MS1
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Cera is portrayed badly because he is portrayed as a wimp. When he tells her she is beautiful it's like he is about to cry. I wanted to puke.
It's called LOVE, Spats. Although it comes as a suprise to know one that you didn't know that. You wouldn't know love if it hit you in the face with a brick. If you want to know why you can't find love, it's because it makes you want to puke.
And Juno treats him badly thoughout most of the movie and he puts up with it. A guy with balls wouldn't have put up with her crap and would have told her to take a hike.Tell your pregnant girlfriend to "take a hike?"
That statement is either born out of staggerening ignorance and immaturity or is calculated to piss people off. So which are you, Spats? An idiot or a troll? That one sentence clearly proves you're one or the other.
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So because he was nice to the MOTHER OF HIS CHILD, and didn't tell the girl he got pregnant to take a hike when she got hormonal on him, he didn't have balls huh? Like I said, you're an idiot.
Seconded! I weep for the woman who ever ended up pregnant off of Spats. I have a feeling he wouldn't be making any midnight trips to the corner store.
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A lot of shout outs for the ABB At Fillmore East, and I wanted to post a picture of the Fillmore Concerts because I can't recommend it enough.
IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO PURCHASE THE ALLMAN BROTHERS AT FILLMORE EAST, MAKE IT THIS VERSION, THE ONE WITH THE COLOR COVER.
I've purchased so many versions of Fillmore- the Gold MSFL, the deluxe edition, DTS . . . screw them.
The Fillmore Concerts with the color cover is THE one. Tom Dowd, the original producer, oversaw the remixing process.
Every other version is a refinement of the sound of the original release, which boosted some instruments at the expense of others. Granted, they were the ones you want to hear (Duane's guitar), but listen to the Fillmore Concerts and you will hear the rhythm section properly for the first time. The instruments are evenly balanced, more like the mix of an orchestra in a classical recording. You can hear the blend of the instruments, the sound has greater depth to it. And that is what the band was going for, not featuring Duane or Gregg.
Buy it and then play Liz Reed on your old copy and then on Fillmore Concerts and you will hear the difference!
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BIG BROTHER
Guitar World Feb 2007
Duane Allman led the Allman Brothers Band to success with his brilliant guitar work and supremely confident attitude. On the 35th anniversary of the group’s greatest album, At Fillmore East, Allman Brother Dickey Betts shares his memories of the late great guitarist and the album that made them famous.
“People always ask me what Duane was really like,” says Dickey Betts. “It says a lot that his hero was Muhammad Ali. That kind of supreme confidence that Ali had – that’s where Duane was coming from.”
Sitting in his beautiful home in Spanish Key, a suburb of Sarasota, Florida, Betts is in the midst of his annual winter break from touring with his band, Dickey Betts and Great Southern. On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of At Fillmore East, the most celebrated of the many essential releases by the Allman Brothers Band – along with the recent passing of what would have been Duane Allman’s 60th birthday on November 20, 2006 – Betts has offered some of his time to share his feelings and recollections of one of rock guitar’s true icons.
“Duane was bursting with energy; he was a force to be reckoned with. His drive and focus, as well as his intense belief in himself and our band, was incredible. He knew we were going to make it. We all knew we were a good band, but no one had that supreme confidence like he did. And it was a great thing, because his confidence and enthusiasm were infectious. He helped us all believe in ourselves, too, and that was an essential key to the success of the Allman Brothers Band.”
Betts, born in West Palm Beach, began playing in rock bands in the mid Sixties while in his early teens. It was during this time, as a regular on the club circuit that included popular nightspots in Daytona Beach and Sarasota, that he first encountered Duane and his keyboard-playing brother, Gregg. In early 1969, the three, along with Berry Oakley on bass and Jai Johanny “Jaimoe” Johanson and Butch Trucks on drums, formed the Allman Brothers Band.
Duane Allman earned his stripes as one of the true legends of rock guitar via his soulful slide and standard guitar work on such Allman Brothers releases as The Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South, At Fillmore East and Eat A Peach, as well as through his magnificent contributions to Derek and the Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs; it’s not commonly known, but on Layla, Duane devised the title track’s dynamic primary riff while also contributing brilliant slide work to the song’s coda. His meteoric rise to fame ended tragically, at the age of 24, in a motorcycle accident on October 29, 1971. He was soon to be hailed as one of rock’s greatest guitarists, alongside the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page.
In the wake of Allman’s death – which was followed soon after by the death of bassist Berry Oakley – leadership of the Allman Brothers fell to Betts, under whose stewardship the band achieved their greatest success with the release in 1973 of Brothers and Sisters, which included the Betts-penned No. 1 single “Ramblin’ Man” as well as his classic rock instrumental staple “Jessica”.
In this candid interview, Betts gives us a personal and intimate view of the real Duane Allman and tells the inside story behind what many consider to be the greatest live rock album of all time, At Fillmore East.
Of all the rock guitar legends, Duane Allman remains the most enigmatic. In your words, what was Duane like?
Duane was a “triple Scorpio.” In astrology, triple Scorpios are people that are on fire – just blasting straight –ahead. There must be something to that, because if anybody ever acted a triple Scorpio, it was Duane.
Now that I look back after all these years, it was like he knew that he only had a certain amount of time to get things done. If you weren’t involved in what he thought was the big picture, he didn’t have any time for you. A log of people really didn’t like him for that. It’s not that he was aggressive; it was more a super-positive, straight-ahead, I’ve-got-work-to-do kind of thing. If you didn’t get it, it was like, see you later. He always seemed like he was charging ahead.
Duane also had the respect of so many people; he was a natural leader, but if he got knocked down, you’d feel compelled to do everything you could to get him back up and going again. In fact, he and I talked a lot about that, and we decided that would be the difference in our band as compared to every other band we’d ever been in: when someone falls, instead of kicking him, or talking about him or taking advantage of him, we’d help him and pull him back up.
How did the strength of Duane’s positive attitude impact the band?
He believed in what we were doing so much that, to him, it could not fail. The rest of us knew what we had, but the kind of confidence Duane possessed was something else entirely.
Duane didn’t plan the formation of the band. It was really a joint effort, but Duane was definitely the spearhead. The comments we heard at the time were that we were too good to make it as a commercially successful band.
Following the lead of the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, the Allman Brothers Band took the concept of free-form group improvisation into uncharted territory and, ultimately, set a very high musical standard. Was there a feeling among the band members that the group had developed something groundbreaking and new?
The feeling was that we had discovered the very thing that we’d all been looking for, even if we didn’t really know beforehand what that was. We could all feel that something really good was happening.
Did Duane function as the bandleader?
He didn’t see himself as the bandleader; he led by example. And you gained a lot of respect from Duane if you earned it, if you proved you could keep up with him. If you couldn’t, you’d either end up in awe of him or you might not even like him.
He was very different from Jerry Garcia, who was very easy going. Duane didn’t have time to be easy going; there was much more urgency to his personality.
Do you remember first hearing of Duane Allman?
It was around ’65, ’66. I kept hearing from different people about this hot guitar player named Duane Allman over in Daytona. I started going out with a girl that had dated Gregg, and she told me about the brothers. I had a pretty good band at the time [the Jokers, name-checked famously in the Rick Derringer-penned hit “Rock’n’Roll, Hoochie Koo”]. We had the biggest crowds in Sarasota.
So my girlfriend took me over to Daytona to see Duane and Gregg’s band, the Allman Joys, and introduced me to them. I thought they were real good, but to tell you the truth, we didn’t get along right away. I thought they were stuck-up, and they thought I was some hillbilly hayseed. [laughs]
A couple of years later, they came by a club I was playing in Winter Haven and sat in with me. Duane came up onstage to play and I showed him the amp to plug into, which was on the dark corner of the stage. It was hard to see, so as he was plugging in, I tried to help him, saying, “This here is the bass and treble, and here’s the volume,” and he looked at me and said, “Man, I know how to run an amp by now, I think!” And I was just trying to be nice! So I said, “Okay, well, f***ing have at it then.” So we didn’t get along that time either.
Before the formation of the Allman Brothers Band, you and bassist Berry Oakley had forged a tight musical relationship from playing together in a variety of different bands.
Berry and I started with a band called the Soul Children, which later became the Blues Messengers. By 1967/’68, we moved to Jacksonville and our band had become the Second Coming, so named by a club owner because he thought Berry looked like Jesus Christ. We thought that was corny as sh!t, but the club owner offered us double what we were making in Tampa, and he had a new club with a wild psychedelic light show, which nobody had in Florida; that was “California” stuff. The club was called the Scene, and it was the only place in Jacksonville like that, and we were the only people in town with long hair. We’d drive somewhere and people would throw sh!t at us!
At that time, nobody was coming to the club to see us, and the ones that did had “white-wall” haircuts [buzz cuts]. So we started to play for free in the park, and got some guys to put a little makeshift stage and a generator together for us.
Was this Willow Branch Park?
I’m not sure of the name; it was by a place called the Forest Inn, a BYOB after-hours joint on 10 acres, and we’d set up outside on Sunday afternoons. Berry would say things like, “We’ve got to get our people together,” and I’d say, “What people?” [laughs] He’d say, “They’re out there; they just don’t have any place to congregate.” Pretty soon, the people’s hair started getting long, and we started to see tie-dye shirts and beads. We started to get really good crowds, a couple thousand people. Then the police decided to run us out of town.
By late ‘68/early ’69, Duane started showing up and he’d sit in with us. That was when I really started to get to know Duane, and we hit it off great then.
Did this lead to the formation of the Allman Brothers Band?
It was around that time that Duane, Oakley, and Jaimoe decided to put a trio together, and Duane’s manager, a guy named Phil Walden, got them a record deal. So Berry started going up to Muscle Shoals to record with Duane. Ironically, Duane was helping to bust up our band, which I knew was bound to happen. What I didn’t know was what it would eventually lead to.
Their group was supposed to be a power trio, like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Cream, but Duane had to sing, and Jaimoe doesn’t play drums in that style at all. Berry brought back some demos of the stuff they were doing, and even though it was good, they weren’t going to be able to stand up next to Hendrix and guys like that.
Were these the tracks “Happily Married Man,” “Going Down Slow,” and “Down Along the Cove,” which were, at the time, supposed to go on Duane’s solo album? [The tracks were eventually released on Duane Allman: An Anthology Vol. I and II.]
Yeah, and they recorded some Chuck Berry stuff, like “Maybellene” and “No Money Down,” too. Duane could sing, but he wasn’t a “singer,” and the stuff didn’t have the power trio kind of sound. It wasn’t making it. So it was around that time that Berry and Thom Coucette, who played harmonica with them, started talking to Duane abut getting me into the band. They said, “You and Betts together – this is too interesting to let it slide by. F**k this trio! Let’s get Betts and also get your damn brother Gregg in here!”
At that point, Gregg was out in L.A. and they were mad at each other. It was just a brotherly thing; they fought all of the time. Duane said, “Oh, he ain’t coming,” but we knew Gregg was going to have to come. And as soon as I got in there, Oakley and Doucette and I started harping about getting another drummer, because we felt one drummer couldn’t carry the band. Berry and I had been playing six nights a week with our band, and Duane was sitting in with us every night, plus we did the jam on Sundays as an unnamed band, which would soon be called the Allman Brothers Band.
Our drummer at the time was great, but he wasn’t the kind of drummer we wanted for this new band with Duane and Jaimoe. His name was “Nasty” Lord John. [laughs] He played like Ginger Baker; he hardly ever played a straight beat. But when Butch came along, he had that freight train, meat-and-potatoes kind of thing that set Jaimoe up perfectly. He had the power thing we needed.
Now we had a five-piece band that really started to sound like something. And when Duane and I really started to play together all of the time, it was like [jazz violinist] Stephan Grappelli and [jazz guitarist] Django Reinhardt, because we played together and complemented each other as best we could.
When did Gregg come into the fold?
We kept nagging Duane to call Gregg, and finally he did. Gregg showed up in the beginning of ’69, and when he heard the band play, he was floored. He walked in during a rehearsal, and he said, “I can’t play with this band!” We were really blowing; we’d been playing those free shows for six weeks by that point.
We had songs like “Don’t Want You No More” completely down, just the way it is on our first album. When Gregg got with us, we added the 6/8 part to it for the organ solo, and the segued into his song, “It’s Not My Cross to Bear,” to make it like one big tune.
Once Gregg sang and played with the band, was it obvious that the ingredients were all in place, and this was something special?
We knew that what we were doing was the thing. We all had been bandleaders, we were all very experienced as musicians, and we knew what we now had.
And Duane was such a great guy for keeping things positive. He would talk about all of the things that we all had been thinking about and gave us what were, essentially, pep talks. He’d often say, “I’m not the leader of this band, but if and when we need one, I’m a damn good one!” And he was.
An essential part of the Allman Brothers story that is often neglected is an acknowledgement of Berry Oakley’s many musical contributions to the band.
Absolutely. I bring up the importance of Berry Oakley in every interview, but it doesn’t always get printed. For one thing, Berry was the social dynamics guy: he wanted our band to relate to the people honestly. He was always making sure that the merchandise was worth what they were charging, and he was always going in and arguing about not letting the ticket prices get too high, so that our people could still afford to come see us.
And he also played a big role in shaping the band’s arrangements.
Oh yeah. “Whipping Post” was a ballad when Gregg brought it to us; it was a real melancholy, slow minor blues, along the lines of “Dreams.” Oakley came up with the heavy bass line that starts off the track, along with the 6/8-to-5/8 shifting time signature. When he played that riff for us, everyone went, “Yeah! That’s it!” In fact, Oakley called a halt to the rehearsal and said, “Wait a minute; let me work on this song tonight and let’s get back to it tomorrow.” By the next day, he had that intro worked out.
Oakley morphed a lot of those songs into something different than the way they had started. And the arrangement on “Hoochie Coochie Man” was all me and Oakley.
Is that “Hoochie Coochie Man” arrangement a good example of the way you’d been playing in Second Coming?
Yes, it was. That was the way we played together, with all of the constantly evolving unison licks.
What were the things that Duane brought to the table, arrangement – or composition-wise?
Duane and Gregg had a real “purist” blues thing together, but Oakley and I in our band would take a standard blues and do what we did with “Hoochie Coochie Man” to it. We were really trying to push the envelope all of the time, and we didn’t care about a purist blues attitude. We loved the blues, but we wanted to play in a rock style, like what Cream and Hendrix were doing.
Duane was smart enough to see what ingredients were missing from both bands. We knew that we didn’t have enough of the true, purist blues in our band, and he didn’t have enough of the avant-garde/psychedelic approach to the blues in his band. So he decided to try to put the two sounds together, and that was the first step in finding the sound of the Allman Brothers Band.
Both you and Duane were very strong personalities, musically and otherwise. It’s easy to imagine that it would have been difficult for two such formidable guitar players to work together as well as you two did.
We had an immense amount of respect for each other, to the point where it was almost like, Don’t push me too far! I didn’t push him and he didn’t push me. We talked about being jealous of each other and how dangerous it was to think that way, and that we had to fight that feeling when we were onstage. He’d say, “When I listen to you play, I have to try hard to keep the jealousy thing at bay and not try to out-do you when I play my solo. But I still want to play my best!” We’d laugh about what a thin line that was. We learned a lot from each other.
When you think about it, I was only 25 and Duane was 23, and the things we were talking about were pretty mature for guys our age. Duane was one tough, cocksure guy. He had a strong belief in himself, and he was damn good. I was damn good too; I just didn’t believe in myself the way Duane did. It wasn’t until a few years later that I thought, Well, I guess I am pretty good too.
In April of ’69, the band moved up to Macon, Georgia, at the behest of Phil Walden who had by then become the band’s manager and had signed the group to his new Capricorn record label. In August, the band cut the first album, and the second record, Idlewild South, was recorded between February and July 1970. Around this time, Duane talked about wanting the next record to be a live album.
We were all real happy with the first two records, and I should point out that Duane was a monster in the studio. He taught me, and all of us, a lot about having the proper mind-set for working in the studio environment. He knew how to make a record, and he taught me how to get into the game.
But it’s true; we all wanted to make a live record by that point. I think it was Tommy Down that suggested the Fillmore East, and we said, “Yeah!” The Fillmore was our Carnegie Hall, and we loved Bill Graham so much. He never gave us one grain of bullsh!t, and he’d raise hell with other bands over all kinds of things. On the closing night of the Fillmore East, he called us the “best damn band in America,” and that floored us.
At Fillmore East is a magical record, one that is widely regarded as the greatest “jamming” album ever recorded.
With many live records in those days, the joke was, “the only live thing on the record is the audience,” because just about every band would go into the studio afterward and fix the tracks. On At Fillmore East, nothing was changed; the only studio work that was done was that we edited down the length of one or two tracks, and that was it. Also, the first night we had some horn players come and sit in with us, and we ultimately cut them out, too. So, there was some technical stuff done, some solos cut down in length, but there is not one single overdub.
The opposite end of the spectrum is “You Don’t Love Me,” which goes on for nearly 20 minutes.
Yeah, we let that one go! [laughs] It’s great! The thing is, I played sh!t in there that I’d never played before in my life. Duane played his solo bit forever, so I thought, Well, I guess I’m supposed to come up with something, too!
Another groundbreaking byproduct of the popularity of At Fillmore East was that FM radio began to play album tracks like “Whipping Post,” which was the length of an entire album side.
In those days, FM radio was an “underground” thing, where the DJs would tell you who the players were and give you some background on the music. They didn’t have to follow a strict format the way AM did, so it was pretty open. There’s nothing like that now, but we came along at a time when we could get our stuff, even our live stuff, played on the radio, and that was how a great many people found out about us and became fans.
What are your feelings about At Fillmore East today?
I think it’s one of the greatest musical projects that’s ever been done in any genre. It’s absolutely honest; an honest representation of our band and an honest representation of the times.
Why do you think it’s important for people to listen to Duane Allman today?
Simply because he was one of the best there ever was. When you listen to Duane, you are hearing a truly gifted individual giving his all to the music, and there is nothing better than that.
Duane played music the same way that he rode his motorcycle and drove his car. He was a daredevil, just triple-Scorpio, God’s-on-my-side wide open. That was part of the romance. And I loved Duane. I have nothing but admiration for him.
Thanks for posting this, MSG! This interview is from Guitar World magazine and was conducted by GW associate editor Andy Aledort, who also happens to be the second guitarist in Great Southern. Andy's awesome!
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I'm not sure when you saw Dickey but since being booted from the Allman Brothers he hasn't exactly been playing the type of venues he was once accustomed to. In other words, he's pretty much been delegated to the bar circuit.
I've seen Dickey three times since he got booted, once in 2001, two shows that I think were in 2003, and this summer at the Lowell Summer Music Series. The Lowell venue is a very nice venue- seats a few thousand people, out doors with trees and beautifull vine covered trellises coming off the sides. I was hoping for a good show, the Dickey Betts shows I saw in 2003 were very good- (even though they were in a 500 person capacity House of Blues venue). As it turned out, though, it was the weakest performance I've ever seen him give. He couldn't hit the harmony parts in Blue Sky and his solos fell to pieces. A lot of people who were at that show posted on his web board they thought he was drunk and Andy Aledort from his band actually posted to defend him. I wonder, though.
Hard times for Dickey.
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Hi all,
Anyone read the book: 'Midnight Riders'?
KB
Many times. A good intro to the band- although I have to say that I soured on it just a bit when I found out that the ABB looks at that book about how Zep feel about Hammer of the Gods. It does make sure to tell every last detail of drug abuse and divorce in the band's history.
Still like it, though. The album guide for the band's influences in the back is especially useful- turned me on to a lot of great music!
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Hi Magic,
I'm going to send you on a mistycal trip back thru time
To a place on the Mississippi where we all drank our wine
This is where my journey began
As a lifetime Allman Brothers fan.
Some pics from the near infamous "Warehouse" New Orleans, LA
Photos by sydney smith
More to come I want to give others time to post Enjoy!
Excellent contributions Dzldoc! I've never seen most of those photos before. That is the Chuck Leavell Lamar Williams lineup and the short lived five piece with Berry. (Those shots of Dickey and Berry are the best!) Here's a vid of the Berry lineup on teh "In Concert" program. I read in Scot Freeman's ABB bio that this special aired just after Berry's death and they all watched it in disbelief.
These days I think the Chuck Leavell lineup is somewhat underrated among ABB fans.
Here's a vid of this lineup at a show promoted by Bill Graham called Saturday Night In Macon, Ga:
ABB- Saturday Night In Macon GA part 1
Rare examples of Dickey playing electric slide. He does pretty well!This is how the group would have sounded if you saw them at Watkins Glen in 1973 performing with the Dead and the Band in front of 600,000 people.
If you either of these videos, there's a number 2 and 3 for each of them. This guy Scotiadave posts some good stuff!
Keep it coming, brothers and sisters! Glad to see so many Allmans fans here.
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Thanks, POTS and Jahfin.
Pilot, I love Eat a Peach. Blue Sky never gets old for me. Absolutely gets a spot in my top ten albums ever.
Jahfin, the Shades of Two Worlds tour was a hell of a time to see them! Every show I've seen from the Shades tour they are hot! Here's a vid from the tour of their stop in Germany. For Eat a Peach fans it's Blue Sky with an excellent guitar solo from Dickey Betts. Some of his best playing was in that year, IMHO.
I have a special place in my heart for the Warren Haynes Allen Woody lineup of the band. It's how I first saw them in 1994- and that hooked me for life. I saw them again in 95 and then twice in 96 before Allen and Warren split to do the mule. Here's an image of the band from the live album they put out with performances from the 1991 tour:
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If there is a band that I love as much as Led Zeppelin, it is the Allman Brothers Band. I think that Duane Allman is the most underrated guitarist- part of the magic of discovering them was finding out just how good he was and yet I'd never really heard of him before. Besides being a world class finger style soloist, he was absolutely the greatest slide guitarist who ever lived- the Jimi Hendrix of slide.
I plan on posting a link to an Allman Brothers video once a week or so- this is one of the greatest live bands ever, after all. I'm going to start with the video that was played at their Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony. All the stuff at the beginning was added by somebody, but by the time it says ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND macon georgia that's what it is. This video was made with two different films of Duane Allman (the only ones of decent quality that are known to exist), plus clips from other eras and still photos. A good intro for someone who doesn't know the band too well, and just a plain cool vid for those who do:
The Allman Brothers Band HOF Video
As many of you will know, this lineup up of the band was tragically short lived, with Duane and Bassist Berry Oakley dying in eerily similar motorcycle crashes in 71 and 72. But the band had their greatest chart success in 73, and since 1989 have been featuring musicians of the highest quality to fill Duane and Berry's shoes. To hold down a chair in the ABB is to be one of the very best- they don't care how you look or act, just if you can play, play, play.
This collage features a picture of every ABB guitarist from 1969 to the present. If you don't know who any of these guys are, come to this thread and find out! Each one of them is a virtuoso of the highest caliber.
I've seen the band play live over 20 times since 1994 with different lineups. And I can tell you this- each one of them the set list was completely different, and each time the show was completely different- always good, sometimes stellar! Just what I love about Led Zeppelin live.
So who else out there loves the Brothers? Stop by the thread and eat a peach!
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Just to interject a relatively meaningless fact here...
If I'm not mistaken, and its been quite a few years since I've listened to Little Richard with any regularity, but I think the opening drum to "Rock And Roll" is actually lifted from Richard's "Rip It Up" and not "Keep A-Knocking."
That was a great dissection, Sam.
Thanks, Chrestus. I'll have to listen to "Rip It Up"- I think there is a story about "Rock and Roll" being based on an improv that started with Bonzo fooling around with the drum intro of a Little Richard song. Can't remember which one, though.
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HA! I've been saying this for years! That's classic, Magic Sam.
You mind if I use that for my sig line? Provided I give you fair credit, of course.
I'm flattered. It ain't my truth, it's a higher truth. Please go right ahead.
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Magic Sam never ceases to amaze me. Zeppelin's critics were left in the dust ages ago and some seem to still be taking offence to the fact that... none of us listened to their garbble. Well done Sam
You flatter me. Any zep fan could debunk this stuff with a little research, I'm just more argumentative than most.
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Thanks for your additions, SD. Now having heard "Knowing That I'm Losing You" it's clear that the lyrics have little or nothing to do with "Tangerine". It seems to me that Jimmy took his contribution and given that the Yardbirds never finished, released or copyrighted the song, felt completely comfortable collaborating with a new partner, never dreaming that using one of his own ideas would get him ripped by a jealous Yardie fanboy.
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Will Shade's BS Ripoff Conspiracy Part 4- the final debunking
Led Zeppelin IV also found the band tackling a Memphis Minnie original, "When The Levee Breaks." In this case, Memphis Minnie is credited, but so are the four members of Led Zeppelin. What they contributed to the song is once again debatable.Debatable? Again, one listen to the actual song undermines Shades' argument.
Memphis Minnie - When the Levee Breaks
Keep in mind that this is one of the cases in which Shade disparages Zep for giving itself a credit along with another artist. Much as was the case with BIGLY, the lyrics are Memphs Minnie's (considerably more so than BIGLY's were Brigg's) but the arrangement shares not one jot of similarity to Minnie's. Her version is in a major key, for Christ's sake. Does Minnie deserve her credit? Yes, she wrote the lyrics (although it could have been Kansas Joe, who did the singing.) Does Zeppelin deserve their credit? Yes, they wrote the music and she never touched it. As usual, what seems to Shade to be debatable seems to me rather undebatable.
Led Zeppelin continued to appropriate songs throughout the rest of their career, albeit with less frequency. For the most part, the songs examined in this article are the most notorious cases of Led Zeppelin lifting others artistic works.Is this hair-splitting? Isn't rock and roll all about taking influences, warping and twisting them until they come out sounding new? Yes and no. Rock and roll's great idiot savant, Elvis Presley, married blues to country, creating the 20th century's most popular form of music. And while his first single at Sun Studios, a breath-taking version of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup's "That's All Right Mama," doesn't sound anything like the sluggish original it is still properly credited to the rightful author. Same goes for all three of the Beatles covers of Carl Perkins songs. Taking a stray riff is one thing. Appropriating an entire song's music and lyrics while listing yourself as the author is quite another.
And when exactly did that happen? Even if we were to seriously consider these allegations not once is there a case where "an entire song's music AND lyrics" are appropriated. Which one of the songs discussed has all he same music and all the same lyrics as the songs they allegedly ripped off? Even if recognizable elements remain radical change is the norm for every one of the recordings discussed here. Is it an utterly blinding bias or did Shade just not do his homework?
Cumular Limit also has a live version of "Dazed and Confused" from French television in the spring of '68. For once, the song is credited properly, reading Jake Holmes; arr. Yardbirds. "I would really like to release Jake Holmes' original album," Sandercock related. "We can't seem to find him, though." Re-issuing The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes would undoubtedly unsnarl a tangled web.As usual, I'll begin my counter argument with the clip in question:
Jake Holmes - Dazed and Confused
Some similarities in the riff, but not quite the same- and every single lyric has been changed other than the words "dazed and confused". Granted, they make up the title of the song. But so does the Stones' "Heartbreaker" share a title with a Led Zeppelin song, and also has a similar boogie rhythm and similar vocal motifs. Did the Stones rip off Zep? Led Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused has a million working parts which Holmes never touched. A co credit? Maybe. But to insinuate full credit belongs to Holmes? That is as inaccurate, as misleading, as much a misrepresentation as to say Holmes deserves no credit at all.
The evidence is laid out. It is up to you, gentle reader, to assess whether Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin deserve the prestige they have been accorded.Laid out is it? Maybe it is now, with links to the music in question and all the inconvenient omissions corrected.
Now, this may appear to be nothing but gratuitous Page-bashing. Far from it. To this day, Jimmy Page is unacknowledged as one of the two the greatest psychedelic guitar players ever. The other one is not Jimi Hendrix, but rather the aforementioned Syd Barrett. Page's criminally underrated work with the Yardbirds and on countless sessions (take note of his hypnotic work on Donovan's "Sunshine Superman") reveal him to have set the standard for lysergic discord par excellence.Further, in light of the fact that Page played on 60% of everything released in Britian between 1963-66 and then adding his work with the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, he is undoubtedly the most recorded major guitarist ever. His fretwork itself is never in question. Even on the lightweight session material he appears on, Page's guitar playing itself is impeccable (which is amazing if you consider that the majority of those forgotten groups should not have been within ear-shot of a studio). But it his habit for putting his name on others materials that is being examined here, not his guitar sorcery.
What a bold disclaimer! How could anyone with a lick of sense read through that whole thing and think it was anything BUT gratuitous Page bashing? Not only is it clear that Shade IS Page bashing, it is also clear WHY he is, because he cannot hide his love of that "fabled (and "criminally underrated") quintet", the Yardbirds.
I suppose it is no surprise that Yardies fanboys hate on Zeppelin so: the source of their group's importance, their three great guitarists, also ensured that the band existed in a continuous state of flux and weren't able to capitalize on their own innovations. They never really made the transition from singles to albums, and so fans like Shade are inclined to see the album driven success of Led Zeppelin as rightfully belonging to the Yardbirds. They haven't the strength to consider that the lesser renown of the Yardbirds can be traced back to the deficiencies of the band members not named Clapton, Beck or Page, and the relative strength of the equivalent members of Led Zeppelin.
And so they concentrate on enlarging the Yardbirds' admitted influence (among others) and disguising the originality of the complex arrangements that Zeppelin brought to it. The irony is that Zeppelin wrote and recorded far more (and far better!) material that is indisputably theirs than the Yardbirds ever did- the Yardies were just better at making sure the publishing was correct. Bully for them.
I've read that essay by Shade a number of times before and it never fails to piss me off. Hopefully, "gentle reader", this post will give you reason to discard most of Shades' allegations and question ALL of them.
'Nuff said.
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Will Shade's BS Ripoff Cospiracy part 3
During 1969, Led Zeppelin toured continually. They recorded their sophomore effort in various studios while they were on the road. The resulting album is uneven and shows less originality than its predecessor."Whole Lotta Love" opens Led Zeppelin II. As mentioned earlier, Steve Marriott and the Small Faces figure into the Led Zeppelin saga. That mod foursome were known for a killer live version of the Muddy Waters "You Need Love." The following paragraph is from "Small Faces: The Young Mods' Forgotten Story" by Paolo Hewitt (1995, Acid Jazz Books).
'A few years later, one of the LP's outstanding tracks, the Marriott/Lane 'You Need Loving,' cropped up again to create rock history, albeit in a different format. '"Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin was nicked off that album,' Marriott pointed out. 'Percy Plant was a big fan. He used to be at all The Small Faces gigs. We did a gig with The Yardbirds which he was at and Jimmy Page asked me what that number was we did. "'You Need Loving'," I said, "it's a Muddy Waters thing" which it really is, so they both knew it, and Percy used to come to the gigs whenever we played in Kidderminster or Stowbridge, where he came from. He was always saying he was going to get this group together. He was another nuisance. He kept coming into the dressing room, just another little Mod kid. We used to say, "That kid's here again." Anyway we used to play this number and it became a stock opener after that album. After we broke up they took it and revamped it. Good luck to them. It was only old Percy who'd had his eyes on it. He sang it the same, phrased it the same, even the stops at the end were the same, they just put a different rhythm to it.' He laughs. 'For years and years I would hear it come on the radio while driving in America, and I would think, "Go on, my son," until one day I thought, "Fucking hell, that's us, that is. The bastards!"'
"Whole Lotta Love" is obviously, as Steve Marriott pointed, a direct nick of the Small Faces take on "You Need Love." The lyrics are basically the same as the Muddy Waters version. Further, Robert Plant's vocal stylings are indeed modeled directly on Marriott's delivery. One listen to the Small Faces version will lay any doubt aside. Unfortunately, the Small Faces songwriting credits made no mention of Willie Dixon. Of course, neither did Led Zeppelin.
A direct nic? This is a Willy Dixon song. Just how much claim to the Small Faces have over a version of a song they didn't write and, as they themselves admit, with "a different rhythm" from theirs? Again, the entire British Blues movement was working from the Dixon songbook, and so for one group to claim any kind of theft over competing covers is preposterous. At this point, there are many, many different versions of every single song Dixon ever wrote by many, many different artists. Did Cream steal "Spoonful" from The Butterfield Blues Band? Did they steal it from Dion? No one has a claim except Dixon, and so the Small Faces deserve no considerations of authorship of anything, except in that likely Plant had the idea to do a cover of that song by watching the Small Faces. As for the claim that Plant copied his vocal style from the Small Faces, highly debatable. Here's a link:
Frankly, Plant's version sounds more like Janis Joplin than Steve Marriott to me. And as usual, lots of lyrics have been changed, the arrangement is radically changed . . . not that Shade cares . . .
Interestingly enough, Willie Dixon's own daughter, Shirley, brought it to her father's attention. As reported in the October 8, 1994's edition of The Los Angeles Times by Steve Hochman, Shirley Dixon first heard Led Zeppelin's version when she was thirteen. She played it for her father, who agreed it was his song. Willie Dixon was receiving no royalties from it. In 1985, Dixon sued Led Zeppelin for royalties to "Whole Lotta Love." The case was settled out of court two years later, with a generous settlement to Willie Dixon. Today, Shirley Dixon heads the Blues Heaven Foundation (established by her father), which helps blues artists recover their royalties and rights.Another blues classic on Led Zeppelin II became famous as "The Lemon Song." Derived directly from Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor," there is also the infamous quote about squeezing lemons that comes from Robert Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues." Chester Burnett, a.k.a. Howlin' Wolf, received no credit for "The Lemon Song." In the early '70s, Arc Music sued Led Zeppelin for copyright infringement. The suit was settled out of court.
The album closed with a song credited to Page/Plant, "Bring It On Home." Discerning listeners realized it was the old Sonny Boy Williamson song of the same name, albeit with a furious Page solo. Once again, the song's author, Willie Dixon, won a settlement.
Now we get into some of the few actual facts that Shade uses, as opposed to the biased opinions that make up the majority of his argument. Even so, he gets his facts confused. There were two suits against Led Zeppelin here, Dixon in the 80's over Whole Lotta Love, and ONE suit in the 70's over Bring It On Home and the Lemon Song by Arc Music, the publishing arm of Chess Records who Dixon himself had to sue to get his royalties.
I think a "discerning listener" (which it should be clear at this point Shade is not) would note that it is only in the intro, (which is clearly a pisstake of the Sonny Boy Williamson version) is this song not completely original, sharing only the words "Bring It On Home" with anything Dixon wrote. I suppose it's fair that the band give credit for the parody intro. But as far as Shades' larger charge of plagarism goes, the song is completely original once the band kicks in. Sharing a title isn't enough- or do the Stones and Pat Benetar owe Zep for Heartbreaker?
Regarding the suit from Arc music- Shade conveniently ignores the fact that the true party who Zep were denying royalties to wasn't blues artists but was, in fact, a publishing company who blues artists had to sue in order to get royalty money. Denying Arc music doesn't seem like much of crime in that light. Notice that Zep credited the Richie Valens influenced Boogie With Stu not to Valens himself but to his mother? Could it be that the band might be more aware of just who ends up with the royalty money than their critics are?
The Dixon suit was settled out of court. Lennon and Harrison were both successfully sued for plagarism. It happens. The Beatles are good company to be in.
Led Zeppelin III found Page still delving into his bag of Yardbirds leftovers. An album track, "Tangerine," was one Page had worked on with the Yardbirds in the spring of 1968. Page claimed authorship of the entire song, including the lyrics. The Yardbirds had never copyrighted the piece, which made it easy for Page to usurp it in its entirety. The flower-child verses smack of Keith Relf, though.Do they indeed? Why do you think he stops short of saying that Relf wrote them and only say it "smacks" of him? Because he doesn't know that, that's why. This is speculation. Shade read about Tangerine being based on a Yarbirds idea and made a huge assumption that the old idea hadn't been radically altered, lyrics and all. Oh yeah, and Plant's lyrics were SO much less flower childy than Relfs.
According to Wikipedia, the Yarbirds version was entitled "Knowing I'm Losing You" (?) and the lyrics are completely different except for the verse that begins "Measuring a summers day". This would imply that the chorus is completely original. Sounds like a different tune to me. Of course, none of us can properly attest to this because the song has never been released. Could be a polka and none of us would know. Though lacking in evidence Shade is happy to take the worst possible interpretation- no surprise there.
"Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" is basically an original song with Jones/Page/Plant being listed as the song's authors. However, the intro is lifted from "The Waggoner's Tale" by Bert Jansch.1971's Led Zeppelin IV showed the band to be up to their old tricks. The drum intro to "Rock 'n Roll" was a direct lift from Little Richard's "Keep A-Knocking." One listen to that early nugget will prove the point. Further, elements of the solo from the old Yardbirds warhorse "Train Kept A-Rollin" show up in "Rock 'n Roll."
What point? Drum Intro? DRUM INTROS are fair game for allegation of theft? Of course, as usual I'm happy to post a link to whatever Shade is on about if it can be found because invariably it's not nearly the slam dunk he thinks it is, and frequently quite the opposite. One may have inspired the other, but the two intros are DIFFERENT. Listen for yourself:
Little Richard- Keep a Knockin'
I'm not even going to dignify "elements of the solo" with a response. Suffice to say if Shade really thinks individual elements like intros, solos, and chord progressions can individually constitute theft, the Stones should give all their money to Chuck Berry right now.
But it is that holiest of Holy Grails, "Stairway To Heaven," that will shock the faithful. On one of Led Zeppelin's early tours, they had opened for the California art-rock group, Spirit. In the liner notes to the reissue of Spirit's 1968 eponymous debut, the band's guitarist Randy California mentions the fact that Jimmy Page took special interest in an original entitled "Taurus." There is no doubt that Page appropriated the opening guitar lines note for note on "Stairway To Heaven." Further, the chord progression in "Stairway To Heaven" is incredibly similar to a song by the Chocolate Watch Band, "And She's Lonely." The Yardbirds played with the Chocolate Watch Band during Page's tenure. It would be quite ironic if he did indeed lift the chords from the Chocolate Watch Band. The Chocolate Watch Band, to those in the know, was the ultimate Yardbirds clone. Wouldn't it be fitting that a former Yardbirds guitarist ripped off something from a band that based an entire career around sounding like that famed quintet?Note for note? That certainly isn't true, all it takes is one listen to the actual sound clip to realize that once again Shade is overstating his case.
Are the chord sequences similar? Yes. Are they both descending arpeggiated sequences. Yes. BUT, are there differences? YES! The notes arpeggiated in each chord are different! The resolution of the measure is completely different! The two songs are different! What can I say? I think there is a case to be made that Taurus may have inspired Page to write that sequence. But he changed it! That's as much as can be expected considering there is a clear precedent for some element of every song ever made!
I can't find anything by the Chocolate Watch Band to confirm or deny Shade's claim. His reference to the Yardbirds as "that famed quintet" is rather instructive, though.
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Will Shade's BS Rip Off Conspiracy Part 2
Truth also contained a version of the Muddy Waters classic, "You Shook Me." For some reason, Page also decided to include this song on Led Zeppelin's first album. While the song is properly accredited to its author, Willie Dixon, Jeff Beck was less than enthusiastic upon hearing Led Zeppelin's demo. With Truth still in the charts, he was unable to understand Page's decision to record the song for Led Zeppelin I. As recounted in the Led Zeppelin biography, Hammer of the Gods, Beck's eyes teared with rage as he demanded, "Jim, why?" Page just shrugged sheepishly, unable to explain why he wanted to upstage his former bandmate.First of all- the fact that this guy uses HOTG as a source should give you pause. Is there any more questionable source in the history of rock music? But on the other hand, who knows- this might come from the 50% of HOTG that's true!
Secondly, doesn't sound like Beck. If he cried I'll eat my hat. I don't believe this exchange truly happened, and I believe that Beck has denied it, in fact.
Thirdly, Dixon was being covered right and left by the Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals . . . the idea that there would be controversy over two different versions of the same Dixon song is preposterous. Shade obviously favors the Yardbirds in all of this, so it's predictable that he doesn't think that the Yardirds nicced Little Red Rootser from the Stones, nor that the Stones nicced it from Sam Cooke- selective prosecution! Besides, the sound and arrangement of the two versions are completely different. Next!
A rewrite of Eddie Cochran's rockabilly classic "Nervous Breakdown" appeared on Led Zeppelin's first album. Entitled "Communication Breakdown," this interpretation made no mention of Cochran, being credited to Bonham/Jones/Page.This is the biggest piece of garbage of the lot. Here's a link to Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown".
Does he actually expect us to believe that CB is a rewrite of this? No, he touches on it quickly because he knows it's one of the weakest points in a weak argument. A non point, in fact. The two songs have almost nothing in common.
Annie Briggs' fingerprints were all over another song on Led Zeppelin I. Her original, "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You," was appropriated by the foursome with the credits reading Bredon (her real name)/Page/Plant. Whether Page and Plant added anything to the song is debatable.I think a damn fine debate can be made, in fact!
First of all, there is a very good chance this is a traditional. Certainly, Page and Plant picked it up from Joan Baez, who credited it as a traditional.
If Anne Briggs has a beef with anyone, it's her. Second of all, have a listen to Baez' version of the song:
Joan Baez- Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
Shade makes these claims, but when you listen to the music yourself they all fall apart. Zeppelin's contribution to the song debatable? The chords are different, the bridge part is new, there's nothing like the fast driving section in Baez version, in short the arrangement of the two songs is incredibly different.
Furthermore, let's take a look at the lyrics of the two versions:
Joan Baez lyrics:
Babe, i'm gonna leave you
Tell you when i'm gonna leave you
leave you when ol'summer time,
summer comes a-rolling
leave you when ol'summer comes along
Babe, the highway is a-callin'
the old highway's a-callin'
callin'me to travel on, travel on out the Westward
callin'me to travel on alone
Babe,I'd like to stay here
you know I'd really like to stay here
my feet start goin'down,goin'down the highway
my feet start goin'down, goin'down alone
Babe,I got to ramble
You know I got to ramble
My feet start goin'down and I got to follow
my feet start goin'down, and I got to go
Led Zeppelin Lyrics:
Babe, baby, baby, I'm Gonna Leave You.
I said baby, you know I'm gonna leave you.
I'll leave you when the summertime,
Leave you when the summer comes a-rollin'
Leave you when the summer comes along.
Baby, baby, I don't wanna leave you,
I ain't jokin' woman, I got to ramble.
Oh, yeah, baby, baby, I believin',
We really got to ramble.
I can hear it callin' me the way it used to do,
I can hear it callin' me back home!
Babe...I'm gonna leave you
Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you
Oh I can hear it callin 'me
I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?
I know I never never never gonna leave your babe
But I got to go away from this place,
I've got to quit you, yeah
Baby, ooh don't you hear it callin' me?
Woman, woman, I know, I know
It feels good to have you back again
And I know that one day baby, it's really gonna grow, yes it is.
We gonna go walkin' through the park every day.
Come what may, every day
It was really, really good.
You made me happy every single day.
But now... I've got to go away!
Baby, baby, baby, baby
That's when it's callin' me
I said that's when it's callin' me back home...
The only thing they have in common is the first verse and the line "I've got to Ramble". Enough for a writing credit to Briggs? Sure, and she has one. The band thought it was a traditional because the version they knew was Baez' and she credited it as such- so they never intentionally denied Briggs anything in the first place. But moreover- 70% of the lyrics are completely original to Led Zeppelin. Let's see- 100% original arrangement, 70% original lyrics, yet Shade questions the way the song is credited.
Led Zeppelin I closed with the ultimate pastiche. "How Many More Times" opens with a bass riff that came straight from the Yardbirds' reworking of "Smokestack Lightning." Lyrically it is comprised of Howlin' Wolf's "How Many More Years," Albert King's "The Hunter" and bits of Gary Farr and the T-Bones' "How Many More Times." Further, there was a direct quote of Jimmy Rodgers' pop hit, "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine." Page's solo is Jeff Beck's solo from the Yardbirds classic, "Shapes of Things," slowed down to a crawl.The Ultimate Pastiche.
This guy probably thinks Land of a Thousand Dances was stolen from Bonie Maronie and Long Tall Sally. Pastiche and collage are recognized as original work in visual art, just how many bits have to go in this stew before Shade will acknowledge it as it's own entity? A listen to the Yardbirds Last Rave-up in L.A. bootleg reveals an interesting fact. "Smokestack Lightning" has the bolero section from "Beck's Bolero." Page also used this on "How Many More Times." The only thing original about the song is Page's violin bowing. "How Many More Times" is credited to Bonham/Jones/Page, though.It has a bolero rhythm, but the chords are different.
if rhythms are fair ground to cry theft, Bo Diddley should just drop whatever he is doing and sue EVERYBODY. Besides, Jimmy wrote that part at the Bolero session, he can't steal from himself. Next! -
I'm going to dissect this bullshit pile point by point. I agree with Steve that Will Shade's biased agenda is obvious. This will take a couple of posts, folks.
Sam G. contributes:THE THIEVING MAGPIES:
Jimmy Page's Dubious Recording Legacy
Part 2
By Will Shade
In July 1968, the Yardbirds finally threw in the towel. Relf and McCarty made the fatal decision that heavy, guitar-dominated music was on the way out. They formed the art rock/progressive band, Renaissance. McCarty is still rueful, yet bemused, about the path he chose to follow. He has since reformed the Yardbirds several times. The latest configuration, with Chris Dreja, toured America and Europe in 2000. They do an incredible version of "Dazed and Confused," seguing straight from a note perfect "Still I'm Sad." It would seem that McCarty and Dreja feel some right to the song.
Relf and McCarty's foray into prog rock was short lived. They released only one album with Renaissance. A second Renaissance LP was half done before they packed it in and John Hawken took it upon himself to locate other musicians to finish it. Keith Relf apparently realized the error of his ways, forming a heavy metal band in the mid-70s. Their one and only album, the self-titled Armageddon, is one of the great lost classics. It easily stands cheek by jowl with his former bandmate's work in Led Zeppelin.
This alone should call into question the author's judgement. I'm all for individual taste, but to claim that Armageddon is as good as ANY Led Zeppelin album is a gigantic stretch.
It's not fit to wipe Coda's ass, not to mention any of Zep's superior work.
Chris Dreja was initially slated to be the bass player in Page's new lineup, but bowed out gracefully once a more enthusiastic replacement was found. Page obviously made the right choice. He walked away with a stockpile of songs, including heavy metal's nascent anthem, "Dazed and Confused."The stalwart Jimmy Page soon assembled a new band, which still called itself the Yardbirds. Comprised of Page, fellow session man John Paul Jones on bass, drummer John Bonham and vocalist Robert Plant, they fulfilled the original band's final contractual obligations, touring Sweden in September 1968. Contrary to accepted facts, the band was not known as the New Yardbirds at the time. Scandinavian ads billed them as either the Yardbirds or Yardbirds featuring Jimmy Page.
Now back to the name "Yardbirds" itself. Chris Dreja recently revealed an incredible fact to Yardbirds historian Greg Russo. The document McCarty and Relf signed was to authorize Page and Dreja to fill out a Yardbirds group to satisfy the Scandinavian dates only. Page and Dreja had the name, even when Dreja left the band.
When Chris Dreja found out that manager Peter Grant was sending the group out to tour England (October 18-19) under the name, the ex-Yardbird filed a "cease and desist" order against Page and Grant to stop them from using said name. The name change was announced in the October 19, 1968 issue of DISC Magazine. Dreja's order caused the name change! Page has never owned the name.
Back in England, the band finally dropped the old moniker and entered the studio to record their eponymous debut album.
Amusingly enough, the name Led Zeppelin itself was not an original one. In May 1966, Jeff Beck was growing disenchanted with the Yardbirds. He and Jimmy Page entered the studio to record a number of tracks along with John Paul Jones and the Who's great drummer, Keith Moon. Moon's bandmate, John Entwistle, was also involved in some capacity. Apocryphal legend says the recording session went so well that the four musicians discussed forming a band. Moon and Entwistle were dissatisfied with Pete Townshend's increasing dictatorial grip on the Who. They were quite keen on the idea as were Page and Beck. They bantered back and forth over what would be a fitting epithet for the band. Someone said they would "go over like a lead balloon." Entwistle's rejoinder was to the affect that the band should be called "lead zeppelin." Moon brayed with delight. Page filed the name away in that steel trap that serves as a brain. One of the songs recorded at this session, "Beck's Bolero," figures into the scheme of things at a later point.
This entire paragraph is utter bullshit. While Entwhistle was being targeted as a member of the hypothetical new band, he was not present at this particular session. Look at the credits, John Paul Jones is the bass player. Entiwhistle was "involved in some capacity?" Yes, Moon said in conversation that he was also interested in bolting the Who. Shade also has it wrong regarding how the name came out. The joke was entirely Moon's on that day at least. Entwhistle later claimed that he had told the joke to Moon, and Moon had repeated it at the Bolero session. Jimmy said something to the effect of "That may be, but I heard it from Moon." Shades essay is the first time I've ever heard this story told where Entwhistle was actually present at the session. IMHO, Shade is combining these two stories in a way that settles the dispute between Moon and Entwhistle as the originators of the band name. After all, if the origin of the name is in dispute, it doesn't make Jimmy look quite so much a thief for adopting it, does it?
Exhilarated by the experience, Page realized the unit would need a dynamic vocalist. One of those approached was the Small Face's diminutive, yet powerful singer, Steve Marriott. Page was quickly rebuffed by the Small Faces' management, which had shady underworld connections. Jimmy Page was asked if he could "play guitar with broken fingers" or words to that affect. Needless to say, Page never contacted Marriott. Marriott's work with the Small Faces would figure into the Led Zeppelin saga, though.Page returned to the Yardbirds until the summer of 1968. As already documented, he formed a new unit, which became known as Led Zeppelin. Once the tour of Scandinavia was over, the band entered the studio to record their first LP in the fall of 1968. Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut was recorded in under thirty hours and it shows in the lack of originality.
Jeff Beck in the mean time had formed his first solo band. The Jeff Beck Group took the Yardbirds' formula to its logical conclusion, i.e. loud and hard psychedelic blues mutating into what we now call heavy metal. This crackerjack unit was comprised of Beck on lead guitar, Steampacket's Rod Stewart on vocals, Birds' guitarist Ron Wood on bass and Mick Waller on drums. They recorded what is arguably the very first heavy metal album, Truth. Released in August 1968, Jimmy Page was to use his ex-bandmate's album as a veritable blueprint for Led Zeppelin's debut.
A track-by-track comparison of Truth and Led Zeppelin I is an intriguing process. Both albums had a reworking of a Yardbirds' song. The Beck album opened with a roaring, albeit less effective, version of "Shapes of Things." Led Zeppelin also used a Yardbirds' song, "Dazed and Confused." Page at this point rewrote the lyrics yet again, but he stuck strictly to the arrangement he and Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty devised. The Led Zeppelin version is solely credited to Jimmy Page, with no mention being made of Jake Holmes. Years later, Holmes heard Led Zeppelin's version but he decided not to pursue any legal action.
Both albums also contained a traditional English folk song. Beck's LP had a lovely acoustic arrangement of "Greensleeves." He didn't take any credit for the song. Page, on the other hand, showcased his companion piece to "White Summer." The song was called "Black Mountainside." It is credited solely to Page, yet humorously enough it is a centuries old tune. He probably picked it up from Bert Jansch, who is one of Page's primary acoustic influences. Further, Jansch had been playing the song for years, using its original title, "Black Waterside." He never took credit for the song. Jimmy Page, however, boldly stamped his name on the tune. As a side note, Davey Graham probably devised the D-A-D-G-A-D tuning used on "Black Waterside" and on "White Summer." Annie Briggs, another influence on Page, was also known to do a version of "Black Waterside."
Taking credit for a traditional arrangement is nothing new. By the time Jimmy got around to it, both Bob Dylan and Paul Simon had taken credit for the traditional "Scarborough Fair", to make only one of many possible examples. Also, the idea that Davey Graham truly devised DADGAD tuning is preposterous. Tunings are as old as the hills, saying he popularized it would be far more accurate. Furthermore, Jimmy's DADGAD is different from Graham's because he tunes it down half a step, so it is in fact Db-Ab-Db-Gb-Ab-Db. And, just to put icing on the anti-bullshit cake we're making here, Jansch doesn't play in DAGAD at all, but in drop D tuning. Jimmy's version of a traditional tune is played in a completely different tuning then Jansch's, and yet he somehow is ripping him off? You'd be hard pressed to prove that arrangements in two different tunings of the same melody are, in fact, one and the same. The only thing Jimmy is guilty of here is taking credit for a traditional song, something that is commonplace in music. Ever hear of Brahm's Hungarian Dances? Moving on.
This contrasting of heavy songs with light acoustic numbers was to become Led Zeppelin's trademark. Yet the Jeff Beck Group did it first and to better affect. Beck is as dazzling a guitar player as Jimmy Page, yet he is far more precise and capable of restraint.Like in his assessment of Armageddon the author's bias is writ large. First of all, if "Beck's Bolero" was more dramatic than, say, "Good Times Bad Times", you'd hear it more often on the radio. What, are all the radio listeners in the world had the wool pulled over their eyes by the charlatan Jimmy Page? If people other than Shade thought Beck's Bolero was better than Zeppelin, it would be more popular. The ear doesn't lie, and 200 Million Zeppelin fans can't be wrong. It's not like Truth isn't out there for comparison, I have several copies myself. And BTW, Mr. Shade, if by chance you end up reading this, it would be "to better effect"
Interestingly, Jeff Beck's solo debut contained a rock 'n roll interpretation of Ravel's "Bolero." Entitled "Beck's Bolero," the piece came from the aborted 1966 supergroup session that had found Beck, Page, John Paul Jones and Keith Moon collaborating. Page provided some propulsive acoustic rhythm work upon which Jeff Beck overlaid stinging lead guitar. The song is once again credited only to Jimmy Page. Beck and Page have feuded over the songwriting rights in numerous interviews. To this day, Beck insists he came up with the arrangement. After all, it wasn't called "Page's Bolero."Strangely, this is what Jimmy Page himself had to say about the song in a Trouser Press article, (October 1977, number 22 "Paging the Yardbirds" part two of a three part interview with Dave Schulps):
"Keith Relf had a melody on tape and we used that as the main part of the song. I don't think that Beck actually came in on the backing tracks - he just did the overdubs and wrote the central section - the riffy bridge," Page said. It is left up to you, gentle reader, to make up your own mind as to where the origins of this song truly lie.
It is ironic that Shade uses a track on which Page produced, played and wrote as an example of him ripping someone off. Perhaps it isn't called "Page's Bolero", but clearly he's the mastermind of the session. He plays the rhythm part on 12 string, Beck plays the lead. And it's always been the rhythm part that defines a song, however dramatic Beck's lead parts sound in Shade's ears. I feel the same way as Shade does about Duane Allman's lead parts on "Layla", which have at least as much to do with defining that song as Beck's do on Beck's Bolero. (I say more). I think it would be fair to give Beck (or Allman) a co-writing credit, but certainly not at the expense of Page. Bottom line, no matter how much Shade wants to paint Jimmy as a thief, putting a lead part over an existing rhythm track doesn't count as writing the song- the song existed before you put your lead on it. What was to stop Page from playing a lead himself, other than his desire to include Beck in that supergroup?
End Part 1
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But you don't think I look emo, do you?
Worry not. You're far too cheerful, you're not nearly whiny enough and you like color too much.
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Pete was one of a very few brit-rockers who was not intimidated by Jimi, that about sez it all!
"Underway" from Then Play On was influenced by Jimi. It's one of my favorite Mac Tracks!
Another 'says it all' thing is the Beatles' "Sun King", which is clearly influenced by Greeny tracks like "Underway" and "Albatross".
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Yesterday, short before midnight
My husband and I, dressed in white to bring peace, hoping for a great 2008.
Happy New Year, everybody.
What an excellent photo, Celia! You two look right in white!
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Lady Helena's been having problems with her photobucket and sent this to me to post. Looks a little washed out, I wonder if that's due to the problems? You can still see that it's a good photo, though. Both of you look great!
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It was my cousin's 21st on Friday.
Here's some pictures from before we left...they were taken at my aunty's house (but not the aunty that mothered this particular cousin, confusingly):
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Bottle of red, garcon.
That statement is either born out of staggerening ignorance and immaturity or is calculated to piss people off. 
The Allman Brothers Thread
in Other Bands / Music
Posted
I try to see the band live at least once a year (I've only missed 1999- the first year Dickey was out- going back to 1994) This year I saw them headline the Newport Folk Festival. I snapped these pics while at the show:
. . . and here's me at the show. The rabbit ears are photoshop magic courtesy of Hermit.