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According to Stephen Davis LZ Played Austin on 3/7/75


mrledhed

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Don't mean to get off topic here but Stephen Davis said Jimmy got his Black Beauty Les Paul back in 1975. Is that true?

Absolutely false. Jimmy's three-pickup 1960 Les Paul Custom "Black Beauty" with a Bigsby tailpiece was stolen in March 1970 while in-transit on tour and never recovered.

The Custom has always haunted Jimmy as "the one that got away." In recent years, when he began working with Gibson's Custom Shop on replicas of his more iconic instruments, Jimmy brought up the idea of creating a reproduction of the lost ax. The idea was shelved temporarily, only to be revived when Page had a brainstorm on how to improve upon the original custom design.

"He felt that, on his original guitar, the design and electronics were inadequate because they left several possible pickup combinations unavailable," explained Pat Foley, who has worked closely with Jimmy on all the guitarist's recent Custom Shop Page signature models.

With Jimmy's input, Foley and the Custom Shop created a novel six-position toggle switch that looks and acts like a standard two-position toggle for a two-pickup Les Paul but includes a second "forward" position that effectively adds the middle pickup to any setting.

The configuration on the guitar is as follows: With the switch in it's "normal" position, it can be toggled between the neck, neck/bridge, and bridge pickups. When flipped in a forward direction, the switch lets the player choose between neck/middle, neck/middle/bridge, and bridge/middle pickup combinations.

Jimmy tried the new toggle switch at one of the first Led Zeppelin reunion rehearsals in England. He was so pleased with how intuitive it is to use and how well it works that he called Gibson to let them know.

As a by the way, in Summer 2007 guitarist Albert Lee said he had a Black Beauty (LP custom with Bigsby) that he introduced to Jimmy around 64/65 in London. He could not recall if it ended up being the one stolen from Jimmy or if Jimmy had gotten another one in the meantime.

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^ Davis also said the teen who brought Jimmy that guitar at the concert was arrested and just as the guitar was to be shipped off to merry old England it was confiscated at the airport and Jimmy was furious.

So I got the book yesterday and read it. Parts were fine and others offensive, like rude name calling.

But several times I laughed out loud at some of the descriptions of various "scenes."

Like when he said Cole was doing triage with all the chicks and hangers-on trying to hop a ride to the venue in one of the six or so limo's..That cracked me up, and it is just the way it was too.

And describing a San Diego show where during WLL some chicks were taking off their tops and he said there was a near stampede of the roadies rushing up to see the bare ladies.

I was disappointed there was NOT a show by show account of the tour as touted. He was only around a couple of months and didn't even always have an "in." And I found his personal life added in a boring ego driven distraction, so un- necessary.

I hoped for more, and I have to say I Loved Walked This Way.

Now, I'm off to read Wall's book. Me being cheap... I waited for the paperback. now if my eyes hold up a few more hours!

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^ Davis also said the teen who brought Jimmy that guitar at the concert was arrested and just as the guitar was to be shipped off to merry old England it was confiscated at the airport and Jimmy was furious.

So I got the book yesterday and read it. Parts were fine and others offensive, like rude name calling.

But several times I laughed out loud at some of the descriptions of various "scenes."

Like when he said Cole was doing triage with all the chicks and hangers-on trying to hop a ride to the venue in one of the six or so limo's..That cracked me up, and it is just the way it was too.

And describing a San Diego show where during WLL some chicks were taking off their tops and he said there was a near stampede of the roadies rushing up to see the bare ladies.

I was disappointed there was NOT a show by show account of the tour as touted. He was only around a couple of months and didn't even always have an "in." And I found his personal life added in a boring ego driven distraction, so un- necessary.

I hoped for more, and I have to say I Loved Walked This Way.

Now, I'm off to read Wall's book. Me being cheap... I waited for the paperback. now if my eyes hold up a few more hours!

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I haven't read this yet, but I will. I always find myself defending Stephen Davis a tad because I think he takes some unwarranted bashing. It's not that people don't have a point about the inaccuracies and sensationalizing of road stories, but all in all "Hammer of the Gods" had more of a positive effect on the over-all reputation of Zep as opposed to negative when it was originally published. Even though Cole was a jerk, he did at least like the band. Mick Wall on the other hand, seems to get almost a free pass from the same bashers since his book was released. I mean did the four members get Mick in a circle and pee on his head in '77 or something ? What a bitter man ! I found most of his book to be trash. I'm no psycholgist, but his third person writing style (for lack of a better description), makes me think the man needs some help. He was certainly more unkind in print to the four members than Stephen Davis or Richard Cole ever were.

I still think the format of Neil Young's book "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough is the finest ever used for a rock book. Of course a book in that style is only possible with the artist's permission.

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I still think the format of Neil Young's book "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough is the finest ever used for a rock book. Of course a book in that style is only possible with the artist's permission.

I've been meaning to get my hands on this, looks really good.

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If it wasn't Austin, might be Albuquerque or El Paso? Phoenix?

Has John ever talked about writing a memoir?

Sure.... just present any credible evidence, such as a concert ticket stub, a newspaper review, or listing of the show, or advertising ticket sales.

Until then, second and third hand reports are not good enough to establish it.

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  • 1 month later...

I haven't read this yet, but I will. I always find myself defending Stephen Davis a tad because I think he takes some unwarranted bashing. It's not that people don't have a point about the inaccuracies and sensationalizing of road stories, but all in all "Hammer of the Gods" had more of a positive effect on the over-all reputation of Zep as opposed to negative when it was originally published. Even though Cole was a jerk, he did at least like the band. Mick Wall on the other hand, seems to get almost a free pass from the same bashers since his book was released. I mean did the four members get Mick in a circle and pee on his head in '77 or something ? What a bitter man ! I found most of his book to be trash. I'm no psycholgist, but his third person writing style (for lack of a better description), makes me think the man needs some help. He was certainly more unkind in print to the four members than Stephen Davis or Richard Cole ever were.

I still think the format of Neil Young's book "Shakey" by Jimmy McDonough is the finest ever used for a rock book. Of course a book in that style is only possible with the artist's permission.

Personally I don't think Davis Bashing is undeserved at all. Bottom line: he focuses on the dirt...I've read HOTG of course, along with his Stones, Jim Morrison, Fleetwood Mac and Band/Levon Helm bios. All are equally terrible IMO and focus on the sex and drugs, etc more than anything else. His collaboration with Aerosmith was decent 'cos the Bad Boys From Boston did most of the talking there, even if it still focused on the sleaze! The Morrison book was the worst of the lot...he makes Jim Morrison out to be some alcoholic, druggy, bisexual and generally talentless freak who got lucky. Remember Albert Goldman, and the near-crucifixion he experienced after writing "The Lives Of John Lennon"? Stephen Davis is another Goldman: a hack with an agenda against his subjects. No more, no less.

Mick Wall's book wasn't much better than HOTG, IMO. Matter of fact, there seemed to be a lotta passages in the Wall book you'd swear he either took verbatim or merely paraphrased from HOTG. As for those ill-advised 'dream sequences' or whatever the shit where Wall is imagining he's Jimmy, etc...my god. Yes, I may have an English major (journalism minor), but a fucking six year old could write better stuff than those bits!

Far as I'm concerned, Shadwick's and particularly the Dave Lewis books are really all the Zep literature you really need.

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I've been meaning to get my hands on this, looks really good.

Shakey is one the best rock bios period. It's practically an autobiography- Neil Young's commentary takes up a considerable amount of the narrative. And, yeah, even though he did it with Neil's blessing, Neil's management still sued! It's one of the funniest books I've ever read...Neil Young could easily be defined as being 'eccentric', but as insane as he is he surrounds himself with people who really are lunatics and feeds off the insanity. Along with The Great Shark Hunt by Hunter S Thompson, Shakey is probably my favourite book of all time. Go get it!

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