Jimmy Page:
The six stringed Warrior is no longer here for us to admire the spell he could weave around our mortal emotions. Jeff could channel music from the ethereal. His technique unique. His imaginations apparently limitless. Jeff I will miss you along with your millions of fans.
Jeff Beck Rest in Peace.
A previously unheard recording of Led Zeppelin playing “Since I’ve Been Loving You” in 1970 was posted online.
A previously unheard recording of Led Zeppelin performing “Since I’ve Been Loving You” on April 12, 1970 in Bloomington, Minnesota was published online.
The snippet is the second song to emerge from the show, and was published by Mark McFall following his interview with the song’s taper Michael Gillespie on his Zepfan podcast. You can listen to that episode on Spotify here and on Apple Podcasts here.
Jimmy Page:
I’m sad to hear today of the passing of Wilko Johnson, the Dr Feelgood guitarist and singer/songwriter.
I saw Wilko perform at Koko in Camden in May 2013 and the atmosphere was electric. This show was originally billed as his farewell tour (followed by his album Going Back Home with Roger Daltry) but, thankfully, he continued performing and thrilling crowds until recently.
I really admired him, and we’ll all miss him. RIP Wilko.
This is the announcement we never wanted to make, & we do so with a very heavy heart: Wilko Johnson has died. He passed away at home on Monday 21st November. Thank you for respecting the family’s privacy at this very sad time. RIP Wilko Johnson.
(Image: Leif Laaksonen) pic.twitter.com/1cRqyi9b9X— Wilko Johnson (@wilkojohnson) November 23, 2022
As many of you know, we have cancer doctor Charlie Chan and surgeon Emmanuel Huguet to thank for the extra years Wilko was able to enjoy.
Emmanuel Huguet: ‘I feel honoured to have known Wilko. He was uplifting and life enhancing for me. Like so many other people, I loved him.’ pic.twitter.com/gzYj6KMNld
— Wilko Johnson (@wilkojohnson) November 23, 2022
Led Zeppelin
Presence
Released: March 31, 1976
Recorded: November–December 1975
Led Zeppelin’s seventh studio album Presence wasn’t the easiest to make. Robert Plant was recovering after the August 1975 car crash in Crete that had left him with a serious arm and leg injuries, and the band’s touring schedule had been pitched into turmoil.
The show had to keep rolling, and the following month the band gathered for writing sessions in Malibu Colony, 30 miles south of Los Angeles, before recording commenced at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany.
Over the years Presence has frequently been cited as Jimmy Page’s favorite album, presumably because, as with Led Zeppelin I, he was fully in control. With Plant’s input restricted, there were, as Tight But Loose editor Dave Lewis says, “no Mellotrons, acoustic guitars or keyboards of any kind – no Jonesy! It was all Jimmy. No one else really got a look in.”
Below, Jimmy Page recalls the recording of Presence.
A lot of people presume that Presence is your favorite album
Jimmy Page:
I don’t know why they think it’s my favorite album; I don’t have any one favorite album because they all mean different things from the whole journey of Led Zeppelin. Presence was recorded in real stressful circumstances; Robert was in plaster with his leg, and we didn’t know what the outcome was going to be of all that at the time.
It’s a very dark album, it’s really intense.
That’s the one where it took three weeks to record and do overdubs. We did it in the Musicland Studios, Munich and after us were the Rolling Stones. I called them up and asked if I could get a couple more days, because they were busy trying out various guitars, and they said OK. The tracks were done, and Robert’s vocals were done, and I was going to do what I had normally done and still do – the overdubs and production.
There was me and the engineer Keith Harwood, and whoever woke first would get the other up and we’d get straight into the studio and do the guitar overlays. It was the same with the mixing. Jagger was staying in the same hotel, and I went up to see him to say thanks for letting us use the studio in their downtime. He said, “What have you done?” I said, “I’ve done an album; do you want to hear some?” I put on Nobody’s Fault But Mine, which he sort of knew as a blues song and he was quite startled by it.
Although doing an album in three weeks was an exception, I never worked slowly, nor did anyone else. We were all very fast and to the point. If we were recording something and it wasn’t happening, we would stop that number and do something else, there was no point laboring it. That’s something I brought with me from the session days – you know when the spark’s there and you know when it’s gone and there’s no point proceeding, especially if you have other numbers to do.
When Presence came out, everyone thought it was the direction Zeppelin would be taking in the future.
Yeah, for example, Tea For One is exceptional. It was to the point, recorded in a couple of takes. Robert’s vocals are tremendous. He was doing that his leg was in a cast, miles away from home.
Weren’t you particularly out of it during the recording of Presence?
I was into it. [laughs] I was seriously focused. You don’t make music like that in such a short amount time falling about in the street drunk. You do it when you’re one hundred percent focused.
This interview originally appeared in Classic Rock‘s Led Zeppelin Special, in November 2007.
Led Zeppelin began their North American tour in Vancouver, Canada on 19th August 1971 but started in the US at the LA Forum on this day (8/21/71) – this being the first of two nights.
I remember a standing ovation from a good percentage of the audience after Stairway to Heaven – this was quite remarkable as we were touring this material from an album not to be released until three months later.
Photo © Chuck Boyd, 1971
Immigrant Song, Heartbreaker, Since I’ve Been Loving You, Black Dog, Dazed and Confused, Stairway to Heaven, Celebration Day, That’s the Way, Going to California, What Is and What Should Never Be, Whole Lotta Love (medley incl. Let That Boy Boogie, I’m Moving On, That’s Alright Mama, Mess of Blues, Got a Lot of Living to Do, Honey Bee), Weekend, Rock and Roll, Communication Breakdown, Organ solo / Thank You.
Led Zeppelin’s 1971 North American Tour was the seventh concert tour of North America by the English rock band. The tour commenced on August 7 and concluded on 17 September 1971. It included two warm-up shows in Montreux, Switzerland.
This tour took place just prior to the release of the band’s fourth album. The band had hoped to release this album in time for the tour, but various delays prevented this from occurring.
This was the longest break that the band had from touring North America to date, with their last tour there having taken place almost a year previously. During the interim, the hard rock band Grand Funk Railroad had asserted its influence on the American music market, and Led Zeppelin was keen to re-establish their live reputation through this stint of concert performances.
Before this tour, Robert Plant shaved off his beard, a style which he and the rest of his bandmates had adopted the year before. John Paul Jones followed suit a month later. However, Jones would later grow a beard in late 1972 and keep it until March 1973, and then have a mustache for part of the 1973 North American Tour, and also have a beard from late 1975 to early 1977.
It was on this tour that the notorious “Folding Chair Incident” took place. On August 26, at the show in Houston, several fans threw folding chairs at the stage in protest to what were perceived as overpriced tickets. No one was injured, and the show continued without any more interruptions.
On this tour, the band grossed $1 million.
On July 29, 1973, Led Zeppelin played the last night of Madison Square Garden in New York. This was the final night of our American tour and here at MSG recording and filming the concert.
I was informed as we were on the side stage just before going on to perform that there had been a robbery at the Drake Hotel where the safety deposit box had been relieved of cash the previous night. Somehow all this manifested in even more passion in that night’s performance.
Here I am with Eddie Kramer, who handled the engineering on this and subsequent evenings.
July 29, 1973
New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
Setlist
Rock and Roll, Celebration Day, (Bring It On Home intro) Black Dog, Over the Hills and Far Away, Misty Mountain Hop, Since I’ve Been Loving You, No Quarter, The Song Remains the Same, Rain Song, Dazed and Confused (incl. San Francisco), Stairway to Heaven, Moby Dick, Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love (incl. Let That Boy Boogie), The Ocean, Organ solo ~ Thank You.
In 1973 you recorded the band at Madison Square Garden for the ultimate release of “The Song Remains the Same”. Do you recall that evening?
Eddie Kramer:
Ah yes! This was toward the end of their tour and Robert’s voice was not exactly perfect, and I think they had to go back in and punch in a couple of phrases here and there. But I thought the performance was bloody good. I think the filming was a bit of a problem for them. They had to go back in and recreate some of the shots that weren’t captured correctly. It was tough, it was a tough film for them to make. Certainly, I think the performances are great.
We ended up mixing it at Electric Lady Studios, and then we had to take it to California to do the postproduction for the film. It was very difficult because there were unions involved and I couldn’t touch the board, so it was never mixed quite the way I would have liked it to be.
We were going to do it in four-track surround sound, but the film company said “No, we can’t do that. It’s going to cost too much money.” Sure enough, The Who came out with their four-track surround sound film.
Variety (August 1973):
Led Zeppelin’s U.S. tour, which wound up at Madison Square Garden, N.Y. Sunday (29th), shattered attendance records, many previously held by the Beatles and grossed some $4,000,000. Latter figure for the 33 dates is unofficial as the British quartet began withholding such info after breaking Beatles marks to launch the tour in Atlanta and Tampa.
The Garden concert was the third consecutive sellout at the arena, where a $7.50 top usually means a $130,000 gross potential.
Ritchie Blackmore: John Bonham would always tell Zeppelin: “I’m leaving the band. I can’t go back to America again. I can’t do that.” So, Peter Grant (Led Zeppelin’s manager) used to go, “Hey, come to the garage, I want to show you something.” He’d go, “What?” They’d go to his garage and there’s a new Lamborghini, just what Bonzo wanted.
John Bonham:
“Wow, look at that.”
Peter Grant:
“That’s yours for coming to America.”
John Bonham:
“Well, yeah, alright.”
And that’s how he kept coming. But there were a couple of moments there where he ended up crying because he wanted to go home. He didn’t want to be in America, missed his wife, didn’t want to be in a big band. He wanted to be in a small band in Birmingham, just playing. He didn’t care about all that fame.
John Bonham:
“Sometimes touring gets a bit wearing, but that’s only because I’m married with kids at home. I’ve never gotten pissed off with the actual touring. I enjoy playing – I could play every night. It’s just being away that gets you down sometimes. I still enjoy going through different towns that we haven’t been to before. But you get fed up with places like New York because they’re not interesting anymore.”
“I’ve got worse. I have terribly bad nerves all the time. Once we start into ‘Rock And Roll’ I’m fine. I just can’t stand sitting around, and I worry about playing badly – and if I do then I’m really pissed off. If I play well, I feel fine.
Everybody in the band is the same, and each has some little thing they do before we go on, like pacing about or lighting a cigarette. It’s worse at festivals. You might have to sit around for a whole day and you daren’t drink because you’ll get tired and blow the gig. So you sit drinking tea in a caravan with everybody saying, “Far out, man.””
We once did six tours of America in 15 months.
How does Robert Plant truly feel about Led Zeppelin’s iconic song, “Stairway to Heaven?”
Robert Plant:
It’s not about it being my favorite or not. It has nothing to do with that, really. It belongs to a particular time. If I had been involved in the instrumentation, I would feel that it’s a magnificent piece of music, which has its own character and personality. It even speeds up in a similar way to pieces of more highbrow music.
My contribution was to write lyrics and to sing a song about fate and something very British, almost abstract, but coming out of the mind of a twenty-three-year-old guy. And it landed in the years and the era of twenty-three-year-old guys. I think as time goes on, you may find another period of your life has got a little bit more substance or is more relative later on down the line.
During an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio show in 2019, Plant said the following about “Stairway to Heaven”:
Of course, it was a good song. The construction of the song, the actual musical construction is very, very good. It’s one of those moments that really can stand without a vocal – and, in fact, it will stand again without a vocal, I’m sure, because it’s a fine, fine piece of music.
Lyrically, now, I can’t relate to it, because it was so long ago. I would have no intention ever to write along those abstract lines anymore. I look at it and I tip my hat to it, and I think there are parts of it that are incredible. The way that Jimmy [Page] took the music through, and the way that the drums reached almost climaxed and then continued. It’s a very beautiful piece. But lyrically, now, and even vocally, I go, “I’m not sure about that.”
This is a full in bloom interview with Dax Callner (the kid from the Twisted Sister videos).
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW VIA THE EMBEDDED YOUTUBE CLIP BELOW. You can access the video directly on YouTube @ this location.
DESCRIPTION:
Dax talks about the time Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Whitesnake’s David Coverdale jammed with Poison.
Paul Rodgers: Watch the premiere of “All Right Now” from the final date of Paul’s Free Spirit UK tour filmed May 28, 2017 at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
“All Right Now” is a song by English rock band Free. It originally appeared on the band’s third studio album Fire and Water (1970), which Free recorded on the Island Records label, formed by Chris Blackwell. Released as the album’s second single, “All Right Now” hit number 2 on the UK Singles Chart and number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In July 1973, the song was re-released, reaching number 15 on the UK chart.
“All Right Now” was a number 1 hit in over 20 territories and was recognized by ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) in 1990 for garnering 1,000,000 plus radio plays in the U.S. by late 1989. In 2006, the BMI London awards included a Million Air award for 3 million air plays of “All Right Now” in the USA. The song also remains as a staple of classic rock radio.
Hours of great talk, laughs and dinner with my friend Jimmy in London today. I love the times we spend together. He was blown away by photos of our full stage and thrilled for Download. I had to say “Jimmy, you’re at the foundation of everything we do.”
Heritage Auctions: 2019 Sundragon Limited Edition Signed Jimmy Page Guitar Amplifier, Serial #15/50.
Limited Edition run of 50 hand-built amplifiers. This is number 15 of the 50 Sundragon amps signed by Jimmy Page. Designed by Jimmy Page and Perry Margouleff. Built by renowned amp builder Mitch Colby. This amp was inspired by the sounds heard on Led Zeppelin 1 and other songs. This is a new/mint condition example together with the footswitch, t-shirt, original packaging, and shipping box. This is a highly collectible amp. Original soft case and box included. Condition: Mint.
Led Zeppelin News: Jimmy Page says he’s “working on various paths and routes of projects” –
Speaking to Classic Rock Magazine for its 300th issue, Page was asked how he has been occupying himself over the past couple of years.
Interviewer Ian Fortnam told Page that “online forums” show fans are missing Page’s output, adding that “a new record would be a great reward for living through the past few years of madness.”
Well, I really can’t put on record what the new record is,” Page said. “I’ll leave it to your imagination. The thing is there are so many ways I could present myself right now. Actually, not right now. I’ll rephrase that: within a space of time [laughs]. I’ve come across all these various projects I did. And one of the things I did recently is listen to a recording I made of the Marrakesh folk festival, with the tribes coming in from all over Morocco, in 1975. It’s fascinating. Tribal stuff passed on from father to son and kept alive because of the folk festivals, Essaouira, and all the rest. Where there are people who want to hear the Berbers. I certainly do, it’s good for the soul.”
The full interview with Page is available to read in the 300th issue of Classic Rock Magazine, which you can purchase through this link.
Jimmy Page says he’s “working on various paths and routes of projects” https://t.co/UlQpn750el
— Led Zeppelin News (@ledzepnews) April 8, 2022
Robert Plant: Watch the new video for ‘Searching For My Love,’ the fifth track taken from the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss album, ‘Raise The Roof.’
Jimmy Page: On this day, in 1975, Physical Graffiti by Led Zeppelin was released 🤘
Most of the titles were recorded with the Headley Grange experience; for example, the drums for Kashmir were recorded in the hall – the same location as When The Levee Breaks.
It was an ambitious cover but then so was the music. I had contacted John Kosh Associates and was dealing with Peter Corriston; the idea of having the building was put to them, having the windows that would show various images appearing in them depending on how you replaced the internal parts, the albums, and the information sleeves.
It was an idea that was a direct follow-on for me from the third album, where we had a wheel with information that showed up in various cut-outs. However, all of the detail was never shown in those windows so on this I wanted to be really precise.
This time there were some marvelous images to include in those windows. I think this cover is absolutely extraordinary, and they just really delivered the most amazing package. It was a wonderful graphic image. A lot of people say it’s their favorite album because they get to access so many areas and moods within the group. It is a phenomenal album, so it needed a phenomenal package, in a very dominant fashion.
Swipe (BELOW) to explore the original artwork for the album cover taken by legendary photographer Elliott Erwitt, as featured in the official Led Zeppelin book – out now on ReelArtPress.
Jimmy Page: I was surprised to be nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Rock Performance for the track Writes of Winter from the Outrider album and, on this day in 1989, the awards took place.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t win – but it had been the first Grammy nomination that I had received – and that included the work in Led Zeppelin.
Released: June 19, 1988
The album peaked @ #26 on the Billboard 200 and was certified GOLD, for selling in excess of 500,000 copies in the US alone, on August 23, 1988.
