Zeppelin Mysteries Hosted by Steve A. Jones

[sam_webmaster]

http://www.inamediapro.com/

....I received the following information from this Source Today about the cotents:

Good work!

[mrledhed]

Steve

It seems that Showco recorded from the soundboard onto C90 tapes during the 1977 tour.

Do you know if they used reels before that? If so, what kind?

[PlanetPage]

Good work!

...Thank you for everthing as always...

[Ledy Mazeppa]

stumbled in Ross' Diary, April 2004...

what Ross meant by "poor Robert"?

what it could be?

Robert in 2003-2004 was sort of normal ("Sixty Six to Timbuktu", then working on "Mighty ReArranger")

any thoughts

(as well interesting 'I ruin his [Lenny Kravitz'] golden view of Robert Plant'

Edited April 8, 2012 by Ledy Mazeppa

[Cecil.]

Could you remember the date of the gig at the Marquee. Robert played a show for warner music folk..

Maybe around 1988 ...Robert had the stage for the show extended.. Steve?

[jakkblakk]

interesting !

[SteveAJones]

stumbled in Ross' Diary, April 2004...

what Ross meant by "poor Robert"?

what it could be?

Robert in 2003-2004 was sort of normal ("Sixty Six to Timbuktu", then working on "Mighty ReArranger")

any thoughts

(as well interesting 'I ruin his [Lenny Kravitz'] golden view of Robert Plant'

Lenny Kravitz genuinely appreciates and respects Robert Plant. It was Robert who agreed to open for Lenny throughout a 1993 European tour. Years later (2008) Lenny attended Robert's 60th birthday party in Worcester. Robert was quietly on his way to Morocco at the time of Lenny's encounter with Ross so there's no telling what he may have brought up from the past.

[SteveAJones]

Could you remember the date of the gig at the Marquee. Robert played a show for warner music folk..

Maybe around 1988 ...Robert had the stage for the show extended.. Steve?

February 3, 1988...An invitation only gig for the British and European press; Ian Gillan and Roger Waters also attended. Robert was moving forward with his new band by playing a series of low-key UK dates at the time.

Edited April 15, 2012 by SteveAJones

[Ledy Mazeppa]

Steve, thanks for the details

. )

[Z-o-S-o]

Any idea on which Françoise Hardy songs Page plays guitar, Allmighty Steve A. Jones?

[SteveAJones]

Any idea on which Françoise Hardy songs Page plays guitar, Allmighty Steve A. Jones?

This from swandown (with whom I agree):

The two tracks that get mentioned the most are "Je n'attends plus personne" and "Je veux qu'il revienne", which were both produced by Charles Blackwell in London in 1964. I'm sure Jimmy contributed to additional Blackwell sessions during that period.

I doubt Page played on the sessions for Ma Jeunesse fout le camp, however (he had already joined The Yardbirds by that point).

[Z-o-S-o]

Thanks.

[swandown]

Françoise Hardy recorded dozens of songs with producer Charles Blackwell in 1964-66, most of which were recorded in London with session musicians. Jimmy was one of Blackwell's favorite guitarists, so it's likely that Jimmy played on many of those recordings.

The best suggestion I can make is to listen closely to "Je n'attends plus personne" and "Je veux qu'il revienne" (two songs that almost certainly feature Page), and then listen for similar guitar tones in other Blackwell productions in 1964-66.

[Z-o-S-o]

Françoise Hardy recorded dozens of songs with producer Charles Blackwell in 1964-66, most of which were recorded in London with session musicians. Jimmy was one of Blackwell's favorite guitarists, so it's likely that Jimmy played on many of those recordings.

The best suggestion I can make is to listen closely to "Je n'attends plus personne" and "Je veux qu'il revienne" (two songs that almost certainly feature Page), and then listen for similar guitar tones in other Blackwell productions in 1964-66.

Well, Je N'Attends Plus Personne is pretty characteristic!

Edited April 16, 2012 by Z-o-S-o

[Cecil.]

February 3, 1988...An invitation only gig for the British and European press; Ian Gillan and Roger Waters also attended. Robert was moving forward with his new band by playing a series of low-key UK dates at the time.

Thanks Steve,

Met a old friend who used to hang out at the Marquee all the time, this gig came up because his hero Ian Gillan stood next to him that night (The Ship pub.) and he did not notice! Are there any reviews of the gig online?

[SteveAJones]

Thanks Steve. Met an old friend who used to hang out at the Marquee all the time, this gig came up because his hero Ian Gillan stood next to him that night (The Ship pub.) and he did not notice! Are there any reviews of the gig online?

I'm not aware of any online. There were probably several published at the time but unfortunately I do not have copies of the two I am aware of

(perhaps Roger Berlin can help):

'New Life for Plant' (concert review), The Times, February 5, 1988

Concert review, Hard Force, March 1988

[sam_webmaster]

[kenog]

I know this is not what you are looking for, but I found it in my archive for The Times UK 1988, so I thought I'd post it here:-The Times (London)

April 15 1988, Friday

Arts: No headbanging, please - Robert Plant, former singer with Led Zeppelin, now building a less frenetic solo career

BYLINE: DAVID SINCLAIR

SECTION: Issue 63056.

LENGTH: 707 words

If Robert Plant was ever the hell-raiser that most accounts of Led Zeppelin's heyday suggest, the scenes backstage on the current British dates indicate that such activities are now either behind him or else much more discreetly managed. His closest companion in the touring party that reached Sheffield City Hall last week was his nine-year-old son, Logan, a thin, dark-haired boy loyally respectful of his Dad's music but more of a fan of Michael Jackson.

'If you're heading for that chocolate again, you'll be thrust into the flames of Hades,' Plant admonished the little fellow, who was making for a tray of goodies laid out in the singer's dressing room area. 'Take him and give him some food in the catering room,' Plant instructed an aide.

Plant senior was born in West Bromwich, the son of a civil engineer, and enjoyed what he describes as a 'sheltered' grammar-school upbringing. Although his 39-year-old face bears the lines of a life lived to the hilt, his waistline looks about the same as it was when he was 19, and his blond curls, although cut a bit shorter, show no signs of receding.

Plant agrees that he has emerged 'relatively unscathed' from the turmoil that surrounded Led Zeppelin, the group which scaled Olympian peaks of success in the Seventies while retaining a remote public profile that served to encourage some of the least savoury tales of excess in the pantheon of rock legends.

'We are right in the eye of the storm. We were riding through the middle of this black hole without every really touching the sides and feeling any of the momentum. I still played soccer on a Sunday, everybody did what they wanted to do when they weren't working, but around that normality there was this great myth.'

The myth suffered a shattering collision with reality when Zeppelin's drummer, John Bonham, died after a drinking spree during rehearsals at Jimmy Page's Windsor home in 1980. 'Bonzo left us at short notice,' Plant remarks as an aside, in the same jokily cavalier tone of voice that he uses to describe himself and Logan's mother as 'happily divorced'.

His confident bearing gives the impression that there is very little in life that Plant is not capable of handling with a touch of positive thinking and a few words of deprecating humour. Even the challenge of carving out a solo career after Led Zeppelin's demise did not daunt him.

'The reality of just being <a name="HIT_3">Robert Plant, potential maker of a million mistakes, in 1981 was, in many contradictory ways, quite exciting; to be standing there with a career under my arm - with one foot on the platform and the other foot on the train, as Dylan said. The question was, do I jump on this train and keep going, or stay on the platform and turn into Ronnie James Dio's dad?'

But Plant has paid dearly in this country for his artistic pride. By turning his back on the heavy metal fans, who, whether he likes it or not, are the legacy of Zeppelin's era or primacy, he has sacrificed a ready-made constituency of avid music purchasers. 'I would have 10,000 headbangers at any gig if I were to do the tricks and make the appropriate record - but I couldn't stand the idea of it.'

Of the five albumns he has released during his solo career, it is the collection off old rock 'n' roll favourites, recorded with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page under the name of the Honeydrippers, that has so far sold the most copies (about 2.5 million) and yielded his biggest hit single, 'Sea Of Love', No 3 in America in 1984.

The Americans, who accept the idea of rock as a legitimate activity for grown-ups in a way that the British never have, are much better disposed towards Plant's latter-day output. The new album, Now And Zen, is in the US Top 10 and he is selling out arena shows a long way in advance of his tour there.

He may have opted for a dignified withdrawal from the histrionics which he did so much to establish in the first place, but Plant is a long way from turning in his microphone for a pipe and slippers. 'I'm a very strong character,' he observes. 'I've stopped smoking after 20 years. I take vitamins, I read a lot and I try and calm down when I can. But it's hard like throwing a bucket of water on a volcano, really.'

[kenog]

I'm not aware of any online. There were probably several published at the time but unfortunately I do not have copies of the two I am aware of

(perhaps Roger Berlin can help):

'New Life for Plant' (concert review), The Times, February 5, 1988

Concert review, Hard Force, March 1988

Hi SAJ,

I have a copy of The Times article which I have copied below. I shall try to find a copy of the other one. If I find it, I'll post it here.

The Times (London)

February 5 1988, Friday

Arts (Rock): Robert Plant at the Marquee

BYLINE: DAVID SINCLAIR

SECTION: Issue 62995.

LENGTH: 270 words

The re-writing of rock history to facilitate the vogueish interest in the early Seventies has inevitably led to a favourable re-assessment of Led Zeppelin, a group whose appeal was widely assumed to have been consigned to the dustbin in the wake of punk.

Now that the hip hop movement has adopted Zeppelin's catalogue as a biblical source, while AC/DC is one of the hippest bands in the world and even flares are on the way back, the yowling.Robert Plant finds himself closer to centre stage than he has been for a decade.

Seeing performers of Plant's stature at a small venue is always a thrill, although it must be something of a jolt for the musicians. Chris Blackwell's drum cage took up almost a third of the stage space, and there were moments when it looked as if Plant was about to get clouted by a guitar headstock or two.

But the essence of a spry, varied and surprisingly fresh-sounding collection of songs was distilled that much more strongly in such confined surroundings by his young-looking band. The guitarist, Doug Boyle, was of an age to be Plant's son, and if such a thing as a generation gap exists, it no longer finds expression in rock music.

There are now groups who sound more like Led Zeppelin than Plant himself, but it was noticeable that the best reactions came when the band played 'In the Evening' from In Through The Out Door, and 'Trampled Underfoot' from Physical Graffiti, while the singer's own favourites - a rather lumpen version of John Lee Hooker's 'Dimples' and the Doors' 'Break On Through (To The Other Side)' - met with a more restrained response.

Edited April 20, 2012 by kenog

[Cecil.]

Steve & Kenog many thanks for the info, would anyone on know if the gig was filmed or even a photo

[SteveAJones]

How about this! Of course, I've got to believe Robert was the only member of Led Zeppelin who participated. Photos? Press coverage? The hunt is on!

[SteveAJones]

Steve & Kenog many thanks for the info, would anyone on know if the gig was filmed or even a photo

The gig was almost certainly photographed given the nature of the event, but I have none on file. Perhaps something can be found.

[SteveAJones]

I have a copy of The Times article which I have copied below. I shall try to find a copy of the other one. If I find it, I'll post it here.

Thanks a million. I think Hard Force was a French magazine so that review of this concert may prove to be elusive.

[Cecil.]

Steve, in the Jimmy. on this day thread you mentioned that Atlantic wanted a final album from them, Coda to fulfill a contract. Could you explain why?

Zeppelin always seemed close to Ahmets heart. I always took the album on face value....

Edited May 4, 2012 by Cecil.

[SteveAJones]

Steve, in the Jimmy on this day thread you mentioned that Atlantic wanted a final album from them, Coda to fulfill a contract. Could you explain why? Zeppelin always seemed close to Ahmet's heart. I always took the album on face value....

Led Zeppelin was and remained very close to Ahmet's heart, but Atlantic Records had long since become part of a conglomerate in which Ahmet remained very influential but less involved.

"After we lost John Bonham, we were told - and I know this sounds quite disgusting - that we were contractually obligated to produce another album. My idea was to do a chronological live album. It made sense - you could tell by looking at the bootleg market. But Plant didn't want to do it. And so the donkey work on the Coda album began. I'm not going to go in the studios raking through the shelves of tape, then have someone go 'I don't want that out'." -- Jimmy Page quote from Rolling Stone Magazine, Nov 25, 1993