It's generally true. Yet here we are on a Led Zeppelin forum where the singer doesn't want much to do with Led Zeppelin. There was no excuse for not including Jonesy in Plant-Page, and it just looks silly twenty years later. 30 years later, really -- Robert should have given it up after Shaken 'n Stirred bombed. As for the thread topic, there's no doubt it was Robert's problem.

Are you sure that was a positive statement? with Robert one can never be sure, especially when Lenny Kravitz was in the context. Had he said that after Jones' great production work on the Butthole Surfers album, the Diamanda Galas album or about the Merce at 90 shows at BAMA, we'd know it was positive, maybe. One can't take anything Robert says seriously.

Ha! And the Ovation guitars, the acoustic first cousins to the slappity bap yap Alembic bass. Hell, they'll even pay you to play those thing!!! Yuck

Just after the 6:00 minute mark, we have Simon Napier-Bell, the man accused of ripping off the Yardbirds. And what's all that stuffed behind glass under the liquor cabinets? A hundred and one baby dolls. The souls of all the songs he produced? Keith Relf's youth? One shudders to think what he's trying to say there. Very creepy. Here's the video that popped up after that one ... looks pretty interesting.

The wiki-page says there was a lawsuit, but I've not read that before. I'm on the lookout for the Grant book, which would solve all of these mysteries. There is a thread on here about the Grant book from a few years back but it devolves into discussion of the incident in Oakland. Grant cleaned himself up in the late 1980s and was reportedly seen with Jimmy attending a Frank Sinatra performance in London in 1989. This was apparently the first time in years Grant had been seen in public. I would tend to lean toward Jimmy being frustrated with everybody at one point or another in the 1980s, including himself, so if he and Grant were ever at odds, that didn't last. As for Richard Cole - what's said in LA should stay in LA, unless it's something good.

it starts out and remains a story about Cameron Crowe by Cameron Crowe and the love of rock n roll. If there was a grant film, it was separate from Crowe's movie. I would like to see a film based on grant's life. Those old stories about Little Richard on tour would be great fodder!

You had to be everywhere and stay everywhere for years!! They took all the LPS away in Fall of 88 and it took a while for everybody to buy not only the CD but the stuff you needed to listen to the CD. And this was during the Bush recession!!! Guns N Roses just stayed out on tour for three years while the consumers caught up. 1988-1989-1990 was probably THE worse time to release an album. There were Camelot Music storage facilities filled with good/great records hardly anybody heard. Outrider was one of those. On many levels, the industry kinda forced us (we the American consumer) into the underground, where at least we could buy LPs and trade tapes. Mainstream rock radio was shamefully bad. Not to make excuses for Jimmy, but he walked away from a market in upheaval. Anyway, we needed him to stay at home and work on the catalog.

The crowd erupts insane screaming during White Summer. And then freaks out during In My Time of Dying. There is little doubt that the hunger for Led Zeppelin is so great that there was no honest reason for not doing the Zep reunion. This is where Plant fucked up -- he's not an honest guy. Yes, a lot of Americans bought now and Zen but that's only because the album straddled the rip-off point where they took all the records out of the record stores and replaced them with CDs, so that album was sold and bought twice. But nobody gave a damn about Robert Plant's solo career by 1990 - we were fed up waiting for a led Zep reunion and too busy with our own stuff to care about anything else. It should have happened in the late 1980s. The mid-90s was too late, and not including Jones in Plant-Page was hubris. Jimmy gets it, and was trying to give the people what they badly wanted in 1988. Robert? His head has been pretty far up his arse for three decades, if not longer.

Death Wish II? I love that album -- highly underrated and underappreciated record. It was released Feb. 1982, before Pictures at Eleven later that year. I think he misses his singer, and could have found better than Chris Farlowe, but he did it all himself. On the whole I'll take Death Wish II over Pictures (which is a very lonely record, it seems to me) and Principle of Moments. And there's Coda (1982), the ARMS tour (1983, where Jimmy's playing DW II music plus instrumental Stairway, and with a new guitar sound, surrounded by all these great friends). Then we have Waiting for Jugula (great album w/ Roy Harper, 1984-85) and some folk festival dates with Roy summer of '84. The work with Roy is top notch, and I would love to have heard a next album from Jimmy and Roy. Roy lost his house in the early 1980s, so the two of them coming together was healthy and beneficial for them both. And they appear to be having fun! If we're comparing Robert and Jimmy 1982-84, I think they both seem sad and lost. Jimmy is frail, Robert healthier. Yet they both made good music, and it's a matter of taste I suppose as to whose output was better. I thoroughly enjoyed the Honeydrippers, too, and I wish Robert had involved Jimmy a little more there, though Setzer is a great substitute. But there is no substitute. I saw Robert running away from his past, from Led Zeppelin, too far; while Jimmy ... he ended up mining the past in the Firm, didn't he? But perhaps not deeply enough.

How strange that the original liner notes are wrong. It should be just said he, uh, couldn't remember, right.

Hmm. Sounds the same as the 1969 BBC live show to me. When Coda was originally released, the liner notes said it was recorded at a rehearsal, which I knew couldn't be right b/c it sounded identical to the BBC live version. That was confusing. At the time there was no DVD or anything of the RAH show, so it had to be the BBC version, or so I thought. Did he change it to RAH later on? The album notes also say "We're Gonna Groove" was recorded at Morgan Studios, but that's clearly from RAH. Guess he didn't want people to know any of it was live? EDIT NOTE - The BBC show is the complete Playhouse Theatre "One Night Stand" show originally aired Aug. 1969. Opens with Communications Breakdown, goes into ICQYB, Dazed, White Summer, You Shook Me, HMMTs. Taped it off of Westwood One or WXRT-Chicago's Sunday Night Unconcert series. You could also tape the 1971 Paris Theatre BBC concert, aired once a year or so.

Not really. Not everybody had the Japanese "Immigrant Song"/"Hey Hey" single. Or the Atlantic comp "Hey Hey" was on. I still don't understand why he didn't put it on the original Coda. I missed "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" too - there was enough room for both, and there was a near flawless version of that played in the same BBC set as "I Can't Quit You, Baby". I assume he included the Dixon blues because the playing on that is so good. Then why not White Summer, too? Never made any sense to me, whatever reason. But at least I had that on my BBC concert tapes (prized possessions in the 1980s). We shouldn't complain, I know, and he did include both songs on the first CD box set in 1990.

Well, I sure ran out and bought it. I missed "(Hey Hey) what can I do" but would rather have Coda than not have it. Bonzo's Montreux!!

The Rain Song had to be quite a monster to compose. It's a lot to remember even when you've got the music sheet in front of you. Quite the masterpiece. Also, while The Song Remains the Same seems easy enough once you've got the basics, the amount of ground Jimmy covers is remarkable. It's easy to get lost because it all has this natural, flowing drive to it, and it's just a motherload of guitar work w/ three layers - getting it down on the record could not have been easy. Originally it was just going to be an instrumental, a rolling fanfare that would lead into the Rain Song, but Robert came up with a great vocal line and the perfect lyrics. Together TSRTS and Rain song go 13:09, and we know Page brought those into the sessions and presented them to the others. They are companion pieces that open the album and were played together as one longer piece up through 1973. Altogether a High high hella achievement of composition by Page. Achilles is another masterwork which took a couple of years for Page to fully develop. It originates as that spooky minor thing he picks out during the "San Francisco"/"Woodstock" section of Dazed and Confused. He pulled that progression out of Dazed after the '75 tour and went from there, adding the rest brick by brick. He laid down all of the guitar overdubs in one marathon session. Page's playing is inspired, and I think he really outdid himself (and the rock world) on Achilles -- you can almost feel the energy draining out of him and into the wax. There is nothing easy about any of it - I'd give it a 10 on the difficult composition scale.

A half-hearted release, at best. While we would have paid double for it because it had unreleased material, it ran only 33 minutes and included the "I Can't Quit You" we had already heard from the 1969 BBC performance, which many fans had taped off the radio (Westwood One broadcast it a few times in the early 1980s). It just made everybody sadder about the death of Bonham and the band.

There is a youtube video of Plant with his current band playing "Going to California" which I won't post here because it's just too pathetic. He must really hate Jonesy, though I can't imagine why. Now that the thread is back on the original topic, if the four members of Led Zep had survived the 1980-81 touring (a very big IF), there is another LZ album and probably a live album. That takes us into 1983, and by then Robert has put together a separate organization, has his own band and puts out a solo album and does his own tour. Free of Jimmy and Peter, Robert doesn't come back to Led Zeppelin for many years, no matter how much Bonzo begs and pleads -- not until he realizes that nobody really cares about his solo career and there are 50 million cds to sell in America. We get Led Zeppelin instead of Plant-Page, and then a decade of no Led Zeppelin. Then some reunion shows and the remastered catalog with the extras, and that's that. The only things that really would change is the incredulous decision to not let Jonesy in on the Plant - Page project, and, of course Bonzo alive and well. Page on Plant's proposal to work together on an acoustic project:

Part 2 and Part 3 of the jam. This goes on for 25 minutes or so ...

Wow. Here's description of it from the woman who did Jaco's hair that day. I had no idea this ever happened until you posted it!!! https://books.google.com/books?id=iXDAtco1x5YC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=fannie+mae+jam+jaco+and+jimmy+page&source=bl&ots=K7IMG4_CLZ&sig=5M3oR7ejV450A4jrd1dK1COAGfs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5y8e8w7TSAhVB_IMKHWe2AkYQ6AEIKzAE#v=onepage&q=fannie mae jam jaco and jimmy page&f=false

Indeed!!. Some of those No Quarter solos '75 on are text book dissonant experiments. He was doing that on Trampled Underfoot and a few other things as well. Even at the very end, his Whole Lotta Love soloing was a template for the noise guitar that Sonic Youth and Live Skull would develop a few years later (they would never admit it). Page changed his style in '74 and gave us this wholly new dissonant landscape. Many people prefer the more palatable pentatonic jamming he was doing prior, but to me he truly became the most interesting guitarist of his generation when he switched things up. I mean, the only Rush song Page is on record saying he liked is Villa Strangiato, Rush's most jazz-tinged song, and the one they say they have a tough time remembering how to play as a band. Jimmy was a post-rock jazz noise guitarist from 1974 on, pure genius in my book.

There's jazz feel in the No Quarter solo, and in Tea for One. There are also jazz-rock statements on the Death Wish II record. I think Page would have been keen to play with Miles, not sure at all about how Miles would have felt about that.

I agree. In fact, I think some of Hazel's playing, like on the Maggot Brain solo, is very Miles-inspired. Miles loved Machine Gun by Hendrix, the idea of the guitar as living theatre, imitating the sounds of guns and violence. Page had Dazed and Confused in that "theatrical" vein, plus the No Quarter jam, which is very jazz-rock. I love the idea of Page as kind of the Miles Davis of rock in the 1970s and they had a lot in common drug-wise by the late-1970s, so it could have worked if Page was willing to defer to Miles the way Miles would have wanted. But it's so much easier to picture him doing something with Hazel.

Plant's interview personality can be really chaotic. Half the time he's joking, the other half of the time he's not remembering or contradicting things he's said in previous years. It's really difficult to gauge whether he's being sincere. Our latest example was when he blamed "the Capricorns" for a reunion not happening and said "I'm not doing anything in 2014." He didn't mean any of it, not really, and when the Capricorns tried to follow up, they got nowhere and he later told interviewers that he would do it if it was acoustic, or something to that effect. It's mostly bullocks. Charlie Rose had it right when he just dismissed him and said Plant was being "too ... something." Plant is a historian's nightmare. But is there a better rock singer? Page and Jones can make a good album together whenever they want, but they need Plant to make it great. As for the drummer, I'm not sure Jason is the right guy. I mean, I like Black Country Communion and I think it's far and away Jason's best work. That's a good band. Some have even called it the ghost of the Led Zeppelin reunion sessions (and there's some of that running through Them Crooked Vultures). But i have a hard time putting Plant into that context. Would the late, great Michael Lee not have been the better drummer for the project? In any case, there was no reunion record because Plant wouldn't make it happen. It seems silly a decade later to be blaming Page or other reasons. They left a great album on the session room floor, much like the Yardbirds did in 1967-1968. And wasn't this Yardbirds album (much of which is out there in one form or another) going to be the next project for Page?

This happened Aug. 8th. The Judge who allowed the suit to go forward (Klausner) ruled that Led Zeppelin & Warner/Chappell get no compensation from the Wolfe Trust for legal fees. I suppose if he had granted the legal fees he would have been acknowledging that he made a mistake letting the suit move ahead to the jury. The lawsuit was "not frivolous", Klausner ruled, and there was no evidence the Wolfe Trust "harbored nefarious motives." http://www.vcstar.com/news/389540991.xhtml - "Led Zeppelin loses fight for legal fees in Stairway case" - Ventura Star, 08/08/16. But he had some choice words for Malofiy: "Throughout the course of litigation, plaintiff's counsel demonstrated a tenuous grasp of legal ethics and a rudimentary understanding of courtroom decorum," Klausner wrote.

Ok, so there's a U.S. nonprofit financials database called Guidestar. Anyone can set up an account and search basic financial information of nonprofit organizations and trusts all over the country. It's very comprehensive, as it includes every organization that has filed Form 990 tax form with the U.S. government. Want to know how much in assets Willie Dixon's Blues Heaven has laying around? It's on Guidestar, as well as the salary taken by Willie's daughter (it's not much) and some other information. Blues Heaven operates a museum/club where concerts and fundraisers are held, has assets of over $1 million, and does other work promoting the blues and helping blues artists recoup royalties, etc. In other words, the foundation does what it says it's set up to do. Run a search for Randy Craig Wolfe Trust on Guidestar and you get nothing. Search for Randy Wolfe Trust you get nothing. Search for Randy Wolfe you get nothing. Search "Randy Craig" all over the U.S. you get nothing. Search Pennsylvania for every nonprofit with the name "Randy" attached to it and you get nothing related to anyone named Wolfe or Wolf. Search Pennsylvania for organizations with the name Wolf and you get many related to wolf preservation and a number of other foundations set up by people named Wolfe or Wolf but none of them named Randy. The Randy Craig Wolfe Trust does not appear to exist as a charitable organization operating anywhere in the U.S. or in Pennsylvania where it is allegedly based. The validity of the trust was brought up at trial in a motion by Led Zep lawyers but was denied by the judge. This did not necessarily mean the motion had no merit, as it seemed the judge was reluctant to chuck the case on any technical motions (though he certainly could have on a couple of points). It would seem The Randy Craig Wolfe Trust is operating in the dark until it can pull some funding from ... oh, Led Zeppelin of course --- which means this entire charade appears to be an elaborate scam by Skidmore and the unfortunately named Malofiy, with the support of Wolfe's sisters, to shake down Led Zeppelin, known for settling its blues debts quietly and out of court.

Maybe. But "You Shook Me" remains that little thing I don't like about Led Zeppelin 1. It's showy and overblown, Beck's version on Truth is more interesting, and they dropped it from their live sets before "I Can't Quit You". What I like the least about it is it's the track critics honed in on and hammered in the reviews, and that it upset Beck. Jimmy might have saved himself some grief simply by finding something else to fill out the album. "Travelling Riverside Blues" and "We're Gonna Groove" and "Think About It" would have been good choices. "Glimpes II" would have been great. I've always wondered why they didn't do a new version of "Think About It". Anyway, this is my one and only meager complaint about the greatest band in rock history.