typewritten and undated letter addressed to Peter Grant and from none other than Frederick Bannister. There was no signature on it. That's what Atkins was there to obtain. The letter read, in full:

To Mr. Peter Grant

There has been some misconceptions reported in the press concerning the Led Zeppelin and Knebworth which, as concert promoter, I would like to clarify. First, before anyone knew what the total ticket sales for the two concerts would be, upon my request, the Led Zeppelin voluntarily reduced their guarantee by a substantial amount and were willing to accept an alternate arrangement in order to help insure the best possible concert for the patrons and payment to all concerned in the event there was insufficient funds to pay everyone in full. Mr. Peter Grant, Manager of the Led Zeppelin, was particularly concerned that all acts appearing at the concert be fully compensated. Unfortunately, because of a huge increase in production and staffing costs, increased V.A.T., among other reasons, this very substantial guarantee reduction by the Led Zeppelin, while very helpful, was unfortunately not sufficient.

Second, at all times the Led Zeppelin, their Manager and his staff have been completely co-operative, the group's performances at Knebworth truly outstanding and their popularity, as evidenced by their number one album throughout the world speaks for itself.

Finally, it would be a privilege and pleasure for me to promote another Led Zeppelin concert in the future and hope to have the opportunity of so doing.

Signed Frederick Bannister
Director, Tedoar Limited

Bannister's immediate take on it? He writes, "It appeared Grant wanted me to absolve him and the band from any of the bad publicity the festival was getting and wanted me to sign a letter to that effect."

Bannister also realizes the extent to which Led Zeppelin's ability to work again in the future rested in his hands, as evidenced by his recollection of the violence backstage at Oakland Coliseum in 1977 and the subsequent arrests and sentencing of Grant, along with John Bonham, Richard Cole and John Bindon. "In view of this conviction," writes Bannister, "it wouldn't be that easy for them to obtain American work permits."

However, Bannister knew no other reaction than to sign the letter. He explains in his book: "If I made too much fuss about the way I had been so unjustly treated, it would probably aggravate an already delicate situation. I was not exactly thrilled with the request. However, after all the unpleasantness and worrying innuendo, I was scared for the safety of my family. I just wanted to put everything behind me and get on with my life, so I agreed to sign the statement."

Bannister says it was also during this final meeting with Atkins that the mysterious man claimed his colleagues had decided the Bannisters "weren't worth bothering any further" based on their apparently dire financial situation. The news was little consolation to the promoter, whose company was now beginning to enter liquidation.

Herb Atkins took the signed letter back to Peter Grant. It was given the date of "Sept 20 1979" and retyped using Times New Roman with some accents in an Old English font. The words underwent some light editing -- such as "Led Zeppelin" instead of "the Led Zeppelin," "firstly" and "secondly" instead of "first and second," the correct "ensure" instead of the misused "insure," and so on. Aside from some capitalization alterations and comma shifts, other notable edits were made as follows:

Gone was the salutation at the top that had read, "To Mr. Peter Grant."
The grammatical error in the first sentence was corrected to read, "There have been some misconceptions..."
In the revised letter, Grant was concerned not that all acts be "fully compensated" but merely that they be "paid."
The band's Knebworth "performances" changed to "performance."
That singular performance was labeled "really tremendous" rather than "truly outstanding."
As if to emphasize or single out the point of Led Zeppelin, the manager, and the staff having been "completely co-operative," that sentence was given its own paragraph.

At the bottom, just above Bannister's name, was his signature. This was submitted to the Melody Maker, as a full-page ad to appear in the Oct. 6 edition. Bannister writes that the Melody Maker's advertising manager called Wendy personally to ensure she was OK with it being printed. Freddy quotes his wife as telling the advertising manager, "Go ahead. If Grant feels the need to publish the letter in this way no one is going to believe it anyway. No one who knows Freddy would believe that he would write such formal crap."

In closing Tedoar Ltd., Bannister effectively ended his career in music promotion, and he and Wendy lost their livelihood. He says their fear of Grant was not the only motivating factor that made them quit. He explains: "For some time I had been growing disillusioned with the greed and general unpleasantness of the contractors that provided equipment and services for the events, and also by the way the police and council, using moral blackmail, were driving up the cost of these events with their ever more unrealistic demands for money. Finally and perhaps more importantly, I could at last see from the way that the music scene was heading that the days of the commercial mega shows were basically coming to an end, at least for sometime to come."

Bannister, in his book, says he believes 150,000 attended the Knebworth Festival over Aug. 4 and 11, 1979. He calls this "a very impressive number to draw over two consecutive weekends." Other points he maintains: "We did not cheat Led Zeppelin out of a penny, quite the contrary, as we not only lost money on the promotion but we lost our livelihood as well. We certainly would not have lasted over twenty years in a business as competitive as the music industry if we had not enjoyed a solid reputation, nor would we have ended up running large outdoor shows. I can honestly say over the whole of this period, we never cheated or failed to pay a band."

He concludes: "Do I miss the music business? Of course. I miss the people, the humour, the camaraderie. Above all, I miss the great music, but come to think of it, doesn't every one?"

Bannister's 2003 book does not divulge what he'd been doing for a livelihood in the 24 ensuing years. Quite possibly, that's for the best. On the other hand, his book certainly does detail many enthralling stories from the years he and Wendy spent laboring in the music business. The chapters on their early successes are a joy to read, and there's a lot of territory to cover before they moved from promoting weekly shows at a club to promoting larger outdoor music shows.

The book is now available as part of a limited-edition commemorative boxed set that also includes:

ticket, program and flyer reprints from the Bath festivals in 1969 and 1970 and the Knebworth Festival in 1979
a set of 20 glossy 6x8" photographs taken at the Bath and Knebworth festivals
three T-shirts (select three from among three Knebworth designs and two designs displaying the poster art from the Bath festivals)
two poster reprints (select two from among the 1969 and 1970 Bath festivals as well as the 1979 Knebworth Festival)
a DVD containing 100 photographs of Led Zeppelin at Knebworth, plus an interview of Robert Plant and John Paul Jones conducted by J.J. Jackson
a 60-minute DVD called "The Spirit of Knebworth" that overviews the seven Knebworth festivals held between 1974 and 1979
a signature of the promoter, Freddy Bannister

The boxed set is limited to 200. Visit www.rockmusicmem.com for ordering information.

Grow hair and sweat

2009-09-13T03:00:00.003-04:00

On this day in 1971, Led Zeppelin played the first of two consecutive nights at the Community Theatre in Berkeley, California. Before an encore version of "Communication Breakdown," Robert Plant reflected on the third anniversary of the band's live debut, saying they were celebrating "thirty-six months in which we've grown hair, and we sweat."

Stockholm syndrome

2009-09-12T03:00:00.005-04:00

On this day in 1968, Jimmy Page and his new lineup of the Yardbirds continued their initial tour of Scandinavia, appearing at a concert hailed by newspapers in Stockholm, Sweden, as a "big popfinal." The band played in Stockholm two nights in a row.

The Eighties -- Part One

2009-09-11T03:00:00.003-04:00

On this day in 1980, Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant announced that the group would soon go on tour in North America for the first time in three years.

Back in '77, Robert Plant's son had died, meaning more than just the immediate end of a Led Zeppelin tour in North America. Plant's mourning also jeopardized future dates.

It was, in fact, John Bonham who ultimately was responsible for pulling Plant back into the Led Zeppelin fold. When the singer wasn't sure whether or not touring the world was worth leaving a family behind at home, it was the drummer who hated flights and abhorred being away from his own family who convinced him of the merits of Led Zeppelin concert dates.

All Bonham had persuaded Plant to do was to come back and try out some new material. This became the album In Through the Out Door, which came out just after Led Zeppelin's concert series at the Knebworth festival. The idea of going on tour, however, was something that wasn't seriously brought up to Plant by anyone in Zeppelin's circle until after those concert dates were observed.

After Plant said yes to a tour of Europe in the summer of 1980, that was all Led Zeppelin was under obligation to do. Again, nothing further was discussed until after the last encore was played. And when Peter Grant finally broached the subject with Plant, he finally said he was willing to go and give it another try.

That's what was being announced all those years ago on this date. Led Zeppelin was again going to tour North America, with everything having been put behind them. All the concert dates were now in place.

The touring campaign was called "Led Zeppelin: The Eighties -- Part One." Plans were for Led Zeppelin to continue with a set of dates to follow in 1981.

It was considered "Part One" because there were tentative plans to reconvene in 1981 for tours of Japan and, for the first time ever by Led Zeppelin, South America. For the time being, Led Zeppelin was going to appear:

Oct. 17 at the Forum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Oct. 19-20 & 23 at the Capital Center in Landonver, Md.
Oct. 22 & Nov. 3-4 at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pa.
Oct. 26-27 at Richfield Coliseum near Cleveland, Ohio
Oct. 29-30 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Mich.
Nov. 1 at the War Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, N.Y.
Nov. 6-7 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Nov. 9 at the Saint Paul Civic Center in Saint Paul, Minn.
Nov. 10, 12-13 & 15 at Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Ill.

Turn the page

2009-09-10T03:00:00.001-04:00

On this day in 1985, Robert Plant ended one phase of his singing career and looked like he was ready to undertake another. His last show in support of his third solo album was at Wembley Arena in London. Soon after the show, Robert disbanded the group that he'd been using for the past three years.

Four live Yardbirds

2009-09-09T03:00:00.003-04:00

On this day in 1966, the Yardbirds were transitioning to become a fourpiece band led by Jimmy Page.

Beginning that summer, Jeff Beck had been sharing lead guitar duties with Page. But while the Yardbirds toured in California, Beck started becoming inseparable from actress Mary Hughes.

Their love knew no bounds, to the point it was becoming a detriment to the band.

Beck's absence from the group forced the cancellation of a show in Monterey, Calif., on Aug. 24.
Then, the band played a show without Beck on Aug. 25, thereby forcing the "five live Yardbirds" to act for the first time ever as the "four live Yardbirds."
When it came time for the band to leave California and fly to the East Coast for some further concerts, Beck just couldn't be coaxed to travel with them. He remained in Los Angeles with Mary Hughes, and the rest of the band played a show on today's date at a roller skating rink in Alexandria, Va.

The Yardbirds carried on as a fourpiece for nearly two more years with Page as the group's sole guitarist.

New York Times Best Seller

2009-09-08T03:00:00.004-04:00

On this day in 1985, an unauthorized biography of Led Zeppelin peaked on the New York Times Best Seller List. The book was Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga.

The work of rock writer Stephen Davis, Hammer of the Gods was on the New York Times Best Seller list for nine weeks in all.

Led Zeppelin disavowed the book, questioning how much time Davis had spent observing everything firsthand, asserting he had been around for maybe a day or an hour. The band also assailed their former tour manager, Richard Cole, who had been the source of several delicious stories -- and received a handsome paycheck for doing so.

But perhaps most of all, John Paul Jones felt that the tales of sex and drug use in "Hammer of the Gods" lacked the context of a good sense of humor. He said in an interview with Lemon Squeezings in 2001:

"You see, the only trouble with that book, that stupid book, was that it got all its facts wrong. It got all the stories the wrong way around. Part of that, it wasn't funny. I mean, some of the stories were actually hilarious, but the way the book reads is, 'What a bunch of miserable bastards we are!'"

Live debut

2009-09-07T03:00:00.007-04:00

On this day in 1968, the members of Led Zeppelin made their live debut together, performing under the name "The Yardbirds" to a crowd of about 1,000 teens and pre-teens at a school gymnasium located in Copenhagen, Denmark.

It was a Saturday, and the group was performing two gigs that day. The second was elsewhere in the area, at another gymnasium frequented by that same age group.

Robert Plant and John Bonham, Led Zeppelin's two youngest members, were 20 years old. In the middle was John Paul Jones at age 22. The oldest, Jimmy Page, was 24.

He'd played in Scandinavia before. The second venue they played that day, the Brøndby Pop Club, was familiar to Page as he'd been there in April 1967 with the Yardbirds. It was that band that most of the audience had expected to see, but there was apparently some pre-show buzz that these weren't the real Yardbirds.

To them, it was only their latest guitarist with a new singer along with some other new guys, using the name to blow through Scandinavia. If they were any good, nobody knew it. They were just hoping not to be let down by the only British band sharing the bill with some Danish groups.

Well, there's no indication anybody who attended that night was disappointed. Any fans expecting quirky frontman Keith Relf on vocals and harmonica with the Yardbirds were surprised to see a different singer -- one who danced funny and portrayed faces of anguish and torture.

So unfamiliar to the locals was this extroverted singer that even a newspaper reporter mistakenly called him "Robert Planto" in a review of the second show that printed four days later in Denmark's Glostrup Handelsblat. According to a popular translation, the reviewer complained that this singer was unnecessarily opting "to twist his body like he's having a ruptured appendix."

Photo from Led Zeppelin's first performance by Jørgen Angel Photography

The band provided subtle and delicate hints of some visual trademark characteristics that would soon brand them uniquely as Led Zeppelin, some of which are evidenced in black-and-white shots of the first performance taken by 16-year-old house photographer Jørgen Angel, who today sells those photos online.

As we see in the shots, Jones joined Page in wearing some ruffled garb to show numero uno. Plant's extremely agitated facial expressions went with the music as he shook about. Bonham, who was much more svelte in physique at age 20 than he would appear in his latter days, pounded on the skins with reckless abandon to the point of being drenched in sweat. Page pulled out a famous stage trick of his involving a violin bow across the fretted strings of his boldly colored Fender 1958 Telecaster.

Scant jam sessions over the previous month must have been very productive. The band had worked up a repertoire lasting about 40 minutes long. While little is documented about what songs were played that day, the band is thought to have opened with "Train Kept A-Rollin'," and also played "I Can't Quit You Baby," "Dazed and Confused," "You Shook Me" and a blues song known in its original lyric as "How Many More Years."

Additionally, a review of the second show proclaims that Bonham's drum solo ought to have gone on forever, so the band was probably playing the instrumental known as "Pat's Delight" -- which, like the later "Moby Dick," started off with a guitar-bass riff, segued into a drum solo, and ended again with a guitar-bass riff.

Those of us who were not there to witness the first Led Zeppelin shows have some ways to estimate what it would have sounded like. Understandably, since the band was booked as a supporting act, their live sets, at 40 minutes each, were curt compared to the two- and three-hour spectacles they would soon be divulging as a famous headlining act.

The photographer, Jørgen Angel, has detailed some of his personal memories for the Led Zeppelin fanzine Kashmir, and the transcript of that interview is reproduced online. In addition, a few Danish newspaper articles covering the event have preserved other aspects for all time, providing the only firsthand written accounts of the shows at the time.

I can't hear that

2009-09-06T03:00:00.004-04:00

On this day in 1970, Led Zeppelin performed two evening shows at the International Center Arena in Honolulu, Hawaii.

"Whole Lotta Love" was performed at both shows but, the audience response differed between the two. At the early show, during "Whole Lotta Love," when Robert Plant yelled, "Woman," there was no reply from the audience. The 15,000 partying fans at the late show, however, shouted back at Plant.

Enjoy the following video I compiled using fan-shot 8mm footage that has circulated on bootlegs, along with an audio recording also available on bootlegs. Both come from the early show.

First of 22 for Larry

2009-09-05T00:53:00.001-04:00

On this day in 1971, photographer Larry Ratner attended Led Zeppelin's performance at the International Amphitheater in Chicago. It was the first of 22 times he saw Led Zeppelin perform live -- more, he says, than any other photographer.

But Ratner wasn't snapping pictures that day. Instead, what he saw onstage inspired him to shoot some pictures the next time Zeppelin returned. He explained in an interview with Lemon Squeezings last month:

"I had been working for a company where most of my duties were working in modeling schools with young ladies, taking their photos, and I found that to be, um, very interesting and very fulfilling.

"Some friends of mine turned me on to Led Zeppelin, and the first time we went to see them, September of '71 at the International Amphitheater in Chicago, I was pretty amazed at the show. And I said to myself that I wanted to make a serious point of capturing this on film as far as still photos. I wanted to use whatever photographic skills I had to try to capture something special because the experience stayed with me so long and had such an impact, I said, 'If I can do this just from my memory, what can I do with an actual film record of it?'

"... I was at 22 shows. I've only met one person, outside of any member of the band, who's ever saw Led Zeppelin saw more times than that as Led Zeppelin. He was a gentleman whose name was Caesar. He was an artist who was actually friends with Robert. He had been to over 50 Led Zeppelin shows."

Live on Blueberry Hill

2009-09-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1970, Led Zeppelin played a concert at the L.A. Forum that has become the stuff of legend, mostly because of several audience tapes of the show that first surfaced on vinyl within a few years.

The record set of this concert was called Live on Blueberry Hill, named after the rare encore Led Zeppelin played that night, "Blueberry Hill," popularized by Fats Domino in 1956.

The recording also includes a rare live performance of "Out on the Tiles," also played during the encore.

Live on Blueberry Hill was sold in some record stores in the United States and England, and so people assumed it was a legitimate release. It was actually released by a bootleg label called Blimp.

Robert Godwin, a published author on subjects including Led Zeppelin bootlegs, says the Blueberry Hill release was an important milestone for the myth of Led Zeppelin. Asked in 2009 to list his favorite bootlegs, Godwin said:

"I have a special passion for Blueberry Hill because it was one of the first bootlegs I ever bought. It wasn't the first, but it was certainly -- when I heard it, it was the first opportunity that I'd had to hear them playing other people's songs.

"There was this cool aura to having a bootleg album, especially if it had stuff on it that was not on any of their studio albums -- and especially when it was so hard to get tickets to see them! So I believe that Blueberry Hill actually helped them, despite what was being said at the time."

After Led Zeppelin's show at the Forum, Led Zeppelin moved on to the Troubadour club in Los Angeles, where the British folk band Fairport Convention was appearing that night in front of a couple hundred, to record a live album.

During Fairport's second set, members of Led Zeppelin sat in to jam on the song "Hey Joe," plus "Morning Dew" by Tim Rose, and some Elvis Presley tunes including "That's Alright Mama" and "Mystery Train."

The bands shared each other's instruments. Fairport guitarist Richard Thompson borrowed Jimmy Page's Les Paul, and John Bonham pounded away at the drum kit that belonged to Dave Mattacks.

When Bonham first sat down at the kit and stepped on the bass pedal, Mattacks watched in horror as his bass drum flew forward a half a foot. By the end of the night, after Bonham had worn out his welcome, the drum heads needed a good changing and the toms needed a good tuning.

Some say the jam session went on as long as three hours, and afterward Janis Joplin met up with Bonham at the after-hours bar Barney's Beanery to square off against him in a drinking contest.

'Cause you're too loud, too loud

2009-09-03T03:00:00.003-04:00

On this day in 1970, Led Zeppelin performed at the Sports Arena in San Diego. The acoustic set went over so poorly with this particular audience that they dropped one of the acoustic songs from the set list.

Robert Plant repeatedly tried to hush the audience to no avail while they tuned up, saying, "Shut up. ... You've all got acoustic guitars at home, and you know what it's like trying to play it with the television on."

When the San Diego Union ran a concert review written by music critic Donald Dierks, there was no mention at all of the attempt at playing any softer material. Instead, Dierks focused only on the loudness. He wrote:

"As for the music itself, the principal expressive attribute was volume
-- wave after ear-splitting wave of volume. ... Suffice it to say that the music
was so loud it made the seats shake until they felt like therapeutic vibrator
chairs -- literally."

Restless in Oakland

2009-09-02T03:00:00.002-04:00

On this day in 1970, the audience was restless while Led Zeppelin debuted some acoustic songs destined for Led Zeppelin III at Bill Graham's Oakland Coliseum in California.

Robert Plant joked onstage, "We pray for your indulgence, ladies and gentlemen. Tom Jones is next."

South Fla. switcheroo

2009-09-01T03:00:00.004-04:00

On this day in 1971, Led Zeppelin played in Hollywood, Florida, at the Sportatorium at Speedway Park. Originally, the concert was scheduled to take place in nearby Miami at the Jai Alai Fronton, but a change of venue was announced locally in advance of the gig. Either way, a poster from Concerts West billed Led Zeppelin "the world's greatest group."

Heartless

2009-08-12T06:56:00.001-04:00

On this day in 1994, John Paul Jones began a five-night stint with the band Heart at the Backstage in Seattle. The following May, two further guest appearances with Heart would make it onto the band's live album The Road Home.

Not known to Jones while in Seattle playing with Heart, his former bandmates Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were together in England that very same day. Page and Plant were casually attending the Cropredy Festival. They didn't perform that day, but in less than a week, they would be performing. They'd just filmed some outdoor jams of theirs in Morocco and were about to continue filming in Wales and London, then incorporating Led Zeppelin material.

Jones wouldn't know about Page and Plant's newfound partnership until weeks later, when he first learned about it from his accountant. By then, it was common knowledge, but the word had somehow eluded Jones. In an interview once, he recalled his accountant mentioning the Page-Plant collaboration in conversation and then saying, "Oh, didn't you know they're working on an MTV Unplugged?"

Over the course of August 1994, Page and Plant worked together permanently for the first time in 14 years. During the second week of August, they filmed some new music of theirs outdoors in Marrakesh, Morocco, and flew right back to the United Kingdom, where they would soon be filming reworked Led Zeppelin numbers on a Welsh mountainside and in a London TV studio.

In London, they were joined by an Egyptian orchestra with five percussion players, four string players, one musician on an Egyptian bamboo flute, and another on an ancient Middle Eastern stringed instrument. This was amplified by the 29-member London Metropolitan Orchestra. There were also members of Plant's touring band, plus Porl Thompson of the Cure on second guitar and banjo.

Plant also said he was glad to work with Page outside of the confines of a Led Zeppelin reunion. "We were both free at the same time to explore together in the future tense," he said. "I thought that the best thing that we could do, Jimmy and I, is to start without the confines and the constrictions of a rock group situation and just see what we can do."

For Jones, there was a measure of sting in the others' actions. "It was kind of surprising they didn't at least warn me," he told the Toronto Sun six years later.

One underreported aspect to this surprise is that Jones had anticipated hearing from Page about reuniting themselves with Plant. This is what Jam Showbiz uncovered in 2000 from talking with Jones. "Prior to [the Page-Plant collaboration beginning in 1994], Jones says, Page had approached him about working together again. Jones tentatively agreed to it, and was under the impression that Page would then approach Plant about getting back together with the group ..."

The interview by Paul Cantin further quotes Jones as saying, "There were plans that WE would ask Robert. It was actually left that [Page] would let me know when he had approached Robert. ... The next I heard of it, [Page and Plant] were out on the road with a record coming. They never got back to me ... I actually had to read about it."

By the time of Led Zeppelin's DVD release in 2003, Page deemed everything among the three of them "water under the bridge," and they were working together to promote their new album. Four years later, they were sharing a stage with their instruments again -- but for only one show.

Then As It Was

2009-08-04T10:50:00.005-04:00

On this day in 1979, Led Zeppelin's British homecoming was under full swing with the band offering fans a two-and-a-half-hour set at the Knebworth Festival.

Words I would write today would fail to capture the eloquence and the first-hand experience of a writer who was there. The following appears here and is reprinted from Dave Lewis's Diary:

Thirty years ago today, I and thousands of others, were in that field just outside Stevenage eagerly awaiting the live return of Led Zeppelin.

Thirty years on it's been like a lifetime ... but a second.

Think of Knebworth and the images remain vivid: The campsite, Tommy Vance's Friday night rock show filling the air, chants of "Zeppelin, Zeppelin," the early morning rush for the gates, the long wait during the day, Skynyrd's "Tuesdays Gone" fading from the PA, the screen unfolding ... and there in the light performing "The Song Remains the Same," Led Zeppelin live before our very eyes.

Thousands of eyes that still hold thousands of memories.

And it's those memories that make up the centerpiece of "Then As It Was," the book I've spent many hours over the past few months compiling. When I set upon the task of marking the 30th anniversary of Led Zeppelin's final UK gigs, I knew it was an event held in high esteem by many fans ... but I don't think even I was quite aware of how much this era means to so many people.

The reasons are manifold. It was for a majority of fans, their first and ultimately only opportunity to see Led Zeppelin perform live. It was also many fans first experience of attending a major rock gathering. Many of them travelled long distances to be there and suffered varying hardships to endure it all. And as an event from the buildup, the tension, the speculation, the giant screen, the laser effects, etc., it was pure Zeppelin theatre. And most importantly musically it was also a valiant renaissance.

Not perfect by any means but then Led Zeppelin live was never about perfection. There were undoubtedly some stunning moments that proved the 1979 Led Zeppelin was alive and well and still had new places to go.

Some of the intensity of 1975 and 1977 may have been missing but there was more than enough evidence at those shows to indicate that the muse was returning. It would surely all have come back given more road work. The Over Europe tour assisted that process, and the 1980s touring campaign would have cemented it.

Getting back to their audience in the UK with say a string of dates at London's Rainbow, Newcastle City Hall, Manchester, etc., would have been the beginning of yet another era.

Knebworth would then be viewed not as a glorious end but a glorious rebirth.

Somehow though, like Michael Jackson's ill-fated O2 shows, it was never destined to be. The untimely passing of John Bonham led to Knebworth forever remaining in the heart and soul of Led Zeppelin fans as the last hurrah in the UK.

As the book reveals, the memories remain intact. From long coach journeys made from the north east and beyond causing much parental worry, mysterious cries of "wally" on the campsite, the crush to gain entry, sleep and sanitary deprivation, the sheer wonder of seeing the band on stage, right through to the rather unfortunate story of a young lady who took a short cut coming out of the arena and ended up quite literally in the s***!

All this for the love of Led Zeppelin.

It's been a most cathartic experience for me writing the book. In these days of huge uncertainty there was strength to be gained in reliving the more innocent times of 30 years ago. Reading through the many recollections submitted had me laughing out loud and often moved to tears. They are a stark reminder of how events in our youth shape our thoughts and actions for years to come. Yes back then we were mere kids, and our sense of responsibility rarely wandered beyond the next pint, the next album, the next gig.

But events like Led Zeppelin at Knebworth defined who we were and what made us tick. Yes it's just a band and some songs as I sometimes try and remind myself but in truth it's so much more. Going to Knebworth in 1979 was an entry into a world of empathy and communication. Empathy for the music of Led Zeppelin and communication with like minded souls whose love for the band knew no bounds. Both those ethics are still very much intact.

"Then As It Was" is therefore a book about empathy and communication that occurred a long time ago. In a world that has changed beyond recognition.

But it's still important.

Of all the many words written by fans about their experiences, the final thoughts of Peter Anderson from Stockport stand out: "The journey back was a nightmare," he writes, "with our first real hangovers kicking in but it didn't matter. We were kicked out of the car at 6am and crawled to bed thinking we had witnessed history."

"Thinking we had witnessed history" -- that line says it all.

That's exactly how I, and thousands of others, felt too.

Thirty years on we now know we had witnessed history.

What none of us were aware of, as we came away from the park that night, was the fact that there would be precious [little] opportunity to be in Led Zeppelin's company in the future.

So then as it was, it can never be again.

Today, many thousands of fans will be remembering their Knebworth experiences of 30 years ago. It'll bring to mind a simpler time and the music of a great, great band that still means so much to so many.

And it didn't rain ...

As for me, tonight I'll be rounding up the local TBL gang, Cliff, Mark Harrison, Terry, Kam, etc., and re-connecting with the original Bedford Knebworth 4 -- Tom Locke and Phil Harris who should be in attendance here and Dec who I'll be ringing at around 9.40. The neighbours can expect regular cries of "Oh Jimmy!", a chorus or two of "You'll Never Walk Alone" and some rather loud music that "the people in Stevenage" might hear.

Later in the week all roads lead back to Knebworth for more 30th anniversary celebrations. Tickets are still available for the August 8th event; let me know if you can make it. The book should be ready for shipping out after the weekend. Order it now and you'll have the perfect companion for your own Knebworth celebrations.

Led Zeppelin were outstanding in their field all of 30 years ago today ...

and they still are now.

Dave Lewis
4 August 2009

Please visit this page for a sampling from Lewis's book, "Then As It Was," including some stories from other fans who were there for the Knebworth concerts. Also, Knebworth memorabilia can be purchased here through the online shop set up by festival promoter Freddy Bannister and family.

Going to California

2009-08-01T18:55:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin returned to California for the first time since early May, as part of a busy week that would see the band debuting in two other states and squeezing in a Los Angeles studio session on the only day off.

The success of Led Zeppelin's first album was becoming the big story for rock music fans all across the country as Led Zeppelin winded its way through California, New Mexico and Texas between this Friday night and the end of the first full week in August. The hopes for a second album that was just as compelling and satisfying as the first were becoming part of the Led Zeppelin saga.

During Led Zeppelin's two previous U.S. tours, the band had paid visits to the Calif. cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Irvine, Pasadena and Santa Monica. Now adding Santa Barbara to that list, Zeppelin played a Friday evening show at the Samuel E. Kramer Arena on the Earl Warren Showgrounds with the groups Jethro Tull and the Fraternity of Man. Ticket prices for this 7:30 p.m. performance were $3.50 in advance and $4 at the door. Promoter Jim Salzer commissioned a brightly colored poster to advertise the show. It depicts Moses gazing skyward at a zeppelin engulfed in flames. Unfortunately, the second "e" in "Zeppelin" was omitted on this poster and also on the concert tickets.

It is said that after this Aug. 1 show, Jimmy Page's longtime admirer in the L.A. area, Pamela Ann Miller, or "Miss P" as she was often called, finally met up with the guitarist and became his girlfriend. According to her account, they were joined at the hip, at least for as long as Page permitted it.

The next day, Led Zeppelin headed 900 miles almost due east to Albuquerque, N.M., for its first show there. The group met up again with the Vanilla Fudge, headliners for the evening. The two groups had toured together for nearly the entire previous week, mostly on shows booked by Concerts West. This Aug. 2 show was another one of those, and a handbill for the event was in red, featuring the names of both bands next to each other in white, with promotional photos of both fourpiece groups in monochrome.

Writer Rod Geer summed up both bands' performances in the Albuquerque Tribune two days later, offering that "bass guitarist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham were almost unnoticed" while Jimmy Page and Robert Plant "stole the show." Geer also said the Vanilla Fudge contributed to making this "one of the most exciting shows ever performed in Albuquerque."

From New Mexico, Led Zeppelin went to Texas for the first time ever to play on Sunday, Aug. 3. The show at the Houston Music Hall was another Concerts West event, this one promoted in part by the AM radio station KILT 610, which played Top 40 music. The handbill for this show is similar to the one from Albuquerque as it uses the same red motif and promo photo of the band, but the main difference is it does not feature the Vanilla Fudge. Led Zeppelin was the only band on this bill! The Houston Music Hall was situated next to the Sam Houston Coliseum, where Led Zeppelin would perform on return trips to the city through 1975.

The band remained in Texas on Aug. 4 for a performance at the State Fair Coliseum in Dallas, Texas. The week before the show, a hype-filled preview appeared in the Dallas Morning News with Ann Sack's byline that read more like a press release and less like a newspaper report. In expounding on the "phenomenal success" that "musical infant" Led Zeppelin had already reached, Sack's piece included a dubiously researched statement, unrepeated elsewhere in the canon of Zeppelin literature, that the group had "achieved two standing ovations and two encores after only six hours of rehearsal time at their first London show."

Sack's proselytizing rhetoric continued: "In these days of weeding and group shakeups, the Zeppelin has emerged as an experienced and musically attuned quartet. Headed by Jimmy Page, formerly of the Yardbirds, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Robert Plank [sic] soon joined him in an experiment with the evolution of sound. Searching for a group which would allow them freedom of style and expression, they have struck paydirt by delving into the roots of music. They cut their first album after playing together only three weeks. Yet, it is heralded throughout the music world as one of the most exciting and pulsating collections of sound in the rock business."

However, Sack's tone in another Dallas Morning News article was exactly the opposite once Zeppelin had appeared. She wrote that she found them to be "somewhat of a disappointment" and that their "much of their stuff seemed to lack imagination" and "was emotion-packed but not aesthetically pleasing." Indeed, she favored Led Zeppelin's opening act, which was a local band of high school kids called Southwest F.O.B. that specialized in psychedelic rock cover versions of songs like "High Heeled Sneakers" and "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)." It seems from her writing that Sack did want to be a Zeppelin fan but a faulty sound system hampered the set, altogether ruining her Led Zeppelin experience. She mentioned "it is good to know" that fans in Dallas would have another chance to see Zeppelin at the end of the month, at the Texas International Pop Festival.

The sole day that week without a Led Zeppelin concert was on Tuesday, Aug. 5. The band is said to have taken this opportunity to head back to California for a quick overdubbing session at Mystic Studios in Los Angeles. There, they added to their recording of "The Lemon Song" being prepared since May for Led Zeppelin II. Following this day off, the group returned to live action on Aug. 6 with a performance at Memorial Auditorium in Sacramento and on Aug. 7 at the Community Theatre in Berkeley.

Ol' Blue Eyes, mudsharks and heavyweight fighters

2009-07-26T07:24:00.009-04:00

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin's third North American tour moved across the U.S. border into Canada for one show. During this appearance in Vancouver, British Columbia, Led Zeppelin played at the PNE Agrodome for the second time in three months. This Vancouver show came about as part of a jam-packed touring itinerary on a day between the Midwest Rock Festival in the Milwaukee area and the Seattle Pop Festival.

The week's biggest achievement was not onstage, however, but off. The Recording Industry Association of America had just certified Led Zeppelin's first album Gold on Tuesday, July 22, and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records met the band in New York to present each member with his own Gold record award. Jimmy Page happily reported to the New Musical Express, "We didn't tell Bonzo. He thought we were going to get one between us and we'd have to split it up, each of us getting it for three months at a time. I think he's speechless." Page said this was just after the band received watches from the owner of the Kinetic Playground in Chicago.

Of course, the pressure was on for Led Zeppelin to deliver a second album that was at least as good as the first. Work toward that end was nearing completion, with the final musical touches being added the following month. In the meantime, Led Zeppelin's focus was on the road -- and perhaps on a few fish stories collected along the way.

On July 25 at the State Fair Park in West Allis, Wis., Led Zeppelin headlined the opening night of the three-day Midwest Rock Festival. Also on that Friday bill alongside Led Zeppelin were acts including folk singer Buffy Saint Marie and rock group the First Edition, whose singer was Kenny Rogers. At the time, that band was enjoying success with its follow-up to the year-old hit single, "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)."

During Led Zeppelin's headlining set in Wisconsin, there wasn't much talking in between songs. Most of it came during the beginning of "How Many More Times," while Robert Plant introduced his fellow band members, and himself, by name. Instead, the group let the music do the talking, with a set of about 60 minutes culminating in an encore version of "Communication Breakdown" preceded by a rendition of "How Many More Times" with a lyrical insert from "I've Got You Under My Skin." It was at least the third time in a week that Plant found himself quoting a song popularized by Frank Sinatra; he had referenced "You Make Me Feel So Young" during the same spot in the performance on both July 20 and 21.

In Vancouver, Led Zeppelin headlined over the Vanilla Fudge and received favorable coverage in both of the city's major daily newspapers. Perhaps the writers were comparing notes, as both made reference to Janis Joplin, noting similarities between Plant's voice and hers.

Ken Spotswood, writing for the Province, hailed Zeppelin's appearance as "their third and best performance yet in Vancouver." He remarked about the first Vancouver show, back in the closing days of December 1968, when "they were then the supporting group of the featured Vinilla [sic] Fudge. It's not hard to see why they have since risen to the top," Spotswood opined. He also declared, "Greatest moment of the concert happened when Plant and the Zeppelin launched headfirst into Chuck Berry's old Rock and Roll [Music] for at least 15 glorious, ear-splitting minutes that conjured up a real nostalgia for the '50s."

For the Vancouver Sun, Jurgen Hesse paid compliments to all four members of the group, including John Bonham -- "a virtuoso, both brash and sensitive" -- and John Paul Jones for staying "in perfect accord with Page" to help him "provide the vibrant glissandi and cadences that make Led Zeppelin's sound unique." However, Hesse makes these positive comments only after lobbing a few insults at Page, who he said played unnervingly loudly and with barely "any compassion" or "feeling for lyricism."

Meanwhile, a young writer named Rick McGrath was just beginning his two-year tenure with an underground newspaper in Vancouver called the Georgia Straight. In an interview with LedZeppelinNews.com this year for an upcoming episode of the syndicated radio program "Get the Led Out," McGrath described the scene in Vancouver at the time: "In those days, Vancouver was very similar to 'Frisco. We had a really good local music scene. There was a lot of kids. The weather was good. There was money around. Marijuana had just managed to make its way into Canada, and everyone was having a great time." During his final year writing for the Georgia Straight, McGrath received a stage pass to a Led Zeppelin concert and recorded an interview backstage with Plant.

Led Zeppelin and the Vanilla Fudge traveled south from Vancouver to the Seattle Pop Festival for its final night, on July 27. There, at Gold Creek Park in Woodinville, Wash., Led Zeppelin headlined over the Youngbloods, the Guess Who, the Ike and Tina Turner Revue, and Chuck Berry himself -- they'd just been playing his music the previous night! The Led Zeppelin set immediately followed one by the Doors that both Page and Plant later described in the press as an embarrassing display for singer Jim Morrison.

The latest Doors album, The Soft Parade, had just been released on July 18, yielding among others the sexual anthem "Touch Me." So many young girls at that time were flocking to Doors shows to see the man they believed was a sex symbol but were disappointed to find him now bearded and unrecognizable. Morrison was suffering from an indifference to music, expressing his hatred of overexposure, and directing his energy not to entertaining but to ridiculing the audience.

Robert Plant watched with his wife Maureen during the Doors' set, eventually weighing in on it during an interview with Ritchie Yorke for the New Musical Express. "Morrison went on stage and said, 'F--- you all,' which didn't do anything except make a few girls scream," said Plant. "Then he hung on the side of the stage and nearly toppled into the audience and did all those things that I suppose were originally sexual things, but as he got fatter and dirtier and more screwed up, they became more bizarre. So it was really sickening to watch."

Of the few songs the Doors performed was the hit song, "Light my Fire." Although Morrison had sworn off that old Doors hit in interviews earlier that year, it was still an audience favorite. It remained in the set list, but Morrison was no longer performing it with conviction. The set opened, ironically, with "When the Music's Over" but concluded, appropriately, with "The End." In the interim, Morrison provoked the audience to respond unfavorably. The people who'd been his fans responded by hurling at him crushed cups and curses. Morrison only continued to antagonize them.

Dorian C. Smith, in a news piece covering proceedings at the festival, avoided discussing the rock bands that appeared onstage but focused on the atmosphere, with remarks on such mundane topics as the fireworks, the traffic, the concessions and the weather. "The sun shone down all three days, at times excessively hot. To compensate for the hot sun, several faucets spewed out cool, refreshing water to all who suffered a thirst."

It was on this trip to Seattle that Led Zeppelin's tour manager, Richard Cole, and a cast of characters that included members of the Vanilla Fudge or Led Zeppelin, or both, participated in or witnessed, or both, an infamous undertaking that is referred to as the shark episode or the mudshark incident. In providing fodder for Steven Davis's New York Times bestseller "Hammer of the Gods," published in 1985, Cole divulged the seedy details of this one particular stay at the Edgewater Inn, located conveniently on the Puget Sound and notorious at the time for the permission afforded guests to go fishing from the convenience of their hotel rooms, casting lines out of their windows.

Details vary with each retelling of this now-legendary and relentlessly fascinating tale but amount to the same premise, worded delicately here: A woman who was enticed by these rock 'n' roll fishermen paid them a visit and allowed herself to become a makeshift storage facility for the fish they caught.

Mark Stein of the Vanilla Fudge gladly filled in the few details of this incident that hadn't escaped his memory 40 years later when discussing the incident in a "Get the Led Out" interview. He said, "We were just partying! It was us, Fudge and Zeppelin, partying, and at the time I was -- I had a Super 8 camera, and I was taking pictures of -- you know, I'm on the road and everything -- shows, and this and that. ... Page and Bonham, being true Englishmen as they were, they loved to fish," he said. "I can't remember exactly whose room it was, but I walked in, and there's Richard Cole, their tour manager, and it was Bonham and Page fishing out the window. You know, just having a grand old time, drinking and fishing. So, they caught something. I don't know if it was a mudshark or a snapper, whatever it was.

"And, you know, there were some women around, the usual partying that was going on, and Plant's running around like crazy, you know, having fun. Honestly, what went on from there is over, under, sideways, down -- not to reference a Yardbirds song, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I don't remember specifically what happened. There's all kinds of stories that happened. If you talk to Robert, he'll say, 'I don't know. Something happened. Who knows -- maybe nothing happened!' But, you know, I'll leave that up to the imagination. But, um, that's all I'm gonna say about it."

Pressed to comment on his Super 8 footage, Stein had this to say: "Honestly, I don't really think they [other members of the Vanilla Fudge] were in the room. I was just taking pictures of everything that was happening while they were catching whatever -- a mudshark or a snapper or whatever the hell they caught. And they were just partying, there was a chick there doing the usual rock 'n' roll craziness, and, you know, I'll leave the rest to the imagination. ... I gave the Super 8 to Bruce Wayne [road manager for the Vanilla Fudge]. You know, it was -- I never at the time thought it was gonna turn into this majestic rock 'n' roll road story. I said, 'Here, take these things,' and I was just a kid myself. What was I -- 20, 21? [I] said, 'I don't know where I'm gonna get this developed. Take care of it!' And I never heard hyde nor hair after that. That's the truth!"

Led Zeppelin and the Vanilla Fudge were back in Canada again on July 29, playing at the Kinsmen Field House in Edmonton, Alberta. Concerts West, located in Seattle, organized the concert at the last minute and didn't count on many attendees due to the little advance promotion on local radio. One report said only 400 advance tickets were sold, but word of the double-billing spread nevertheless, and as many as 8,000 fans showed up for the event.

Bob Harvey had reviewed Led Zeppelin's May 9 show in the same city for the Edmonton Journal, when he wrote overwhelmingly positively: "Led Zeppelin is probably the most aggressive, masculine rock group anywhere. They batter at the mind and ear, insisting that they will penetrate." Now for his second Led Zeppelin concert review, Harvey included bits of interviews with Page and Plant to list the band's accomplishments over the preceding seven months since its formation. But the writer was much less positive this time around, saying: "Led Zeppelin wasn't quite as impressive Tuesday as they were at the Edmonton Gardens in May, but they were hampered by the sound system, as well as by having to go on stage first. It would have been better if Vanilla Fudge had played first. Their music's more intellectual, and more jazz-influenced than the gutsy Zeppelin's."

After that, Led Zeppelin and the Vanilla Fudge returned to the United States once again and traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, for two shows on July 30 at the Terrace Ballroom. Stein remembered the following taking place in Salt Lake City: "I was standing out in the audience watching the show. I think it was the first time I actually was totally focused on what they were doing from A to Z. So they went on stage, and I'm standing in the audience, and they played the most incredible, powerful show. I was just, like, just blown away. I was scared to go on after that! I'm standing next to Richard Cole. I said to Cole, I said, 'How do you follow that?' He said, 'Look, just go up and play.' You know? But we went up, and I'll tell you what. They inspired us to probably play one of the most intense shows that we ever played. So it was kind of like two heavyweight fighters on the same bill that night."

Warming up

2009-07-23T04:53:00.001-04:00

On this day in 1979, Led Zeppelin performed the first of a pair of gigs in Copenhagen, Denmark, on consecutive days, as a warm-up to the first Knebworth concert in England, which was less than two weeks away.

It had always been Led Zeppelin's tradition, after having been out of practice, to embark on some isolated dates prior to a major tour. In the mind of Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant, those gigs would always provide solace to an unrehearsed band.

In addition, Led Zeppelin's rig was now sporting new improvements to the light show shipped in from the United States, which provided more of a reason for the band to get everything right ahead of time.

These two shows were presented in front of limited-capacity crowds of 2,000, compared to the crowds 100 times that size that would see Led Zeppelin in the coming weeks. Far fewer onlookers would be disappointed if, for some reason, one facet of the light show, for example, was to malfunction unexpectedly.

And that's exactly what happened. Good contingency plan! Knock the kinks out of the way before you attempt playing in your own country to nearly every fan of yours, young and old. At the Falkoner Theatre on this Monday night gig, technical glitches were inescapable. As Dave Lewis chronicled in his Tight but Loose fanzine, "There were major production problems in assembling the new lighting, the rig proving too big for the arena, which resulted in a blown generator and delayed the gig by nearly two hours."

Eric Kornfeldt's Copenhagen review published in the New Musical Express details just how grotesque these glitches actually were. He wrote: "Come concert day and trouble began early. The stage equipment failed repeatedly during soundcheck. Then the lighting wasn't receiving the correct power and the crew sent out pleas for a mobile generator. When they finally located one it still proved too weak, though it seemed like it would keep a medium size town in juice. Lasers and lights fused all around, and the band decided they'd only use half their lighting after all."

One other unavoidable kink in Copenhagen was kind of an arbitrary one, perhaps meaningful only in the cosmic sense. That was the fact that these two Copenhagen gigs played out on exactly the same dates as the Oakland Coliseum concerts in 1977. Whether or not the coincidence was noted at the time, the calendar showed July 23 and 24, which might have evoked memories of being in Bill Graham's company on the North American tour that was aborted immediately thereafter, upon the death of Karac Plant back in England, the 6-year-old boy having suddenly died from a stomach infection.

Further memories of that aborted tour must have concentrated on the violent backstage incidents of July 23, 1977, that led to the arrests of John Bonham and three others in the Led Zeppelin entourage two days later. The criminal case against them had been resolved, with the four defendants still carrying out suspended prison sentences and having their names inextricably linked to the stigma of criminal charges resulting in a nolo contendere plea. The situation had also given rise to a $2 million civil case. Fortunately for Led Zeppelin, none of the defendants was required to appear in court, and so the civil suit was never heard.

All of this, including the death of Plant's son, was in the past. With the couple rejoicing in the new son who was by now on the way, Plant had taken once again to live concerts, appearing in the interim here and there with various groups of his choice ranging from Melvin Giganticus and the Turd Burglars to the much more identifiable Bad Company, the latter show involving the near-complete Led Zeppelin lineup, save John Paul Jones, at a Birmingham show. Not quite road-tested, yet still hinging on road-weary, the lineup of Led Zeppelin turned its back on the hardship of the past and the long layovers between shows and faced the Copenhagen and Knebworth dates with bravado. They had lots to reclaim, after all.

Onstage, the band was a slicker version of its previous self, with certain emphasis placed on scaling down the solo numbers. For "No Quarter," John Paul Jones held his grand piano solo to within four minutes, which was quite the accomplishment considering twice that length not so long ago. Gone from the set list was "Moby Dick," replaced instead by John Bonham's minute-and-a-half-long tympani solo, proving to be an apt segue between Page's four-minute guitar solo and onstage spectacle and the only other new number besides "Hot Dog," which was "In the Evening." This led up to the main set's nine-minute grand finale, "Stairway to Heaven," secure in its position as the pre-encore concert closer since the first days of 1975.

That all being said, Page did maintain a spot for his solo performance of "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" during the Copenhagen shows and the Knebworth concerts that followed. In fact, it was this instrumental that caused reviewer Erik von Lustbaden's biggest upset at the warm-up show on July 23. He wrote, in a piece published in Sounds, that he opted to find another source of entertainment while the guitarist played unaccompanied onstage: "I went for a piss, bought a bar of chocolate, ate it, had a sit down, made some notes, went back in and he was still playing it!"

That was the inescapable aura of Led Zeppelin. Even when the band wanted to keep each song to four or five minutes tops, few ever did. The first six songs of the set were about six minutes or less, while "Hot Dog" -- unrecognizable because the new album hadn't yet been released -- clocked in at just over three minutes.

The New Musical Express review of the developments in Copenhagen proved reproachful. "A showing like this one in Copenhagen is pointless and ultimately damaging," it said. "They were no more than a quartet of sloppy, uninspired old men, a relic from the past. There was so little feeling inherent in the set that for the most part it was like watching a fully automated factory producing an endless string of chords that neither musicians nor audience cared about."

It's hard to tell how representative these reviewers' comments were of the thousands of others who attended.

One audience recording has surfaced from each concert, revealing what Robert Plant said to the faithful gathered. In his opening remarks on July 23, he acknowledged that "it's been eight years since we were here last time." (Really, it was closer to only six years.)

Plant followed this up with a resolution that there would be less talking and more playing, although he did use an opportunity after "Hot Dog" to reveal what he might have meant by the lyric, "I'll never go to Texas anymore." Plant said, "That was because we were very heavily influenced by the P.A. and lighting company who charges so much money, we had to write that song, and they got the royalties. That's why only half the lights are working."

Plant elicited fewer comments of note on July 24 in Copenhagen, except for his sole remark during a hold-up in preparing John Paul Jones's instrumentation for "Ten Years Gone," consisting of the heavy triple-neck guitar and a set of bass pedals. He said, "Very shortly, we shall be doing 'Eleven Years Gone.'"

It could have been worse

2009-07-19T10:15:00.002-04:00

On this day in 1979, promoter Freddy Bannister announced the full lineup of supporting acts that would be appearing on the same bill as Led Zeppelin the following month at the Knebworth Festival in England.

Jimmy Page bemoaned the lineup on the day after the announcement, while giving an interview to the Melody Maker. "The lineup we had hoped for was Fairport [Convention], Dire Straits, Little Feat and Joni Mitchell."

Well, they got Fairport Convention, the folk quartet featuring some friends of the band. The rest were unavailable. Rejections likewise came pouring in with just about every act that was offered a spot on the bill. Bob Seger, Aerosmith and B.B. King were among names rumored to have been booked, but they weren't on the list of Led Zeppelin's support acts announced 30 years ago today.

Bear in mind that concerts at Knebworth House had a long tradition of attracting multiple big names to the same billing since the occasion was first attempted in 1974. That year, when the event was first known as the Bucolic Frolic, the acts included the Allman Brothers Band, the Doobie Brothers, Van Morrison, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Tim Buckley. Promoter Freddy Bannister had come close to booking Led Zeppelin, but the band backed out when a report surfaced in the Melody Maker about the booking before an announcement could be made.

Big-name acts that played Knebworth on four occasions between 1975 and 1978 include the Steve Miller Band, Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Todd Rundgren, Genesis, Jefferson Starship, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Devo, Frank Zappa, Peter Gabriel, the Tubes and Swan Song recording artist Dave Edmunds. Many of these names were huge when they graced the stage on the Knebworth grounds and still resonate today as top performers in musical history.

Bannister had high hopes when he succesfully booked Led Zeppelin in 1979. Even before he arranged any other bands to support Zeppelin, he optimistically allowed his booking be announced exclusively on the TV show "The Old Grey Whistle Test." He also let the tickets go on sale on June 3 without any other acts announced.

Assuring words from Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant said that the band was about to make history and that Bannister was helping to make it happen. After a four-year absence from the British stage, whose event would be revered as Led Zeppelin's triumphant return? Bannister's. Even following a noticeable change in the musical climate at that time, Grant was counting on the public opinion to side with Led Zeppelin.

Bannister just needed the ticket sales to reflect it. Since a second Knebworth performance was in the works for Aug. 11, anything short of a complete sell-out for the Knebworth concert on Aug. 4 would mean two things: one, that Bannister wouldn't have earned enough money from ticket sales to break even; and two, that he wouldn't be able to justify green-lighting the tentative second Knebworth show. Production costs were sky-high, as were the fees the musical acts wanted.

Ticket sales in early June started off with a bang, and Bannister even reported to the press they had sold out. He now insists this was a tactic to generate interest in the second concert when in reality, the ticket sales for that first show, while great, did not provide the sell-out needed to cover his expenses. Bannister hoped other big names being added to the bill would boost ticket sales and help make Knebworth a sold-out show -- two weeks in a row.

Bannister says many of rock's biggest names declined his offers to share Zeppelin's gig. His account is painfully detailed in his paperback autobiography, titled "There Must be a Better Way: The Story of the Bath and Knebworth Rock Festivals 1969-1979." Among the acts he recalls that turned him down in 1979 are J.J. Cale, Little Feat and Roxy Music. In one telling quotation, Bannister says, "No one, it seemed, wanted to play with Led Zeppelin. It was at this point, rather belatedly, that I began to realize just what a reputation the band enjoyed for their egotistical behavior."

Bannister remembers repeatedly approaching Ian Dury and the Blockheads, "with no luck, and in desperation finally offered him an eye-watering £100,000 for the two shows." Bannister explains that "Ian, at the time, was very popular and his presence on the bill would certainly have helped ticket sales. I was also of the opinion that his very individual style of music would ideally [complement] Zeppelin's heavier sounds." No dice. "Ian was adamant and would not budge."

Grant, realizing the uphill battle, returned to Bannister with the news that he himself had arranged for another band to play Knebworth. It was the New Barbarians, a side project of the Rolling Stones that included two of them, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, plus Wood's former Faces bandmate Ian McLagan. "Two out of five of the Stones can't be bad, I thought," writes Bannister. In the end, the New Barbarians backed out of playing the Aug. 4 show because of ongoing studio sessions for the Rolling Stones album Emotional Rescue, but the group did sign on for the Aug. 11 show only. It was only with three weeks before showtime that the group committed to playing it, which meant little time to publicize it.

In the meantime, Led Zeppelin's suggestion of Fairport Convention panned out. Bannister writes that he hadn't been aware the band still existed; he thought they'd broken up years earlier. No, they were actually now down to a fourpiece. Scheduling was a problem for Fairport Convention too as the group was organizing its own festival, Cropredy, to take place Aug. 4, and was previously booked elsewhere on Aug. 11. Fairport squeezed in a single Knebworth performance early on Aug. 4.

Another band booked for only one date was Chas & Dave, which played Aug. 11 only. They were offbeat pub rockers who'd just struck a major U.K. hit with "Gertcha." Bannister, who was already familiar with their act, writes in his memoir, "They were just fine in the intimacy of a small theatre but on the giant stage, trying to project novelty songs to a hundred thousand rock hungry kids, it was a different matter."

The Marshall Tucker Band was briefly scheduled to appear at both shows. However, the band dropped out by the end of July, to be replaced quickly by Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen. Rounding out the bill for both weeks were Todd Rundgren's Utopia -- a repeat Knebworth performer -- and Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes. And that's the complete lineup for Knebworth '79. "Not a vintage support programme," recalls Bannister, "but in view of the difficulties I had been experiencing, it could have been worse."

A more damning opinion eventually came from even the least likely of sources to criticize anything Led Zeppelin-related. "In retrospect it was the worst support bill ever assembled for a Knebworth Festival," Led Zeppelin historian Dave Lewis wrote 10 years ago in his "Tight but Loose" fanzine. In his second retrospective on the festival, Lewis admittedly applied a "more objective" view than the one before, "published soon after the shows," which "duly reflected my own blind devotion of the time -- a view of the proceedings through rose-tinted glasses." Lewis now theorized, "It would seem Peter Grant had little input and perhaps shrewdly let Bannister assemble a lineup that was going to pose little threat to Zeppelin."

Grant told Led Zeppelin biographer Ritchie Yorke years later that he had aerial photos taken both weeks at Knebworth that, when analyzed by an astronomical laboratory in the United States, revealed approximate attendances of 218,000 the first week and 187,000 the second. Bannister writes that he was never privy to this alleged evidence and that the 36-acre site couldn't accommodate more than 104,000 by a rather conservative estimate that didn't even account for the massive stage taking up a part of the grounds. He also leans back on the ticket sales, which indicated 104,000 paid attendees the first week and the paltry figure of only 40,000 on the second. His company, Tedoar Ltd., entered liquidation one month after the Knebworth concerts.

Even if Led Zeppelin drew 144,000 fans to Knebworth, it was record numbers for the festival and staggering attendance figures for any band. The actual attendance on the second week may have been much higher than the ticket sales indicated, thanks to gate crashing that occurred on Aug. 11. Those who were there can attest to this. Robert Godwin, the noted author of several books on Led Zeppelin, attended both shows and insists he was never in a larger crowd at any time in his life, even at an Olympic event that was reported to have 150,000 people. That's the way he prefers to remember the final concert in England by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham.

Because it was In that sense a last hurrah, the memory of Led Zeppelin's 1979 Knebworth concerts remains tinged with sadness. While this writer was not born for another three months after these concerts, it is necessary at this point to turn again to the words of Dave Lewis, who was there, and who 10 years ago wrote, "Led Zeppelin at Knebworth could have been, and should have been, a new beginning. As it was, it turned out to be their last goodbye, but being there to unknowingly wave them off was, for all in attendance, a truly unforgettable experience."

EDITOR'S NOTE: The latest at www.LedZeppelinNews.com includes a summary of the book Dave Lewis has prepared to release in honor of the 30th anniversary of the Led Zeppelin appearances at Knebworth.

An amazing experience

2009-07-18T11:52:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin made another return trip to Chicago, spending the weekend playing gigs at the Kinetic Playground for the third time this year.

This time, Zeppelin topped a bill over the British blues group Savoy Brown and American underground rockers the Litter.

A review in the Chicago Tribune heralded the talent of all four members of Led Zeppelin both individually and collectively. It hailed the accomplishments of each guy, especially making the point that John bonham's drum solo was not at all boring. And it said, "The ecstasy inherent in The Doors is due for the most part to Jim Morrison, but with Led Zeppelin it's all four of them; they all exude this tremendous energy force."

Led Zeppelin's encounters with the Chicago scene over four visits this year led Robert Plant to tell a grown-up Chicago audience in 2001, "The Kinetic Playground here in 1969 was truly an amazing experience."

In Cleveland on July 20, James Gang opened for Led Zeppelin at the Musicarnival. Near the venue was a house with a television set where the members of the band went to watch live coverage of the moon landing. Watch http://ledzeppelin.com/video/cleveland-7-20-69-slideshow for a slideshow marking this occasion.

On the following day, Led Zeppelin was back in New York, playing the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park along with B.B. King.

The band had just been to New York the previous week, when all but John Paul Jones appeared onstage at a Jeff Beck Group concert.

It was also during part of 1969 in New York, at Electric Lady Studios with the assistance of engineer Eddie Kramer, that the band managed to squeeze in some recording sessions for Led Zeppelin II. Recording and mixing of the album would be completed with Kramer the following month.

Pop festivals

2009-07-11T09:29:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin continued its third North American tour with a performance at the Laurel Pop Festival in Maryland, followed the next day with another at the Spectrum Pop Festival. While Led Zeppelin was continuing to amaze young American audiences with sets including "Train Kept a Rollin'," expanded versions of material from the debut album, and medleys of blues songs, an external torment was taking place within the company producing these festivals.

Both festivals were produced by the same company that had just pulled off the 16th annual Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island. That meant Led Zeppelin was again working for promoter George Wein, who'd been pressured into canceling Led Zeppelin's appearance -- a cancellation that didn't stick when the band performed anyway.

Wein, in his autobiography "Myself Among Others: A Life in Music," writes that he "was thoroughly fed up with the rock world" following the experimentation at Newport that drew record crowds but which he still deemed a failure. He was probably just beginning to realize the implications of producing festivals with rock acts. "Jazz -- the music I loved -- was being poisoned and stamped out," writes Wein, "and I had served as an unwitting, but willing, accomplice in the murder."

Wein believes he could have pioneered rock concerts in the Northeast if only his heart had been in it. He said the rock scene "had nothing to do with my passion as a promoter or as a musician." Nevertheless, the famous jazz promoter still had a pair of two-day "pop" festivals going on this weekend, 100 miles apart.

Because it was the same company producing both festivals, there were several similarities, beginning first with the acts that were billed to appear, many of which, like Led Zeppelin, were themselves holdovers from the Newport Jazz Festival's more experimental billing of rock and R&B acts. Led Zeppelin headlined Friday night, July 11, at the Laurel Pop Festival, appearing with Johnny Winter, Jethro Tull, Al Kooper and Buddy Guy. The same lineup appeared the following night at the Spectrum Pop Festival. The groups performing the alternate dates were Sly and the Family Stone, Ten Years After, Jeff Beck, the Mothers of Invention, and the Savoy Brown Blues Band. In addition, the Guess Who played the Laurel Pop Festival on Saturday.

Although he was not yet a groundbreaking political reporter, the Washington Post's Carl Bernstein was on assignment at the two-day festival held at what was then known as the Laurel Race Course, located about halfway between Baltimore and the nation's capital. The 25-year-old part-time music critic deemed most of the groups at the Laurel Pop Festival unmusical, claiming their guitarists were merely "capable of laying down a few good riffs but each usually unable to resolve his fretwork into real music synthesis."

Bernstein did find Led Zeppelin to be "mildly interesting, if not musically original." (He also said the same of Sly and the Family Stone, but his highest praise was reserved for Johnny Winter, Al Kooper and the Mothers of Invention; only those acts, he said, could be considered "first-rate artists.") Almost nothing is noted about Led Zeppelin's set, except one can only assume Bernstein had Jimmy Page in mind for at least part of Bernstein's sentence that criticized the guitarists who "abandon picking with their fingers and instead use handkerchiefs, violin bows, drumsticks, microphones and other artifacts that have less to do with music than with theatrics."

No recordings exist of either Led Zeppelin performance 40 years ago this weekend, but Led Zeppelin's official Web site says the set lists for both shows likely included "Train Kept a Rollin'," "I Can't Quit You Baby," "Dazed and Confused," "You Shook Me," "How Many More Times" and "Communication Breakdown."

One Laurel attendee, Tommy Keene, recently published his remembrances of Led Zeppelin at the Laurel Pop Festival. Keene had just turned 12 years old a few days before that concert, which was his second time seeing Led Zeppelin near his home town in as many months. The first had been at the Merriweather Post Pavilion on May 25, when Zeppelin was opening for the Who. At the Laurel Pop Festival, Keene remembers the band opening not with "Train Kept a Rollin'" but with the Ben E. King song "We're Gonna Groove." Keene also recalls "What Is and What Should Never Be," one of the songs that had been recorded for Led Zeppelin II and would be mixed the following month.

It's not absurd to think he could be right about either song being played that night. "We're Gonna Groove" became Zep's concert staple the following year, and the rendition of it on Jan. 9, 1970, was ultimately destined for the posthumous Led Zeppelin album Coda and the 2003 DVD release. As for "What Is and What Should Never Be," the song is not known to have been performed live until after the release of Led Zeppelin II in October 1969, but it had been part of the band's BBC studio repertoire twice in June. An early rendition is not unthinkable, especially considering bits of "The Lemon Song" had become a near-nightly occurrence during renditions of "How Many More Times" by the time of this third American tour.

A bit older than Keene were two 17-year-old pals who now go by the names B.R. and Tom B. They've also posted their concert memories and photographs online. Through their Web page, they have also attracted others who were in attendance to write in about the concerts. One guy, Mike Dolan, wrote in to say, "The era being what it was, it made perfect sense to be drenched in so much live excellent music for such a pittance. I still remember vividly Led Zeppelin leaving the stage at the end of their set and, from behind the amplifier bank, starting 'Communication Breakdown' as an encore, with Plant leaping like a superhero over the Marshalls, only to have someone cut the power at mid-verse."

Festival express

2009-07-05T07:01:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin played the first date of its third North American tour, one of a handful of festival appearances the group made that year.

Just a week after playing the Bath Festival and the Pop Proms on back-to-back nights in England, the band was now kicking off its next set of U.S. tour dates by playing a pair of festivals. This started in front of a crowd of 40,000 at the Atlanta Pop Festival on Saturday, July 5. After a travel of about 1,100 miles, Led Zeppelin closed out the Newport Jazz Festival in Rhode Island on Sunday, July 6.

It was, of course, one month before Woodstock, and some of the bands sharing the bill with Led Zeppelin were synonymous with the festival scene. The Atlanta Pop Festival, held July 4 and 5, included the likes of Janis Joplin, Canned Heat, Joe Cocker, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Blood Sweat and Tears, Sweetwater, the Butterfield Blues Band and Johnny Winter, all acts that appeared at Woodstock the following month. Also at the Atlanta Pop Festival were the bands Chicago Transit Authority, Grand Funk Railroad and Spirit, R&B acts the Staple Singers and Booker T & the MGs, and the jazz trio of pianist Dave Brubeck.

Brubeck, the only jazz act at the Atlanta Pop Festival, also performed during the four-day Newport Pop Festival, his part taking place on July 5, the same night as sets from Art Blakey Quintet, R&B act Sly and the Family Stone, and the female-fronted Danish progressive rock group the Savage Rose. Promoter George Wein, deciding to experiment with the festival in its 16th year running, had agreed to bring in several rock acts to diversify the billing. The Associated Press called it "an attempt to lure more youngsters to the festival."

Joshua White was the man who created the Joshua Light Show that was used as the stunning visual backdrop for bands performing at the Fillmore East. When the syndicated radio show "Get the Led Out" had the opportunity to interview White recently, he discussed how it was that his light show was brought into the Newport Jazz Festival 40 years ago, first laying a great description of the factors that came into play at the time. "The Newport Jazz Festival was an old, classic institution," said White, referencing its formation in 1955 -- "in this wonderful old-world social community. It was very modest. It was just, people got up and played in an enclosed area, but the Newport Jazz Festival was a perfect example of people and institutions caught up in the transitions of the time.

"And let's place that transition," White continued. "It's now 1969. It's already two years after the Summer of Love was announced on the cover of Time and Newsweek. It's already a year since the Fillmore opened, and the Fillmore and other establishments around the country made it possible for these very focused acts to perform. And so, it was decided by George Wein, and whoever his people were, that the Newport Jazz Festival -- classic old-world jazz festival -- had to acknowledge and accept and embrace the new music. And one of the things that they did was they booked serious rock 'n' roll acts onto their normal bill. So, side by side with Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, there was a rock act on.

"And to make it even better, they decided they really needed to put on a light show. So, the Joshua Light Show was invited in July of 1969 to perform at Newport, which we were very honored. I was not particularly old, but I was old enough to know what the Newport Jazz Festival meant. I took it as a great honor, and we went.

"So, it was very popular at that moment for a lot of these institutions to try to embrace the new. But, like everything else, they didn't necessarily know how to do it. They were kind of looking for the turn-key solution. The Joshua Light Show presented itself as a turn-key solution: You call Josh, you talk to him, I quote you a price, I show up, and don't worry. As long as you can give us the power, the room to change our clothes in, we'll be fine. And they booked several acts into the Newport Jazz Festival mixed in with the classic and establishment jazz. This moment in time was really not significantly different than the moment Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival."

Wein peppered a number of rock acts throughout the festival, most of them appearing after 8 p.m. on Friday, July 4, which was advertised as "An Evening of Jazz Rock." Sets that night came from Jeff Beck, Blood Sweat and Tears, Ten Years After and Jethro Tull. Some 25,000 people had showed up for these rock acts on Friday night, June Harris reported in the New Musical Express. Those who were unable to purchase tickets rioted, and crowds threatened to disturb the peace by crashing the gates and rushing in.

Joshua White picks up with further explanation of the atmosphere in Newport. "Now, the back story that people don't remember is the Newport Jazz Festival took place in basically what was a seaport, and it was actually staged by the water. ... There were a lot of sailors there. It was a port. And this is 1969, so people are having identity crises. Everything they knew doesn't exist anymore, or it's changing. Or, if you're over 30, you're out of it; if you have short hair you're a narc or a cop; if you have long hair, you're cool. Everything was very black and white. And what always had been a problem at Newport was that people liked to get drunk, and try to ... crash the festival, and get drunk. It was not unlike St. Patrick's Day in New York, where people come from somewhere else, put on green clothes, get really drunk, and throw up on your shoes, and that's what it was like.

"So, there was always this terror outside the gates," White continued, "more than we felt certainly at the Fillmore, more than we felt at Woodstock. There was always this sense that the heathen, drunken hordes who wanted to smash up the hippies and hated everything were just out there trying to make trouble. And who better to put into that mix than Led Zeppelin!"

As a result of the palpable tensions, Harris wrote, "local authorities ... demanded that Led Zeppelin be canceled from the final bill on Sunday." She quoted local authorities as saying this demand was supposedly made "in the interest of public safety." White added to his previous comments about Newport, saying, "I always considered Boston to be a particularly provincial place, and if Boston is difficult and a provincial place, then Newport, Rhode Island, was times ten. ... There [were] rumors in the air that there would be Armageddon. And at this point, Led Zeppelin had been on the scene for a year and had already made a few of these lifestyle and choice experiments, so Led Zeppelin was already notorious, so it was really pouring gasoline on the fire."

Wein, the promoter, decided he had to act, and in order to do so, he had to cancel Led Zeppelin's appearance. So, near the 8 p.m. start of the July 6 evening portion, he improvised an onstage announcement: One of the members of Led Zeppelin was sick, and so the group wouldn't be performing, he said. His announcement caused many thousands of younger fans to go home since they believed there would be no Led Zeppelin set. As the Associated Press put it, "many young rock fans ... packed their sleeping bags and guitars and left the city." The evening carried on with acts including B.B. King, the Willie Bobo Sextet, the Herbie Hancock Sextet and the Buddy Rich Orchestra.

However, Led Zeppelin showed up at Newport and refused to have its act canceled. Jimmy Page, furious about the cancellation, told the New Musical Express, "You don't blow a date like this one. Not after all that. The Newport Jazz Festival was far too important to us to just cancel out and I'm very upset at the whole thing. Wein should never have announced once of us was ill." Led Zeppelin's rescheduled set took place before a smaller audience than they were planning on performing to.

White said, "I remember standing on the stage and Led Zeppelin came on to perform and people started rioting outside the gates and they really weren't equipped to deal with this, and I remember just standing there next to George Wein and watching him try to deal with it. They got through their show, and we got through our show, but it was a very important social moment because the very next thing that would happen to us would be Woodstock, in which the audience would be unlimited. Anybody who showed up could basically be there, and it was so big that the scope of the event [over]shadowed the details."

The Associated Press described one Newport city council member, David Fenton, as "a supporter of the jazz and folk festival" but quoted him as saying, "I don't think there should be any more rock concerts here." In fact, the city voted to revoke its permit for the concert shortly thereafter that would have kicked off Blind Faith's U.S. tour.

After these two shows, Led Zeppelin would have four days off until the weekend, which would see the group playing another pair of festival dates in Maryland and Pennsylvania. More on those shows, and on the recording of the second Led Zeppelin album, to come in another special 40th anniversary edition of "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History."

I call that a bargain

2009-06-28T13:40:00.000-04:00

This newsletter edition focused on a music festival Led Zeppelin played two years in a row (1969 and 1970) on exactly the same date (June 28).

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin participated for the first time in a music festival, one of 19 bands appearing on two different stages.

Blues bands Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and Ten Years After were the headliners at the Bath Festival of Blues. Zep was fourth on the bill, ahead of the Nice.

Led Zeppelin's popularity in England having just taken off over the course of its first proper tour of the country that month, the band's booking as the fourth act on the bill is a remnant of the final days Zeppelin would support other bands. Promoter Freddy Bannister recalls in his memoir, "There Must Be a Better Way," that he heard the people attending the festival all talking about Zeppelin on their way out -- not any of the three acts that closed the festival.

In fact, it now made sense to him why Zeppelin manager Peter Grant had been keen on renegotiating the band's fee, which was originally booked to play the festival for the minuscule amount of £125. Bannister, who mentions this nonchalantly in his book, agreed to a renegotiated fee of £200 for the band. He said this was still a bargain, particularly in light of the fees the group would eventually be demanding.

It is easy to demonstrate the progress Led Zeppelin made within the following year by comparing its appearances on this June 28 and on the same date the following year. The 1969 event, held on one day, was called the Bath Festival of Blues, and the 1970 event was called the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music. Led Zeppelin returned to headline a three-day festival over Santana, the Byrds, Pink Floyd and Frank Zappa, to name a few. The crowd in 1970 was five times larger, and most people arrived just in time on the third day only to see Led Zeppelin.

Zep's longtime tour manager, Richard Cole, remembered the Bath Festival in a recent interview with Dave Lewis conducted for the syndicated U.S. radio show "Get the Led Out." "The [Bath Festival] in 1970 was enormous," said Cole. "It was outside in a big field. That was, I should think, their biggest show to date at that time." It was, in fact, held not at the Recreation Showground as in 1969 but at the Royal Bath & West Showground in Shepton Mallet.

As for the band's act on this day in 1970, it may have been the first concert with the newly written "Immigrant Song." At that time, Led Zeppelin had just "come from the land of the ice and snow," where they performed a single concert in Reykjavik, Iceland. Robert Plant has said the show in the unusual destination of Reykjavik gave the band some much-needed street cred to fend off the endless stream of naysayers. "It was always like that with Led Zeppelin: 'Who do they think they are to be so pompous?' And we weren't being pompous. We did come from the land of the ice and snow. We were guests of the Icelandic government. We were on a cultural mission representing the musicians of Britain, and we were invited to Reykjavik to play a concert."

After Led Zeppelin kicked off its concert at the Bath Festival in 1970 with "Immigrant Song," it then proceeded to open shows with the same tune at every show for exactly the next two years: Today's date not only marks the Bath festivals of both 1969 and 1970, with the first known performance of "Immigrant Song" taking place on the latter; it also marks the last time "Immigrant Song" opened a Led Zeppelin concert, on June 28, 1972.

One final thing to mention about the Bath Festival in 1969 is the poster, which Bannister said had an image of a stereotypical female flower child whose waistcoat was blowing around in the wind, revealing an abundant amount of flesh. He recalls in his book being told some ticket outlets considered the poster obscene and therefore weren't displaying it. This didn't hurt ticket sales, however, as he was elated to find out tickets for the 1969 festival had completely sold out.

This poster image is now available on a T-shirt than can be ordered through the Bannister family's online store at www.rockmusicmemorabilia.com. The site also has replica posters available, including for the 1969 Bath Festival and the later Knebworth festivals, including the two Led Zeppelin performances whose 30th anniversaries approach just over two months from now. In fact, the Bath Festival in 1970 was the last major outdoor U.K. gig for Led Zeppelin until the Knebworth Festival in 1979.

Sonic wave

2009-06-23T10:43:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1977, Jimmy Page accomplished something onstage during his guitar solo at the L.A. Forum that impressed him enough to revisit that performance two years later. When preparing for the Knebworth concerts in 1979, Page used a soundboard recording of three distinct parts of his solo from that night, totaling 12 minutes and 18 seconds in all, to dub a cassette tape for a laser technician, complementing a handwritten set of instructions about how to follow along.

It's the L.A. forum concert bearing today's date in 1977 that became known among bootleg collectors as the "For Badgeholders Only" show, and the one that would see Keith Moon at the microphone and Robert Plant at the drums. But today, my focus is on Page's guitar solo only and what it had to do with fine tuning the same presentation during the 1979 Knebworth concerts.

In Los Angeles, Page began his guitar solo with a demonstration of the harmonizer effect. Over the course of this 1977 North American tour, he would often take this time to venture into "The Star-Spangled Banner," "God Save the Queen" or even "Dixie," or sometimes a combination of the above; however, none of these was in his plans on June 23. Little over a minute into this segment, he used his whammy bar to lower the pitch drastically, several octaves at a time, and then switch back and forth. This segment of the solo he labeled "Harmoniser" on a sticker affixed to the cassette tape he made two years later.

The next sound heard is that of Page's theremin. It is the musical instrument he used in the middle section of the "Whole Lotta Love" studio recording. It had become a favorite instrument of his onstage as well. During this particular performance, Page used the theremin to create many blaring siren-like wails for just under three whole minutes. This portion of his solo coincides with Page's writing on the second sticker on the tape, which reads, "Sonic Wave."

While echoes of the theremin were still resonating, Page returned to his guitar to use a muting effect. Whatever notes he played were quickly triggered on and off. And then, out came the violin bow, giving rise to the third sticker on that cassette tape, which reads, "Bow." Now, he was wringing out the same familiar series of notes and chords he had been invoking onstage for years during "Dazed and Confused." And while Led Zeppelin was no longer playing that song live this year, it should have been fresh in the minds of any concert goers who had viewed "The Song Remains the Same" in a movie theater over the past eight months. During all of this, a rotating laser pyramid would encircle Page.

In 1979, Page requested improvements for Led Zeppelin's return to the stage that August at the Knebworth Festival, jotting down notes explaining everything he envisioned for his guitar and theremin solo and how these visuals coincided with his musical cues, including how his violin bow should glow when he pointed it above his head to the sky.

Page wrote: "Bow strobed overhead leading into first bowed chords and appearance of pyramid. Staccato repeat (pyramid turns 1/4). Repeat speed up and pyramid revolves and stops when I start on the wah wah. Smoke on the back of pyramid. More high and low wah wah notes leading to more staccato repeats ending with bow waved strobeing [sic] above my head. Pyramid builds to a spin even before drum entrance."

This piece of looseleaf paper was given to Steve Jander, the technician who headed up the laser department for Showco between 1977 and 1980, along with the personalized cassette tape and its three handwritten stickers. And with that, Jander set about putting into reality for the Knebworth shows what Page desired. More on how he accomplished this another day!

No more TV

2009-06-19T11:31:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin performed in front of a live studio audience in Paris in what turned out to be the new group's last scheduled TV appearance anywhere.

From the beginning, Led Zeppelin never felt there was much reason to rely on the TV format to promote its music. This is in part because Led Zeppelin wasn't going to release singles and therefore didn't feel the need to take the same approach singles-oriented groups would. But on those rare occasions that Led Zeppelin appeared, or tried to appear, on TV during its first year, the experiences left the group with nothing positive.

The explanation often given by manager Peter Grant as to why Led Zeppelin had stopped showing up on TV after 1969 hinged on the deficiencies of the medium at the time, an argument Jimmy Page still made in a promotional interview in 2003. Upon the release of the Led Zeppelin DVD that year, Page said the band did "not [want] to be seen to be heard through a two-inch speaker because you've got to remember the technology on TVs was pretty dire and grim and appalling in those days."

Page remembered Led Zeppelin's "Tous en Scene" guest spot as being the catalyst for the band's decision to avoid television from then on. He said, "There's this French show that we did ... You can see us playing in front of, like, a Salvation Army audience that is sitting there waiting to do their part. And I remember they had odd silly bits where there was a chap dressed up like a hall porter peeping through a peep hole, and there were things like a comedy bit. And then during the broadcast, even though we did the soundcheck of it, they're turning up the level of Robert Plant! And the band's going down, and all of this. ...

"Quite clearly," Page continued, "we couldn't be portrayed in this sort of way as a band that was doing these amazing live performances. And so, we took the decision not to do live material on television." In fact, Peter Grant had nearly disavowed TV appearances altogether three months earlier, after the BBC failed to appear at the Marquee Club in London to film a full Led Zeppelin concert there. The network stood them up without any explanation, leaving Grant and the band members extremely upset.

One song from the French TV appearance made it to Led Zeppelin DVD, and that's "Dazed and Confused." Scenes involving the hall porter, as Page mentioned, were replaced on the DVD with still images of the group presented as a slide show with the musical backing. The band's performance of "Communication Breakdown" from the same show was omitted from the official DVD but can be found on some bootlegs.

What is evident on the DVD is the strange crowd Page was referring to; the costumes on the audience members are almost as strange as their unmoving demeanor. Many look frozen to their seats, while a handful are somehow engaged in side conversation. It's a stark contrast to what's happening onstage: Plant and Page are belting out their aggression in harmonious cacophony, and John Paul Jones is bouncing around next to a flailing John Bonham.

"We decided to stand up and be counted purely by live albums and live appearances," Page said in 2003, long after Led Zeppelin accomplished what it set out to do.

Another one of the relics from just before this decision was recorded only a few days before the French TV show. Using the BBC's recording studio at Aeolian Hall in London on June 16, 1969, Led Zeppelin recorded some songs and an interview for BBC Radio One's Sunday morning radio show "Tasty Pop Sundae."

As for the music, the group was certainly inspired that day, unleashing an improvised blues-rock piece based on a riff similar to the one being tossed around at the time intended for the "Moby Dick" drum solo on Led Zeppelin II, inventively combining with the lyrics of a Sleepy John Estes number called "The Girl I Love." The band also churned out a clever rendition of the Eddie Cochran tune "Somethin' Else" that day, with Jones helping himself to a piano solo between verses. Both of these songs were released on the 2-CD set BBC Sessions in 1997.

But as for the interview with host Chris Grant, Jones started things off on a bad note, speaking just off microphone and insiting that he be labeled "a musical arranger as well as a bass guitarist" rather than "a musical arranger as well as a composer" or "a composer as well as a musical arranger." (In truth, he was all three things.) Throughout it all, Page strummed his guitar audibly in the background and Plant blew into a harmonica, while Bonham and Jones struggled to think of anything interesting to say. The two chattier members of the group, Page and Plant, didn't really have much chemistry with the host. Despite continuing with the full band's interview for six minutes, the show ultimately scrapped the entire conversation when the broadcast took place on June 22, 1969.

In that interview Plant said the band's second album was about "half finished." But even this subject didn't appeal to a mostly subdued Plant. When asked whether there would be a new direction, Plant wouldn't project; he merely stated, "We can't tell until it's finished when we can play the two side by side." Page did chime in, "There are a lot of new sounds on it that weren't on the old one."

Just about the only enthusiasm expressed by the band during this interview emerged when Plant said, "We're going back [to America] again in about a week's time, in about a fortnight." Judging from his apparent boredom, as well as the disappointment he experienced in France three days later, he probably couldn't wait.

A beautiful atmosphere

2009-05-14T13:41:00.002-04:00

On this day in 1988, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reunited in concert for the second and final time that decade.

The event was a massive concert celebrating the 40th "birthday" of Atlantic Records, and many of the major acts that had recorded for that label showed up to perform at the occasion. The Bee Gees, Yes, the Coasters, Foreigner, Crosby Stills & Nash, Paul Rodgers and Genesis all graced the stage that evening at Madison Square Garden in New York, as did Led Zeppelin.

Distinguishing this reunion from the previous one, the Live Aid stint, was that this performance retained the classic fourpiece ideal. In retrospect, the multi-drummer lineup with Phil Collins and Tony Thompson, plus one additional musician supporting John Paul Jones, hadn't been a well received hit for the 1985 outing. This time, only one drummer was used, and he was the closest specimen to the departed John Bonham. It was his flesh and blood, Jason Bonham, who would later that year be guesting on Jimmy Page's album and tour.

"He's got the same approach with his bass drum," Page said at the time. "Mind you, his father taught him to play drums. You know, he encouraged him virtually from the point when he could sit on a drum stool -- and literally, I'm sure. ... He's certainly got the sort of power within his drumming, which is, I mean, it's just right for me anyway."

Perhaps it was because Bonham helped to complete the lineup for the Atlantic Records celebration that Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones this time used the Led Zeppelin name for their billing. They hadn't called it Led Zeppelin at Live Aid.

The group performed five songs at the Madison Square Garden reunion: "Kashmir," "Heartbreaker," "Whole Lotta Love," "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Stairway to Heaven." But it was almost another 20 years before Led Zeppelin reunited again in a concert setting open to the general public. And when that happened, on Dec. 10, 2007, the same lineup was in place, with Jason Bonham on drums, and many agree he had greatly improved.

Chris Squire, the bassist for Yes, watched both performances, both times as another musician performing at the gigs. In a new interview, Squire says the reunited Led Zeppelin in 2007 was much better than in 1988. "Get the Led Out," a nationally syndicated radio show, is today broadcasting in several markets a never-before-aired audio clip from Squire, who says:

"At the Atlantic 40th in 1988, their performance left a little to be desired, but in all fairness, Jason was 19 years old or something then. It must have been difficult for him doing that show in his father's footsteps. But, twenty years later, Jason's become a great drummer. The whole power of Zeppelin really comes from the drums, actually, and he played magnificently and the whole band did."

In an hour-long episode of "Get the Led Out XL" that has aired in many major markets earlier this year, Vanilla Fudge singer and keyboardist Mark Stein commented on the legacy left by Led Zeppelin, which opened for his band several times between 1968 and 1969. In outtakes from the interview featured on that show, Stein had this to say:

"I remember doing the Atlantic 40th anniversary -- I guess it was '87... it was '88, forgive me. Everybody that was anybody on Atlantic was there. Led Zeppelin was there, the Bee Gees, Vanilla Fudge, Average White Band, and Phil Collins, you know, Stephen Stills. Everybody was there. It was like a kid in a candy store when it came to rock. A beautiful atmosphere. Everybody was there. Dan Aykroyd -- even Ahmet Ertegun comes up to me with bloody Henry Kissinger to shake my hand! It was one of the great rock festivals, in my view, of all time.

"I remember running up to Robert, and I hit him on the back, and at first he didn't recognize me because everybody was clamoring to touch the guy, and my hair was long or whatever. So I said, 'Hey, Robert, it's Mark from the Fudge.' And he turned around and he said, 'Oh my god, I didn't recognize you! I thought you were somebody from the press, I was just sloughing you off, you know? My god, how are you doing?' And it was funny because he said to me, 'You haven't caught any mudsharks or anything lately, have you?' I said, 'I don't know, I heard some kind of weird story about that.' He said, 'I don't think that ever happened, do you?' I said, 'I don't think so either.' And we both had a smirk about it. It was great, hanging out with the guys, Jonesy, backstage. But Jimmy Page wasn't around. I don't recall. He kind of was being pretty reclusive, so it was basically Robert and John Paul and Jason, of course, you know, John Bonham's son was playing and hanging out a bit.

"When they went onstage, they did their set, and it's so many years later. You know, Robert was trying to do a lot of the vocals he did when he was so many years younger, so ... They were good, but it wasn't, obviously, the spontaneity and the greatness that they had in the early years, you know. And that kind of bothered me, to be honest, because there's a lot of people who saw Zeppelin for the first time, you know. I saw 'em in their heyday, and they were amazing. And I used to hear people saying, 'Well, I saw Zeppelin and they were kind of, like, this and that.' I used to go over to them and say, 'Look, you gotta remember Zeppelin were phenomenal, you know, in the early days and all through the '70s and into the '80s, so don't judge Led Zeppelin by what you saw that night. The guys had been through hell and back, decades later, so I don't think it's fair to judge them that way. Judge them by their earlier performances. Judge them by things you've seen on DVDs. Judge them by their records, OK?' You know, how could the energy possibly be as intense as it was back in their heyday? But I think they came off good, I think Jason did a great job and, hey, it's rock 'n' roll!"

Bonzo the skeptic

2008-07-31T14:29:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1968, a 20-year-old British carpenter and farmer by the name of John Bonham was drumming at a concert for American singer Tim Rose when he was approached by a manager named Peter Grant and a 24-year-old guitarist named Jimmy Page.

The visitors were with the Yardbirds and went to this gig at the Hampstead Country Club upon the recommendation of a 19-year-old singer named Robert Plant, to listen to Bonham's playing and ask if he was interested in replacing Jim McCarty as drummer for the Yardbirds for a tour in Scandinavia. Plant, who was a friend and occasional bandmate of Bonham's, was replacing Keith Relf.

The story sounded a little far-fetched to Bonham, who was skeptical and also preoccupied with the first well-paying gigs of his lifetime. He and his wife Pat had been struggling for three years to pay their bills each month, and it was only very recently that Bonham's drumming was yielding some steady pay. Author Chris Welch writes that Bonham "was touring with Tim Rose and had some gigs lined up with Chris Farlowe. Joe Cocker was also interested in hiring him."

We can imagine how the conversation would have gone: Peter Grant and Jimmy Page probably sounded to Bonham like they were from another planet. All he had on his mind was money. He said would consider the job offer if he could be assured of making some serious money. Grant and Page told him not to worry. Bonham said he would think about it. Grant asked him for his phone number. Bonham said he didn't have a phone. Grant, probably suspicious of that, asked for a mailing address. Bonham gave him that.

Then Bonham started receiving telegrams from Grant's RAK Records office in London, asking him to respond about the offer to join the Yardbirds and start playing with them on a Scandinavian tour in September. "It seemed like a gift from heaven, you know what I mean?" Bonham once said in an interview. "I was pretty shy and I thought the best thing was not to say much but suss it all out."

New first rehearsal

2008-06-10T11:48:00.000-04:00

On this day in 2007, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham met in a secret rehearsal studio, simply to play some songs. Word of the rehearsal stayed under wraps to outsiders for months and ultimately led to the onstage performance that happened exactly six months ago today. But what's not as commonly known are the circumstances that led to this rehearsal and what it was like inside that room.

Most of what has been disclosed publicly about that rehearsal comes from the youngest one there. No longer a child at 40 on that day, Jason Bonham said he was seeing, for the first time, his dad's bandmates not as elders but as peers.

Through Bonham's interviews last year, we know not only the date of this initial rehearsal -- none of the other musicians could spout it off the top of their heads as could Jason -- but also what songs they played and in roughly what sequence, plus some of what was said inside the walls. All members have commented on that rehearsal, but Jones has been the most vocal in stating, unequivocally, that this new first rehearsal was similar to another first rehearsal in London he'd taken part in 39 summers before, with much the same lineup but only two years separating him from the drummer, rather than 22.

Both Plant and Jason Bonham have admitted their friendship improved last year, especially after a meal with some frank conversation. "Robert and I went out for dinner in February, socially, because we hadn't been that close for years," Bonham told Rythm magazine last year. "There was no talk of a Zep reunion and we had a really deep, heavy conversation going back to the moments before Dad died. It was a beautiful but sad experience, to watch somebody that loved Dad dearly, his best friend, choke up and tell me something he probably thought he would never have to. We needed to speak frankly, gloves off. I spoke my piece and he answered back with his version, which was not pretty for me. But at the end we walked out stronger and definitely mates."

It has also been revealed that reuniting last year to pay tribute to Ahmet Ertegun was something Plant was in favor of from the beginning. He told Steve Jones in an interview this January that not only was the decision to reunite for Ertegun's sake but also for Jason Bonham's. Just after saying what Ertegun meant to everybody in Led Zeppelin, Plant turned his thoughts to the drummer: "And also, the other reason to do it was because Jason Bonham has become such a complete man now. He's gone through all the crap, and he's had to deal with his demons and stuff; his father passed away when he was a kid, you know, and he's never really put it right, but he always thought that there was something that he could do, just that one time, to prove a point to himself, for his mother ..."

Plant expressed similar thoughts earlier this year in an interview with Jonathan Wingate and published in the June issue of Record Collector. Plant said that for Jason to assume his father's role in the band "gave Jason the position that he deserved, because he'd been in freefall in so many different ways since his dad's passing, and he is a spectacular drummer and an incredibly coherent guy now, as opposed to before. So he's repaired to a large extent ... 99 percent of him is fixed by his own volition. So for him and his mother and all that, it was a very important tying-up of all the sort of knots and bows and whimsy."

Throughout last year, the specifics of the date and location for the Ertegun tribute and reunion concert changed in planning for logistics purposes, but the underlying concept was unchanged and successfully remained a secret until just before an official announcement confirmed it would happen. Through it all, details about that initial rehearsal were concealed to the point that the concert's set list would eventually unfold as a surprise to many of the group's most ardent fans worldwide.

Yet it was in Rythm magazine, and also in Rolling Stone, that Bonham broke silence to dish up some info on what went on inside that rehearsal studio. David Fricke, writing for Rolling Stone, even reveals, through Bonham, that the rehearsal started at 2:30 on that Sunday afternoon.

"It was a magical and emotional day. June 10th," Bonham told Geoff Nicholls for Rythm. "We'd been emailing back and forth, 'What shall we start with?' When we got there we did songs not on my list. Typical! 'Houses of the Holy' and 'Custard Pie.' Then we did 'Kashmir,' which was phenomenal, and at the end Jimmy shouts, 'Well done, Jason, come here, give me a hug.' And Robert goes, 'Yeah! Sons of Thunder!' It was really touching, something I'll never forget. Jimmy said, 'That sounded as good as any time we played it, but it's you, not your dad. You play the signature part, but that's all you, don't cut yourself short.'"

Bonham told Rolling Stone about another song rehearsed before "Kashmir," explaining how it indicated an immediate chemistry evident in the lineup's initial run-through. During "No Quarter," Bonham said, "When the riff came in, there was this look that went around. It was brilliant."

"I didn't think there would be an instant sound," Bonham said. "I thought, 'It's going to take some time.'" It couldn't have been further from the truth. Page to Rolling Stone: "It was immediate. ... Everybody went in with a will to work and to enjoy it. It was a delight." Plant spoke in Rolling Stone of "a lot of big smiles" and the day being "cathartic and therapeutic" with "no pressure, no weight." Jones told Rolling Stone he "didn't have any doubts. Someone picked a song. We got through it. And it rocked."

But in comments he made last October to Led Zeppelin biographer Ritchie Yorke, Jones went into more explicit detail, making the obvious connection between this day and the one in August 1968 on which he met Plant and John Bonham for the first time. "That first rehearsal this month was just amazing," said Jones. "It took us back to that first meeting in '68. So we decided to go ahead and we will be putting in some serious rehearsal sessions right up until the show itself."

Bonham, particularly moved by the rehearsal, was excited to hear that this wasn't just a one-off jam session for the sake of fun. Somebody in the band said, "When we get together next ..." and Bonham laughed and thought to himself, "You mean I get another chance at this?"

The rest all told him they were reuniting only because of him. He was the precise reason they could get it done. With any other drummer, it wouldn't be right. Interviews with Plant often remind us that Jason, while not his father, was in the midst as Led Zeppelin created its music. He grew up all around Led Zeppelin, and it's in his blood. He can play it because of that, but even more so because he can now commit to it. And as long as they are all committed, anything can happen.

Led Zeppelin hasn't existed properly since Dec. 10, 2007, six months ago today. But each member carries on. Plant is receiving high praise with his current rendition of "The Battle of Evermore," now playing out nightly in North American concert venues and featuring the vocals of Alison Krauss. Just three nights ago, Page and Jones popped onto another London setting and joined members of the Foo Fighters for two Zeppelin songs, "Rock and Roll" and "Ramble On," in front of 86,000 fans. And Bonham is used to laying down solid beats for Foreigner's live show and tossing in "Whole Lotta Love" as a nod to his lineage.

Another recent development concerning any Led Zeppelin appearances in the future is a statement attributed to Page in an interview conducted just after the Wembley Stadium encore. He is reported to have told Telegraph reporter Aislinn Simpson that the group is ready to play shows again and to look for a tour in the second half of next year. If it happens that way, it would coincide with the 40th anniversary of the year Led Zeppelin blasted off into orbit.

Waiting on you, Jimmy

2008-03-27T12:18:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1993, L.A.-based Geffen Records released an LP, cassette and CD pairing the howl of Deep Purple/Whitesnake screamer David Coverdale with the riffage of Jimmy Page.

The album, simply titled Coverdale/Page, witnessed the merging of two divergent career paths. A symbolic representation of this was the artwork's visual concept as designed by Hugh Syme. It depicted a road sign indicating the merging of one road into another to head off in a single direction.

And it wasn't backward.

Midway through the 1980s, Page found that Paul Rodgers' voice could complement his guitar. After their project ran its course and Page delivered a solo album and the first generation of Led Zeppelin reissues, Coverdale was the next singer he turned to.

Coverdale was a famous British rock singer possessing long, blond hair and a well-known arch-rivalry with Robert Plant to boot. Page's teaming up with him may have been interpreted by some onlookers as a wish that he actually had Plant, and that this was the next-best thing to it actually being Plant. (Others would argue it was the worst thing.)

Personalities aside, their musical collaborations ranged from the in-your-face hard rock of "Shake My Tree" and "Feeling Hot" to the desperation of the Temple of the Dog-like "Take Me for a Little While." One fine track that finds Page's guitar army particularly at home with Coverdale is "Easy Does It"; the musical arrangement on this song may possibly rate as the best of any studio track Page has ever participated in, outside of his days with Led Zeppelin.

Each of the 11 Coverdale/Page tunes, accentuated by the tight rhythm section of Denny Carmassi on drums and Jorge Casas on bass, was crisply produced and mixed by Coverdale and Page with engineer Mike Fraser. They were good foils for Page as he reclaimed the guitar hero status he had established for himself with studio output that had included "Dazed and Confused," "Whole Lotta Love" and "Achilles Last Stand."

Coverdale helped Page to create some new moments like that. On "Don't Leave Me This Way," they serve up a hearty helping of the blues for some of Page's most anguished playing since his solo on Zep's "I'm Gonna Crawl." On "Absolution Blues," the guitarist dishes up an introduction with the mystique of "In the Evening" that highlights the advantages of using an automatic-tuning TransPerformance guitar. This is true vintage Page showing he could still play in 1993 like he could in 1978 -- or 15 years earlier.

Now it's another 15 years later, and Page has just shown the world once again -- at a Led Zeppelin reunion concert, of all unpredictable events -- that he hasn't lost a thing.

Sadly, earlier this month marked 10 years since the last time any album of all-new studio material was released with significant contributions from Page. That was the Page-Plant album Walking into Clarksdale, for which the pair began touring in March 1998.

Ten years gone, and no new Page material has surfaced on album! Here's hoping that changes soon.

There's no denying

2007-12-17T12:38:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1987, Robert Plant made history by singing, for the first time, Led Zeppelin songs at one of his solo concerts. The occasion was a show at Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone, England. It was Plant's first show in nearly a year -- just two days short of that mark.

Plant's band that night was billed as the Band of Joy, reviving the name of an old band he'd played with before Led Zeppelin, one of a few that paired him with his friend John Bonham. For this 1987 show, the lineup of youthful musicians was Doug Boyle on guitar, Chris Blackwell on drums, Charlie Jones on bass, and main songwriter Phil Johnstone on keyboards.

"Working with Phil and all these young guys has been such a joyous experience because they've never played outside of bars before," said Plant. "Their honesty and their enthusiasm was so good that it was a Zen-like experience. It was like, God, these guys really want to do it. There were none of these 35-year-old menopausal mumblings that I was beginning to get with the last band. It was almost the second summer of love."

The Dec. 17 set opened boldly with a rendition of "In the Evening," the number that introduces Led Zeppelin's album In Through the Out Door. As the evening wore on, the band settled into two more Led Zeppelin tunes -- namely, "Trampled Underfoot" and "Misty Mountain Hop." It's interesting to note that Plant performed both of these songs at the Led Zeppelin reunion concert one week ago today.

Planted on a stool

2007-12-10T11:51:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1975, Led Zeppelin performed a one-off comeback concert just to see what it felt like.

Hey, wait a minute, that's also what they're doing today in 2007, isn't it?

Well, the circumstances in 1975 were completely different. Robert Plant had been told in August that he might never walk again, after he and his family had been in a life-threatening auto accident. But by this point, he was moving with the aid of crutches.

The recuperating singer sat on a stool for a 45-minute set during which he belted out some Elvis Presley covers like "Jailhouse Rock" and "Blue Suede Shoes." Norman Hale, who had played piano for the Tornados in 1961 and 1962, sat in with Led Zeppelin. A friend of the band, he had been rehearsing with the rhythm section since the beginning of December.

A last-minute announcement that Led Zeppelin would appear at Behan's West Park night club brought 350 fans there. This unique experience in Led Zeppelin's history was the group's first concert in half a year.

Jimmy Page showed off a brand new guitar for the first time at this gig. He sported a Lake Placid blue model Fender '60s Stratocaster.

Because Plant is a natural dancer and showman, he said the toughest thing for him onstage was confining himself to the stool so he wouldn't put pressure on his healing ankle. "Every time I went to hit a high note," he explained, "I stood up, not putting any weight on my foot, but just sort of standing."

The previous month, in a Munich recording studio, Plant fell over in a wheelchair trying to dance while singing a song with the group.

Plant said he was impressed with the atmosphere at Behan's pub. "It was like a dance hall that was like some place 10 years gone by, in the best old English tradition," he said. "Guys with dickey bows and evening jackets ready to bang your head against a wall if you stepped out of line, and chairs and tables lined up in escalation. Chicks wearing suspenders and stockings -- and a lot of rock and roll."

Other December 10 events in Led Zeppelin history

December 10 is special to me personally as six years ago today, I exchanged questions and answers with John Paul Jones over four hours during an in-depth, one-on-one interview at a hotel in Philadelphia where he was staying on tour. Aside from the stories he told and the insight he provided, he also played some music for me, including "In My Time of Dying," which appears to be among the songs Led Zeppelin will be playing today at their first reunion concert of the 21st century.

Whatever happens today will add another layer of history to the ongoing Led Zeppelin saga. Good luck to the band on its performance today at the O2 arena in London. Led Zeppelin: Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and now Jason Bonham. We are proud to be your fans. Congratulations and best wishes to those who are attending the event. You are encouraged to keep your eyes on www.LedZeppelinNews.com over the next few days for updates from fans lucky enough to be there.

Could undivided harmony recur?

2007-12-04T11:55:00.002-05:00

This is part two of the "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History" edition published Dec. 4, 2007, the week before the first Led Zeppelin concert since 1980. The day this was published was the 27th anniversary of Led Zeppelin's breakup following the death of John Bonham.

Jason Bonham, 41, says he is enthusiastic to be taking his father's place with Led Zeppelin at Monday's concert. "It's something I've dreamed about since I was 15 and realized I would love to play drums in Led Zeppelin," he said in an interview published in the December issue of Rythm magazine.

The rest of the band now considers him an equal, the drummer says. "I want to be known as more than just John Bonham's son. Because being in the room with them I do feel like a kid again. But after that first day I might have walked in a boy, but I left a man. The feeling they gave me at the end was they weren't these giants that I remember -- I was talking eye-to-eye with them, musically."

According to Plant, Bonham has earned the spot in the reunited group rather than it naturally being his by inheriting it from his father. In an interview with David Fricke for the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Plant said, "Now [Jason] knows that not only is he the right guy for it, but he's actually adding and, with his enthusiasm and his skill and his chops and his prowess, he's actually changing it."

Proclaiming that Bonham does so "stylistically," Plant added that because Bonham is "a drummer and a thinker in a more contemporary environment than the one that Led Zeppelin flourished and died in, he's got much more of a handle on keeping it in place than we have. Also, he played in bands where timing is strict."

Is it possible that the sense of undivided harmony has returned among Page, Plant and Jones with their new drummer? Bonham said that after a rehearsal this year, they informed him, "You're the reason we want to do this again, you're making us feel it's worth pursuing."

"I can't believe how well [Jason] fits into the scheme of things," Jones said in an interview for Yahoo. "He's a great drummer, he hits really hard. He's got certain musical mannerisms of his dad, but he doesn't really play like his dad, although it's uncanny because he sounds like his dad when he speaks." Jones said he'll often hear Bonham speak and think it's his father.

Plant has been particularly outspoken over the years that Led Zeppelin would never be forced to reunite. In the Rolling Stone interview, he answered Fricke's question of what about the current reunion he would characterize as real and not forced. "Oh, what happens in that room when there's nobody about," Plant replied. "And that's really -- that has been, at times, as good as it ever was. And the mentality and the approach obviously is a little different because Jason's whupping everybody's ass now, you know."

In a videotaped interview for Yahoo shot since the splint on Page's left pinky finger is gone, the guitarist described what is working with the reunited band today. "All I know is that the vitality that we'd have in the rehearsal period that we've had up til now, and the passion for the music, I mean, it's urgent," said Page. "It's still scary, and that's all there is for me. ... That's what it would have to have, and it's a synergy. It's a synchronized energy between the musicians, and the more that we've been playing together, the more that it's gelled."

"The passion and intensity is still there," Jones said. "We sounds great in rehearsals. It would really take your breath away, I guess. ... I was very happily surprised."

"It has to be exciting," said Plant, "when you got that much electricity in the air, a lot of static and a lot of expectation."

For 27 years, the thrill was gone. Now, with Jason Bonham, it appears to be a whole different story.

Undivided harmony

2007-12-04T11:55:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1980, the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin announced their decision to retire the group.

This first public statement of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones after the death of John Bonham on Sept. 25 clarified their position on calls to carry on without him. A press release summed up their feelings in these 48 words:

"We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend, and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were."

Each member of Led Zeppelin went his own way, retreating for a time from the public eye. Plant shied away from singing and considered going into teaching. Within two years, Jones did begin teaching, leading an electronic composition course. Page retreated from music for a time, and even the sight of his guitar painfully reminded him of his loss.

The three of them avoided playing Led Zeppelin's music for years. Page addressed his own feelings on the subject in an Ireland On-Line article published yesterday: "After John Bonham's death I spent 15 years not even wanting to think about Led Zeppelin."

Fifteen years is an obvious exaggeration, as those 15 years included every Led Zeppelin reunion show until the one scheduled to take place this Monday in London, as well as the remastering of the band's entire catalog as supervised by Page.

"But I also have difficulty thinking it's all over," Page continued. "Now at least one concert is planned and I'm incredibly
happy about that."

For reflections bringing this story up to date in the days immediately preceding the one-off Led Zeppelin reunion concert in December 2007, see the second part of this post, "Could undivided harmony recur?"

Rock vs. journalism

2007-11-28T12:57:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1979, Led Zeppelin became the big winners of the annual Melody Maker readers' poll. In a ceremony at the Waldorf hotel in London, the group picked up exactly seven awards, as chosen by readers, including one for band of the year. The occasion marked a comeback for the group, whose pair of concerts at the Knebworth Festival in August had just wowed 405,000 in England after a four-year absence from the British stage.

Led Zeppelin being named band of the year came as a surprise to some critics who believed it would go instead to a newcomer on the U.K. music scene called the Police. Bonham even alluded to this during the ceremony, drunkenly crooning the chorus to "Message in a Bottle," which had been the country's No. 1 single the previous month.

Jimmy Page was on vacation in Barbados, but everybody else in the group received their awards in person, accompanied by manager Peter Grant. The button John Paul Jones wore on his lapel read "Rock Against Journalism." "It was an affectation at the time," he recalled in an interview with me in 2001. "I just saw it and said, 'That's really appropriate.'"

It seems to have been a catch phrase at the time, but indeed it was appropriate for a member of Led Zeppelin to wear. Those well-attended Knebworth concerts, combined with the release of the album In Through the Out Door, prompted the group's return to the apex of the music scene following a period of inactivity and slamming from the media. Zep's back catalog was once again charting. The Melody Maker readers' poll solidified an awareness that the public was in Led Zeppelin's corner. "Rock Against Journalism" indeed.

"I remember that button," Jones told me. "I've probably still got mine somewhere."

Jones also spoke about the history of jealousy the press had of Led Zeppelin's popularity. "They all hated or seemed to hate us in the beginning," he said. "I think they were kind of annoyed because our reputation really grew by word of mouth and people coming to the shows."

He said some journalists and others printed "venomous" inaccuracies about the band. To this end, he mentioned the biography Hammer of the Gods, which he called a "stupid book," by Stephen Davis, whom he called an "idiot."

"And of course when people write stuff, it becomes fact," Jones continued. He looked at me and warned, "Don't get mixed up in it." Within a year, I graduated from college and accepted an offer to become associate editor of a newspaper. But despite my faults, Jonesy still likes me.

Bring it on back

2007-11-17T06:16:00.001-05:00

This is part two of the "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History" edition published 10 years to the day after Atlantic Records released a promotional video for "Whole Lotta Love" in conjunction with the new collection BBC Sessions. "Bring it on Back" concentrates on what a difference 10 years makes.

One whole decade later, the landscape has changed tremendously. Jones has released two solo albums in the phase of his career he was beginning a decade ago. The first, Zooma, matches the description he gave above. He is also no stranger to the road now.

Since Jones has patched things up with Plant and Page, there is now a flurry of activity unseen since 1980. The band is only days away from releasing newly remade versions of its landmark film and soundtrack, The Song Remains the Same. The three surviving members will soon revive the name "Led Zeppelin" for a two-hour set at a charity concert in London featuring Jason Bonham on drums.

Simultaneously, Led Zeppelin has become deeply entrenched in all things digital. Many of the scenes that make up the "Whole Lotta Love" video are now available on DVD in nearly their entirety. Chances of attending the band's reunion concert were given exclusively to Internet users. The latest compilation, Mothership, features the first remastering of Led Zeppelin's studio catalog in the 21st century. That library of work is now newly available from all online music retailers, with a special edition of the complete musical collection on sale at iTunes.

In addition to having its own official Web site with video clips, the Zep enterprise also maintains a page on MySpace, an e-mail newsletter, a channel on YouTube, a channel on XM Radio, ringtones downloadable for cell phones, and contests on just about every other Web site. And I've probably missed a thing or three!

It is correct to say that November 2007 has marked the band's red-carpet entrance into the modern digital age. However, one could smartly argue that the band's first baby steps into the era was 10 years ago today.

Welcome to the machine

2007-11-17T06:16:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1997, a video for "Whole Lotta Love" video made its world premiere on a Web site, and John Paul Jones participated in an online chat session with fans.

The video was made to drum up support for the double album, BBC Sessions, released one week later. The first commercially released collection of Led Zeppelin concert material in 21 years, BBC Sessions contains over two-and-a-half hours of the group performing material for the British Broadcasting Corporation between 1969 and 1971.

Like the album, the "Whole Lotta Love" video contained previously unreleased elements that appealed to fans. The video consisted of professionally shot video from many key performances throughout Led Zeppelin's career. Many of these would be featured more in depth in future releases. The video also revealed unseen clips from the band's own 8 mm footage.

On the evening of Nov. 17, the video debuted at the Web site for Atlantic Records to a reported audience of 1,400 fans. Via the Internet service. provider America Online, the otherwise quiet Jones made himself heard by typing out his answers to more than 40 user-submitted questions. The multi-instrumentalist made the most of the opportunity by announcing he was preparing a solo album with the intention of touring upon its release.

Using conversational written English with negligible attention paid to capitalization, punctuation and correcting typographical errors, Jones reported his solo album would be "instrumental --no vocals no guitar no jazz Pure Rock! (with some funny noises)." Probed to divulge more about the project, he described it as "Blues based and acoustic rock but using a lot of computer processing and electronics over a live rhythm section." He also mentioned he'd just received a new 10-string bass assembled by Hugh Manson.

Inquiries also involved his playing bass and keyboards for Led Zeppelin in the 1970s and, foreseeably, the matter of whether a reunion was in the works. Jones said, "There is no Led Zeppelin. And there's certainly no plans for any reunion of the 3 remaining members...that i know of."

Asked why he had not been on tour with his Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when they reunited in 1994, he wrote, "Their plans didn't include me.Although it did seem to include my music." Would he play again with Page or Plant? "No, I think they've missed their chance now."

The real project Jones was to be plugging was BBC Sessions. To describe the sound, he wrote, "It's teh sound of a young, enthusiastic band.It's a very raw sound. A cocky young band at the height of its powers. And John Bonham."

He also commented on the existence of previously unseen footage in the "Whole Lotta Love" video. "Yes, it certainly surprised me! There's a funny little bit where Robert and I seem to be doing some strange Martian dance together. Don't knwo where tehy found it. but it's a good video. i must be biased."

The second part of this special 10th anniversary edition of "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History" is titled "Bring it on back." It brings the story up to date in 2007, highlighting what a difference 10 years makes.

The tune will come to you

2007-11-10T03:37:00.002-05:00

On this day in 1994, Robert Plant sang "Stairway to Heaven" for only the third time over the past 13 years. With the song's two coauthors seated next to each other, they performed an intimate -- albeit brief -- version of Led Zeppelin's most recognized song.

During Plant's last crack at it six years earlier, the singer couldn't conjure up every word of the song. This time, filmed for a Japanese program called The News Station, he was able to remember all the words he attempted -- although he didn't try every verse. Jimmy Page played a hurried arrangement on an acoustic guitar. Together, the pair crammed the first four verses of the song into exactly three minutes.

Page expertly played the song including licks he had developed in the Led Zeppelin days. Plant's voice was noticeably more mellow than it used to be, and it cracked on the word "echo" and during some ad libs between verses. After the line, "It makes me wonder," he glanced over at Page as if he'd had enough of the song. Plant widened his eyes to signal that they should end it, and Page acknowledged his request with a nod. He followed as Plant skipped to the concluding line, "And she's buying the stairway to heaven."

While Page was still producing the final chord, Plant topped it off with a sung, "Oh yeah." Plant looked and sounded somewhat comfortable at that moment, but maybe it was just a feeling of relief that it was over. He bent over after the song's conclusion to hide his face behind his mane of golden hair, and those gathered in the small TV Asahi studio applauded.

Where was Jonesy?

Half a world away on the same day, their former bandmate, John Paul Jones, was at Irving Plaza in New York, beginning a North American tour playing bass for operatic singer Diamanda Galas. They were touring in support of their album together, called The Sporting Life, released in September, and a single, "Do You Take This Man?" Jones was given equal billing to Galas on these efforts. In October, they had played a few shows in Germany and England. Along the course of the tour, Jones caught a glimpse of Page and Plant's Unledded broadcast on MTV. He'd heard the others were back together only when his accountant mentioned it.

In an interview with Dave Lewis on Nov. 12, 2002, Jones recalled that his concerts with Galas had been full of call-and-response moments like those between Plant and the rest of Led Zeppelin. "I thought what we were doing with Diamanda was exceptional," said Jones. "In a way, it was an extension of what Zeppelin did -- all that call and response stuff."

But Led Zeppelin covers were nowhere to be found during his shows with Galas. Jones recalled that during their concert at Chicago's Vic Theatre on Nov. 17, 1994, an audience member shouted, "The Song Remains the Same!" This prompted Galas to shout back, "No it doesn't, motherf---er!"

Thankfully, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin were able to bury the hatchet several years ago. While they made some public appearances together over the last few years, they succeeded in keeping a June 2007 rehearsal secret. Each of them now reports it is great to be playing together once again, whether or not their collaboration is only for one concert and that's it.

The historical perspective

To date, Page and Plant's one-off performance of "Stairway to Heaven" 13 years ago today marks the only time since 1980 that Plant performed the song outside of a Led Zeppelin reunion. Jones hasn't played it anytime without both of his former Led Zeppelin bandmates.

Page, unlike his partners, was not particularly one to reserve the song for rare, special occasions. Instrumental adaptations of the tune were showstoppers during Page's onstage performances in 1983 and 1988. The last time he had played "Stairway to Heaven" was at a May 1991 jam in Reno with David Coverdale and members of Poison.

Following the one-off performance of "Stairway to Heaven" in 1994 with Plant, the guitarist hasn't repeated the song in full. Surely, he has had the opportunity to perform it in the intervening years, particularly in the musical settings that involved the other members of Led Zeppelin. However, he has resisted any temptation.

It was only in 1987 that Plant decided some Zep songs could become fair game for his solo concerts -- but never "Stairway." He did comment to the press around 1988, however, that while he wouldn't perform that song as a solo artist, "I could do it, I suppose, with Page now and again."

The three could have chosen to perform it in January 1995 when Led Zeppelin was being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Instead, they opted for the less likely numbers "Bring It On Home" and "When the Levee Breaks."

Over the course of Page and Plant's five years of collaboration in the 1990s, whenever their set lists included "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," which shares the key of A minor, Page was sure to tease the audience by closing the song with the opening notes of "Stairway" and letting them hang there.

Why this once though?

It's unclear exactly why Plant would have been keen on performing it with Page this one time in 1994 if not at any other time.

Perhaps there was an idea that performing the song would somehow increase sales of No Quarter, his album collaborating with Page, which was being released worldwide the same week.

Maybe it helped that the song was originally released on Led Zeppelin's untitled fourth album during exactly the same week 23 years earlier.

One story says somebody in the Japanese studio had asked to hear the most requested song of all time, to which Plant agreed just as the cameras were beginning to roll.

Bring it on back

On Dec. 10, if "Stairway to Heaven" is included in the reunited Led Zeppelin's London concert set list, it will be the first time in 19 years that Page, Plant and Jones -- with Jason Bonham on drums -- played it at a reunion.

Will it happen? I believe so.

A wise lyricist once scribed, "If you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last."

Not made for TV

2007-11-02T13:00:00.001-04:00

On this day in 1976, British television's Old Grey Whistle Test aired two segments with Led Zeppelin, notably including a rare interview of the group's manager, Peter Grant.

That show also broadcast a clip from Zep's newly opened film, The Song Remains the Same: Jimmy Page's live violin bow sequence from "Dazed and Confused."

Ironically, the topic Grant discussed in his interview was his opinion that the magic Led Zeppelin produced onstage could not be captured on a 26-inch television screen.

In the interview, which will appear on the re-release of The Song Remains the Same to be issued in less than two weeks, Grant is sporting a T-shirt with the message, "In for a Quick Garden." He is accompanied by Robert Plant, and the two are interviewed on a boat on the River Thames.

The man asking the questions was not the regular Old Grey Whistle Test presenter "Whispering" Bob Harris. At the last minute, the host had contracted a throat infection and had to be replaced. There was no way to reschedule this exclusive interview; the alternative was canceling it altogether, which wasn't preferable.

"'Whispering' Bob [be]came 'Totally Inaudible' Bob," said Mike Appleton, founding producer of Old Grey Whistle Test, in 2001. "The only time that [the interview] could be done was at a specific time and a specific date. So, I had to go and do it." It marked Appleton's second onscreen appearance in the five years of the show's history.

Even though Led Zeppelin was not made for TV, modern technology is today giving the band a new life in living rooms and home theaters. The Song Remains the Same is set to be released on DVD with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound this month (Nov. 19 in United Kingdom and Nov. 20 in United States) and additionally, next month, on HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.

Bring it on back: Thirty-one years later

2007-10-22T21:42:00.001-04:00

Part two of the newsletter edition sent on Oct. 22, 2007, contained some recent headlines related to the re-release of The Song Remains the Same, whose soundtrack was first issued exactly 31 years earlier.

As we know, the concerts included in the film have been revisited, and the movie and soundtrack will be available in new forms next month. Lemon Squeezings: Led Zeppelin News reports on details of the recent work that has gone into these new releases, as told by sound engineer Kevin Shirley in a recent interview with Modern Guitars magazine.

Also making headlines on the site in recent weeks:

Transfer of Led Zeppelin reunion passcodes may not hinder anyone, after all: Purchased a passcode to the Led Zeppelin reunion concert and not sure whether you'll be let in with your ticket? Looks like Ticketmaster has answered that question.
Fans stand another chance at Led Zeppelin tickets: Don't have your ticket yet? Don't fret! You still stand an outside shot of buying one.
Led Zeppelin rehearsing reunion concert set: What do you think the band will play at the reunion show? Want to make a case for anything from Coda?
Promo photos taken of reunited Led Zeppelin: How do Page, Plant and Jones look these days? The golden god has a graying goatee. Check out a photo of the boys and decide whether age has been kind.
Early Zep stint in Detroit ranks among top all-time shows: What gives this concert series in 1969 such a high honor in this month's Uncut magazine? Jaan Uhelszki remembers what it was like to be a teen in tight jeans at the show.

Soundtrack hits stores

2007-10-22T21:42:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1976, the first officially released set of live Led Zeppelin tracks hit stores. The album, the soundtrack to the film The Song Remains the Same, debuted on the Billboard charts at No. 5 in its first week.

Meanwhile, the group's feature film opened simultaneously in nine cities worldwide. The Song Remains the Same started playing regularly in the strong Led Zeppelin markets of London, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Atlanta, Toronto, New York and Los Angeles.

The following month, the film opened in many other locations around the world, including in 57 additional U.S. cities. Some theaters were packing midnight showings into 1977 and beyond. The film's regular presence in some countries outlasted even the band itself.

This edition of "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History" was published only weeks prior to the re-release of the soundtrack and DVD, both in upgraded form. Part two of this edition, titled "Bring it on back: Thirty-one years later," concentrates on news surrounding those releases and other topics that were current at the time.

High ticket demand in London: Bringing it up to date

2007-10-10T12:07:00.001-04:00

This is the second part of the "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History" edition published Oct. 10, 2007. The first part concentrated on alterations to a planned London screening of Led Zeppelin's film in 1976 necessitated by high demand for tickets. This second part notes some instances of history repeating itself 31 years later.

This news is appropriate 31 years later because high ticket demand for another Led Zeppelin event in London has likewise prompted organizers to take unexpected actions.

The occasion this year is a planned concert reunion of Led Zeppelin's members at the O2 arena on Nov. 26. Millions of people around the world have reportedly attempted to acquire tickets to this performance, which is said to be a one-off event not to be repeated. Secondary ticket sales prompted a response from promoter Harvey Goldsmith regarding who will and will not be admitted to the concert.

All of these recent events have been detailed as they unfolded at Lemon Squeezings: Led Zeppelin News, the global Led Zeppelin fan community's online news source.

This anniversary also recalls a rare instance when the group raided fans' living rooms and the debut of Led Zeppelin's only feature film. The Song Remains the Same is a piece of history that has never been forgotten but has seldom been improved. Reissues of the film and its soundtrack are to be released for home consumption one week before the concert -- in the United Kingdom on Monday, Nov. 19, and in the United States on Tuesday, Nov. 20.

For more information about these reissues and other news about Led Zeppelin, please bookmark www.LedZeppelinNews.com and check back often.

High ticket demand in London

2007-10-10T12:07:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1976, high demand for tickets to a Led Zeppelin event in London prompted organizers to alter their plan.

The occasion was the British premiere of Led Zeppelin's feature film, The Song Remains the Same, which captured live performances and unique glimpses of the members of the band and its entourage in their natural states.

On Oct. 9, advance tickets to a screening of the film on Oct. 22 went on sale. Tickets sold so well, in fact, that a second theater in England's capital city was acquired to accommodate the number of people wanting to witness the film.

Led Zeppelin thrived on large events, and fans craved more. Unfortunate circumstances had made a Led Zeppelin tour unlikely in 1976. Robert Plant's unsteady footing, the result of a life-threatening car accident the previous August, made him avoid concert stages that year.

Since it had been a year and five months since Led Zeppelin's last shows before any wide audience, fervent fans craving the sight of the onstage routine made it inevitable that not one, as originally planned, but two London theaters would be packed for the band's film debut.

Four days before advance tickets went on sale, British television viewers were treated to the film's rendition of the song "Black Dog" in their homes. The group's rare TV appearance, albeit a prerecorded one, was on the program Old Grey Whistle Test, the BBC's highest rated music television show.

"Led Zeppelin never did television either in the States or in the U.K.," said the program's founding producer, Mike Appleton, in an audio commentary prepared in 2001 for a DVD of the series. "It was a principle that had been put down by Peter Grant, their manager, and I guess it gave them a sort of mystical appeal because people would only see them in concert, never saw them anywhere else."

Part two of this newsletter edition from Oct. 10, 2007, also focused on high ticket demand in London, but a more recent occurrence of it. Part two, "Bringing it up to date," explains how history was repeating itself that year.

Honing their sound

2007-09-27T12:47:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1968, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and Robert Plant participated in their second recording session together. They laid down raw demos of three songs, honing their sound and claiming their identity.

Fresh from an inaugural 10-date tour of Scandinavia, the group gathered at Olympic Studios, close to the River Thames in Barnes, London. The man behind the recording console, Glyn Johns, was impressed with the band's professionalism, confidence and familiarity with studio recording.

While all were familiar, Page and Jones had the most experience, having been highly accessible session musicians for a number of years. Plant had recorded three singles over the past two years and had also just sung on another session with bluesman Alexis Korner. All four members of Led Zeppelin had also laid down a track either earlier in the month or in August for singer P.J. Proby.

Both sessions of the group that was shortly thereafter known as Led Zeppelin included a slow, bouncy blues in E. At P.J. Proby's session, it was called "Jim's Blues," and a near repeat of the exact arrangement was carried over to this second session with Plant now switching between harmonica and improvising some lyrics, many from Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me." Both sessions included an ample guitar solo featuring some of Page's trademark licks and interplay with Bonham's drum fills. They apparently went on for about 10 minutes in this vein. Jones stuck to just bass for this song, having also played piano on that first session.

However, on another song at this session, Jones switched over to a fine-sounding gospel organ. The band also backed Plant's confident vocal by singing three-part harmony behind him. This song, labeled on the master tape as "Tribute to Bert Berns," was named to honor of the producer of singles by groups such as Them and Lulu & the Luvvers -- cuts for which Page served as session guitarist. The existence of this cut was forgotten for nearly a quarter of a century until the track was found and cleaned up for release on Led Zeppelin's Box Set 2 in 1993, with the proper title "Baby Come On Home."

The third raw demo recorded at this session was "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," a song over which Plant had bonded with Page when the singer went to visit him at his house. In an uptempo version with Page's work largely confined to strumming an acoustic guitar, Jones' crafty work on the bass stands out. This start-stop arrangement also gave Bonham room to execute many drum fills. Plant did a bit of talking-style singing but mostly sang in the higher register with a volume and intensity that could really carry.

The goal of this session may have been to emerge from the studio with a demo tape for Manager Peter Grant to use for seeking out a record contract for the band, but it may also have been an extra opportunity for the four musicians just to hone their sound. After all, whether they were knew it or not, this group would go on to release 18 astonishing album sides over the following 11 years.

Zeptember milestones in concert ticket demand

2007-09-27T11:47:00.001-04:00

This is the second part of the newsletter edition published Sept. 27, 2007, exactly 24 years after the first live performance of "Stairway to Heaven" by any member of Led Zeppelin since the band's breakup. This second part concentrates first on the sale of tickets to a Led Zeppelin tour in 1980 that would have included "Stairway to Heaven" and to a one-off reunion concert at the end of 2007 that did end up including a live performance of "Stairway to Heaven."

During this week in 1980, Led Zeppelin was preparing for a North American concert tour for which tickets were about to go on sale and were reportedly in high demand. For many folks who were just turned on to the band or had finally convinced their parents they were old enough to go to a concert, the set of proposed dates beginning Oct. 17 in Montreal would have provided a first opportunity for many fans to see Led Zeppelin live. Unfortunately, the week didn't end with the same plans intact, as a hardcore night of drinking on a Wednesday night took the life of John Bonham and ended for good Led Zeppelin as fans knew it.

Twenty-seven whole years later, the chance of seeing Page, Plant and John Paul Jones perform together – this time with Jason Bonham on drums – is real again. The biggest story in music this past week, aside from an embarrassing televised dance by Britney "Oops" Spears, has been the Led Zeppelin reunion concert set to take place Nov. 26 in London.

The four are reported to have rehearsed eight times in a secret studio in London, readying a two-hour set that will include some material played in lower keys. More than a million fans have registered their names and contact information with an official Web site in hopes that they will be contacted about buying tickets for the event. Excitement today is definitely the highest it's been in 27 years, even if it is for a one-off show that will be attended by no more than 20,000 people and may not even be broadcast or recorded.

Bill Wyman and Jimmy Page both played at the ARMS concert benefits in London described in the first part of today's newsletter, and they're both scheduled to play this November at the Led Zeppelin reunion concert, another benefit in London. Isn't it nice sometimes when history repeats itself? Here's another instance where I hope history will repeat itself.

For more news and views on the reunion concert and other current affairs pertaining to Led Zeppelin, please visit my new supplement to this newsletter. My month-old blog, Lemon Squeezings: Led Zeppelin News, already has the following entries:

Doing time for bootlegging: A review of the stances Jimmy Page takes on the sale of unauthorized live recordings.
Plant on Fats Domino tribute CD: A summary of the contributions Robert Plant made for a compilation to be released next week
John Paul Jones' busy year: Assembles a list of the festival appearances that have occupied the multi-instrumentalist's time throughout 2007
Considerations about a Led Zeppelin reunion: Explaining why the reunion won't outlast a single concert
Roy Harper album with Jimmy Page guest spot remastered: Describing the work that has gone into next month's anticipated reissue of Harper's 1971 album Stormcock, which features Page's lead guitar on one long track
Official: Led Zeppelin to reunite, Nov. 26 concert confirmed: My initial report revealing the contents of last week's important announcement
Uncle Earl, John Paul Jones protegees, enthusiastic in Virginia: A review of the all-female string band's concert this past weekend in Alexandria, Va.
Coming very soon, a review of Raising Sand, the upcoming album by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss!

All this and more can be found at "Lemon Squeezings: Led Zeppelin News." When you visit, please feel free to leave comments at the site to interact with your fellow fans. I hope to make the site a news source Led Zeppelin fans frequent for reliable information on the band members' current activities.

Still ascending Stairway

2007-09-27T11:47:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1983, Jimmy Page became the first member of Led Zeppelin to perform "Stairway to Heaven" live after the band's breakup.

Having closed the first side of the group's all-time bestselling album and become one of the most recognizable and popular songs of the entire era, "Stairway" has inevitably been a recurrent yet seldom fulfilled request at the concerts of Page and coauthor Robert Plant.

Its inclusion became an inevitable choice for solo sets by Page on Sept. 20 and 21, two shows held at the Royal Albert Hall in London to raise money for the charity Action and Research for Multiple Sclerosis.

The charity funded research and provided treatment for the neurological disorder that affects hundreds of thousands of people. At the helm of the concerts was Ronnie "Plonk" Lane, who had played bass for the Small Faces and founded the Faces and was then living with MS. Lane organized the benefits and enlisted a little help from his friends, becoming the poster boy for MS until his death in 1997.

It spoke to the power of his pull that he was able to recruit some of the biggest names in British rock. The luminaries joining Page onstage at the event were Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Jeff Beck, Bill Wyman, and Kenney Jones, who had played drums for the Small Faces and the Faces for 10 years before replacing the late Keith Moon in the Who.

The night was notable not only for the first live "Stairway to Heaven" by any former member of Led Zeppelin but it was also the first onstage gathering of all three infamous lead guitarists from the Yardbirds. Clapton and Beck had each been releasing music under their own names for well over a decade, whereas Page's post-Zeppelin solo career to that point consisted only of the 1981 soundtrack album for the film Death Wish 2.

Following the sets by Clapton and Beck, Page began his own with some of that soundtrack material, starting with the instrumental "Prelude," based on a melody by Frederic Chopin. Winwood joined Page and a small backing band to sing "Who's to Blame" and "City Sirens." After those, Page strapped on his Gibson double-neck guitar for that instrumental version of "Stairway to Heaven."

Part two of this edition of "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History" was called "Zeptember milestones in concert ticket demand," focusing on achievements in ticket sales in 1980 and 2007. It also highlighted Led Zeppelin News topics that were current at the time.

The live legacy of Led Zeppelin began 39 years ago today

2007-09-07T12:09:00.001-04:00

This edition of "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History," published Sept. 7, 2007, begins in an unorthodox manner, using the current events of the day to lead up to reporting the 39th anniversary of the first concert by the group that came to be known as Led Zeppelin.

There's been a lot of talk about Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones performing together in a couple of months to reunite Led Zeppelin for a single show in London. Whether this is something seriously being considered is anybody's guess, unless you happen to believe this week's revelation by New Musical Express that a fan who talked to Plant said it is almost a certainty.

Whether or not we are on the verge of what would be the three musicians' first performance since their 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we do honor a legacy of live concerts these men put on with their bandmate, John Bonham, supported by the guidance of their manager, Peter Grant.

That legacy of live concerts started 39 years ago today, September 7.

On this day in 1968, the newly formed band of Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham gave its first live appearance ever -- in fact, two of them on the same day. These sets carved the foundation for the group we today revere as Led Zeppelin. A few of the same songs were in evidence during the band's initial days, although the sets actually had more in common with those of its natural predecessor, the Yardbirds.

Jimmy Page, the lone holdover from the Yardbirds' lineup that had played a show the previous April and in fact a Yardbirds member since 1966, was the only familiar face to the crowds of Danish teens attending both shows in their trusty gymnasium hangouts. Those Yardbirds' final concert was two months earlier, to the day, at a technical college in their home country of England. The core of that lineup – namely, singer Keith Relf and drummer Jim McCarty – had quit around Page, while Dreja was entering the photography world and was not included in the renewed lineup.

With Peter Grant, Page assembled a new lineup to fly the Yardbirds' flag, fulfilling existing commitments in Scandinavian countries. Hence, these first two gigs on the same day came about, both at school gymnasiums in Copenhagen, Denmark. The second one, called the Brondby Pop Club, had previously hosted a Yardbirds show on April 15, 1967.

The band provided subtle and delicate hints of some visual trademark characteristics that would soon brand them uniquely as Led Zeppelin, some of which are evidenced in black-and-white shots of the first performance taken by 16-year-old house photographer Jorgen Angel, who today sells those photos online. As we see in the shots, Jones joined Page in wearing some ruffled garb to show No. 1. Plant's extremely agitated facial expressions went with the music as he shook about. Bonham, actually much more svelte in physique at age 20 than he would appear in his latter days, pounded on the skins with wreckless abandon so he was drenched in sweat. Page pulled out a famous stage trick of his involving a violin bow across the fretted strings of his boldly colored Fender 1958 Telecaster.

An unrehearsed band, this new Yardbirds lineup had only a few jam sessions over the course of four weeks under its collective belt. Those of us who were not there to witness the first Led Zeppelin shows have some ways to estimate what it would have sounded like. Understandably, since the band was booked as a supporting act, their live sets, at 40 minutes each, were curt compared to the two- and three-hour spectacles they would soon be divulging as a famous headlining act. The photographer, Jorgen Angel, has detailed some of his personal memories for the Led Zeppelin fanzine Kashmir, and the transcript of that interview is reproduced online. In addition, a few Danish newspaper articles covering the event have preserved other aspects for all time, providing the only firsthand written accounts of the shows at the time.

Any fans expecting quirky frontman Keith Relf on vocals and harmonica with the Yardbirds were surprised to see a different singer -- one who danced funny and portrayed faces of anguish and torture. So unfamiliar to the locals was this extroverted singer that even a newspaper reporter mistakenly called him "Robert Planto" in a review of the second show that printed four days later in Denmark's Glostrup Handelsblat. According to a popular translation, the reviewer complained that this singer was unnecessarily opting "to twist his body like he's having a ruptured appendix."

While little is documented about what songs were played that day, the band is thought to have opened with "Train Kept A-Rollin'," and also played "I Can't Quit You Baby," "Dazed and Confused," "You Shook Me" and a blues song known in its original lyric as "How Many More Years." Since the review of the second show proclaims that Bonham's drum solo ought to have gone on forever, it indicates the band probably tackled a number called "Pat's Delight" that can be heard in the earliest known recordings of Led Zeppelin's live repertoire.

Two of those songs, "Train Kept A-Rollin'" and "Dazed and Confused," were holdovers from the previous Yardbirds incarnation. Most of the numbers made it onto the group's first album, recorded the following month. "Dazed and Confused" became a Led Zeppelin concert spectacle halfway into the 1970s. The sight of Page wielding a violin bow would become a lasting image after the song was performed in front of cameras in New York City in 1973.

Versions played there of that song would be permanently preserved and revered when included in a feature film hitting theaters late in 1976. It's a film that also captured concert gems such as "Since I've Been Loving You," "The Song Remains the Same" and "Stairway to Heaven." It's a film that is still fervently watched in 2007 and will be granted a proper re-release this Nov. 20 (Nov. 19 in the United Kingdom) on DVD and Blu-Ray formats in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound and with a surplus of bonus features. It's a film whose soundtrack will also be expanded for the first time to include a full Led Zeppelin performance.

So today as we wonder whether Page and Jones, currently in their 60s, will team up with Plant, 59, for a concert in two months' time, let us not forget the legacy that they and Bonham, all guided by Grant, left us all those years ago.

Announcing the launch of "Lemon Squeezings: Led Zeppelin News"

2007-08-29T11:10:00.001-04:00

Visit www.LedZeppelinNews.com for my new blog dedicated to the activity of Led Zeppelin's members in the 21st century!

Robert Plant at 59: A look back, and a glimpse forward

2007-08-20T12:20:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1948, Robert Anthony Plant was born in West Bromwich, Staffordshire, England. Leaving his home in his teens, he promised his parents he would return to enter into accounting in the event that his desire to make a living off of singing would not be realized by his 20th birthday. What fulfilled that goal was his eventual calling to front a band featuring John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page. With the group that came to be known as Led Zeppelin, Plant's career choice was no longer in question, and he is still singing today as a result.

Now at age 59, he appears to be a much more toned down version of the golden god he was when his image was first displayed on LPs and posters in the bedrooms of nearly every hip teen-ager in the civilized world. While the Robert Plant of today may not be heaving as many televisions from hotel lofts or hitting as many high notes as he once did, the breadth of his voice and passion for music have perhaps never before been better realized than in recent years, mainly with his current band, the Strange Sensation.

The coming months are set to unleash a new chapter in Plant's long journey. On Oct. 23, Rounder Records is set to release a new album pairing him with bluegrass icon Alison Krauss. The label says this record will be "a revelation for the listener" that "spans the intersections of early urban blues, spacious West Texas country, and the unrealized potential of the folk-rock revolution."

Artists including Johnnie Ray, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Smokey Robinson, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Little Walter and, posthumously, Robert Johnson all made initial impressions on Plant's development as a student of music. He also imported psychedelic rock from America and incorporated the look and sounds into his own act before he ever performed outside of his home country.

Once he developed the means, Plant traveled great distances to establish kinship with like-minded musicians from across genres and borders. Most notably, he has done so by taking Jimmy Page in 1994 to rekindle some of Led Zeppelin's spirit alongside street musicians in Marrakesh, Morocco. On a return trip to the African continent in 2003, he brought his two Strange Sensation guitarists to the Sahara desert for a four-day music festival that showcased many of the most expressive performers from the region. Plant and accompanying musicians had been attending such festivals for years, and he is now adding his own unique piece to it.

His upcoming album with Krauss, called Raising Sand, approaches obscure songs by the Everly Brothers, Tom Waits and contemporary singer Sam Phillips, among others. The label tells us that this collaboration "defies genres in favor of a wide open brand of seismic soul music" and "uncovers popular music's elemental roots while sounding effortlessly timeless."

Plant's 59th birthday today reminds us that he was fortunate to have fallen into the scope of Jimmy Page back in 1968 to deliver a lifetime's worth of music that continues to confront standard classification while evoking a wide range of emotions in its beholders. May the fans be grateful today and always for Plant's enduring achievements. We all wish you a happy birthday, Robert!

Yellow desert screen

2007-08-01T13:44:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1973, Robert Plant was headed off to enjoy his "Shangri-La beneath the summer moon."

Led Zeppelin was taking time off from the stage and the spotlight and the hustle and bustle of success. Just having completed a three-month tour of the United States that culminated in the filming of a three-night concert series at Madison Square Garden in New York, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham returned to their homes in England to be with their families.

"I went past the point of no return physically quite a while back, but now I've gone past the mental point," Page had told a reporter late into the tour. "I've only kept going by functioning automatically."

Robert Plant's idea of relaxation was going to view the "yellow desert screen" of the Sahara desert in a section of southern Morocco. He seemed to value places of seclusion, and the desert provided him just that.

Driving down a long road between Goulimine and Tantan, Plant became inspired. Describing the route in a later interview, he said, "The road went on and on. It was a single-track road which cut neatly through the desert. Two miles to the east and west were ridges of sand rock. It basically looked like you were driving down a channel, this dilapidated road, and there was seemingly no end to it."

Plant's experiences there would become the foundation for lyrics he later wrote for a song first called "Driving to Kashmir" and then renamed just "Kashmir." It was one of the pieces Led Zeppelin would be recording by the end of the year for the album eventually called Physical Graffiti.

Geographically, Kashmir was another continent away from Plant's trek on the northwestern coast of Africa. Situated in south-central Asia and bordering China to the north and east, Kashmir is home to lush scenic views of the Himalaya mountain range.

Plant had never been there. "It's my ambition to go to Kashmir, and I'm saving that as the last trek," he said in 1976.

Kashmir was divided into sections in 1972 to be controlled by two of its neighboring countries, Pakistan to the west and India to the south. Militaristic rule has been in effect in the territory since 1990, and control of Kashmir is still in dispute today.

Led Zeppelin was at another milestone in the middle of its existence, with a camera crew having been able to capture three shows on concert and plans to assemble The Song Remains the Same, a feature film incorporating scenes developed from the band members' imaginations. Another project being devised was the creation of a record label.

The challenge for the band in the second half of 1973 would be not to take off too much time in 1973 so the unit could get back to creating music. "After a couple of months, I'd get itchy feet again," Page told an interviewer when speaking about time off.

Plant tended to agree with the guitarist. On the night of the final concert of the 1973 tour, he noted, "We've got a bunch of new songs written, and we can't wait to record them."

Soul Christmas

2006-12-24T04:42:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1968, the members of Led Zeppelin left the comfort of home to board a commercial airplane taking them across an ocean to what was, for some of them, a strange land.

The Christmas Eve trip from England to America was not an easy one, the four found out. For the next few weeks, it would be up to them, without their manager, to make a good first impression on the United States.

"It was Christmas," said Robert Plant, "and Christmas away from home for the English is the end of the world." John Bonham, who possessed a fear of flying, was doubly nervous when he realized that his young son Jason would be spending his third Christmas without his daddy.

Jimmy Page had already been to the United States, having toured the country with the Yardbirds. But it was a first for both Plant and Bonham. "Bonzo and I were amazed," said Plant. "We'd barely even been abroad, and here we were. It was the first time I saw a cop with a gun, the first time I saw a 20-foot-long car. The whole thing was a complete bowl-over."

On the other side of the country, John Paul Jones and his wife enjoyed the holiday in Newark, N.J. He said in 2001, "I had an American friend, a singer called Madeline Bell, and my wife and I spent Christmas with her folks. We had a soul Christmas, and it was brilliant. And then we had to go see some other relatives. Wherever we went, there was another meal waiting for us. I've never eaten so much food in all my life. They were really wonderful people."

The band members hoped they would receive the same welcome at concerts, where they would be opening for the Vanilla Fudge. Originally, the Jeff Beck Group was booked for the American dates. The band backed out, and Peter Grant, who managed both groups, pushed to have Led Zeppelin assume the dates instead.

The Jeff Beck Group's cancellation was a result of Beck's troublesome condition. As Robert Plant explained years later, "Jeff wasn't consistent about his playing -- that's a nice way of putting it. Jeff had run away a lot and quite rightly so. Playing on the road can be strange. Some people like it, and some people don't."

Never heard of them

2006-12-17T03:47:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1987, Robert Plant sang any Led Zeppelin song in concert for the first time, outside a reunion setting, since the band's breakup in 1980. This historic occasion was also Plant's first concert in about a year; he was debuting a new lineup of musicians billed as the Band of Joy (a nod to Plant's longest-running pre-Zeppelin band, which had originally been around from January 1967 to May 1968).

That night's set, taking place at Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone, England, opened boldly with a rendition of Zep's "In the Evening." Also played was "Money (That's What I Want)," a Motown collaboration by Berry Gordy and Janie Bradford that also appeared in the Beatles' songbook. As the evening wore on, the band settled into Zep numbers "Trampled Underfoot" and "Misty Mountain Hop." The show ended with Plant's favorite Christmas song, "Santa Claus is Back in Town," which was written by hitmakers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller for Elvis Presley.

Aside from the one-off reunion at Live Aid, Plant's performing career between 1981 and that first night in 1987 did not include any of the songs he had created along with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. In fact, Plant's entire look had changed in the early part of the decade, from the length of his hair to his conservative wardrobe. Now, instead, the hair was again beginning to flow, along with the Zeppelin music. What accounted for this reversal in direction?

Plant once said in an interview that he was finally accepting that the past was always going to be with him: "I was turned on to what I'd done in the past by people saying, `That stuff was great.' And as soon as my eyes were opened again, Zeppelin was everywhere. Everybody was saying, 'It's all over the place,' and all this time I was going, 'Well, I've never heard of them.'"

Perhaps some of that inspiration came from the youthful musicians in Plant's new band: main songwriter Phil Johnstone on keyboards, Doug Boyle on guitar, and Chris Blackwell on drums. (They were joined by bassist Phil Scragg in the studio before Charlie Jones replaced him on the road.)

Blackwell revealed to this newsletter in 2002 how the lineup's first run-through of a Zeppelin song with Plant came to be. "Zeppelin songs are so good to play, and we were such big fans of all that," said Blackwell. "We would play stuff in rehearsal when [Robert] wasn't there. One time he walked in on us playing 'Immigrant Song' and joined in, and off we went!"

As far as deciding which Led Zeppelin songs would be played on tour, Blackwell said, "I think we all made suggestions based on our understanding of what the songs were, and how we felt they would fit into the set. Obviously, 'Stairway to Heaven' was taboo ..."

At another concert on Dec. 30, 1987, the band brought a similar set of cover songs to the Stourbridge Town Hall, where Plant welcomed special guest drummer Andy Taylor of Duran Duran to the stage. Added to the set were interpretations of perennial favorites "Gambler's Blues" by B.B. King and "Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry, as well as a take on another Led Zeppelin song, the title of which matches my closing words at the end of today's newsletter (stay tuned).

The portions excerpted above from Peter Grant's 1993 interview are taken from Led Zeppelin: The Tight But Loose Files: Celebration II, by Dave Lewis, with a foreword by John Paul Jones. Published in 2003, this book makes a great stocking stuffer and is available for purchase here.

Good times, bad times

2006-12-04T07:18:00.000-05:00

To contrast the sad story the date of this newsletter represented, the edition opened in a rather unorthodox manner, first presenting a happier story from the author's recent experience.

Just a few hours ago, I attended a concert with comedic rock band Tenacious D. The group makes no secret of its appreciation for Led Zeppelin and other revered influences from the pantheon of gut-busting rock. What else is to be expected from a band with actor Jack Black, who successfully begged the surviving members of Led Zeppelin to let him include a song of theirs in a movie? (See here for a clip of what that's all about.)

During Tenacious D's live act, a melodic allusion to "Stairway to Heaven" took place at the end of the set-closing song, "Tribute," which relates the grandiose story of a chance confrontation with a demon that challenges Tenacious D to "play the best song in the world, or I'll eat your souls." The concert also included a brief medley of two abridged songs from the Who's Tommy, played as an encore. The first full cover of the night, though, was Zep's "Good Times Bad Times."

Today marks 26 years since one of the bad times in the history of Led Zeppelin.

On this day in 1980, the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin announced their decision to retire the group.

This first public statement of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones after the death of John Bonham on Sept. 25 clarified their position on calls to carry on without him: No way, the three said. Case closed.

In less than 50 words, the trio had this to say:

"We wish it to be known that the loss of our dear friend, and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the sense of undivided harmony felt by ourselves and our manager, have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were."

With that, each member of Led Zeppelin went his own way, retreating for a time from the public eye. For Page, the mere sight of a guitar saddened him at first, causing him to refrain from playing music for several months. Plant similarly shied away from singing for a similar period. He briefly considered going into teaching but eventually formed a solo band in England. Jones spent his first year without Led Zeppelin setting up a 24-track electronic music studio in his home in Devon, England, and in 1982 led an electronic composition course at the Dartington College of Arts, also in Devon.

Manager Peter Grant was saddened for about four years, a period he later had enough hindsight to call "a period of darkness." During this time, he grew to dread answering his telephone for fear that the caller would be another drummer with an unsolicited offer to take Bonham's place in a reunited Led Zeppelin. Such calls were said to be painful for Grant, and he shielded them from Page, Plant and Jones.

Swan Song, the record company Led Zeppelin had founded in 1974, operated for three years past Bonham's death. Since the label's inception, it was clear that Zep wasn't the only band on the roster; other releases were coming from acts like Bad Company, the Pretty Things, Roy Harper and others. But in the post-Zeppelin era, the label became less active, partly because there was little motivation to sign new acts. Amid sparse activity in 1981, the label released records from Dave Edmunds and a new Maggie Bell project called Midnight Flyer.

By the end of that year, Page had found himself able to take solace at Sol Studios in Cookham, Berkshire, England. Elton John's producer, Gus Dudgeon, had just built the place, and Page bought it. Having fallen in love with Roland's new guitar synthesizers, Page recorded the soundtrack for the film Death Wish 2. For a drummer, he used Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention. The album also featured some of Page's first recorded moments leading an orchestra.

Plant was also recording his first solo album in 1981. For drummers, he used Barriemore Barlow, formerly of Jethro Tull, and Phil Collins, the Genesis singer who was also embarking on his own solo career that year. Plant's band gladly played music that purposely did not sound like the hard rock of Led Zeppelin. Working with a new band started off as challenging for the singer, "but it turned out to be a lot easier than I had envisioned," as he now proclaims in the liner notes of his newly remastered solo debut, part of the box set Nine Lives released last month. "I found I wanted to pour out my soul once the door was open," says Plant.

Both Page's Death Wish 2 soundtrack and Plant's Pictures at Eleven were released in 1982. They acounted for half of Swan Song's albums issued that year, along with Coda, the first posthumous Led Zeppelin album, and Rough Diamonds, the last of the six studio albums from Bad Company's original lineup.

After Bad Company's drummer, Simon Kirke, left the group, he joined Wildlife, whose self-titled sophomore LP and "Somewhere in the Night" single, both in 1983, became the two final Swan Song releases.

One month after that single's September release, a meeting was called to discuss dissolving the label. However, an agreement couldn't be reached at the meeting, and Plant reportedly complained to a friend, "It's still the same. They still can't make up their minds."

The one thing that remained constant through all that time was that decision, announced on this day in 1980, to retire Led Zeppelin once and for all. Without John Bonham, they could not continue as they were. Unlike just about every other band from the era, they never did.

Electric Magic 35th anniversary

2006-11-20T12:43:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1971, Led Zeppelin was the headlining attraction playing alongside circus acts, among others, for the first of two six-hour spectacles dubbed Electric Magic.

The Nov. 20 and 21 shows incorporated the best acts in the realms of circus, vaudeville and rock music. Electric Magic was the first show of its kind with any live music groups. It featured three rock bands each night. Just preceding Led Zeppelin's sets was Stone the Crows, a group that shared Zep's manager, Peter Grant. Stone the Crows' singer was Maggie Bell, who again qualified as a footnote later in Led Zeppelin's history when she signed as a solo artist onto the Swan Song label.

On Nov. 21, taking the stage before Stone the Crows and Led Zeppelin, was a band called Home; that group's bassist, Cliff Williams, would join AC/DC six years later. On Nov. 20, the opening act was Bronco. Two members of that band, guitarist Kevyn Gammond and bassist John Pasternak, had been bandmates with Robert Plant and John Bonham in the Band of Joy. Another Bronco guitarist, Robbie Blunt, would play for Plant's solo outings between 1981 and 1985.

Aside from the musical acts, the Electric Magic shows feature an array of everything from trapeze artists to a pair of performing pigs. In the case of the Nov. 20 show, the pigs were non-performing; the swine refused to act on cue that night, and their trainer insisted in the British press that "they were good in rehearsal!" At least the press reported that the pigs were well dressed. During the changeover between Stone the Crows' set and Led Zeppelin's, oddball attractions were on tap, including trampoline experts and saucer jugglers.

Led Zeppelin's sets are said to have lasted more than two hours and 40 minutes each night. They performed songs both old and new. The band's untitled fourth album was fresh out on the streets, and half of that new material made the set list. In fact, all of that new material was pushed toward the beginning of the concert.

Opener "Immigrant Song" led directly into "Heartbreaker." The band paused for Plant to welcome the audience with a hearty "Good evening!" before launching into the new "Black Dog." The third album's "Since I've Been Loving You" made an appearance next, before two fourth-album cuts, "Rock and Roll" and "Stairway to Heaven" -- yes, "Stairway" was only the sixth song in a show that would last so long!

Next up was another new song -- so new that the band hadn't yet recorded it! The Electric Magic audience on Nov. 20 was treated to the first-ever sneak preview performance of "Dancing Days." This early version lacked the instrumental bridge portion that appears between the last two verses on future versions, including the one Zeppelin eventually recorded and released a year and a half later on its followup LP, Houses of the Holy.

"Going to California" from the fourth album ushered in a three-song acoustic set also featuring "That's the Way" and "Tangerine." Next was the showstopping "Dazed and Confused," during which Page's violin bow solo included an altered portion of the Bouree lute suite by Johann Sebastien Bach, which he had also teased during his guitar solo in "Heartbreaker." "Dazed" lasted about 24 minutes and was followed by the refreshingly brief "What Is and What Should Never Be" and "Celebration Day." A version of the drum solo "Moby Dick" that verged on 20 minutes in length was next, and a marathon medley of "Whole Lotta Love" and classic covers finished out Zeppelin's set on the first Electric Magic concert.

Originally, that date was the only Electric Magic show scheduled, but a high demand for tickets dictated otherwise. For a price of 75 pence apiece, tickets to the first show had gone onsale at Harlequin Records locations across England, at 11 a.m. on Nov. 5. The supply of 9,500 tickets was depleted within 54 minutes.

Ray Moss, manager of one Harlequin location, reported that lines of people were forming outside his shop the night before tickets were to go on sale. Moss said that the people in the lines were courteous. "Their behavior was quite incredible," he remarked. "Even those who could not get tickets behaved perfectly."

"We have never known such an amazing demand for tickets," said Buffalo Concert Presentations' Rikki Farr, "and that includes the Isle of Wight concerts." Farr was referring to the U.K. music festival held over three days in June 1970, featuring some of the top rock acts from all around the world -- but not Led Zeppelin.

Farr continued, "It is a sure sign of the huge following Zeppelin have in Britain. Because of this, we've decided to stage a second concert at Wembley." The statement quickly announced the date of the second night of Electric Magic; tickets were on sale Nov. 12.

Great Balls of Fire

2006-11-03T17:41:00.000-05:00

On this day in 1957, the single "Great Balls of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis was released on the Sun Records label. A fast-paced piano boogie, it went on to become a No. 1 hit in the following year. Over time, it became the artist's definitive song.

The Sun Records label, based in Memphis, Tenn., was an asset to American music. Its roster of recording artists in the 1950s boasted of such lasting stars as Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Conway Twitty and Johnny Cash. Staple songs such as Presley's "Mystery Train" and Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" certainly left an indelible mark on the next generation of musicians. The influence on Led Zeppelin can be heard on the songs "D'yer Mak'er" and "Rock and Roll," to name a few.

Evidence of this continues to play out today. Jimmy Page appears on a new album and single from Jerry Lee Lewis, both released last month. The single is a remake of the Led Zeppelin track "Rock and Roll" featuring Lewis on piano and lead vocals and Page on guitar.

The album also includes guest appearances from Rolling Stones members Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, plus Ringo Starr of the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Robbie Robertson of The Band, John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Kid Rock, Rod Stewart, Don Henley of the Eagles, plus Bluesmen Little Richard, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and more.

Some of the very same artists contributed to the 2001 tribute album, "Good Rockin' Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records." A new rendition of the Sonny Burgess track "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It" appears on the album, as covered by Page and Robert Plant, in their first recorded pairing since their tours of the mid 1990s.

John Paul Jones was also slated to appear on the Sun Records tribute. In May 2000, he recorded a cover of Big Walter "Shakey" Horton's song "Easy," along with two members of Elvis Presley's original band, guitarist Scotty Moore and drummer D.J. Fontana.

The album was released without this recording, however, which Jones said was a good track. When asked why it was not included on the final version of the album, Jones said, "Not a clue."

Since "Easy" was an instrumental, it could hardly be for its lyrical content. When "Great Balls of Fire" was released in 1957, there was suspicion that its title suggested something sexual.

Moreover, the public accused Lewis of singing immoral lyrics; sending shock waves were the words "Kiss me, baby / Feels good / Hold me, baby / I want to love you like a lover should."

"They said 'Great Balls of Fire' was pure sex," Lewis once said in an interview. "Well, it is, but it's sex in my way, and sex in my way is not dirty. It's pure. It's what I feel. Sex between a man and his wife whom God has joined together is a beautiful thing. ... Vivian Leigh said 'Great balls of fire' four or five times in 'Gone with the Wind.' I never accepted that 'Great Balls of Fire' was a vulgar record. I finally had it explained to me -- 'Kiss me baby / Feels good' -- but to me, it was still just innocent fun."

Lyrically, the song paved the way for tunes with raunchier vocals. "Whole Lotta Love" comes to mind in that category.

Special journalism edition part 2 of 2

2006-03-26T13:31:00.001-05:00

The newsletter edition published on March 26, 2006, was called the "Special journalism edition." The first part focused on some questionable reviews of Led Zeppelin concerts through the years. This second part contains some random thoughts that advance the theme of questionable journalism.

Special thanks: As I did in 2003 when this info first appeared in my newsletter, I'd like to thank Mark Brown, who is both then and now a pop music critic for the Rocky Mountain News. His archive search a few years ago turned up Thomas MacCluskey's articles on Led Zeppelin in 1970, 1972 and 1973, and an AP wire article on Led Zeppelin the newspaper carried on June 3, 1973.

Spelled how?: Would you believe that the 1970 concert review in the Rocky Mountain News spelled the name of Led Zeppelin wrong in the headline? It was correctly in the body of the article (in the first line only, then abbreviated "LZ" in all occurrences thereafter), but the headline spelled it "Led Zepelin."

In the city that hosts a national spelling bee: Fast-forward 36 years to 2006. Editors in the mainstream media are still butchering the band's name for some reason. A column in the Washington Post on Thursday, March 23, referred to the group as "Led Zepplin." It's right there in The Reliable Source, which I read almost every day. I couldn't believe my eyes.

A common error: It is a common error, actually. Click here to see the results of a Google News search for this misspelling as an exact phrase.

Teach the teacher: A few years ago, when I was sending this newsletter on a daily basis, one reader wrote me to say that although I was doing a fine job chronicling the band's history, I was always spelling the band's name wrong. The reader informed me that the correct spelling was "Led Zepplin," neglecting to cite any supporting evidence. After I read that e-mail, I remember first sighing, then laughing, then showing some friends, and finally copying and pasting the message into the following day's edition, where I printed it as a letter to the editor. That person may still be a subscriber today; I don't know!

Speaking of letters: To write to me today, don't bother using the AOL account I used to use. Please use ledzeppelinhistory-owner at yahoogroups dot com as my e-mail address.

Great concert last night: I saw British jazz/pop singer/pianist Jamie Cullum at the 9:30 club in Washington, D.C. It was one of the absolute best shows I've seen in my whole life. This assessment is mostly because of the musicianship of everybody in Jamie's band, but it is also because Jamie just comes off as so cool. Do yourself a favor, and purchase one or both of his CDs, and go check him out if he comes to your town.

In closing: Three years ago at this time, a special edition of Q magazine focusing on Led Zeppelin had just gone on sale. Its 148 pages were packed with articles about the band and rare and previously unseen photos. Dave Grohl, drummer for the Foo Fighters, provided his comments on the band, and Nick Kent interviewed Jimmy Page. Each album was discussed, along with stories from the road. Visually stunning are some previously unseen photographs of the band. The issue also included Led Zeppelin's top 50 songs as voted on in 2002 by fans. I didn't know it until I thumbed through the copy I ordered, but my name also appears in the pages; some quotes from my 2001 interview with John Paul Jones were included in a section on the scarcity of Led Zeppelin reunions. I think you can still order this special issue online with a credit card if you click here and fill out some forms.