But we to know that they chose to shelve it.

Yes you're quite right I had heard that. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I think it was his retort in the context of others suggesting he should be using a black guitarist. Somehow Chick Corea, Joe Zanziwal, Dave holland and others slipped under the radar!

Although he was interested in collaborating with Jimi. And as to his supposed aversion to white people he certainly used John Mcglaughlins services a lot.

Ok this might not really be a mystery but I'll ask anyway. All of My Love is often described as being about or dedicated to Robert's late son. As far as I can tell this was only ever media speculation that is now accepted as fact despite there being no confirmation by Robert or any in the Led Zeppelin camp. I know you could all say "just listen to the lyric" but it's very easy to temper your mind to a question when an answer has already been suggested. Is there any real proof or am I missing something obvious?

Also I don't think the Percy Plant tv character ever existed. Is he confusing it with the flowerpot men?

Hmmm... I'd heard that it was something to do with his surname and Percy Thrower a well known tv gardener at the time.

I seem to remember Jimmy commenting at the time of the 1990 remasters that they added the extra faded up bar at the beginning "because we could". Now I may have mis-remembered that but on both the original pressings I had it was absent as well as the cassette version pre remasters. Regarding the new remasters I also read somewhere else on this forum that the albums themselves were remastered from digital transfers. I'm aware that the companion discs were mastered from 1/4" analogue. I love the new remasters by the way. I just wondered if Classic Reords had been telling a few porkies about where they mastered from. It has been known to happen. Did you hear about Steve Hoffman being called out by Bob Ezrin regarding the "original master tapes" he was remastering Alice Cooper's Billion Dollar Babies Lp?

Out of interest what source are the classic records re-issues from? I saw a YouTube video of a guy slamming the new remasters and saying they didn't compare to the classic records re-issues as the new ones were from a digital source and the CR from the original analog masters. I believe this was also stated on the sticker on the shrink wrap of the CR records if I remember correctly. The only reason I ask is that the original master tape of Nobody's Fault But Mine didn't have the fade in, and on the original releases the song ran at 6:16. Jimmy added the extra opening riff, bringing the song to 6:28, during the 1990 remasters and it's been on all the reissues since including the CR reissue. This would suggest the 1990 digital remasters as CRs source rather than the analog masters.

Yep. I have a copy

I wondered how long it would be till this got brought up. I agree regarding the Plant character in that it didn't come across as the Percy we all know. In fact it seemed like an odd choice to use Led Zeppelin. They obviously couldn't use any of the music and as you said plant could have been any generic rockstar and the whole thing is fictional anyway. Why not use another band, they obviously secured the rights to use 'personality crisis ' for the New York Dolls bit. Maybe someone on the HBO team doesn't like them!

You may joke about this but it does happen! A friend of mine who is a carpenter posted a pic of a cabinet he'd made on some woodwork forum and it wasn't long before people were telling him they would have preferred it if he had used such and such brand of chisel etc...

'cos they'd never think of doing that in the mastering studio

To be fair Dark Lord while I agree with most of what you say here I think the C/P album already sounded dated when it came out. I remember buying it on it's release date and cringing while I listened to some of the lyrics. Whilst I'd always been impressed with Jimmy's previous recordings of the acoustic guitar, this time He appeared to have gone for that 'fizzy' mid eighties, ovation direct injected into the desk without a mic in sight, tone. My toes curled even more when the cheesy keyboard orchestra came in on "whites of winter" I really didn't like it at all, it became one of those records I was embarrassed to own. At the time I was 17 and music had been through quite a change in the 3 or 4 years ( although not quite the sea change the critics and and record books would have us believe) In the Uk we had the Indie groups and Rave culture, from the states we'd had first Janes Addiction and then Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Lenny Kravitz Are you Gonna Go My Way was played everywhere, the Levelers were really popular with the Grebos and Crusties (but the hardcore were listening to the Ozrics or digging out their parents Gong albums), loads of "ambient" bands sprang up, the Orb and Orbital bridged the gap between the Grebos and the Ravers (as would soon the Prodigy) and you couldn't walk down the street without seeing someone wearing a Carter USM 30 something T shirt! A lot of groups were moving away from the pristine production values of the 80's and embracing a bit of dirt, then along came this album that sounded like it had been hiding in a cupboard since 1989. Now to be honest with you I haven't listened to the Album in a long, long time and maybe I might seek it out again and give it another spin. But at the time it came out the above is how I felt.

I totally agree with this. I understand it's an album that divides but I'm just glad to be on the positive side of the canyon

Late 78 or early 79, I was about 4 and my brother would've been 2. I distinctly remember my Mum doing the ironing to Rock n Roll. She had really long straight hair back then and she was laughing as my brother and I tried to dance. I just remember us all shouting "this is rock n roll". I never realised it was Led Zeppelin till much later. I got hooked when I was 14 through school friends and I still remember listening to Led Zeppelin 1 on my Walkman whilst I nursed my first broken heart. I got II for my 15th birthday and we played it in the car on the way to school, all these years later my birthday doesn't begin till I've had my fix of Whole Lotta Love cranked out of my stereo first thing in the morning. Back in the late 90's when I was teaching guitar to 11 and 12 year olds it always made me smile when they asked me if I knew who Led Zeppelin were and could I teach them Moby Dick.

Ha Ha! Have you tried looking at the Ten Years After Lp covers for Shhh and Watt?

Sorry McSeven I missed out your "cosmic cloud" bit! Yeah that part could be psych

Hi there, I don't think that's strictly a great definition for what psychedelic music is. Whilst it can include these elements they are not individual or even essential to the genre. But... With Robert more opining his love for Moby Grape and the west coast scene than the blues in the early days, and Jimmy straight out of the "psychedelic' Yardbirds there was bound to be an influence. FWIW I reckon "Friends" is pretty psych Check out the Pebbles box, 13th floor Elevators, Nuggets, and the Rubble Comps

It's just a t shirt slogan. There are loads of them. I used to have one with a picture of a chicken that said Big Cock but Robert Plant wasn't wearing it so nobody talks about it.

That was great. Thank you. I always loved the original band.

It's a 70's t shirt, you can still buy them.

I started my love affair with jazz when a studio engineer played Herbie Hancock's "Rain Dance" over the monitors while we were setting up in the morning. I'd never heard anything like it, I was totally blown away. The next morning he brought in Miles "Jack Johnson" and that was me sold. And now I have my three favourites in music (though always subject to change) Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis and Scott Walker!

In all honesty if I had to pick one album as my all time favourite I'll go with "Rocks". Now I like a lot of artists much more than Aerosmith but that lp just does it for me. I can't say I care much for their 80's 90's and later stuff though.

My 7 year old niece lives Gimmie Chocolate

I didn't like the lp at all. In all honesty I haven't listened to it in a long while but I remember buying it on the release date and being really excited about it. I always used to admire Jimmy's recorded acoustic sound but on C/P he just went with that awful 80's/90's acoustic tone that to my ears never sounded like a real guitar. And I didn't like the songs, production, singing... Anything really! We'll maybe just a little bit of the beginning of Easy Does It. On the other hand I loved WIC which doesn't seem to be that popular round here. The thing is I'm not saying the album was bad (apart from that acoustic thing I mentioned ) I'm just saying I didn't like it.