Review from the Financial Times:- Robert Plant and the Band of Joy, London By Ludovic Hunter-Tilney Published: September 5 2010 17:53 | Last updated: September 5 2010 17:53 How many of the great names from rock's late 1960s/early 1970s golden age still have their mojo? How many are still making good music? I can think of only two. One is Bob Dylan. The other is Robert Plant. The Led Zeppelin frontman is 62; paunchier than in his prime, face creased with lines, but with the same luxuriant tumble of hair. At the Forum he resembled a shaggy mammoth gently swaying to some potent prehistoric groove. Except this wasn't Led Zep's dawn-of-time heavy rock. Instead banjo, pedal steel guitar, double bass and songs about Jesus pointed in an even more venerable direction: to old-fashioned country music and rockabilly. Plant's last solo LP, Raising Sand, winner of Grammy album of the year in 2009, was a collaboration with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss. His new album, Band of Joy, out next week, continues the Americana theme, with equally rewarding results. It teams him with the Nashville-based country veteran Buddy Miller and country singer Patty Griffin, both of whom joined him on stage at the Forum.Band of Joy was the name of Plant's first band, a psychedelic outfit he formed with John Bonham before both joined Led Zeppelin in 1968. This new incarnation neatly melds Plant's blues-rock past with his interest in the wider world of US roots music. The set's two-hour tour of new songs, gospel covers, Plant's solo material and Led Zeppelin numbers wasn't completely smooth. Griffin's vocals were too low in the mix and the chemistry between her and Plant sparked infrequently, as on "Central Two-O-Nine", a Lightnin' Hopkins song rearranged for banjo. That chemistry will surely come with more time on stage together, for Plant and his Band of Joy otherwise clicked impressively. Miller on guitar brought a roadhouse stomp to the songs, bridging the worlds of hard rock and classic Americana with distorted twangs, swampy blues riffs and no-nonsense solos. Daryl Scott on steel guitar and banjo added country touches as deftly as a landscape painter. Plant's vocals have grown furry with time, but also warmer. His smile after delivering an "amen" in a rumbling cover of the gospel song "Twelve Gates to the City" suggested ironic distance from the material's religiosity, but he sang with passion and commitment. Led Zep songs fitted seamlessly in the set. The banjo part in "Gallows Pole" traced connections between English and Appalachian folk, while "Rock and Roll" was transformed into electrifying rockabilly: a rousing conclusion to the set. Plant's refusal to tour with Led Zeppelin after their one-off 2007 concert frustrated many, but he was right to do so. One of the last still-glowing links with rock's golden age isn't ready for the museum yet. () Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.

At the time, she was a performer with a 'big future ahead of her' .

I seemed to recall from years ago that Jimmy had a relationship with warbling chanteuse and Bowie afficiando, Dana Gillespie. So, I searched, and yes, they collaborated (in more ways that one ) on some recordings:- '... Some of her recordings as a teenager fell into the teen pop category, such as the 1966 single "Thank You Boy", produced by Jimmy Page who she also had a relationship with.' Source:- http://community.liv...?thread=1231828 Apparently, he played on the title track of her 1968 album, 'Foolish Seasons'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYp_vx4HyAE

Is this concert going to go ahead at all? You would think that by this date, there would be more publicity about the event - it's not that far away. I'd prefer it if Jimmy didn't take part - this kind of thing is more like Brian May's territory.

The London Evening Standard gives a great review:- Robert Plant is a king on the country road Joy by name and a joy by nature: Robert Plant By Rick Pearson 03.09.10 If only more musicians would grow old like Robert Plant. Acknowledging that heavy rock is best left to the kids­ (regardless of how brilliant that Led Zeppelin reunion was), the 62-year-old has retired the leather trousers, buttoned up the shirt and embraced the more stately environs of country-rock. His collaboration with Alison Krauss on 2007’s Raising Sands earned him six Grammy Awards and his re-formation of Band of Joy is a similar triumph. The group, which Plant started with Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham but now includes country singer Patty Griffin and legendary guitarist Buddy Miller, have a self-titled album out later this month and came to the HMV Forum for “our first concert for 43 years in this town”. Plant still stalks the stage with the microphone stand like a man searching for gold with a metal detector but played a convincing country crooner for this two-hour show of highlights old and new. A cover of Richard Thompson’s House of Cards was wrapped in warm harmonies from his all-singing band, while All The King’s Horses was decorated with Darrell Scott’s undulating pedal-steel guitar figures. Elsewhere, Plant strapped on a washboard for the knee-slapping rockabilly of Central Two-O-Nine. Thrilling versions of Gallows Pole and Rock and Roll, however, proved that he could still call on that air-raid siren of a vocal when needed and is choosing the country road by choice rather than necessity. A joy by name and a joy by nature.

Review in today's Sun newspaper:- "LEGENDARY LED ZEPPELIN frontman ROBERT PLANT unveiled his new country/blues/rockabilly outfit BAND OF JOY to 300 UK fans in a disused church on Wednesday night - and I was there to soak it up. Frustratingly, everyone was just getting into it after five songs when he called it a day - save for an a cappella I Bid You Goodnight. The new stuff is a mix of roots music played by expert musicians presided over by Robert, still boasting that mane of curly hair and one of the most versatile voices in the business. Standout tracks were Monkey and Angel Dance. Guitarist BUDDY MILLER delivered breathtaking Nashville sounds and country singer PATTY GRIFFIN's harmonies were gorgeous. The songs won't satisfy old Led Zep fans who crave another reunion - but it's proper, quality music. "

Another review, with video footage:- http://www.beehiveci...of-joy-gig4567/

Steve, I am sure the lads also used to frequent the Golden Lion pub in Fulham. I think the pub has some connection with Zep and their roadies.

I don't know if any of you remember the tragedy of Free's own guitarist, Paul Kossoff - a death which was apparently drugs related. I believe 'Wishing Well' was written with Koss in mind.

Paul Rodgers Says John Bonham's Death Influenced His Decision to Quit Bad Company http://www.spinnermu...d-company-free/ A couple of years after Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham died a 'Shooting Star' type of death, you left your own band to be with your family. How did his death influence that decision? It influenced me very much. But I was ready for it, anyway. I was ready to come off the road, and I could sense the feeling that we were just flying a little too high and getting a little too crazy, and something had to give along those lines. It happened so many times before -- that was really the inspiration for the song 'Shooting Star.' John was such a lovely guy. It was such a sad thing to lose him as a friend and for the world to lose such an amazing talent. Because I do think he was probably one of the greatest rock 'n' roll drummers that ever lived. So it was really a blow. And it was a harsh taste of reality. So I decided I needed some time to live some life. But I never ever got very far away from music. I built a studio in the house and just continued recording. And before I knew it, Jimmy was coming around, and we were writing songs, the Firm was born and we were back on the road again.

Dandu, I have an update to my earlier post. This evening (Saturday), I subscribed to the Sunday Times for their 24 hour access deal in order to watch the video which accompanies the Sunday Times 22/08 interview. The end of the online magazine has been amended by the ST to show that the book is indeed £445, and amongst the online comments, one of their staff has apologised for the error. There are, however, some comments from highly displeased fans who had contacted the ST in the belief that they would get the book at the lower price. BTW, I have put a transcript of Jimmy's video interview on the thread about the ST article.

This is a transcript I've made of the video relating to the magazine feature. I've had to transcribe it because, for the life of me, I can't get the damn video copied. It doesn't read too smoothly as I have had to take down verbatim what Jimmy was saying. I like the bit at the end when he talks about his hair. Sunday Times Magazine 22 August 2010 Turning the Page In a rare video interview Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin guitar hero, talks us through his colourful career on-stage and behind-the-scenes "...I'll do a biography/autobiography, but I want to do a photographic one. The first photograph in there I'm a choirboy, for heavensake, but i'm actually just at the point when I'm just picking up playing guitar. The choirmaster rememberd me bringing the guitar to choir practice. I probably got there a lot earlier when I was playing guitar outside the vestry, or whatever. But, em, that he remembered me taking it and wanting to tune it up to the organ. It goes through very early groups that I was in when I lived at Epsom, to being headhunted up to London to play in a band and then going to art college, and then coming out of art college to do studio work and recording sessions with well know artists. Then the Yardbirds. Then it goes through to Led Zeppelin. Then it goes from that to a really historic joining of myself, Eric - Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, when we did a charity concert for Ronnie Lane, who had multiple sclerosis, and it was an Action For Research into MS., and we all came together to do that. It's got hundreds of images in it. I meant there's about 60 photographers involved as well over the years. Six/seven hundred images in it. To tie it together, I sort of threaded it together with annotations and small amounts of copy, just so that, you know, you can see the chameleon like aspect of it. And at the end of it, I sort of dye my hair silver, which is quite interesting! It's an interesting sort of career move!!!" I have attached to this item the photograph which was shot by Scarlet from the magazine article. Photograph Copyright Scarlet Page 2010.

Thanks, It makes sense. The band used to frequent that particular pub. Also, the Swan Song office was down that end of the King's Road.

Zedlep, Thanks for sharing this experience with us. It's like a dream come true . Which pub was it? What time of the day was it?

Steve, you are an amazing collector and archivist. Perhaps, if you go ahead with the purchase, you would be kind enough to share the details of the item with us here.

Dandu, I put the text of the Sunday Times interview on the 'News' forum yesterday afternoon. At the end of the article, the following was stated:- "The book Jimmy Page (Genesis Publications, Pounds 395) is published in September in a signed limited edition of 2,500. It is available, with free p&p, at The Sunday Times Bookshop. Tel: 0845 2712 135". I then expressed my concern for people who had already ordered some months ago and had paid postage and packaging charges. I have tried to find the book in the online Times book section, but it seems to only feature the likes of the George Case book. I am not certain, but I suspect that to get access to the Sunday Times Bookshop referred to above, you may have to subscribe to their site. I know that if you want access to the video of the Sunday Times interview, you have to subscribe. Or perhaps you have to order using the phone number which was given.

With Jimmy's rate of progress, he should ask for his job back with Red E Lewis and the Redcaps

Here is a Times UK article written after the sale was withdrawn. I have included it here because, although it covers rockers' art acquisitions in general, it talks about Jimmy as a collector. A rocker's best friend is his dealer The Times (London); Aug 17, 2010; Stephen Dalton; p. 51 Full Text: (Copyright © Times Newspapers Limited 2010) The long love affair between rock music and visual art has taken a bizarre twist with news that the Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page may have given four early sketches by the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais to his late aide and chauffeur, Rick Hobbs. Now the sketches have been withdrawn from auction at late notice, possibly after Page himself intervened -- only deepening the mystery. It would come as no great surprise if Page turns out to be the source of the Millais sketches. The rocker has long been known as a cultured man of letters and keen collector of Victoriana. In addition, Millais himself was something of a rock-star figure in the 19th-century art scene, partly for his groundbreaking treatment of social and religious subjects, but chiefly for his adulterous love affair with the critic John Ruskin's wife Effie, whom he later married. More striking is just how prominent the relationship between pop fame and art has become since Page's stadium rocking heyday, with galleries and auction houses wooing the pop pound in these lean economic times. The salerooms of London and New York no longer attract just the mega-rich Old Masters of rock but a younger generation of pop performers including Kylie Minogue, Geri Halliwell, Alison Goldfrapp, Matt Bellamy of Muse and more. Robbie Williams has reportedly bought several Warhols, while Noel and Liam Gallagher have snapped up silkscreen prints by the former Beatles favourite Peter Blake. America's royal couple of pop, Jay-Z and Beyonce, have also amassed a large private collection including works by Damien Hirst and Richard Prince. Privately, some gallery owners and art-world insiders dismiss celebrity collectors as shallow dilettantes with more money than sense. But to write off these famous clients as philistines is to misunderstand the long kinship between rock and art, which have been engaged in a mutual exchange of glamour and gravitas ever since Tommy Steele bought his first Lowry. Given British pop's artschool tradition, from Page and his 1960s peers John Lennon and Pete Townshend, to Pulp and Franz Ferdinand, it makes sense that many musicians return to their first love when the royalty cheques start rolling in. "There's no reason why one would hold them in any less regard because of what they do," says Sam Chatterton Dickson of the Haunch of Venison gallery in London. "One often finds rock stars have come from an art background -- Bryan Ferry famously went to art school. Brian Eno is a very highly educated and very erudite guy and is a visual artist himself." Ferry is certainly one of British rock's most prominent collectors. The suave singer studied at Newcastle University under the Pop Art pioneer Richard Hamilton, and his band Roxy Music were something of a Pop Art statement themselves.Yet it was to an earlier chapter of art history that Ferry turned when he began making serious money in the mid 1970s. In keeping with his impeccably dressed 1930s playboy image, Ferry favours British art from the high Modernist period, including Bloomsbury group associates Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Percy Wyndham Lewis. He also owns an extensive selection of Victorian portraits, including a Sickert. In Junethisyear,thedapper crooner exhibited his collection in London, but confessed he longer buys much art because "I've run out of walls." Other prolific collectors include EltonJohn, who owns canvases byMagritte, Picasso, Warhol and more. He also has a work by the former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, Bacon & Egg, given to him by Lilly Allen. "I'm very into my art," said Allen at the time, "I wish I could paint but I'm rubbish." Madonna collects modern and Surrealist art, paying $1 million in 1987 for Fernand Leger's Les Deux Bicyclettes. She has since acquired about 300 pictures, including works by Picasso, Salvador Dali, Tamara de Lempicka, Man Ray, Cindy Sherman and two by Frida Kahlo. The singer's public obsession with Kahlo has been credited with boosting the profile of the proto-feminist Mexican icon -- and, by extension, the value of her own investment. Perhaps a more surprising art lover is Lars Ulrich, the drummer with the thrash-metal titans Metallica. Partly because of his Danish roots, Ulrich was initially drawn to the CoBrA group, a neo-primitive collective who worked in Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam in the early 1950s. This led him to more contemporary work in a similar neo-Expressionist vein, notably a prized piece by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Ulrich once compared the joy of contemplating his private collection to "hanging out backstage with Kid Rock". But when marriage and fatherhood loomed, the drummer fell out of love withart,selling three-quarters of his collection at Christie's in 2002 for a multimillion-pound payday. "Collecting is not about the trophy on the wall," he explained, "it is about the journey." Many musicians are not just collectors but visual artists themselves. When not curating his personal gallery, which stretches from Rubens and Tintoretto to rising stars, David Bowie is a keen painter and board member of Modern Painters magazine. David Byrne straddles the line between multimedia artist and collector, and is in a relationship with the visual artist Cindy Sherman. Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, U2 singer Bono and former Stone Roses guitarist John Squire have all taken up the brushes. Brian Eno has long blurred the line between sound and vision, most recently in his audiovisual installation, 77 Million Paintings. Some pop stars have graduated from collectors to patrons of the arts. In the 1970s, the Rolling Stones enlisted Andy Warhol to design their Sticky Fingers album cover. In the 1990s, when Britpop and the YBAs became bedfellows, Blur commissioned a video from Damien Hirst and an album cover from Julian Opie. Madonna and Nick Cave have both presented the Turner Prize, while Madge's most recent hits collection featured sleeve graphics by the street artist and Banksy protege Thierry Guetta. Christina Aguilera is also a fan of Banksy and British graffiti art, commissioning the London-based Dean "D*Face" Stockton to paint the cover for Bionic. As in all romances, the relationship between pop and art has had its rocky patches. But much like Jimmy Page's fondness for the Pre-Raphaelites, it is grounded in a whole lotta love, too. "Some gallery owners dismiss celebrity collectors as shallow dilettantes" Credit: Stephen Dalton

Here is the text from the Sunday Times interview. HITS AND MYTHS The Sunday Times (London); Aug 22, 2010; Tony Barrell; p. 22 Full Text: (Copyright © Times Newspapers Limited 2010) Jimmy Page is telling me about his former life as a choirboy. In the mid-1950s, when he was about 12, he would dress up and sing sweetly at St Barnabas Church near his home in Epsom, Surrey. This comes as a bit of a shock - little Jimmy Page, singing his heart out to the Lord - given that a dozen years later he would metamorphose into the ultimate rock'n'roll superstar, seducing the world with his band Led Zeppelin, his raunchy guitar riffs and his ravenous libido. Led Zeppelin not only produced some of the most exciting music ever played, but they set the standard for classic 1970s rock behaviour. The Herculean foursome of Page, Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones worked incredibly hard - touring for months on end and playing gigs that could run for three or even four hours - but they played hard as well, partying like Dionysus, ingesting a pharmacopoeia of drugs, and giving a Whole Lotta Love to adoring groupies. Thirty years after the Led Zep adventure ended - when their drummer, John Bonham, died after a mammoth drinking binge - they are far from forgotten. Two months ago, Led Zeppelin triumphed in a BBC television poll to determine the best-ever rock'n'roll band. On the same show, the musician Mark Ronson, famous for producing Amy Winehouse, confessed that Led Zeppelin had helped him with his sexual education. "Jimmy Page could get you laid," he explained, "because everything he wrote and played was drenched in a rhythmic swagger, filthier than sex, coupled with melodic pieces that could break the hearts of the iciest of prom queens. Even my crappy, third-rate - or maybe even lower - renditions of those songs got me to third base with 15-year-old girls in training bras and braces." At the age of 12, Page seems to have had a pragmatic motive for pulling on a surplice and wailing The Lord's My Shepherd. "In those days it was difficult to access rock'n'roll music," he remembers now, "because after all the riots happened in the cinemas, when people heard Rock Around the Clock in the film Blackboard Jungle, the authorities tried to lock it all down. So you needed to tune in to the radio or go to places where you could hear it. It just so happened that in youth clubs they would play records and you'd get to hear Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ricky Nelson - but you had to either go to church or be a member of the choir to go to the youth club." Page, who is granting me a rare and exclusive audience, is being unusually expansive. One of the most expressive guitarists ever to plug into an amplifier - as Led Zeppelin songs as diverse as Stairway to Heaven and Over the Hills and Far Away confirm - his eloquence usually lies in his playing rather than in his conversation. He has long been notorious for his reticence and secrecy in interviews. Questions about his personal life have been greeted with silences and refusals to answer, and at times he has made JD Salinger and the elderly Howard Hughes seem like gossipy chatterboxes. But today he is excited, because he is unveiling a curious new album. The album is called Jimmy Page, by Jimmy Page, so we know it's not a collection of songs by an impossibly reunited Led Zeppelin. In fact, this is a photographic album, charting his musical life in pictures. It is a luxurious tome featuring 650 photographs, many of them rarely, if ever, published before. It's effectively his autobiography - though, appropriately for such a guarded man, it's short on words. He points out that many books have been written about him and Led Zeppelin, none of them authorised. And in the absence of volunteered information, writers have sometimes fallen back on rumour and exaggeration. He was once so enraged by the lurid stories in one book, he says, that he threw it out of the window. He was living then in an old watermill, the Mill House in Clewer, Berkshire, and he says it went straight into the water. "I've been approached on quite a number of occasions to do an autobiography, which I've never really wanted to do, because to sell a book, you can bet your life that it's stoked up in a sensational furnace," he says. "But, you know, I've had a substantial career, and I thought it would be interesting to do a photographic autobiography. I wanted to do a book that would show the career, rather than concentrate on lots of hearsay and people's colourful stories." He is right about that "substantial career" - Led Zeppelin aside, he has collaborated with many other big names. But the "colourful stories" he mentions have swirled around the reputation of Page and Led Zeppelin for four decades, and they're not going to go away. They concern such taboo subjects as witchcraft and sadomasochistic sex, and they will also need to be discussed. It's hard to believe that the Lord of the Riffs is 66. A silver ponytail now replaces the long, dark tresses of his 1970s heyday, and he is a grandfather - his daughter Scarlet having had a child, Martha, three years ago. He was born on January 9, 1944, in Heston, Middlesex, to James and Patricia Page - hence his full name, James Patrick Page. Dad was an industrial personnel manager and Mum was a doctor's secretary. The Pages moved shortly afterwards to Feltham, and then upped sticks again to escape the growing noise pollution of nearby Heathrow airport, ending up in Epsom. Just as the heroic costume of Spider-Man conceals puny Peter Parker, there seems to be a geek, a nerdy loner, lurking beneath the surface of this guitar god. An only child, Page read books, studied postage stamps and, crucially, started devoting long stretches of time to mastering the guitar, having been excited by rock'n'roll tunes like Baby, Let's Play House, by Elvis Presley. "The choirmaster at St Barnabas remembered that I used to take my guitar to choir practice," he says, "and ask if I could tune it up to the organ." Page was soon playing with young friends in a skiffle group, and his indulgent parents allowed them to rehearse in their Epsom home. When the group appeared on a BBC young-talent show in the late 1950s, the adolescent Page told the broadcaster Huw Wheldon that he wanted to work in the rather solitary field of "biological research" when he grew up. In a sense, he eventually achieved that ambition, as a bevy of beautiful women could attest. But in the 1960s, after his guitar skills got him noticed, Page began serving what he now calls his "apprenticeship" in British recording studios, playing on records by a who's who of '60s artists, including the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, Tom Jones, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Petula Clark and Benny Hill. He says he would play about 15 sessions a week, and he wouldn't know who he was working with until he arrived at the studio. One day in 1964 he walked into EMI studios in Abbey Road and found he was making incidental music for the Beatles' first film, A Hard Day's Night. "I turned up and, lo and behold, there was George Martin," he recalls, "and I recognised the music and realised what it was." He ended up contributing background guitar to Ringo's Theme, the instrumental of the song This Boy that accompanies a morose Ringo Starr as he wanders off by the River Thames. Page's session experience wasn't limited to playing guitar. "I loved the blues so much that I learnt to play harmonica - pretty badly, but I did play on a few sessions; I did one for Cliff Richard and one for Billy Fury." Page joined his friend Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds in 1966, and was soon able to afford his first house. It was a former boathouse in Pangbourne, Berkshire, which came with its own private boat, "a slipper stern". It was here that Page's loner tendencies came out again. "I lived at that house for a substantial period on my own," he tells me. "And I really enjoyed that bachelor existence - working and creating music, and going out on my boat at night on my own; switching off the engine and just coasting in the twilight. I liked all that." At another point, he lovingly tended his own tank of tropical fish - though he says now that "going on the road and having an aquarium don't mix". After the Yardbirds folded in 1968 and Page cast around for musicians to play some powerful new material he was writing, he found Robert Plant and John Bonham, and the bass player John Paul Jones came on board. Page occasionally lapses into the third person when he talks about Led Zeppelin now, as if reading from a book of myths and legends: "There were four remarkable musicians here. They could play in a band like no others did," he declares. When you played those ridiculously long gigs, were you just showing off? "No," replies Page. "By the time of the third album, the set was growing and we simply didn't want to drop any of our numbers. By the time a song got to the stage, it had started to take on another character altogether as we expanded on it and augmented it, through soloing and new sections. So the sets started getting longer and longer. But nobody complained!" he laughs. Led Zep were "on fire, totally on fire, right to the very end", says Page. "There's no doubt about the fact that there was a musical... let's call it ESP, a synergy. There were so many times when the rest of the band came in together, and you're thinking, 'They haven't even heard it yet, but they're right on it.' " As well as gathering new songs, Page was becoming a serious art collector. Even before Led Zeppelin started selling millions of albums (they have now sold somewhere between 200m and 300m), he was buying antiques and pictures, notably favouring the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1978 he acquired a 24ft-long tapestry by Edward Burne-Jones, from a series called The Quest for the Holy Grail. A photograph exists of Page playing snooker in front of the tapestry, which shows Sir Galahad and a trio of angels. He tells me that Romantic and pre-Raphaelite aesthetics were also influencing the dandyish clothes he was wearing. Here is a description of Page in 1974, by his erstwhile American lover Bebe Buell: "Jimmy was wearing a pair of dainty black boots, crushed blue velvet pants, a beautifully ruffled Edwardian shirt, and a velvet jacket worthy of Beau Brummell. His pale, handsome face was framed by exquisite black ringlets. He looked like Sir Lancelot." To this day, Page likes to top off his outfit with a stylish scarf, and his collection of wispy scraps of fabric must rival the shoe hoard of Imelda Marcos. Unusual period properties are another Page passion, and in 1972 he acquired one of his greatest prizes, the Tower House in Kensington, from the actor Richard Harris for a reported Pounds 350,000. This is the extravagant neo-Gothic home that the architect William Burges built for himself in the 1870s. It looks like the kind of place Shrek would live in, with its steeply pitched roofs, stained-glass windows and fairy-tale pointy-topped turret; the interiors are packed with fantasy decoration, including a chimneypiece resembling a gigantic medieval castle in the library. Page still owns the Tower House, though more recently he bought a grand country house designed by Edwin Lutyens in a small Berkshire village. With his overall worth put at Pounds 75m by The Sunday Times Rich List, he can certainly afford the upkeep of these national treasures. In early interviews, Page mentioned his interest in the late magician and libertine Aleister Crowley. In the early 1970s he bought Boleskine House, Crowley's spooky mansion by Loch Ness, where the old wizard is said to have tried to summon angels and called up demons by mistake. Page also acquired an occult London bookshop called the Equinox. In case people didn't get the message, inscribed in the run-out grooves of Led Zeppelin's third LP in 1970 was the Crowleyinspired line "Do what thou wilt". Religious groups concluded that Page worshipped Satan, and people started playing Led Zeppelin records backwards to find diabolical messages. "I do not worship the Devil," he told one journalist, "but magic does intrigue me - magic of all kinds," leading some to conclude that he was a big Tommy Cooper fan as well. He had read a Crowley book, Magick in Theory and Practice, when he was about 11, but "it wasn't for some years that I understood what it was all about". Page once said that he had been motivated by "Crowley's system of self-liberation", which teaches that "when you've discovered your true will, you should just forge ahead like a steam train. If you put all of your energies into it, there's no doubt you'll succeed because that's your true will". When I ask about his magical interests, Page replies: "I don't really want to go into it. It's not the time or place to discuss my interest in other areas, because I prefer to be weighed up purely by the communicative aspect of the music." Cagey Page still refuses to discuss the meaning of the personal "Zoso" symbol he chose for himself on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV, though perceptive researchers have tracked it down in a 16th-century book on magic and alchemy. The mysterious rune may allude to Saturn, his ruling planet, and it may be a Rosebud-style reference to "Grazioso", the name of one of Page's earliest electric guitars. Robert Plant once quipped it was code for "frying tonight". Although the symbol is emblazoned on Page's new book, he isn't saying. He's more forthcoming about another of his mystical interests - astrology - explaining that "I'm sun in Capricorn, Scorpio rising, and moon in Cancer," and noting that Robert Plant is a Leo, "which is perfect for a front man. I mean, Jagger's a Leo as well". His message to non-believers is that one can't simply dismiss the "scholarly work that's been done for thousands of years" by dedicated stargazers. If we indulge his zodiac beliefs for a moment, it's curious that there is a consensus among astrologers about people with Scorpio rising: they use words like "private", "secretive", "mystical" and "defensive". He becomes very defensive indeed when I tackle the subject of flagellation. The former supergroupie Pamela Des Barres wrote that in 1969, during a passionate fling with the guitarist when Led Zeppelin were on the road in the US: "I saw Jimmy's whips curled up in his suitcase like they were taking a nap and pretended I didn't... He came up behind me and put his hands gently around my throat and said, 'Don't worry Miss P., I'll never use those on you, I'll never hurt you like that.' " She also remarked that she was "amazed at his sadistic tendencies; they're such a part of him that I doubt if he'll ever stop". Did he really have whips in his suitcase? "Have you never had any whips in your suitcase?" he replies, and suddenly wheezes with laughter. I suggest that he may have simply had a brief flirtation with S&M, and he replies: "I'm sure some of your readers might have flirted with S&M. Apart from that, there's no comment." Then, suddenly, as if he can't help himself, he makes the extraordinary statement: "I have a voracious appetite for all things, worldly and unworldly." From the uneasy, silent stare that follows, I infer this is his final word on the subject. Page has fathered a total of four children with three different women. Scarlet Page, now a 39-year-old photographer, is the daughter of the French model Charlotte Martin, whom Jimmy met in 1970. James Page Jr, 22, "who is just finishing university and wants to be a documentary-maker", is the son of the American model Patricia Ecker, whom Jimmy met in the 1980s. And Zofia-Jade and Ashen Josan are respectively the young daughter and son of Jimena Gomez-Paratcha, who was born to Argentine parents in the US, and did charity work with Page in Brazil after they met in the 1990s. Page reveals he is no longer with Jimena; he is single again. "But they're all really friendly - not just the children, but all the mothers too. So I feel a very fortunate man, under the circumstances." Before Page has to leave, I ask if we will ever see Led Zeppelin play again. "Never say never," he shrugs. He tells me that after their one-off "reunion" show at the O2 in 2007 - at which the late drummer John Bonham was replaced by his son, Jason - Page did work on new material with John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham with a view to going on tour. Robert Plant was unavailable, duetting with Alison Krauss, so they considered finding a new singer. Page now says that the project foundered, from his viewpoint, because of early "pressure to bring in a vocalist", when he would have preferred to develop the music further before they did that. "The music always has to come first," he says. We shake hands, and he scolds me quaintly for asking some of those more uncomfortable questions. "You're cheeky, Tony, you are," he says. And with that, the world's most enigmatic guitar hero is off - perhaps to compose some new riffs, cast some spells, or tend to his fish tank. We may never know. The book Jimmy Page (Genesis Publications, Pounds 395) is published in September in a signed limited edition of 2,500. It is available, with free p&p, at The Sunday Times Bookshop. Tel: 0845 2712 135

Robert has revealed how hard up and desperate he and Bonzo were in the mid-1960's before they hit the big time with Zeppelin:- http://www.express.c...t-on-the-record

Wild Fire Woman and 1111sticks, If you listen to Robert in this interview on Friday, 20 August when he attended a function for the Steve Bull Foundation, you will realise that he has found his West Country accent :D http://www.expressan...t-talk-charity/

Sean Atkinson, the man who runs the Facebook page entitled 'The Richard Cole Appreciation Society', has commissioned a picture of Richard. He states on the group page "Have comissioned a picture of Richard and people/things he knew..I will be presenting this to Richard soon. Also will be having a limited number of prints done which I will be selling to group members, if you are interested then please let me know."

Dave Lewis' brilliant preview of the book:- http://www.tightbutl...blweb09/?p=6415

I've now had the time to read the Sunday Times article of 22/08 more closely, and on page 24 it states that the book is "...... short on words...."

Would anyone who is interested in buying the book, and has not done so yet, please note that in the Sunday Times Article of 22 August, it is stated as being available, with free p & p, at the Sunday Times Bookshop for £395. This is cheaper than was stated in Genesis Publications email sent last week to anyone who registered with them. (they were also charging for p & p) . It seems a shame for those who have already been invoiced by Genesis for postage and packaging.