drowan
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Roughly one month after Led Zeppelin's NYC concert at the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park, the band opted to play at Asbury Park rather than accepting an invitation to play at Woodstock. Janis Joplin's schedule as shown below, was not a direct conflict with the Woodstock concert dates and allowed her to play a both venues. Two months later almost to the day, Led Zeppelin came back to New York to play at Carnegie Hall on their fourth tour of the US in 1969. It was also the first time in five years that Carnegie Hall management in 1969 started to allow rock concerts to be played again at this prestigious venue.
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Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page seemed to have overlapping concert schedules at a number on New York metro area venues, including the Schaefer Music Festival in Central Park. The perfomrances of both Led Zeppelin and The Jeff Back Group occurred during the month of July (1969) just three months prior to the LZ concert at Carnegie Hall on October 17, 1969.
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Here's a little more color on the LZ concert at the Schaefer Music Festival roughly 3 months prior to the 10/17/69 Carnegie Hall concert.
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Roughly 3 months prior to the Carnegie Hall 10/17/69 LZ concert, Led Zeppelin played in New York at the Wollman Skating Rink Theater (Central Park) along with B.B. King as part of the Schaeffer Music Festival summer concert series. Tickets were $1.00 and $1.50! The band used these concert tours through New York in 1969 to also get some studio time to finish up recording, mixing and final production of the Led Zeppelin II album.
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Compare the balcony shot of the Beatles Carnegie Hall performance in 1964 (above) with the shot of the March 7, 2018 Led Zeppelin Carnegie Hall tribute concert below: Note that Carnegie Hall still uses the 1960's vintage, bland, accordion style backdrop for concerts even today!
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Here is another picture of the early 1960's Beatles performance at Carnegie Hall taken from one of the balconies. Check out the fans actually seated on the stage!!!
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In memory of John Rebbenack (aka Dr. John), who passed away yesterday (06/06/2019). He "hung out with the band" and stood in the wings of the Carnegie Hall stage the night of October 17, 1969 watching Led Zeppelin play through both of their dazzling shows. He was joined by Eddie Kramer, Lord Sutch, Chris Wood and Chris Welch. Dr. John will be missed and now joins John Bonham as another distinctive musician leaving behind a legacy of great music for us to enjoy for many years to come! Rest in peace Dr. John - your fans still love you and will always remember your "larger than life" stage presence, sense of style and charismatic personality.
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The promotional staff for Led Zeppelin's 1969 and early 1970 concerts used the same graphic image of the band members that was used for the Carnegie Hall 10/17/69 poster (far right) as shown below:
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Led Zeppelin at Carnegie Hall on October 17, 1969 revisited. One night, two shows, LZ is the only gig. A ticket on the floor three rows from the stage costs $5.50. The mind-blowing experience: priceless!!!
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As a follow up to the commentary about Paul McCartney, it should be noted that Led Zeppelin was intrigued with the idea of playing at Carnegie Hall after the Rolling Stones and the Beatles had played there. On page 4 of this Forum posting, I highlighted some of the details of the the Rolling Stones concert. Below are the promotional poster and a photo from that of the Beatles Carnegie Hall concert.
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Just three months prior to the 10/17/69 Carnegie Hall concert, Jimmy Page spent part of the day on July 13, 1969 with Jeff Beck and his band, The Jeff Beck Group at the Singer Bowl, the site of the former NY Worlds Fair in Queens. This probably coincided with Jimmy's engineering sessions in NYC involving final studio production and mixing efforts with LZ II.
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LZ Fans: I wanted to add this photo from the Carnegie Hall concert on October 17, 1969. The source is some other photographer whose photo was posted to the LZ.com website. Interestingly, the way to confirm that this is from that night in NYC is the stage backdrop behind the bank - the signature accordion-style backdrop that is so plain, yet distinctive!
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Only Way to Fly: Thanks for the back story and "added color" on the Life Magazine photo coverage and story on the rumored death of Paul McCartney. Much appreciated!
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While Led Zeppelin was coming off an electrifying 10/17/69 Carnegie Hall concert performance and were days away from releasing their second highly successful album, the Beatles were trying to convince the world that Paul McCartney was not dead: Rebuttal The magazine report that rebutted the rumor On 21 October 1969, the Beatles' press office issued statements denying the rumor, deeming it "a load of old rubbish"[13] and saying that "the story has been circulating for about two years—we get letters from all sorts of nuts but Paul is still very much with us."[14] Rumors started to decline when,[15] on 7 November 1969, Life magazine published a contemporary interview with McCartney in which he said, Perhaps the rumor started because I haven't been much in the press lately. I have done enough press for a lifetime, and I don't have anything to say these days. I am happy to be with my family and I will work when I work. I was switched on for ten years and I never switched off. Now I am switching off whenever I can. I would rather be a little less famous these days.[5]
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Here is an excerpt from a 2013 interview of Ritchie Yorke by Bradley Scott in Vice.com, "Ritchie Yorke on Rock and Roll": You were the first media personality to predict the success of Led Zeppelin after everyone else dismissed them. You went on to write more words on the band than anyone else, including “The Definitive Biography of Led Zeppelin”. How long did you spend with the band writing the book? I wrote about them for many years and I'm still doing it. They were always grateful for my support at the beginning, as I’d written a pretty favorable review on their first album when everyone else was writing disparaging things about them. For example, Rolling Stone were calling them “a bunch of limey lemon squeezers” and smartass shit like that. I took them pretty seriously and it was obvious they were going to break out—I mean if you listen to their first album it is unstoppable. Plenty of people jumped on the bandwagon but the band and management remembered who'd done it initially, when it really mattered. They would invite me along on tour whenever they were in North America but I could only ever spend a few days on the road with them—it was pretty intense. During the filming of The Song Remains the Same at Madison Square Gardens they gave me a spot on stage with them, you can see me in the video. Because I had to get on stage before their show started, and couldn’t get off till the end, they just put me on this riser off to the side, handed me a bunch of joints and said, “You go and stay up there mate, we’ll pick you up after the show.” It was incredible. They were always very kind and gracious to me—I’m still good friends with all of them. A few years back we filmed John Paul Jones, the Zep bassist and keyboards player, in Byron Bay, saying that I had been “Zeppelin's champion”. I had been the original media guy who supported them. I was very grateful to have that recognition. What was your most memorable night on tour with Led Zeppelin?Probably the night I introduced them at The Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. To go out on stage when everything is pitch black, have this little spotlight come on you and then hear the roar of 18,000 people who are just dying for the show to begin. When I announced it—“Ladies and Gentlemen, the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world…. LED ZEPPELIN”—and the whole crowd started screaming, it was just this burst of energy. Is there a difference between today’s music and the music made back in the late 60s/early 70s? What do you think of today’s music?I think back then music was made from the heart. People made it cause they felt it and they needed to. It was much more experimental—it was more about getting a groove happening and just going for it. There’s a lot more restraint on everything now. Nowadays it seems to be driven by money. Money was obviously a factor back then as well, but the record companies were run by great music men that released the music they felt good about. The people running the labels today tend to be accountants or lawyers. I think there’s still some people that care about the music but it’s become much more of a business now—they play it safe rather than take risks.
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Here is a picture of rock music writer, Ritchie Yorke, interviewing John Lennon in May of 1969, just 5 months prior to the Led Zeppelin concert at Carnegie Hall in October 1969. Ritchie Yorke with John Lennon at the King Eddie hotel in Toronto discussing the location for John and Yoko's second bed-in for peace which ultimately took place in Montreal, May 1969. Ritchie Yorke (left) alongside John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Toronto, 1969.
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Ritchie Yorke, who started out as a disc jockey and music critic eventually became a rock musician/rock band biographer, wrote a definitive biography of Led Zeppelin. Music journalist and author Ritchie Yorke, who served as Billboard’s Canadian editor for a decade in the 70s and went on to pen books on Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, and most recently John and Yoko, died in his native Australia, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease on Feb. 6. He was 73. When Yorke fixed his sights on something he believed in, his support was dogged. The New Yardbirds had become Led Zeppelin and he began championing their debut album, when positive reviews for it were still scarce. The band never forgot and he went on to tour with them, introduced them on stage, wrote a biography and even appeared in their feature film. Their bassist John Paul Jones described him as "Zeppelin's champion". That decade [the 1970’s], he put out Into The Music: The Van Morrison Biography, The Led Zeppelin Biography, and The History Of Rock ‘n’ Roll. In the 80s, he returned to Brisbane. He worked as an announcer and producer for ABC Radio for two years until 1989, and wrote for Brisbane’s Sunday Mail until 2007. In 1991, re-issued his Led Zeppelin book under the title Led Zeppelin: The Definitive Biography.
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A great review of the Carnegie Hall October 17, 1969 concert in New York by Ritchie Yorke:
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Here's an excerpt from an oral history interview with Eddie Kramer about his experience with Led Zeppelin in the A&R Studio just two months prior to the Carnegie Hall concert in New York: EDDIE KRAMER: The first time I heard "Whole Lotta Love" was in August '69, when Jimmy and I started working on the album's final mix at New York's A&R Recording. Jimmy and I had first met in 1964, when he was playing on the Kinks' first album [Kinks] at Pye Studios and I was the assistant engineer. I also had heard Led Zeppelin early on in '68, when John Paul Jones played me an acetate of Led Zeppelin's first album, before it was released. I was blown away — it sounded so hard and heavy. In New York, the recording console at A&R was fairly primitive. It had only twelve channels, with old-fashioned rotary dials to control track levels instead of sliding faders, and there were just two pan pots [control knobs] to send the sound from left to right channels. But as Jimmy and I listened to the mix, something unexpected came up. At the point where the song breaks and Robert slowly wails, "Way down inside . . . woman . . . you need . . . love," Jimmy and I heard this faint voice singing the lyric before Robert did on the master vocal track. Apparently Robert had done two different vocals, recording them on two different tracks. Even when I turned the volume down all the way on the track that we didn't want, his powerful voice was bleeding through the console and onto the master. Some people today still think the faint voice was a pre-echo, that we added it on purpose for effect. It wasn't—it was an accident. Once Jimmy and I realized we had to live with it on the master, I looked at Jimmy, he looked at me, and we both reached for the reverb knob at the same time and cracked up laughing. Our instincts were the same—to douse the faint, intruding voice in reverb so it sounded part of the master plan.
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Ahmet Ertegun and Atlantic Records is where it all started during the meteoric rise of Led Zeppelin during 1969: Source: Rock and Roll Explorer Guide to New York City
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Under the "six degrees of separation" category, Graham Nash was on the flight with Led Zeppelin from London Heathrow Airport to New York in October 1969 to play at Carnegie Hall. Roughly twenty-five years later, Graham's band mate, Neil Young, would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on January 13, 1995. To help celebrate that induction, Led Zeppelin jammed with Neil Young on a 10 minute rendition of "When the Levee's Gonna Break". Note that Neil Young is playing Jimmy Page's signature guitar, the Les Paul Black Beauty!! Even Robert Plant is cranking away on his own guitar. This is a can't be missed video recording! The link to this absolutely awesome and timeless live in-concert recording at the Hall of Fame event is below:
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Here's an excerpted report from the [London] Financial Times showing the significance of Led Zeppelin's highly successful concert at Carnegie Hall combined with chart topping record sales of both LZI and LZII. In the process, the band started to attract growing attention back home in the UK, prompting the UK Board of Trade, represented by Gwyneth Dunwoody, to recognize Led Zeppelin for boosting the country's balance of trade. When Gwyneth Dunwoody entered Parliament for the first time in 1966, as MP for Exeter, a promising future lay before her. Then a slim brunette, she added a touch of glamour to the Labour benches. Within 17 months Harold Wilson had made her a junior minister at the Board of Trade, where she succeeded in combining a hectic political schedule with a full family life. Her husband, John Dunwoody, Labour MP for Falmouth and Camborne, had entered Parliament with her; they had three young children.
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The NY Mets baseball team won the World Series the week Led Zeppelin played at Carnegie Hall on October 17, 1969. Here is a photo that ran in the Northwest Arkansas Times the day of the concert showing the aftermath of a ticker tape parade on Wall Street (lower Manhattan) the day before the concert.
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Cash Box magazine was one of the first music industry magazines to recognize Led Zeppelin's incredible talent: Source: Cash Box magazine; November 1,, 1969. Our Personal Thanks and Tribute to Bruce Harris: Here is the masthead (below) of Cash Box magazine showing Bruce Harris as one of three associate editors working out of the New York office. Bruce deserves substantial recognition and appreciation from Led Zeppelin fans for acknowledging the emerging talent and impact of Led Zeppelin. And Bruce did this in clear and outspoken fashion when other writers and music critics at Rolling Stone magazine and other music trade papers were critical of the band or were simply "not getting" what so many of Led Zeppelin's fan's had experienced and recognized personally through listening to their music and attending their phenomenal concerts such as their "two hour plus showcase" at Carnegie Hall in 1969.
