drowan
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Zeppelin Mysteries Hosted by Steve A. Jones
drowan replied to SteveAJones's topic in Led Zeppelin Master Forum
Sam: Here is the cover of the Life magazine issue that brought Robert Plant to Graceland in 1987 (September 1987 issue). Note the reference to Elvis in the upper right corner of the Life cover:
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Zeppelin Mysteries Hosted by Steve A. Jones
drowan replied to SteveAJones's topic in Led Zeppelin Master Forum
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It is also worth noting that this original vinyl LP recording of the 1938 Carnegie Hall performance you reference was the first album that John Bonham bought at age 15!! It features drummer Gene Krupa who made a very big impression on Bonzo. Bonham actually referred to this historic concert while he was setting up his drums just prior to the Led Zeppelin Carnegie performance on October 17, 1969. For more detail on this connection see the string of comments at the LZ Forum discussion about the Zeppelin Carnegie Hall performance in 1969 - their one and only time they ever played at that famous music hall:
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For some additional color on the recording and production of Led Zeppelin II as well as the two songs (Heartbreaker and Moby Dick) from that album that were part of the "core set" played at Carnegie Hall five days before the album's release, see some additional excerpts from Dave Lewis' 2016 "Classic Rock" article on LZ posted on TeamRock.com: It was in the US that Zeppelin first really made their mark, and their label (Atlantic Records) was anxious to reap full benefit from what was fast becoming their biggest dollar earner since Cream. Zeppelin’s astute manager Peter Grant also saw the vast potential in his band and the momentum they were building, and was happy to go along with Atlantic’s call for a second album to be released by late summer 69. Fuelled by the gruelling stint on the road, and the chemistry so apparent in their live shows, Page and his bandmates began formulating ideas for their second album. The first batch of recording sessions took place at Olympic Studios in Barnes, west London, in April 69. It was the same place where they had recorded their debut album in a little over a staggeringly quick 30 hours. But the sessions for what would become Led Zeppelin II would not prove to be quite so fast. The initial recording sessions saw the band working on What Is And What Should Never Be, a drifting, melodic song that would highlight Robert Plant’s growing maturity as a lyricist, and Whole Lotta Love – the song that would soon become their onstage anthem – led by Page’s distinctive, stuttering guitar riff that would later change the face of rock forever. During the [Second] US tour, the band began road-testing some of their new material; Whole Lotta Love made its full stage debut at a date at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco on April 26. Live, Zep were also regularly featuring a version of Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor that would be retitled and reworked as The Lemon Song when they took it to the studio. Plant threw in lines from Robert Johnson’s Travellin’ Riverside Blues, and this live arrangement of the song was similar in structure to the version recorded by US rock band The Electric Flag. John Bonham had been showcasing an extended drum solo dubbed Pat’s Delight (a reference to his wife) that he would later take into the studio and rename Moby Dick. Both The Lemon Song and Bonham’s drum solo piece were initially laid down at Mystic Sound. It’s worth noting that for the Led Zeppelin II sessions Page had now switched to using a Gibson Les Paul guitar as opposed to a Telecaster that had dominated his late Yardbirds and early Zeppelin work. He was already in possession of a vintage 1958 Les Paul, but added another model during the early American tours. “I had been mainly using the Telecaster, both on stage and in the studio,” Page remembered. “We were at the Fillmore at the time, and Joe Walsh, who was then playing guitar with his outfit The James Gang, said he had a Gibson Les Paul for sale – a 1959 model . He wanted to sell it for five hundred dollars – a right price at the time. Once I started playing it, that was it.” During the [Third US] tour Page hooked up with engineer Eddie Kramer, noted for his work with Jimi Hendrix on Electric Ladyland. Kramer had also worked at Olympic Studios when Page and Jones were session musicians in the mid-60s. Kramer later recalled: “John Paul Jones was the first to make me aware of Zeppelin when he told me he was joining a group with Jimmy Page. This was before I left England to work in the US. The first time I saw them was at the Fillmore East. They were sensational. I’d known both Jimmy and John Paul from working with them at Olympic, and had followed their careers over the years. I periodically bumped into them, and then I was asked to work on their second album.” Further tracks were developed at this point: Heartbreaker was recorded in two parts – initially at A&R Studios, with the famous Jimmy Page virtuoso guitar solo added across town at Atlantic Studios. The finishing touches to Bring It On Home were also perfected there. [Forum Post Footnote: The full text of the article excerpted in this post may be found at the link below.] http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-12-06/led-zeppelin-the-story-behind-led-zeppelin-ii
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Final Reminder for New York Metro Led Zeppelin Fans - The Music of Led Zeppelin "Returns" to Carnegie Hall (3/7/18): This is a quick final reminder that the Led Zeppelin Tribute Benefit** at Carnegie Hall will be held on Wednesday, March 7, 2018. The program is almost sold out, but there are still a few tickets left. We all know that 2018 is the 50th Anniversary of Led Zeppelin and almost 49 years since Led Zeppelin performed their one and only spectacular October 1969 concert at Carnegie Hall. This will be a great way for local NY metro fans to celebrate both the band's 50th and nostalgically commemorate Zep's incredible one-night performance 49 years ago at this world famous music hall!! No band will ever replicate the extraordinary energy of Zeppelin's famous foursome during the heydays of the late '60's and '70's, but we can certainly gather and recognize their creative genius through lively interpretations performed by a talented gathering of hand-picked contemporary rock musicians. The direct link to the Carnegie Hall box office is below: https://www.carnegiehall.org/calendar/2018/03/07/the-music-of-led-zeppelin-0800pm Check out additional information about the evening program and the musicians who will be performing via the link below: https://musicof.org/ **All net proceeds from the LZ Tribute will benefit a number of music education programs for underprivileged children in the NY metro area. See the link below for additional details on the music education programs that will benefit from this special performance fundraiser: https://musicof.org/ An incredible evening is planned for Wednesday night. Hope you can join us there!!
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Ironically, a month and a half before the Carnegie Hall show, Jimmy Page had just finished mixing Led Zeppelin II with engineer Eddie Kramer in NYC and was having doubts about the commercial potential of the yet to be released album. The individual songs had been recorded in numerous sound studios across the US and in England during intermittent down times while touring and Jimmy in particular was concerned about the quality, consistency and coherence of the raw product that went into the produced sound. Here's an excerpt from a December 6, 2016 article written by author Dave Lewis for the TeamRock.com wire: Led Zeppelin II was released on October 22, 1969 (five days after the Carnegie Hall concert) and by the end of the year, the album had topped the Beatles Abbey Road as the number one album on the music charts. Tremendously successful and momentum building live shows such as the Carnegie Hall performance helped cement the band's reputation and rapidly rising success. Here is an interview of Jimmy and Robert in the US, recorded three months after the Carnegie Hall show, at the beginning of 1970 talking about the popularity of their now wildly successful LZ II album:
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Only a month and a half before the Carnegie Hall show, Jimmy Page had just finished mixing Led Zeppelin II with engineer Eddie Kramer in NYC and ironically was having serious doubts about the commercial potential of the yet to be released album. The individual songs had been recorded in numerous sound studios across the US and in England during intermittent down times while touring and Jimmy in particular was concerned about the quality, consistency and coherence of the raw product that went into the produced sound. Here's an excerpt from a December 6, 2016 article written by author Dave Lewis and published on the TeamRock.com site: Led Zeppelin II was released on October 22, 1969 (five days after the Carnegie Hall concert) and by the end of the year, the album had topped the Beatles Abbey Road as the number one album on the music charts. Tremendously successful and momentum building live shows such as the Carnegie Hall performance helped cement the band's reputation and rapidly rising success. Here is a press interview with Jimmy and Robert in the US, recorded three months after the Carnegie Hall show, at the beginning of 1970 talking about the popularity of their now wildly successful LZ II album:
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The concert immediately prior to Carnegie Hall was held in London at the Lyceum on October 12, 1969. Five days later the band would be in New York playing at Carnegie Hall. Here is a live recording from the Lyceum show of "I Can't Quit You":
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Forgot to include this 1969/1970 vintage photo of Pamela Des Barres (top left) with four of her other fellow GTO's:
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Pamela Des Barres hit if off with Jimmy Page and loved hanging out with the band starting in 1969. She kept a detailed diary, but was selective on what she included in later books.
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Pamela Des Barres first encountered Jimmy Page's and LZ's aura in January, 1969 at Whiskey a Go Go and then had her first personal encounter onstage with Jimmy at the Santa Barbara Civic Center on May 5th of that year (now that's quite a Cinco de Mayo!): It was later that year that Led Zeppelin returned to North America to kick off their Fourth US Tour with a first stop at Carnegie Hall in October 1969. The timing of the Carnegie Hall concert was perfect - LZ was on the verge of releasing their second album and no longer had to fold in holdover Yardbirds tunes into their set list, LZ and Peter Grant now had the reputation and draw to pull off and sell out a single-bill/take-all evening, and Led Zeppelin had the freedom and control in a single-bill performance format to blow away their fans with over two hours of non-stop, kick-ass, high-intensity rock. Chris Welch and Pamela Des Barres provide a great "dual perspective" at both ends of the spectrum about this high-energy, fast-paced, transformative period in LZ history during 1969!!
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You're most welcome. I thought you might enjoy a few other passages from a Noisey 4/27/17 interview Pamela Des Barres gave about her 1969 and 1970 experiences with Led Zeppelin: Pamela also talks about her first encounter in 1969 being referred to as a "groupie", when she was with Led Zeppelin: Footnote: Des Barres explains what the "GTO's" were all about: Des Barres carved out her place in rock 'n' roll history as one of LA's most prolific groupies during the decadent era when the members of Led Zeppelin rode motorcycles down hotel hallways and musicians got crazy rich off of record sales. But she also made music herself as a member of The GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously), a band made up of a bunch of groupies, as organized by Frank Zappa (Des Barres used to babysit his kids). In pictures from the era, Des Barres is an ethereal, glowing redhead in silk vintage wear—exactly the kind of woman you'd want to spend time with if you were a virile young rock star in town for the week.
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Yes you definitely get the sense of that from some of Pam Des Barres' interviews about her experiences revealed in her best selling book, I'm With the Band:
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Here's a little additional perspective on groupie and eventual author, Pamela Des Barres, who co-wrote, I'm With the Band and spent quite a bit of time on the road with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: Some additional color on Des Barres and LZ can be gained through this You Tube video which includes a couple of candid shots of her with Jimmy Page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AzTPEcg6uM [YOU TUBE VIDEO NOTES: At 4 minutes and 5 seconds into this almost 8 minute video she talks a bit about her time with Jimmy Page and the other Led Zeppelin band members.] Pam Des Barres (in the photo below with Jimmy Page) and another groupie, Lori Maddox (right edge of photo), also share some additional tales of life on the road starting in 1969 with Led Zeppelin in this short but very entertaining You Tube video. The link is below:
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Yes, the simple raw energy of the band without "bells and whistles" was the key ingredient. Here's a great excerpt from Hulett and Prochnicky's book, Whole Lotta LED, describing the straightforward intensity and impact of Led Zeppelin's concerts during the Autumn 1969 North American Tour that took them to Carnegie Hall in New York as a first stop:
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This is one of the better "recollections" of the drum solo. It's captured in an excerpt from Chris Welch's 2007 Melody Maker magazine feature story on John Bonham that includes some additional back-stage color on Bonzo's stage prep and playing that night at the Carnegie Hall concert in October 1969:
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This is the latest data base entry I could find concerning the potential for a recording made of the Carnegie Hall concert: Led Zeppelin Fourth U.S. Tour October 17, 1969 - November 8, 1969
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Totally agree about the modest interior. What's amazing is if you compare the interior photos from the Rolling Stones concert five years earlier, there is not much difference in the interiors. Carnegie Hall actually "recycled" the Rolling Stones' concert backdrop for the Led Zeppelin stage performance. Compare these Stones concert photos with those of LZ that night at Carnegie Hall:
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As a follow up to the commentary about Peter Grant's persuasive ways, here is the Rolling Stones' promotional Carnegie Hall poster next to that of Led Zepplin: I vote for the LZ poster!!!
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Yes, and we also need to thank Peter Grant (posthumously). Were it not for his persuasive style and ability to motivate the band to agree to another major tour during the fall of 1969, it is doubtful LZ would have made it to Carnegie Hall. The clincher was Grant's angle - that they would be the first rock band to play in Carnegie Hall since the Rolling Stones played there five years earlier in 1964. So here's to Peter Grant: Peter James "G" Grant (5 April 1935 – 21 November 1995) was an Englishmusic manager. Grant managed the popular English bands the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin and Bad Company, among others, and was also a record executivefor Swan Song Records. Grant has been described as "one of the shrewdest and most ruthless managers in rock history".[1]He is widely credited with improving pay and conditions for musicians in dealings with concert promoters.[2]
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This photo below, taken at K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen on February 28, 1970 (four and a half months after the Carnegie Hall concert) shows Led Zeppelin playing with a stage set-up quite similar to that in New York: K.B. Hallen seats approximately 3,000 which is very close in scale to Carnegie Hall.
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Here is the cover of the first vinyl LP album that John Bonham bought when he was 15 years old. He mentioned this Benny Goodman album (featuring drummer Gene Krupa) nostalgically to Chris Welch and others assembled on the Carnegie Hall stage while he set up his drums before the concert: The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert by Benny Goodman, Columbia Records catalogue item SL-160, is a two-disc LP of swing and jazzmusic, first issued in 1950. The concert has been described as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's "coming out" party to the world of "respectable" music."[2] The first ever double album, it was one of the first records of Benny Goodman music issued on the new long-playing format, and one of the first to sell over a million copies. A landmark recording, it was the premiere performance given by a jazz orchestra in the famed Carnegie Hall in New York City. This album was also sold in a set of nine 45 rpm records in the same year by Columbia. The reception to the original 1950 long-playing double-album was exceptional, as had been the band's appearance at Carnegie Hall. Over time as technology improved the material was re-released, with digital versions produced both in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Thanks very much. In addition to posting the recently discovered pictures, I'm trying to weave a little of the history surrounding this concert to provide some additional insight on the mindset of the band going into the Carnegie Hall performance. New York was Led Zeppelin's first stop on this Fall 1969 Tour and a group of fans gathered at London Heathrow Airport to see them off. Rock critic, Chris Welch, who accompanied LZ on their flight, noted that one fan gave Robert Plant a copy of Paul Oliver's then just-published book, The Story of the Blues, which he read extensively while on the plane. Paul Oliver went on to become a noted historian of the Blues and recently passed away seven months ago at age 90. He was age 52 in 1969 when the book was published and LZ played at Carnegie Hall. A link to his New York Times obituary is below: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/arts/music/paul-oliver-authority-on-the-blues-dies-at-90.html For a reference of the book that Robert Plant read extensively from during his trans-Atlantic flight just prior to the Carnegie Hall Concert see the link below: https://blues.org/blues_hof_inductee/the-story-of-the-blues-by-paul-oliver/ For those LZ fans who continue to be fascinated with the relationship of the Blues to rock music, please note that the Blues Hall of Fame is in Memphis (TN): https://blues.org/hall-of-fame-museum/#about
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Here's Chris Welch's review of the October 17, 1969 Carnegie Hall concert that ran in Melody Maker: Some rare photos of the Carnegie Hall concert can be seen at the link below:
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Yes, very close and a fortunate night to have a camera! That evening was electric. The band quickly threw it into high gear and never looked back. Though people were dancing in the isles, it was easy to work your way to the stage for a couple of tight images. And you could tell the band was amped over the energy and roar of the crowd! They had us all on the opening chords.
