Seems I'm not the only one who thought that sometimes Robert's voice can be over the top. I guess in a live setting that's understandable, though.

Zep did "give in" and settle on other plagiarism suits - to use a harsh word - in the past. A musician I have worked with - who is not a big LZ fan due to precisely that aspect - had an interesting theory he floated by me in the last month: JPJ really did not approve of "sampling" (kinder word). Bonzo just ran with it, with Page and Plant having absolutely no problems with it. Hence, Jimmy's own joking words, "If you see JPJ, shoot him on sight". JPJ really isolated himself for some reason - and don't shoot ME - but maybe that was why. p.s. This is deep speculation, but I wonder if the threat of something hanging over their heads had something to do with Plant's sale of his Zeppelin copyright.

Yeah, man, artistic differences ! And nobody really flaming anybody here, pretty incredible considering the topic. Either Steve is a good moderator and/or LZ fans are a very mature lot ;-) Listen to what Gary Moore says right at the beginning of this duet with Albert King (then stick around for some incredible guitar playing).

I didn't read all the posts, but remember Jimmy was a studio player early on, and he has said he was expected to play perfect - or be shown the door. Maybe he just got a bit tired of perfection - I know I will take a track with a flub or two that has feel over a sterile impeccable track, any day. (Yngwie is a good one to cite, as others have on this forum thread - often he lacks feel. The guy is a damn, damn good guitarist, though). When you improvise on guitar, as Jimmy does live, you take the bad with the good. Look at Hendrix at Woodstock - it's practically a train wreck, but Jimi pulled it off due to sheer will. And Jimmy also slung his LP very low playing live, it looks cool, but it's not easy to play like that. Not to mention prowling the stage.