Get a guitar rack:

This Week in History: 1972 Kerry Waghorn creates a legendary Led Zeppelin poster jmackie@postmedia.com https://theprovince.com/news/local-news/this-week-in-history-1972-kerry-waghorn-creates-a-legendary-led-zeppelin-poster/ Kerry Waghorn’s Led Zeppelin poster has become something of a Holy Grail for Led Zeppelin collectors. When Rolling Stones fans rioted outside the Pacific Coliseum on June 3, 1972, Vancouver council was alarmed. So on June 8 they voted 9-2 to cancel the city’s next big rock show, Led Zeppelin at the Coliseum. Artist Kerry Waghorn had done a poster for the show, which was being promoted by his friend Gary Switlo of Concert Box Office. “We would print them up in packs of 200,” explains Waghorn, 73. “For a show like that they would have printed a lot more. But I don’t know how many posters actually got out before they cancelled it.” Forty-eight years later, Waghorn’s Led Zeppelin poster has become something of a Holy Grail for Led Zeppelin collectors. “That poster now, because of its rarity, goes for like $17,000,” he said. Waghorn is constantly getting requests for it on his website. Alas, he can’t even make copies, because the poster is so rare he doesn’t even own a copy himself. But there’s a wrinkle to the story. When the gig was cancelled, Switlo gave Waghorn a partial pack of the unused posters. But he threw them out, because he didn’t like his own illustration. “I remember having quite a few from a packet of 200,” Waghorn recalls. “Bob (Masse) and I had an office in Gastown, and there were train tracks down below, and a dumpster. You know where that railway car restaurant is? Right there. “And I remember throwing 150 of them away! But I console myself that if those 150 flooded the market (today) it would drop way down anyway.” He chuckles. “We had no idea back then that posters would be collected, we never thought like that,” he said. “It was just like a job, you did it and were happy and went on with the next one.” It’s hard to understand why Waghorn didn’t like his illustration — it’s a marvellous depiction of the band in all their hairy glory, executed in Waghorn distinctive style. Images like this helped make Waghorn one of the most successful caricaturists in the world — his work has been published in over 400 newspapers in 60 countries, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle. Born and raised in North Vancouver, Waghorn started off doing cartoons and illustrations for the student paper at Simon Fraser University (The Peak) in the late ‘60s. He progressed to the Georgia Straight and then The Vancouver Sun, where he estimates he did 40 to 50 covers for Leisure magazine. For many years he shared a studio with Masse, a legendary psychedelic poster artist. Waghorn did a lot of posters as well. “I think I did about 40, 45,” he said. “Didn’t do nearly as many as Bob. Bob was a lot more into it than I was. My ambition — my high, lofty ambition — was always to work at The Sun, to be with Roy (Peterson), a cartoonist or caricaturist.” His big break was in 1971, when Waghorn and Masse drove to San Francisco. “Bob knew a few people so we actually got into a van and we drove down and went to the underground comix places, all the poster studios and learnt a bunch of stuff, it was great,” he recounts. “But then the van broke down. He wanted to go to North Beach to go to City Lights (bookstore) and all that stuff, do the beat tour, and I went to the Chronicle. I wanted to see a cartoonist called Graysmith. He wasn’t in but the receptionist said ‘Do you want to see Stanley Arnold?’” As luck would have it, Arnold was one of the giants of newspaper syndication — he was instrumental in the success of Dear Abby, Doonesbury and The Far Side. He suggested that Waghorn try syndicating his caricatures. “I had to do a hundred, to show I had speed and consistency, and that changed my life,” he said. He was distributed by Chronicle and Universal Features for four decades before he retired four years ago. He more or less gave up posters after his syndication career took off, but you can find some of his old posters on his website, kerrywaghorn.com. “My best one, my fondest one, was Laura Nyro,” he said. “She was going to actually use it for a re-release of her first album — she phoned from New York and we talked quite a few times. “But her mother decided the look I gave her made it look like she was on drugs. ‘Too stoned’ was the quote. So I didn’t do the album cover.” https://theprovince.com/news/local-news/this-week-in-history-1972-kerry-waghorn-creates-a-legendary-led-zeppelin-poster/

sold for $325,000

Sounds great!

https://www.johnpauljones.com/bio/ After an hour-long rehearsal earlier in the day, I performed with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Phil Collins and Tony Thompson at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium in support of “Live Aid” charity event.

It was aired at the time on radio, slated for an official promo LP release, but was eventually shelved.

MSG 73 used the KT88 mod. I have an excellent repro of it from Royal Amps. http://www.royalamps.com/specs.html They offer it in 100w or 50w: "MSG 100" and "MSG 50" models.

Fun to see the spooky kid outside the Laugardalsholl Hall in colour, lol. So far, Iceland footage seemed to work the best. The live clip looks incredible too, down to the blue sky peeking in the windows.

I've been playing around with A.I. colourizing software on some black & white Zeppelin clips. Sometimes the results are impressive. It seems to work best on natural settings like outdoors. some mp4 clips: Danish TV '69, Sweden TV 69, Iceland 70, BBC 70 interview, Amsterdam 72: danishtv_sams-colourtest.mp4 1969-swedentv-samscolourtest.mp4 1970-iceland-samscolourtest.mp4 1970-RPJB-interview-samscolourtest.mp4 1972-amsterdam-samscolourtest.mp4

When the designer of this iconic album cover met Led Zeppelin As his original artwork for Led Zeppelin’s debut LP comes to auction, the revered designer George Hardie recalls his first meeting with the legendary rock band In 1969, while George Hardie was still an art student at the Royal College of Art, he was summoned to the attic office of RAK Records on Oxford Street in London to meet Peter Grant, the larger-than-life manager of a new group called Led Zeppelin. Hardie had been recommended to the moustachioed Goliath after adding the typography to Jeff Beck’s recent album, Truth. ‘I sat biting my nails. Opposite me sat four musicians biting theirs,’ recalls Hardie. RAK Records was situated near the Marquee Club in Soho, where a small queue was forming to see the newly formed British rock band play live for the first time. ‘Every so often one of them, a blond, would set off down the stairs to the Marquee and arrive back, puffing, to report on the growth of the queue.’ The blond was singer Robert Plant. Inside the office, Hardie presented his ideas for the cover of the rock band’s debut album, a design based on an old club sign from San Francisco. It was rejected by a ‘thin dark-haired man’, who turned out to be the band’s guitarist, Jimmy Page. It was The Who’s raucous drummer, Keith Moon, who had suggested the name Led Zeppelin after a humorous conversation with Page about being in a group together, and their chances of going down like a lead balloon. So Page wanted an image inspired by a photograph of the Hindenburg Zeppelin exploding into flames that was taken by Sam Shere in 1937. ‘So I set to, and with my finest Rapidograph, dot-stippled a facsimile of the famous photograph some seven inches square on a sheet of tracing paper,’ says Hardie. The artist admits he had no idea then that the extravagantly hirsute band would become so successful and that their album, Led Zeppelin I, would go on to sell millions of copies. There is even a lithograph of the album cover held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Hardie was paid £60 for the artwork, which he says he was quite happy with. ‘I think the drawing made a good and memorable cover, but this was more to do with the photograph and Jimmy Page’s choice of it than with my skill as a dotter,’ he says modestly. Today, as well as being responsible for some of the world’s most iconic album covers, including Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Technical Ecstasy for Black Sabbath, Hardie is a celebrated illustrator and designer. His clean, geometrical drawings are instantly recognisable on book covers and postage stamps. Hardie’s relationship with Led Zeppelin continued through the design collective Hipgnosis. ‘We did some good work for them,’ he acknowledges — notably his design for their 1976 album Presence. The artist’s surreal collage of a happy suburban family seated around a strange, primeval statue was as disconcerting as it was humorous. A few years ago, Hardie was clearing out his studio when he found the original tracing for Led Zeppelin I at the bottom of a plan chest. ‘It was unsullied, in a clean folder on which one of my partners had written years ago, “G’s pension fund”.’ The original artwork for Led Zeppelin I by George Hardie will be offered in Fine Printed Books & Manuscripts including Americana during Classic Week at Christie’s, 2-18 June, Online. https://www.christies.com/features/George-Hardie-original-artwork-for-Led-Zeppelin-I-10500-1.aspx

I think all the bashing should stop. Thanks.

A collage of pics from the O2.

Led Zeppelin has partnered with YouTube for an exclusive streaming event of 'Celebration Day', the concert film chronicling the band’s historic live performance from 2007. Celebration Day will premiere this Saturday, May 30, at 8pm UK / 3pm ET / 12pm PT, on the Official Led Zeppelin YouTube channel. Follow this link for the event, and set a reminder:

JPJ official Facebook: John Paul Jones Official Back in 1975, when Led Zeppelin were at the top of their game, Etta James was due to perform at Montreux Jazz Festival. She needed a bass player, and John was asked if he could step in. He did, and this is what happened... Just one of the highlights that can be found in the bio section of JPJ’s new site http://www.johnpauljones.com

There was another actor named "Peter Grant" so some of the listings attributed to our PG are incorrect. I don't think he was in Alias John Preston.

RP interview in Montreux 2014:

New official John Paul Jones site now up: www.johnpauljones.com

I have not confirmed with JP, but I believe the year he saw Little Richard in Miami at the Newport Lounge was 1970, when Zep played in April. Here is an ad from the night Zep played the Miami Convention Center April 10, 1970:

Original Artwork for Led Zeppelin’s Debut Album Headed to Auction George Hardie’s stipple tracing of Sam Shere’s Hindenburg photo expected to fetch between $20,000 and $30,000 By Jon Blistein The original artwork on the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1969 self-titled debut album will be auctioned off via Christie’s during a sale scheduled for June 2nd through 18th. The cover was designed by George Hardie and based on photographer Sam Shere’s famous 1937 photograph of the Hindenburg disaster. It’s estimated to fetch between $20,000 to $30,000, and Christie’s senior specialist of Books and Manuscripts, Peter Klarnet, tells Rolling Stone, “In terms of rarity, this is a unique object — I don’t think you can get rarer than that.” Hardie designed the piece while he was a graduate student at the Royal College of Art in London after his friend, the photographer Stephen Goldblatt, had recommended him to Zeppelin. After rejecting Hardie’s first few cover ideas, guitarist Jimmy Page suggested he do something with Shere’s Hindenburg picture. For his take on the photo, Hardie used tracing paper to recreate the image in stipple — a style of drawing using small dots — to give it the same feel as a low-resolution newspaper photo. Led Zeppelin reportedly paid Hardie just £60 for his work, although when he uncovered the original stipple tracing years later it had a note attached to it that read, “George’s pension fund.” “The historical significance of this album cover cannot be understated,” Klarnet says. “It marked a major turning point in the history of pop music, heralded by the debut of Led Zeppelin. It was louder, bolder than what had come before and would come to define the shape of hard rock for generations. This simple rendering of the Hindenburg exploding over Lakehurst stands as a monument to that important historical moment. And the image has endured in a way that most other album covers have not — it very much has taken on a life of its own.” Hardie would go on to design album covers for bands like Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and Wings, often as part of the London-based design group Hipgnosis. Klarnet says Hardie’s Led Zeppelin cover “certainly helped him establish what became a long and successful career in the field. Yet in his mind, it was only a simple tracing of a photograph — and little more. Yet, the manner in which he traced the Hindenburg photograph, he managed to re-work it in a way that both evoked the past while simultaneously projecting what was to come. It’s because of its simplicity that it became an extremely powerful image that in many regards transcends what Sam Shere captured in the original photograph.” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/led-zeppelin-album-original-cover-art-george-hardie-auction-995569/

Mark Lanegan’s New album is released today featuring JPJ on keyboards on one track http://www.marklanegan.com

Here's possibly the first photographic evidence of Led Zeppelin performing in Las Vegas. It's from a print purchased in the 1980s from a Los Angeles photographer. On the back, along with his contact info he wrote the date: 1969 August 7.

By James Vukmirovic | Kidderminster | Coronavirus A Kidderminster sportswear company making scrubs for healthcare workers has received the support of rock legend Robert Plant. The Led Zeppelin singer and local resident made a donation worth several thousand pounds to help MG Sportswear keep supporting the NHS during the coronavirus pandemic. The donation is one of many MG has received since starting a Go Fund Me page to raise funds to get the fabrics to make scrubs. Business manager Kim Calder said the firm would normally be preparing clothing for school and sports tours but had had to cease production due to the ongoing crisis. She also said that watching the news about the lack of scrubs at hospitals around the region had spurred the firm into action. Kim said: "Every night, we heard the stories of shortage of scrubs for frontline hospital workers due to the increase in demand and the need to change them more frequently. "Our company director Gino Ruffinato was saddened that we had the capacity to supply but not the supply chain or the funds to get the fabric needed." Gino approached local businesses, including The Old Waggon and Horses in Bewdley, which donated £1,000, and set up a Go Fund Me page to raise money towards materials. https://www.expressandstar.com/news/health/coronavirus-covid19/2020/04/18/robert-plant-donates-to-kidderminster-company-making-scrubs-for-nhs/

Here's another article, which help date this photo as May 1972