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Robert Plant: A Life by Paul Rees, major new biography of Robert Plant

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It might worth checking out more as a curiousity, which is why I bought it. I am relieved I haven't found really negitive comments toward Jimmy. It does make clear Robert has always been full of himself, which isn't a surprise.

It might worth checking out more as a curiousity, which is why I bought it. I am relieved I haven't found really negitive comments toward Jimmy. It does make clear Robert has always been full of himself, which isn't a surprise.

Anything from Robert about Jimmy blowing off Karac's funeral?

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kenog

kenog

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Birmingham Mail 4 November 2013

Why there won't be another Led Zeppelin reunion - by author of new book on Robert Plant

Still hoping for another Led Zeppelin reunion? Don’t hold your breath, says Robert Plant's biographer Paul Rees.

It's midnight on December 10, 2007. Rock supergroup Led Zeppelin have just rolled back the years to barnstorm London’s O2 Arena.

The gig, in honour of the late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, has been shiver-down-the-spine sensational, the stuff of legend.

Zeppelin’s reunion has been an unqualified success. The hottest ticket of the year has lived up to all the hype.

Been a long time since they rock and rolled...

The roar of the crowd has rolled over frontman Robert Plant like thunder, but has now faded.

He can hear the chatter of voices in the corridors backstage.

Bandmates Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are off in their own corners, thinking their own thoughts.

Tonight they had come together, had walked tall once more.

What happens next, reveals author Paul Rees in his new biography of the West Bromwich-born rock legend, is remarkable.

“When at last Plant threw open his door all of those who came to shake his hand and pound his back told him what he already knew,” says Rees.

“He, they, had been great. Better than anyone could ever have hoped they might be. His doubts had been stilled. His debt, such as it was, had been honoured.

“Pat and Joan Bonham, wife and mother of John, the friend and colleague he had buried a lifetime or a heartbeat ago, were among the last he welcomed, and he held them especially close.

“Jason, their son and grandson, had sat in his father’s drum seat that night. He told them how proud John would have been of his only son. And then the ghosts came back to him again.

“He was supposed to go to some featureless hospitality room upstairs to meet with friends.

"There was a VIP party where he would be feted by Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, Priscilla and Lisa-Marie Presley, and more and more.

“He instead took one last look around the scene of his triumph, then summoned a car and asked to be driven away from it. He wanted nothing more than to get as far from everyone and everything as it was possible to be.”

Plant headed out of town, and the car dropped him off at the Marathon Bar, an inauspicious-looking Turkish restaurant on Chalk Farm Road.

“As he sat there, collecting his thoughts, did he reflect on how far he had come, and how far he had journeyed?” asks Rees.

“Upon the years of struggle when there was no money in his pocket and he sensed the dream that had driven him slipping from reach?

“Upon the soaring heights to which Led Zeppelin had taken him, when he had basked in the adulation of millions and felt the heady rush of the band’s power pumping through his veins, when there had been nothing to fill the empty spaces in his heart?

“It had, all of it, carried him along. It had given him more than he could have dared ask for, and he had taken every last drop of it. And as he did so it had exacted from him a heavy and terrible price,” adds Rees, referring to the death of Plant’s son Karac and best friend John Bonham.

Because, the book confirms, Robert Plant had harboured grave doubts about the big reunion – and remains to this day reluctant to repeat it.

The O2 triumph was, says the author, actually the FIFTH reunion of the band.

Two previous attempts had been a disaster, one only fleeting and another for fun.

First up had been Bob Geldof’s Live Aid global jukebox on July 13, 1985, raising money for famine relief.

Plant had been invited to take part at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia with the Honeydrippers rhythm and blues band he set up after Zeppelin called it a day.

As the hype surrounding the gig grew, and rock legends queued to sign up, Jimmy Page agreed to play, too. They thought they might do a few Zeppelin songs. John Paul Jones, initially uninvited – a source of some bitterness – found out what was going on.

Although the band already had a bassist, he was belatedly added to the line-up on keyboards. Chic’s Tony Thompson was on drums but, in a PR stunt, Phil Collins decided to play both in Wembley and Philadelphia, flying Concorde to join what was now touted as a Zeppelin reunion.

“The price of this gimmick was that Collins did not appear to have familiarised himself with Zeppelin’s set,” says Rees. “He sat dumbfounded through most of it. Even still, he fared better than either Plant or Page.

“Looking like an ageing Club Med dandy in a lurid purple shirt and white slacks, Plant strutted and preened but his voice was strained, never quite hitting the notes. At a stroke he had turned himself into the very thing he’d spent the past five years running to avoid – a faded reminder of former glories.”

Plant later admitted: “We virtually ruined the whole thing because we sounded so awful. I was hoarse and couldn’t sing. Page was out of tune and couldn’t hear his guitar. Jonesey stood there serene as hell and the two drummers pounded away. That’s why Zeppelin couldn’t go on.”

When the concert was released on DVD many years later, the surviving Zeppelin members refused to allow the shambolic set to be included even though the 95,000-strong crowd had chanted their name for 15 minutes after they left the stage.

Nevertheless, a second reunion took place away from the glare of publicity and out of the public eye.

“In January 1986 Plant, Page and Jones met up in a village just outside Bath,” reveals Rees. “Tony Thompson, who had drummed for them in Philadelphia was flown in from the States.

“Their crew took over the village hall, filling it with equipment and using a couple of old parachutes to soundproof it. To begin with, the signs were promising, and they began messing around with ideas for new songs.

“Plant later suggested that the results sounded like a cross between two of America’s great alternative rock bands of the period, Talking Heads and Husker Du. It wasn’t long, though, before the same old problems came up.

“‘As much as we wanted to do it, it wasn’t the right time for Pagey,’ Plant later explained. Things came to a head after just a week when Thompson was involved in a car crash which put him out of action.

“One of the roadies then played the drums but the whole thing dematerialised,” adds Rees. “Jimmy had to change the battery of his wah-wah pedal every one and a half songs. Plant said ‘I’m going home.

“Because I can’t put up with this and I don’t need the money.’”

The surviving members got back together briefly when Zeppelin was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, jamming with Aerosmith, Jones remarking he was surprised the other two remembered his phone number.

The fourth reunion came in November 1999, and passed under the media’s radar.

Plant, Page and Jones – with John’s son Jason on drums – played at the Hen & Chickens pub in Oldbury, for just a couple of hundred friends. The occasion was a 21st birthday party for Plant’s daughter, Carmen.

They ran through a selection of Zeppelin tunes including Trampled Underfoot and Rock And Roll.

“They were just letting off steam,” says Rees.

In 2001, there might have been another stab at relaunching the Zeppelin. Page received an offer to reform the band, with Jason Bonham on drums, with $70 million for a world tour.

“Page was totally up for it but Robert wasn’t interested,” says studio engineer Phill Brown. “He and Jimmy have a love-hate relationship. They’ll get together and do things but then something always screws it up and they don’t talk to each other for a while.”

So, the big question remains.

Robert Plant has carved out a rewarding solo career, and found new musical soulmates such as Alison Krauss, Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller. He does not need Zeppelin.

The three surviving members got back together to promote the movie of their O2 reunion, and last year sat together in formal attire to receive Kennedy Center Honors from Barack Obama in Washington.

During the event they were treated to a stunning Stairway To Heaven by Ann and Nancy Wilson, of Heart.

Page and Jones nodded approvingly and an emotional Plant was seen to wipe a tear from his eye. The rumour mill started up again.

This year he turned 65, and now divides his time between homes in England, Wales and Texas.

“I’d definitely rule another reunion out,” he said in a recent interview. “I’m up for doing anything that’s new.”

And, asked if he would like to look back over the full span of his life, giving it his own perspective, Plant’s answer was sure.

“Thank you for asking,” he told Rees. “But I think it’s too early in my career for me to be doing that – there’s so much more to come.”

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clw

clw

Posted
Posted

Birmingham Mail 4 November 2013

Why there won't be another Led Zeppelin reunion - by author of new book on Robert Plant

Still hoping for another Led Zeppelin reunion? Don’t hold your breath, says Robert Plant's biographer Paul Rees.

It's midnight on December 10, 2007. Rock supergroup Led Zeppelin have just rolled back the years to barnstorm London’s O2 Arena.

The gig, in honour of the late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, has been shiver-down-the-spine sensational, the stuff of legend.

Zeppelin’s reunion has been an unqualified success. The hottest ticket of the year has lived up to all the hype.

Been a long time since they rock and rolled...

The roar of the crowd has rolled over frontman Robert Plant like thunder, but has now faded.

He can hear the chatter of voices in the corridors backstage.

Bandmates Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones are off in their own corners, thinking their own thoughts.

Tonight they had come together, had walked tall once more.

What happens next, reveals author Paul Rees in his new biography of the West Bromwich-born rock legend, is remarkable.

“When at last Plant threw open his door all of those who came to shake his hand and pound his back told him what he already knew,” says Rees.

“He, they, had been great. Better than anyone could ever have hoped they might be. His doubts had been stilled. His debt, such as it was, had been honoured.

“Pat and Joan Bonham, wife and mother of John, the friend and colleague he had buried a lifetime or a heartbeat ago, were among the last he welcomed, and he held them especially close.

“Jason, their son and grandson, had sat in his father’s drum seat that night. He told them how proud John would have been of his only son. And then the ghosts came back to him again.

“He was supposed to go to some featureless hospitality room upstairs to meet with friends.

"There was a VIP party where he would be feted by Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, Priscilla and Lisa-Marie Presley, and more and more.

“He instead took one last look around the scene of his triumph, then summoned a car and asked to be driven away from it. He wanted nothing more than to get as far from everyone and everything as it was possible to be.”

Plant headed out of town, and the car dropped him off at the Marathon Bar, an inauspicious-looking Turkish restaurant on Chalk Farm Road.

“As he sat there, collecting his thoughts, did he reflect on how far he had come, and how far he had journeyed?” asks Rees.

“Upon the years of struggle when there was no money in his pocket and he sensed the dream that had driven him slipping from reach?

“Upon the soaring heights to which Led Zeppelin had taken him, when he had basked in the adulation of millions and felt the heady rush of the band’s power pumping through his veins, when there had been nothing to fill the empty spaces in his heart?

“It had, all of it, carried him along. It had given him more than he could have dared ask for, and he had taken every last drop of it. And as he did so it had exacted from him a heavy and terrible price,” adds Rees, referring to the death of Plant’s son Karac and best friend John Bonham.

Because, the book confirms, Robert Plant had harboured grave doubts about the big reunion – and remains to this day reluctant to repeat it.

The O2 triumph was, says the author, actually the FIFTH reunion of the band.

Two previous attempts had been a disaster, one only fleeting and another for fun.

First up had been Bob Geldof’s Live Aid global jukebox on July 13, 1985, raising money for famine relief.

Plant had been invited to take part at the JFK Stadium in Philadelphia with the Honeydrippers rhythm and blues band he set up after Zeppelin called it a day.

As the hype surrounding the gig grew, and rock legends queued to sign up, Jimmy Page agreed to play, too. They thought they might do a few Zeppelin songs. John Paul Jones, initially uninvited – a source of some bitterness – found out what was going on.

Although the band already had a bassist, he was belatedly added to the line-up on keyboards. Chic’s Tony Thompson was on drums but, in a PR stunt, Phil Collins decided to play both in Wembley and Philadelphia, flying Concorde to join what was now touted as a Zeppelin reunion.

“The price of this gimmick was that Collins did not appear to have familiarised himself with Zeppelin’s set,” says Rees. “He sat dumbfounded through most of it. Even still, he fared better than either Plant or Page.

“Looking like an ageing Club Med dandy in a lurid purple shirt and white slacks, Plant strutted and preened but his voice was strained, never quite hitting the notes. At a stroke he had turned himself into the very thing he’d spent the past five years running to avoid – a faded reminder of former glories.”

Plant later admitted: “We virtually ruined the whole thing because we sounded so awful. I was hoarse and couldn’t sing. Page was out of tune and couldn’t hear his guitar. Jonesey stood there serene as hell and the two drummers pounded away. That’s why Zeppelin couldn’t go on.”

When the concert was released on DVD many years later, the surviving Zeppelin members refused to allow the shambolic set to be included even though the 95,000-strong crowd had chanted their name for 15 minutes after they left the stage.

Nevertheless, a second reunion took place away from the glare of publicity and out of the public eye.

“In January 1986 Plant, Page and Jones met up in a village just outside Bath,” reveals Rees. “Tony Thompson, who had drummed for them in Philadelphia was flown in from the States.

“Their crew took over the village hall, filling it with equipment and using a couple of old parachutes to soundproof it. To begin with, the signs were promising, and they began messing around with ideas for new songs.

“Plant later suggested that the results sounded like a cross between two of America’s great alternative rock bands of the period, Talking Heads and Husker Du. It wasn’t long, though, before the same old problems came up.

“‘As much as we wanted to do it, it wasn’t the right time for Pagey,’ Plant later explained. Things came to a head after just a week when Thompson was involved in a car crash which put him out of action.

“One of the roadies then played the drums but the whole thing dematerialised,” adds Rees. “Jimmy had to change the battery of his wah-wah pedal every one and a half songs. Plant said ‘I’m going home.

“Because I can’t put up with this and I don’t need the money.’”

The surviving members got back together briefly when Zeppelin was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, jamming with Aerosmith, Jones remarking he was surprised the other two remembered his phone number.

The fourth reunion came in November 1999, and passed under the media’s radar.

Plant, Page and Jones – with John’s son Jason on drums – played at the Hen & Chickens pub in Oldbury, for just a couple of hundred friends. The occasion was a 21st birthday party for Plant’s daughter, Carmen.

They ran through a selection of Zeppelin tunes including Trampled Underfoot and Rock And Roll.

“They were just letting off steam,” says Rees.

In 2001, there might have been another stab at relaunching the Zeppelin. Page received an offer to reform the band, with Jason Bonham on drums, with $70 million for a world tour.

“Page was totally up for it but Robert wasn’t interested,” says studio engineer Phill Brown. “He and Jimmy have a love-hate relationship. They’ll get together and do things but then something always screws it up and they don’t talk to each other for a while.”

So, the big question remains.

Robert Plant has carved out a rewarding solo career, and found new musical soulmates such as Alison Krauss, Patty Griffin and Buddy Miller. He does not need Zeppelin.

The three surviving members got back together to promote the movie of their O2 reunion, and last year sat together in formal attire to receive Kennedy Center Honors from Barack Obama in Washington.

During the event they were treated to a stunning Stairway To Heaven by Ann and Nancy Wilson, of Heart.

Page and Jones nodded approvingly and an emotional Plant was seen to wipe a tear from his eye. The rumour mill started up again.

This year he turned 65, and now divides his time between homes in England, Wales and Texas.

“I’d definitely rule another reunion out,” he said in a recent interview. “I’m up for doing anything that’s new.”

And, asked if he would like to look back over the full span of his life, giving it his own perspective, Plant’s answer was sure.

“Thank you for asking,” he told Rees. “But I think it’s too early in my career for me to be doing that – there’s so much more to come.”

interesting,do you think he left that night and ddi not meet with anyone as he was feeling sad over Bonzo and what was..?

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kenog

kenog

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clw,

I am sure everyone will have their own opinion as to why RP left in the way he did that evening. To me, he came and did what he set out to do that night, which was to honour Ahmet and raise money for the educational trust. Obviously, it would be sad for him that Bonzo wasn't there, and also emotional that Jason did such a great job.

I really don't think that Robert would be interested in rubbing shoulders with vacuous people like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss.

interesting,do you think he left that night and ddi not meet with anyone as he was feeling sad over Bonzo and what was..?

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Disco Duck

Disco Duck

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clw,

I am sure everyone will have their own opinion as to why RP left in the way he did that evening. To me, he came and did what he set out to do that night, which was to honour Ahmet and raise money for the educational trust. Obviously, it would be sad for him that Bonzo wasn't there, and also emotional that Jason did such a great job.

I really don't think that Robert would be interested in rubbing shoulders with vacuous people like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss.

Speculation alert: I think Robert Plant knew by the time the O2 concert ended that he would never perform with Led Zeppelin again. He had just closed a chapter of his life once and for all and I think he wanted to be alone to reflect on it.

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mstork

mstork

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Speculation alert: I think Robert Plant knew by the time the O2 concert ended that he would never perform with Led Zeppelin again. He had just closed a chapter of his life once and for all and I think he wanted to be alone to reflect on it.

Makes sense to me. If I wrote the script the three of them plus Jason would have gone back to Tower House with their families to celebrate and reminisce, but nobody asked me!

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pottedplant

pottedplant

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Speculation alert: I think Robert Plant knew by the time the O2 concert ended that he would never perform with Led Zeppelin again. He had just closed a chapter of his life once and for all and I think he wanted to be alone to reflect on it.

ITA, Disco. That is the most reasonable and "Robert-like" thing to me. He must have had a somewhat heavy heart - nostalgia and such. Now I am

nostalgic. The band just does that...

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Disco Duck

Disco Duck

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Let's see: first, the 21st birthday party was in 1989, not 1999. Second, no mention of the reunions at Atlantic's 40th birthday party and Jason Bonham's wedding.

Whatever happened to copy editors? It's not a good sign when a rock biography contains errors that even fans can point out.

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Cookie0024

Cookie0024

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Whatever happened to copy editors? It's not a good sign when a rock biography contains errors that even fans can point out.

You know things are bad when I'm having to copy edit the book for them! (the publishers are great, copy editors - not so much)

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Disco Duck

Disco Duck

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You know things are bad when I'm having to copy edit the book for them! (the publishers are great, copy editors - not so much)

I'm wondering if they even assigned a copy editor to work with Rees on this book if it includes this kind of error. Some publishers don't bother nowadays.

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kenog

kenog

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Would you please explain fully what you mean when you say that you are having to copy edit the book for them. Have you been in touch with them regarding the errors and offered to help them with the mistakes?

You know things are bad when I'm having to copy edit the book for them! (the publishers are great, copy editors - not so much)

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Cookie0024

Cookie0024

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Would you please explain fully what you mean when you say that you are having to copy edit the book for them. Have you been in touch with them regarding the errors and offered to help them with the mistakes?

Essentially, yes. I had been in touch with them during the development and delays to find out what as going on and to see if I could get an advance copy (I could not).

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kenog

kenog

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Thanks for the speedy answer. Does this mean that they will incorporate revisions in any future edition, and you should get a complimentary copy? If they care to think about it, when undertaking a project like this where fans will be scrutinising the text, it would have made more sense for them to do it right in the first place.

Would Paul Rees not get the opportunity to check through it before it went to print? The whole thing beggars belief.

Essentially, yes. I had been in touch with them during the development and delays to find out what as going on and to see if I could get an advance copy (I could not).

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