You are welcome, pj040403,and I agree with you Jimmy was lucky he had wildest period in the 70’s (not only him but also other many rock stars though ) and I also don’t need to know their debauchery from those days. Personally I consider that those acts were just for stress release from hard works on the road. Did any of LZ members break up with their then partners because of those acts in heyday? None. The reason why I think Brad Tolinski's book is wonderful is that he avoided this sort of things. Brad said in an interview of rokin’on (Japanese rock magazine) December issue interviewed by a Japanese writer Ryo Uchida that Jimmy told him nothing about Light and Shade book when they met in NYC in October. This is a part of Brad’s interview from rokin’on. Q (Uchida) : Has Jimmy Page read this book? You worry about his impression about it, do you? A (Tolinski): Yes, it seems Jimmy did not read my book until recently. And it seems he did not want to talk with me until he has read this book, so I didn’t know if I could meet him the other day when he came to NYC to attend the premire show of Celebration Day. After all we spent together for a long time and we saw Joe Walsh concert. Jimmy told me nothing about Light and Shade book. I guess perhaps he did not want to tell me that he liked it. (laugh)

This is Jimmy’s interview by Nick Kent in 1976. You would learn only a little about him around these days. I can’t put the link. Perhaps we might pay for that site now. Jimmy Page: Shy Rock Star Almost Unburdens Himself By Nick Kent (Originally Published: 04/01/1977, Creem) I've known Led Zeppelin professionally for probably 4 years now, starting back in the winter of 1972 when I was sent out on the road with them only to find myself ending up in a fairly ludicrous but nonetheless highly tense argument with Jimmy Page in the dressing-room on the very first night. I immediately took a dislike to the band personally, but found myself so blown apart by their live gigs of that time, that whatever vitriol I might have harbored from such unfortunate encounters was dissipated into instant "rave-review" time when it came to actually putting pen to paper. The resulting piece was, in retrospect, a quite horrendous piece of well-meaning gush, the memory of which I'd prefer buried for an eternity but anyway... For some unknown reason, thereafter I became accepted by the band and co., and recall one night, maybe six months later, running into Page by chance and spending a most enjoyable evening ensconsed in informal chitchat with the gent. From then on, I seemed to run into the guitarist and other members of his band regularly and always found them to be thoroughly pleasant human beings, particularly Peter Grant and Page, who both seemed to me the very paradox of the images that had been served up by certain factions of the press, i.e. Grant, the fearsomely uncouth semi-gangster type, and Page, the hedonistically depraved Crowley fanatic, scourge of the groupies and all-purpose heavy-duty evil presence. The main aspect of Page the interview subject that has always become apparent to me as soon as the trusty cassette is turned on, has been the man's overriding reticence, his distinct fear of actually being probed for copy, his at times desperate concern for privacy at-all-costs in regard to topics that seem so totally innocent and lightweight to the on-looker. I've been slotted in at the end of what appears to have been a day of fairly gruelling gang-bang interview scheduling. As the photographer and I enter the Swan Song offices, a Japanese journalist is being shown out, and an American writer is about to be led up for his shot, while the guy from the London Evening Standard is still waiting his half-an-hour's worth. After an hour we're led up to the interview room to encounter a Page obviously torn and frayed by the day's verbal duties. He's been left rather unsettled by the last caller. Well, nothing much has changed in that respect -- if anything Page has become even more reticent, constantly checking himself in the middle of what seems the most mild utterance, to work out whether what he is saying could jeopardize some aspect of the band's communal year-away-as-working-tax-exiles. A single question, for example, referring to the number of times the four band members have come together for whatever reason in the past year, takes Page a good seven minutes of checking and counter-checking before the answer can be given satisfactorily. "I just don't trust those sort of writers. You never know what they're after. It's useless trying to explain Crowley and all those things to them..." His manner is wired-up, slightly uncomfortable to behold. The first topic, of course, is The Song Remains The Same. It's a late Wednesday afternoon, and I've worked it out to strict 50-50 odds as to whether Page and the Swan Song reps will have got hold of the NME issue with my highly derogatory review of the film. No one has, in fact, so I'm safe in one respect. Still I decide to voice a number of my criticisms straight off. I didn't really like it. I don't think it did you as a band, justice. "How do you mean?" Page is coiled up, listening, nervy. I think you undersold yourselves, I say, quickly attempting to counter the vagueness of the accusation, by zeroing in on the live album and voicing my dissatisfactions there. Before I can specify, Page leaps in. "Ah, well that's just one of those unfortunate things, because if you start picking that apart... well first and foremost it's a soundtrack album and as such simply has to be available. As for an actual live album... well my idea, prior to Robert's accident which dictated virtually everything we've done since was to do a chronological affair with tracks dating back to 1970 with "Communication Breakdown," say, and going through the various incarnations right up to tracks we'll be doing on the next tour for Presence." That would be great, I mutter. "It will be great," Page counters. But to return to the film; Page is fairly defensive about it, concerning himself with those aspects that have to be taken into account to gain what he considers the fullest appreciation of the affair. "There's a lot of points to be weighed up. It's a musical, yes, but it's also a documentary. For example, the robbery ...you've got to take that into account... the fact, for example, that when we were onstage playing those gigs, half the band actually knew about it and half the band didn't know. So the playing isn't totally... Plus it was right at the end of a tour." "You're saying we're underselling ourselves, O.K., well we weren't going to put anything about the robbery in, but then again it is relevant. It's all pretty honest, I think." Further points worth taking into consideration concern the minimal amount of footage actually shot during the tour. Out of a fairly mammoth U.S. tour, only one date in Baltimore and two nights at Madison Square Garden were filmed. Backstage footage was coincidental with the concerts. "Oh, forget about it as a film of the tour! As regards the gig, well it's not a terribly good night and it's not terribly bad. Certainly not a magic one but not... tragic." The fantasy sequences were all filmed some three months after the tour itself had been finished in the late summer of '73. Bonham's scene seems to be Page's favorite, and when discussing the amount of thought that went behind the conceptualizing of each member's fantasy, Page is at least candid. "Let's just say that when we weren't viewing the thing as a tax write-off (laughs), there was as much commitment and dedication involved as goes into anything we do." "There's no point in us making excuses. The facts are there to be understood." "I just see it... it's not a great film... just a reasonably honest statement of where we were at that particular time. That's all it can be, really." "I mean, it's still very difficult to view even now, particularly with this build-up. I'd like to see it in a year's time, just to see how it stands up." "Because it's extremely relevant to the band, because simply, for us, it sums up a certain era." "In a nut-shell, the film sums up an era when the band finished its sets with 'Whole Lotta Love.' That doesn't mean anything now, does it? It's only the Top of the Pops signature tune, now, anyway (laughs)..." On the tour following the '73 Song Remains The Same epic the band virtually dropped all reference to "Whole Lotta Love," except for the occasional few bars thrown in at encore-time. Instead the finale was given over to "Stairway to Heaven." So things are looking healthy again for Zeppelin after what can only be described as a fairly disorientating year for the collective, as well as certain individuals within the group, it appears, Page being paramount amongst them. Again there is great hesitancy regarding the subject's talking about the year's more intimate troubles. The past I2 months, though, have seen Page return to Charlotte, his old lady of longstanding and the mother of his daughter, Scarlet, and therefore a more domestically ordered existence. "The troubles... well for a start, Charlotte's been very ill but that's something one doesn't need to go into, really, only that...if you've been with someone for a long time and they get ill, then you immediately have that responsibility ...I don't really need to say anymore." Page seems a changed man from the days that seemed to reach their hiatus during the '74 tour of America. Then, the guitarist, at once unattached, was staying up for days and nights on end in some kind of mortal combat with the forces of Nature, pushing virtually everything to the limits and cultivating some potentially bad habits in the process. According to Page, though, the pressures I witnessed him testing himself on back then were nothing to what went down during the recording of Presence in Munich. "That was the ultimate test of that whole... lifestyle. I mean, that was 18 hours a day at a real intensity every day. You just plunge in and, I mean, you don't start thinking about three meals a day." Presence, by the way, is Page's favorite Zeppelin album, "Or at least the one which, when I think back on the sessions, I consider the most fulfilling. I mean, but maybe that's a rather bad yardstick to use for what one's favorite album is. Every record had had its moments." So what happened after Presence's completion? "Well, as far as I was concerned, it was a case of sorting out a year's problems in... say, a month, and not finding the whole process as simple as that. I mean, suddenly I had time to look around and suddenly I became aware of certain people who'd been taking incredible advantage of me in the year I'd been away." Page shies away from going into any great details but makes mention of a couple whom he let stay at his main home of residence and who, apparently, immediately "assumed the identity of me and Charlotte. That got very ugly." And then there is the case of one Kenneth Anger. Two days after Page had returned from Switzerland where he'd been producing a lavish total-percussion track dreamed up and executed by John Bonham (which Page reckons is a cert for inclusion on the next Zep album), he was faced with a copy of a British rock paper carrying possibly the most snide vitriolic attack in recent years to appear in a music periodical. Anger's beef was that Page hadn't finished the soundtrack to his movie, Lucifer Rising. Anger made all sorts of wild accusations, implying that Page was possibly having drug problems ("Page's affair with The White Lady"). amongst other things, which for starters is complete fabrication. Page, in fact, almost brightens to the thought of putting his side of the Anger epic into print. "I must start by saying that I've lost a hell of a lot of respect for him. I mean, the level of pure bitchiness he was working on...at one point he was writing silly little letters to everybody he thought I knew so that they would naturally bring it up in conversation when they saw me. "This whole thing about 'Anger's Curse'; they were just these silly little letters. God it was all so pathetic. I mean, I've got to get my side across now because it's just gone too far. Hell, you know that I did the film music and you know when I did it, so you must have thought it odd when Anger came out against me like that, right?" (Page in fact rented a rough cut of Lucifer Rising and showed it to an informal gathering, yours truly included, complete with his soundtrack, in L.A. early in I975.) "Well, he's implying that he'd received nothing from me, which is totally untrue. I gave him everything in plenty of time, OK." What Page also claims is that he helped Anger personally locate a screening/editing room in London and that Peter Grant was also interested in maybe investing something into the completion of the film, and offered him accommodation in London's chic Gloucester Place Mews. "So OK, I'm a mug! Cos one day this whole thing just blew up. And that's all I knew about it. This bitchiness is just an extension of Anger's Hollywood Babylon." Anger had apparently been angling for a further backer for the film, Page claims. "Now whether he thought in his mind that he was indebted to me somehow and that he felt he had to get me off his back I don't know. I mean I didn't start hassling. I just wanted to see the bloke finish the bloody film, I mean its whole history is so absurd, anyway. I just assumed that it was unfinished because he was such a perfectionist and he'd always end up going over his budgets. All I can say is: Anger's time was all that was needed to finish that film. Nothing else!" Anger also made allegations that his belongings had been held -- impounded by Page and sundry cohorts. "What a snide bastard. His stuff was just all over the place and I just got some roadies to get it all together for him. Christ, he even turned that one round against me. "I mean, I had a lot of respect for him. As an occultist he was definitely in the vanguard. I just don't know what he's playing at. I'm totally bemused and really disgusted. It's truly pathetic. I mean, he is powerless -- totally. The only damage he can do is with his tongue." Page has somehow relaxed now, the saga of Anger having been completed (and there are more details but enough is perhaps enough for now). "So much of this year has been taken up with petty little time-consuming things. It's not been a static period so much as an unsatisfying one. There have been so many niggling little things to take care of -- things so petty readers would never believe Jimmy Page rock guitarist would need to involve himself with (laughs)." A final shrug: "It's changing now though. I mean, playing live -- that whole stimulus -- has been missing, and Christ, when we did that first rehearsal it just clicked all over again. I just feel that I've cleaned out a load of problems and now I'm ready to get back in the fray, so to speak. "Something epic is going to happen musically anyway. That's what I feel. This next tour... you'll see." — Republished: 12/19/2008

This topic has been one of Jimmy’s mysteries for a long time. Of all fans, no one knows the truth and no one can explain it correctly as far as I know. I’m sure they (Jimmy and Charlotte) will keep silent about this and I love it. Jimmy constantly claims that he had a stable family life in his LZ era in the book (Light and Shade) or in recent magazines,like Guitar World even though he had not exposed it to public in those days,except for a few interviews by a few reliable writers. I just believe his own words. Brad Tolinski’s book tells us some hints that what Jimmy thought of his family life and tour life, though there are a few contradictions (or faults) in the book. It’s very intersting that Jimmy honestly said about both lives. Whether he legally had married or not,he had obviously family life in the 70's. I'm glad to know that he seems to be still grateful to his family. “we really only socialized when we were in the studio or out on the road. We all really came to value our family lives, especially after being on the road so much, which is how it should be. It helped create a balance in our lives. Our families helped keep us sane.” (P.97) “Those really were the days of pure hedonism. LA, in particular was like Sodom and Gomorrah, but it always had that vibe, even going back to the golden age of Hollywood in the twenties and thirties. You just ate it up and drank it down. And why not?” (P.161)

Mine will reach me 25th or 26th. Before it, I’ve already checked some contents of it on amazon.com as always. Personally I think the value of this book is that above all Jimmy is OK. There are no other books like that and this book is much different from many other tabloid-like books. According to the author Brad Tolinski, all info is from Jimmy himself. The author mainly did focus on Jimmy's musical achievements and at the same time pulled his honest feelings in respective eras too. I love Jimmy's interviews from Guitar World magazines though I did not read all of them. Some of them remind me of old interviews of Jimmy from Japanese rock magazine "MUSIC LIFE". Jimmy answered so honestly and certainly they had a mutual respect. Tolinski writes this way on the Overture section, Most writers just wanted to know about his alleged drug use, weird groupie sex, or whether it was true that he’d made a pact with Satan. Truth is, few journalist treated him or his band with the respect they accorded his peers John Lennon, Keith Richards and Pete Townshend. In the long run, none of it really mattered. Jimmy turned his obsession with privacy into an essential part of his mystique. He became rock’s greatest enigma. This is where I come in.

ZISH, When I found your former thread was removed I felt so sad and I could not understand the reason. If it was done by yourself I'd like to respect your will. And as other members have already said, I also think you (your experiences)are so precious for this forum. Please keep enjoying here!

Thanks for the nice thread,Knebby. Probably you forgot this cutting. I remember you showed us this lovely article here at first a few years ago.

Unfortunately there is no credit. But probably this interviewer was a female correspondent from Shinko Music LTD who lived in London at that time. She writes that she met all Led Zep members at some party and that they were very cheerful people. This is an another interview from ML magazine which was on July issue 1982. It was the first and the exclusive interview of Jimmy Page after Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980(sorry, this is also all written in Japanese). This was done at Swan Song office on May,1982. The writer’s name is Kim Yamakado/ London Correspondent –Shinko Music Exclusive Writer. Jimmy came to SS office with his wife Charlotte (Ms.Yamakado writes this way),and before the interview Jimmy went to Kings Road and bought a cloisonne fountain pen with a dragon picture on a golden ground. He told how he was asked an offer of the soundtrack album by Michael Winner, and how he wanted to play on stage soon. He even told every bands were OK if they would accept him. He also talked about Foreigner’s concert in Germany when he played with them and Robert and that it was so fantastic. Moreover he talked about other guitar greats like J.Beck or John McLaughlin etc... I wish I could do all the translation,but it’s hard for me to do it perfectly. I guess the interview of "rockin’on" (July issue) in 1982 was done just after the ML magazine did. "rockin’on" did it by an international telephone. Unfortunately I don't have it now. I might be able to find it in the attic or somewhere though...

Jimmy Page was/is famous for his mysterious image,but I recognize he once in a while shows his true face to fans,especially when he is happy. This is his interview which was on the January issue of MUSIC LIFE magazine 1977. The interview was done at Swan Song office on November 10,1976 . Jimmy rejoiced at the success of the movie"The Song Remains The Same" and said he was looking forward to coming US (1977) tour. In addition,he said as he separated from his family due to the tax problem and he wanted to stay at home for a while. He also said that he was busy for the preparation for US tour,but that he was going to have a Christmas holiday with his family which meant only Charlotte and Scarlet. The article tells at the end that 'Jimmy’s calm eyes tell the warmth of a family man.'

If you really want to know about their relationship or something close to the truth in those days, I personally think you should find it on another places. There are few members who know it here. Even if a few people know it they would not write anything in detail here,because this is the public space. The various situation surrounded him in Zep era was much different from another era,I think. Jimmy said to the Japanese magazine named rockin’on (July issue) in 1982 that the legal marriage system was not so important to him and that he had lived with the same woman in the past 12 years. And he added that ‘'you had better to ask my lady why we don’t marry’' at that time. It was in 1976 when Charlotte got sick and Jimmy returned home to take care of her, despite he was away from England because of the tax problem. As aen27 writes, they still remain close friends, according to one of ex-staffs of Swan Song office. Today they have two grandchildren.

Recently Jimmy wrote on On This Day ''Richie Yorke was one of the first people to capitalise from Led Zeppelin by writing an unauthorised book.''despite Yorke had been said to be an only trusted music journalist by LZ members in the 70's.To be honest,I was a little bit shocked at this entry. I personally think one of the reasons why Jimmy doesn't like most books on him is that there are many inaccuracies in those books(about his private life too). Did anyone actually ask Jimmy himself or his real people about his private life? Most quotes are just from unreliable books published in the past.I think Richard Cole is basically not a bad man,but obviously he changed some stories on purpose.In addition,I feel it so curious some people still believe Pamela Des Barres's claims on Jimmy.If you'll check her book and LZ's real history,tour timeline or Jimmy's OTD etc at the same time,you'll find many errors in her book(she claims she kept a diary though...)I wonder if these errors are just mistakes or fabrications. Jimmy said to The New York Times in 2010, ''Everyone wants to know what happened here and there, and you’ve got so many people that come forward with explanations — people who give authoritative accounts who were never anywhere near the place.'' http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/arts/music/08page.html I agree with you,aen.I'm sure Jimmy does trust Howard and Dave.And Brad Tolinski also has been trusted by Jimmy for a long time.I think we can expect his coming JP book. To tell the truth,I contacted and asked him about his book on SNS site and he briefly but graciously answered to me that ''Almost everything in the book either comes from Page himself or new interviews I've conducted. I think you'll be pleased.''

As Robert had his second son Logan in 1979 with Maureen,wasn't this girl just an encounter to him on the road?Of course I'm sure she must have been one of his favorite road girls too. As for Jimmy,he has sometimes talked about his family life to some media that he really trusted.I saw his that interviews several times. This is one of them, Guitar World May issue 2007 Jimmy Page interview.(P.54) Led Zeppelin - In 1973, Led Zeppelin were flying high...in more ways than one. The story behind Houses of the Holy, the album that made the group international superstars.'We really only socialized when we were on the road,'' he said.''We all really came to value our family lives.....Our families helped keep us sane.'' At home in Plumpton Place,Page began to try his hand at vegetable gardening,hung Afgan hangings in his rooms and continued to manifest what he called his ''affinity with the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites.If I wasn't into rock,'' Page told a journalist,''I would be living somewhere like Wales in a commune.'' In addition,according to Howard Mylett interview from Dave Lewis's Tight But Loose magazine(published in 2011),when he went to Plumpton Place with his wife,Jimmy and his family warmly welcomed them.(courtesy of aen27.thank you aen!)

Thank you very much for all these precious photos and article,dear friend!All of them are new to me. I'm glad to know that boys had visited Hong Kong before their second Japan tour in 1972. (I had heard it somewhere,but I had not seen the proof)It's so interesting. Thanks again!

Thank you for the link,PlanetPage.I could not see photos,but I'll register there later. They visited Nanzen-ji,which is a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan on September 1971. In addition,40 years later(October 2011,the same place,that I took a picture).

PlanetPage, My FB friend told me Jimmy's photo(with Sitar) was on this book.This book is still available on amazon site in Canada,UK and Japan.

You are welcome,PlanetPage.I'm so glad you enjoyed these photos. I found this photo of Jimmy playing Sitar on my FB friend's wall and I asked him if I could put it on here. I also asked him where he found this photo and he said that ''book from the 1980's..sort of a british groups encyclopedia...I think it is definitely yardbirds period.'' Unfortunately I don't know anymore about it.(where and when...) Maybe you are right.

This is his interview from 'Guitar World' that Jimmy talked about the situation that 'Friends' was written. Jimmy Page Discusses Led Zeppelin III http://www.guitarworld.com/jimmy_page_discusses_led_zeppelin_iii?page=0%252C0 And he doesn't say anything about his argument with his ex-wife in his autobiography.He just wrote 'I wrote the first track to the third album,'Friends',on this balcony ' in his book.

There are more photos of Plumpton Place here. http://www.countrylifeimages.co.uk:80/Search.aspx?s=plumpton%20place

I wasn't upset by it at all and I think many people don't mind such a trivial thing.It's the fact Jimmy used the word 'wife' in an interview.The fact can't be moved or changed. The exhibition of SWINGING LONDON 50's-60's：Design and Culture Revolution has been held in several places in Japan since last year.Jimmy contributes his some guitars and stage cloths to this event(he should have come to Japan for this exhibition in April!),in addition Charlotte also contributes her stuffs from the 60's.The guide of the exhibition introduces her as Jimmy Page's wife.The guide must have made prior arrangements with Jimmy or Paul Reeves or Michael Whiteway.

I see.As I recall,among his three wives,it was only an American wife who filed a suit against him.I don't understand if it's a coincidence though...

Brilliant photo of Ross Halfin,taken by Scarlet Page. Jimmy and Ross in China in 2008.I don't know who took this photo. http://www.genesis-publications.com/sojourner-ross-halfin-travels/the-author.htm

Steve,I think you always complicate this topic too much. One couple lived together for many years and had a child.It is nothing but a marriage.Especially the French consider in that way,I think. There was a famous political couple in Japan too(they separated though).Though they were not a ''legally married couple'' we consider they were a husband and a wife.On the other hand,the American is particular about a system very much.Just my opinion though...

Jimmy simply writes in his photographic autobiography that 'I wrote the first track to the third album,'Friends',on this balcony.But in an interview of 'Guitar World' magazine,he said about this song that ' http://www.guitarworld.com/jimmy_page_discusses_led_zeppelin_iii?page=0,0 (page2) GUITAR WORLD Where did Led Zeppelin III begin? JIMMY PAGE The first two things I had for the third album were Immigrant Song and Friends, which wasnt a bad place to start. Immigrant Song had a great driving riff, which spoke for itself. Friends on the other hand was more exoticit had a North African or Indian flavor. I remember I was playing around with this open C tuning [low to high, C A C G C E], but before I had written anything, I had a massive argument with my ex-wife. I went out on a balcony in my house, and suddenly the whole song spilled out, just like that. Considering the songs origins, its ironic that it ended up being called Friends. [laughs] Even if they didn't marry legally he thought Charlotte was nothing but his wife,I think. Jimmy told Japanese magazine named 'rokin'on' on July issue in 1982 that he didn't think legal marriage was important for him and he also said as if it was Charlotte's idea then.

According to the book 'LED ZEPPELIN Complete Book' that was published in 2008 by Shinko Music Entertainment Co.LTD in Japan,it is supposed that this photo was taken on September 26,1971 in Kyoto,Japan.(pic by Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music Archives.Hasebe was a famous rock photographer)After two performances in Budokan in Tokyo,LZ went to Kyoto.It was the off day.The Japanese staffs took them to a small club in Kyoto and LZ guys except for Robert(he was there too though) had an about 40 minutes-gig on the stage.At first audiences(about 40-50 people) didn't know who they were, but LZ's performance was very good and at last audiences noticed they were Led Zep! Peter Grant warned Hasebe not to take a picture there ,but Hasebe ignored it. 'LED ZEPPELIN Complete Book' The caption is 'legendary secret gig(!?)'.