2.0 - Contents Of Part Two

2 The Band

2.1 The Golden God : Robert Plant
2.2 The Sorceror's Apprentice : Jimmy Page
2.3 The Omnipresent Force : John Paul Jones
2.4 The Engine Room : John Bonham
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2.1 - The Golden God : Robert Plant

o Robert Anthony Plant was born on August 20, 1948 in West Bromwich,
Staffordshire, England.
o Before Led Zeppelin, Plant's previous bands included The Crawling
Kingsnake Blues Band, Black Snake Moan, The Delta Blues Band, and
The Band of Joy. The first and last of these also featured John
Bonham. The name for the first band, The Crawling Kingsnakes, is
most likely derived from a John Lee Hooker song of the same name.
Plant's appreciation of Robert Johnson is well documented and the
source of the name for the third band is not hard to work out.
o When he met Page, Plant was singing in a band called Hobbstweedle.
o "Thank You" is written for his first wife Maureen who he met at a
Georgie Fame concert and later married her, having three children,
Karac, Carmen and Logan.
o Robert and Maureen were married on November 9, 1968 in London.
The reception was the band's first show billed as Led Zeppelin at
the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm.
o Plant released a single as a solo artist containing "Our Song"/
"Laughing Crying Laughing" which was followed up by "Long Time
Coming"/"I've Got A Secret." Both flopped on the charts.
o Robert Plant did not receive any songwriting credits on "Led
Zeppelin" as he was still under contract to CBS at the time.
o Plant's symbol on the fourth album uses the feather of Ma'at, the
Egyptian goddess of justice and fairness, and is the emblem of a
writer. In the past Plant has said that it comes from the ancient
Mu civilisation.
o When "Stairway to Heaven" was played live Plant made a habit of
adding the line "Does anyone still remember laughter?" to it.
On one date on the 1977 tour Plant changed this to, "Does anybody
remember... forests?"
o Plant's son Karac died suddenly from a stomach infection during a
Led Zeppelin tour of the USA, at New Orleans on July 26, 1977.
The song "I Believe" from Plant's "Fate Of Nations" album tries to
deal with the tragedy.
o Robert's second son Logan Romero was born on January 27, 1979.
o Plant's bass player in his current solo band, Charlie Jones is
married to Plant's daughter Carmen.
o Plant played the flute during his 1988 tour.
o A suggested reason for the non-inclusion of lyrics to "Manic
Nirvana" are the numerous and potentially embarassing Zeppelin
references.
o "Ship of Fools" from "Now and Zen" is seen by some as a metaphor
for how Plant saw his relationship with Page at the time.
o Several songs Plant has released during his solo career contain
lyrical references to Led Zeppelin :
- "Easily Lead" : At the 3:43 point in the song Plant invokes a
family call of "I've been lonely, lonely, lonely..." He then
follows that up with his much repeated "Little girl, little girl,
little girl..." mannerism at the 4:01 mark, and then at 4:06
utilises the "Shake for me girl..." motif from "The Lemon Song".
- "Tall Cool One" : This song contains some samples from Led
Zeppelin that Jimmy was apparently not thrilled about. Towards
the end of the song Plant wails "Hey baby, hey baby, goin' down,
goin' down..." in time honoured fashion a la "Black Dog" and "When
The Levee Breaks".
- "White Clean And Neat" - As the song fades out Plant can be
clearly heard to wail, 'Baby, baby, since I've been loving you...'
- "Big Love" : Towards the end of the song Plant raps '..One time
I saw Las Vegas, I stopped in a Motel, I stopped in the same room
as Jimmy Page, They just finished remodelling it from the '75 tour
but I've got my free air miles..."
- "Your Ma Said You Cried In Your Sleep Last Night" : This
contains an entire verse from "Black Dog", 'Hey, hey, mama...'
- "Liars Dance" : A song about a song, in this case "Stairway to
Heaven," and Plant's intense dislike of it. `...leave it to the
lady there who's sure, she won't back again, I know she won't be
back agin, I'm sure she won't be back again.'
- "Calling To You" : Right at the end of the song Plant
evocatively exclaims, 'Oh Jimmy!' This is preceeded by the phrase
`Fading away, just fading away' which is repeated three times.
What this means in relation to the call to Jimmy is unclear.
- "Memory Song (Hello Hello)" : Released at around the same time
as the "Coverdale/Page" album this song may be Plant having a go
at Jimmy over his involvement with Coverdale in that project,
which itself is interpreted by some people as Jimmy getting back
at Robert for refusing a reunion.
- "Promised Land" : The harmonica sounds very much like the one
on "When The Levee Breaks", while other parts of the song have a
similar rhythm to "Hey Hey What Can I Do." The dissonance sounds
reminiscent of "She Said" from "Manic Nirvana." Plant also
borrows some lyrics from "When The Levee Breaks."
- "The Greatest Gift" : Right at the very end of the song, some
recorders, or a similar sounding instrument, can be heard to play
what sounds like an excerpt from "Stairway To Heaven."
- "Great Spirit" : Plant borrows some lyrics from "Celebration
Day" and "The Song Remains The Same."
o A pink 1959 Chrysler Imperial Crown convertible once owned by
Plant and with the motto "50s Rock'n'Roll For Ever" painted above
the number plate now forms part of the Yorkshire Car Collection
and was exhibited in a 1991 "Cars of the Stars" show at
Birmingham.
o Rumours linking Plant to Canadian singer Alannah Myles
romantically, proved to be true, and there is a suspicion the
song "29 Palms" is written about her. Alannah opened for Plant
on his "Manic Nirvana" tour and some time later had a baby, the
father of which is reputedly Plant. Plant reinforced the idea
that the song may be about Myles when he said it was "...my ideal-
love-affair-gone-wrong song." 29 Palms is an actual place, an
army base and community out in the middle of the California
desert. Plant may have played a concert there during his "Manic
Nirvana" tour.
o Roy Harper's song "Evening Star" was written for Plant's daughter
Carmen on the occasion of her wedding to Charlie Jones.
o Plant sold his rights to the Led Zeppelin material in the early
1980's, although he still maintains 1/3 creative control, but he
doesn't get any royalties from the sales of Led Zeppelin albums,
hence his comment when being interviewed by Letterman about
Zeppelin being more rewarding for Jimmy these days. Robert has
used this control to veto the 20th anniversary single of
"Stairway to Heaven" and the use of any Zeppelin material in the
film "Dazed and Confused."
o The song "Watching You" from the "Manic Nirvana" album was used by
the NBC tv network in the USA when advertising "Dateline NBC."
o Plant allowed "Tall Cool One", complete with Zeppelin samples, to
be used for a Coke Classic commercial in the USA, a move he now
regrets. This gives him the dubious honour of being the only
member of Zeppelin to have sold off part of their legacy.
o The producer of "Now and Zen" and "Shaken 'n' Stirred", Tim
Palmer, also works with Tin Machine.
o Legend has it that Plant was inspired to start singing after he
heard Bobby Parker's version of "Blues Get Off My Shoulder."
o The drummer on "Shaken N Stirred," Richie Hayward, also played
with Little Feat.
o Plant's guitarist on his initial solo outings, Robbie Blunt, had
his most recent involvement with Plant at a jam at a Los Angeles
show on June 14, 1988. The crowd were somewhat miffed with Plant,
as he had made it sound like he was being joined by Page, only to
turn out that it was Blunt. Blunt also played on the first album
by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians which was coincidentally
recorded in the same studio as Plant's "Principle of Moments"
album which Blunt played on.
o Plant made a guest appearance with the band Rockpile on the track
"Little Sister" on the "Concert For Kampuchea" charity album. The
track is also on two other albums, "Rockpile Live In Concert
1979", and "I Hear You Rockin'", both by Rockpile.
o During the Zeppelin years Plant only ever played harmonica and
tambourine onstage. However he did take a few solos on his two
most recent tours. He also played bass during the abortive 1986
studio reunion, as well as playing guitar on his duet of "Down By
The Seaside" with Tori Amos on the "Encomium" Zeppelin tribute
album which reportedly led to Jimmy making him promise never to
play guitar in the studio again! However, in 1966 when Robert got
some publicity for his "You Better Run" single, one article
mentioned that Robert was a skilled multi-instrumentalist, playing
guitar amongst other things. In a 1977 interview, Plant said that
he played guitar on four Zeppelin songs, one of which is probably
"Boogie With Stu", and interestingly, another may well be "Down By
The Seaside".
o Plant's favourite song from his "Now And Zen" album is "White,
Clean And Neat." Another of Plant's solo favourites is "In The
Mood" from "The Principle Of Moments."
o The sample at the beginning of "Tie Dye On The Highway" is from
the original Woodstock.
o The song "If I Were A Carpenter," originally by Tim Hardin, and
one that Plant covers on "Fate Of Nations" was a song he used to
perform with John Bonham in the Band of Joy. Another cover was
by Bob Seger on the album "Smokin' O.P.s." In an interesting
coincidence, in the liner notes for a collection of Hardin's
VERVE recordings is the following anecdote.
"He [Hardin] hated it [the military] when he was in. He was
stationed at Okinawa, San Diego and Twentynine Palms,
California."
The coincidence being of course, that the same Plant album
features the track "29 Palms".
o In recent interviews Plant says he has been listening to music
from Julian Cope and Blind Melon, amongst others, in recent times.
Plant's daughter Carmen is also a Blind Melon fan and reportedly
asked Plant why he doesn't make songs like theirs anymore.
o "Calling To You" sounds reminiscent of Metallica's "Wherever I May
Roam."
o There is a very intriguing sample in the song "Nirvana" from
"Manic Nirvana" which can be heard at around the 3:10 point in the
song. It goes as follows, "Can you hear the thunder? Can you
hear the thunder? My love, cascading towards you in a torrent
of... don't go, listen, listen. Let me try my song and dance..."
There is also a sound like a saxophone in the background. Where
this comes from is unknown, although as Plant got "Your Ma Said
You Cried In Your Sleep Last Night" from his jukebox, it may well
be there too. But given Plant's interest in pop trivia it may
well be from some very obscure source.
o When Plant played live on PBS at the time of "Fate Of Nations" he
wore a t-shirt commemorating a deceased Egyptian singer called
Abdel-Halim Hafez. The words "HAFEZ" and "HAWEL TEFTEKERNY" are
on the shirt. The latter words are the title of one of Hafez's
songs, "Try To Remember Me."
o During Plant's 1993 appearance on the Letterman show, the CBS
orchestra played "Black Dog" and "Misty Mountain Hop."
o Plant features on the soundtrack to "Porky's Revenge" from 1985.
The catalogue number for the soundtrack is Columbia JS 2275 (US)/
CBS 70265 (UK). His back band, listed as the "Crawling King
Snakes" is an all-star unit that probably featured Dave Edmunds.
The song they contributed to the soundtrack is "Philadelphia
Baby".
o Plant's song "Messin' With The Mekon" takes it title from a
fictional character in the comic "Dan Dare" which appeared in the
British boys magazine _Eagle_ during the life of the magazine
between 1950 and 1970, when it merged with _Lion_. The Mekon was
the head of the alien race, the Treens, who inhabited the northern
half of the planet Venus. The capital of their territory was
Mekonta. Unlike the rest of the treens which were vaguely
humanoid, the Mekon was of much smaller build with a bulbous head,
and hovered around on a small platform. The Mekon as Lord of the
Treens was possessed of infinite wisdom and intelligence. The
Treens incidentally, were green. One of the more well-known Dan
Dare stories saw him travel to Venus to try and get the assistance
of the civilisations there to help the earth which was suffering a
major food shortage. Venus is, according to the story, split in
half by a flame belt along it's circumference, the northern half
inhabited by the hostile and imperialist Treens, while the south
was inhabited by the pacifist race, the Therons. In the interests
of not spoling the story, no more details will be provided.
Compared to the comics of today such as "Sandman", those in
_Eagle_ such as "Dan Dare" have aged gracefully, and are still an
enjoyable read. A great source of material from "Eagle" is the
book:
Morris, Marcus (Editor), The Best Of Eagle, Michael Joseph
Limited, London, 1977.
Given that Plant was born in the late 1940's he probably read this
particular boys magazine while he was growing up, as it was very
popular at the time.
o The book, Plant, R., Journey Into Light, Cassell, London, 1972,
was not written by Robert Plant, but Ruth Plant, and is about is
about forty years communication with a brother in the after life.
Another author listed is yet another R. Plant, Ralph Plant.
o The "Fate Of Nations" tour had a bit of an Indian flavour to it
with concerts opening with the song "Dil Cheez Kya Hai" by Indian
singer Asha Bhosle from the film "Umrao Jaan" being played just
before Plant took to the stage. Also, one of the tour t-shirts
had an image of the goddess Lakshmi sitting in a lotus flower with
Plant posturing beneath it. Plant was also seen wearing a t-shirt
with a picture of the arab world's best known singer Om Kalsoum on
the front of it during some shows.
o The video accompanying Plant's song "I Believe" from his "Fate Of
Nations" album features a lot of poetry, that has been likened by
one list member to that in the video game "Final Fantasy II" -
although given what Plant wrote "I Believe" about, this is
unlikely to be a source.
o The song "Tall Cool One" uses a riff borrowed from "Train Kept A-
Rollin'". Considering the tongue in cheek nature of the song, its
resemblance is probably intentional.
o The first line of the song "White, Clean And Neat" from Plant's
"Now And Zen" album opens with the lyrics, `13th day of August
'54, I was 5 years old, depending where you're counting from..."
There has been some discussion on the list regarding the
reccurrence of some numbers regarding Zeppelin, in this case 54
being the number of tracks on the 1990 box set "Led Zeppelin".
The age Plant gives is correct for that date, but the relevance
of that particular date remains a mystery. It may just be a date
Plant conjured up as one fit the lyrics.
o Plant's current residence is somewhat uncertain, he maintains a
farm in Wales, quite likely Jennings Farm, but also has a
residence in England. The latter caused him some trouble a few
years back when he wanted to install some new windows as the local
authorities deemed it to have some heritage value.
o While Page has claimed several classical composers, such as
Penderecki, as influences, Plant has only recently admitted some
admiration for Gustav Mahler.
o Robert's divorce from Maureen was a quiet and amicable parting
which occurred in 1983.
o The concert program from Plant's "Manic Nirvana" tour contained an
excerpt from Robert Palmer's book "Deep Blues" pages 59 and 60,
which deals with the murky legends regarding the mystical and
occult roots common in blues lore. Robert Johnson is the subject
of many of these legends, the most common of which being, he sold
his soul to the devil by playing at a crossroads at midnight, and
thereby acquired his remarkable skills. The excerpt from the book
states the stories are rooted in voodoo lore from the African
Yoruba religion. The black man at the crossroads is Legba, a
trickster figure. Slave legends also portray the devil as a
trickster figure, but their vision of the devil is quite different
from the traditional christian one. The stories about Johnson and
the devil persist to this day, and were probably a result of the
overly religious black communities of the time and the awe in
which storytellers with the talent of Johnson were held.
o Robert puts in an appearance on the soundtrack to "Wayne's World
2" playing "Louie Louie" with his band. The lyrics are slightly
varied from the original though, and apparently the chords are
wrong.
o Plant's most prominent pre-Zeppelin band, The Band Of Joy,
recorded several songs prior to their breakup. The most notable,
"Adriatic Sea View", was made available by Diane Bettle-Lovett of
the _Nirvana_ fanzine on an audio cassette some years ago. The
tape was compiled to benefit several Wolverhampton charities. The
cassette was entitled "In The Forest".
o Robert appeared on the _Today_ show on December 20, 1993.
o There is a book available about Plant, featuring rare photos of
him at home, and others of him live in concert, during and after
Zeppelin, entitled "Thru The Mirror".
o "Albion", a place mentioned several times in lyrics by Plant, is
the ancient name for Britain. The name has been largely forgotten
and is now used only in a romantic sense when conjuring up images
of the Britain of old. Albion was the chapter of British history
before the country was invaded by successive waves of Romans,
Vikings and Saxons. The last part of England to retain this aura
is the Welsh border area around Herefordshire and Shropshire.
With many ancient and medieval ruins, graves and assorted
surviving phsyical evidence this may well have served as the
inspiration for some of Plant's lyrics. This is very likely
since he was born and raised not that far from there.
o Plant got the lyrics "Blues falling down like hail" from the
Robert Johnson song "Hellhound On My Trail".
o Robert's 1993 appearance on the Spanish tv show "En Vivo" must
surely rank as one of his oddest tv appearances. For the
interview Robert and his band of the time were interviewed through
two interpreters. When asked why he doesn't play "Stairway To
Heaven" any more, Plant replies "I forgot the words!" By this
time, guitarist Kevin Scott MacMichael had dozed off and the next
question was to drummer Michael Lee, who was asked why Plant hired
him. Lee replied to this by saying it was because he had great
eyebrows. The Plant band performed a horrendous, only partially
live version of "29 Palms", after which Plant thought they had
finished only for the overdubbed start of "If I Were A Carpenter"
to be played. Plant who had sat down, had to leap to his feet to
get back in sync with the song and managed to forget the opening
lyrics. The rest of the band was caught similarly unawares, with
Dunnery and Johnstone caught guitar-less while the song was
starting. The least chaotic aspect of the show was the airing of
the "I Believe" video just after the interview and before a
commerical break, which was followed by the semi-live performance.
Of the instruments, all but the guitars were live, which were the
only instruments mimed for some reason.
o Plant made an appearance on the show "Center Stage" in 1993,
playing "What Is And What Should Never Be", "Thank You", "If I
Were A Carpenter", "Going To California", "Whole Lotta Love", "29
Palms", "Tall Cool One", and "Ramble On". This was with his
"Fate Of Nations" era band. Robert even played guitar on an
untitled blues tune similar to "Look Over Yonder's Wall". On the
tv broadcast he did not play on any other songs, and his playing
on that particular number was reportedly fairly dodgy.
o The "Hiawatha Express" bootleg includes a recording of Plant
teaching his five yeard old daughter at the time, Carmen, her
ABC's. This canbe heard on the bootleg just before the "In My
Time Of Dying" rehearsals.
o Plant is renowned for messing up lyrics when peforming live, even
the ones he had written. He trims down the verses of his song
"Ship Of Fools" when he plays that live, and has been known to
repeat verses from "What Is And What Should Never Be". But, the
song he seems to have had the most trouble with in recent years is
"Kashmir", and, in both cases, at high profile events. At Live
Aid he came in with the coda too early, Jimmy still had 8 measures
left in his solo. At the Atlantic 40th Anniversary shindig, he
repeated an entire verse of "Kashmir", only realising after he had
started it the second time, he sang, "Oh father of the four winds,
fill my sails... again!" He also managed to miss nearly every
verse entry when they played "Misty Mountain Hop" at the Atlantic
gig as well.
o Plant was scheduled to perform at the Alexis Korner Memorial
Concert at Buxton Opera House on April 17, according to the
February 1994 issue of _Q_. Also listed as performers, were Paul
Jones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.
o Robert is one of the guest artists on the Martin Allcock compiled
"Fairport Songbook" Fairport Convention live 2CD set.
o A photo of Alannah Myles appeared in the February 10, 1994, issue
of the _Victoria_Times-Colonist_ paper where she is a wearing a
"Robert Was Here" belt buckle.
o It is occasionally claimed that a demo version of "Sixes And
Sevens", from Plant's "Shaken 'n Stirred" album, exists of
Zeppelin experimenting with the tune. This is not the case, as
it is taken from a tape of demos for the Plant album, of around
thirty minutes duration, containing this and other songs from the
album in demo form. The Zeppelin bootleg that is the source of
this misunderstanding is called "Round & Round" and features the
Chicago, July 6 1973 soundcheck, widely mislabelled as the one
from Minneapolis in 1975. What happened was that the company
that made the cd took off a few of the songs that were played at
the soundcheck, such as "Hungry For Love" and "Reeling And
Rockin", and put the demo of "Sixes And Sevens" on there, for
reasons best known only to them. This same mistake was also made
on the "Uncensored" bootleg, where the demo was said to have
originated from a 1975 soundcheck, the soundcheck of which they
were referring to was 1973 anyway. The song was not demoed
until the early 1980s.
o Plant was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1993 for his vocals on
"Calling To You", from the "Fate Of Nations" album, in the Hard
Rock Performance category. The other nominations were, "Plush"
by Stone Temple Pilots, "Cherub Rock" by Smashing Pumpkins,
"Leave It Alone" by Living Colour, and "Highway To Hell" by AC/DC.
o A rumour started by Diane Bettle-Lovett, formerly the owner of the
"Nirvana" fanzine, was that the guitarist listed as featuring on
Plant's "29 Palms" single, Rainier Ptcaek, was in fact a pseudonym
for Plant himself, both having the same intials. This is untrue,
as Ptacek, is a real person, a blues guitarist from Tucson,
Arizona in fact. He has a deal with Demon records, and
apparently, Plant heard him, liked what he heard, and asked him to
join him in the studio.
o A short interview with Plant is included in the second part of the
two part documentary on Atlantic records "Hip To The Tip: The
Independent Years". Plant is filmed in a darkened room wearing a
pair of sunglasses and with a single light shining on him, giving
him a rather cliche'd appearance. Around this a clip of "Whole
Lotta Love" from "The Song Remains The Same" is played.
o The lyrics to the song "Tall Cool One" may be a bit more clever
than they appear on the surface. It appears to draw some
comparisons with the animal kingdom. At one point Plant is trying
to reconcile a woman's doubts about him by saying his animalistic
desires are tempered by the fact that he is also in love with her,
`Lighten up baby I'm in love with you'. The line about `With my
one hand loose I am to satisfy' could be compared to the way cats
and other animals of that persuasion hold their prey in position
with one hand while using the other to tear it open. However, in
this case Plant is obviously not intending to tear the object of
his desires to shreds. Cats can often appear to have bloodshot
eyes, while humans get them from not sleeping much, which might
explain the line about `Bloodshot eyes'.
o A particularly interesting interpretation of the Plant song
"Calling To You" posted to the list claimed that the cry of `Oh
Jimmy!' is meant in anything but a conciliatory sense. And
examination of the lyrics at various parts of the song support
this assertion. The lyrics are hard to make out in places
however, so this is open to question.
(2:38) Greed call call, greed call, When ya gonna stop? You
stole the keys to the gates of the castle of love.
(3:48) Greed call call, What ya gonna say? Standing in the
shadows as the words kept fading away.
(4:09) Greed called ? (sounds like Jimmy?), What, you won't
stop?
You stole the keys to the gates of the castle of love.
(4:34) Greed called called, What you won't say.
(4:38) Standing in the shadows of our work and's fading away,
Just fading away, Just fading away. Oh, Just fading
away (repeated several times)
(5:40) Ooohhhh Jimmy!
Could the lyrics of this song share thematical influences with the
"Anti-Stairway" song "Liar's Dance" on Plant's earlier "Manic
Nirvana" album? If this is the case, the castle of love might
represent the Zeppelin sound and mystique. In which case, it
follows that Plant feels that Jimmy is degrading himself in
letting greed get the better of his musical intentions and was
wasting his musical heritage. This view is supported by some
rather derogatory comments Plant made on Letterman about what he
thought of Jimmy's motives. However, it all seems like high
hypocrisy from someone who sold "Tall Cool One" to Coca Cola for
use in one of their commericals.
o The Wolf's head logo Robert adopted during his solo career,
notably on the "Now And Zen", "Manic Nirvana" and "Fate Of
Nations" albums is a likeness of the logo of his favourite
football club, the English third division side Wolverhampton
Wanderers. The symbol appears on the front cover and on the
cd of "Now And Zen", which also features Jimmy's ZoSo logo which
indicates which tracks he played on. In the case of "Manic
Nirvana" it appears on the cd again, on the rear cover, and
throughout the cd booklet. It only appears only once on "Fate Of
Nations", on the front of a cap which is being worn backwards by
a boy watching the traffic in one of the pictures in the cd
booklet.
o A performance by Robert Plant at New York's Bottom Line was set to
be released by Razor & Tie Music as "In Their Own Words: Volume
1", with other artists to follow. However, his performance does
not appear on volume one.
o An interview with Plant was conducted in early 1994 for MTV's "24
Hours In A Day Of Rock And Roll". Plant, on tour at the time,
mentioned his next destination was New Orleans where he "would
talk to transvestites, because they were friends of John Paul
Jones!" Plant also claimed the reason he does what he does is
because he is "socially incapable of dealing with real life"
o A vague resemblance in style between Plant's version of "If I Were
A Carpenter" and The Kink's "Celluloid Heroes" has been noted.
o In mid-1968 Plant recorded a song with English blues legend
Alexis Korner, "Operator", which can be found on Korner's "Bootleg
Him" double album (Rak SRAK 514). The album was originally issued
in 1971 and re-released in 1986.
o Plant was one of the performers at the Freddie Mercury Tribute
Concert, and during the performance of the Queen song "Innuendo"
he slipped in a few lines from "Kashmir", "O father of the four
winds fill my sails" etc. Plant also performs "Thank You/Crazy
Little Thing Called Love" on the video.
o Plant contributed a harmonica solo to his former-guitarist Francis
Dunnery's first solo album, "Fearless". That particular
contribution can be found on the track "The King Of The Blues."
o Director Richard Linklater went to the extreme length of sending
a video tape of him personally pleading to Plant to let him
include the song "Rock And Roll" in his movie "Dazed And
Confused". The film is about a group of teenagers in the 1970s
and what they get up to on the last day of school. The film
featured a lot of classic seventies songs such as Aerosmith's
"Sweet Emotion". Both Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones approved the
inclusion of the song, but Plant, for reasons best known to
himself, refused to allow it to be used. This meant it couldn't
be used, as agreement from all three surviving members of Zeppelin
was required. There is no Zeppelin content in the film anyway,
and Linklater was of the opinion that Plant's "people" rather than
him were behind the refusal, actually expressing his doubts that
his pleas ever got to Plant himself.
o A picture of Plant appears in the book _Eight_Days_A_Week_, which is
a photographic history of rock. Plant is shown whilst singing, and
is wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the name of a group called
"Bobby And The Brains".
o Plant appeared on BBC's "Tops Of The Pops" in 1993, performing "29
Palms". He did so completely live, not lip synched as most other
performers do on the show.
o Robert's voice was artificially lowered in pitch by studio means
on his early solo recordings in order to make him sound more like
a `crooner'.
o The following Plant anecdote appeared in the June 1993 issue of
_Boston_ magazine.
"Susan Anton, Mo Vaughn, and Taylor Dayne have all stopped
in at Joe's American Bar & Grill in the last few months,
but waitress Beth Turchan doesn't get excited anymore. Not
after her blunder with Robert Plant, the legendary voice of
Led Zeppelin.
Turchan's trouble started, she says, when another
waiter sang a line from "Simply Irresistible" in honor of
Plant. "No, that's a Robert Palmer song," Turchan told him,
but her coworker's crooning must have kept ringing in her
ears.
When Plant, who had refused autograph hounds all night,
was leaving, Turchan extended her hand and said, "Mr.
Palmer, may I have your autograph?" 'I'm not Robert Palmer,
love," replied Plant, "but would you like an autograph?"
He gave her one, and even used his own name."
o Plant did an acoustic set for Italian radio in May 1993, which
comprised an interview, with several interviewers and Plant
replying in English, and acoustic performances by Plant, Dunnery,
and MacMichael of songs such as "Going To California", "You Shook
Me", "Living Loving Maid", a surprising choice, and, "29 Palms".
o In another 1994 radio appearance, Plant hosted a BBC show in May
where he played excerpts from "Fate Of Nations" and selections of
his choice, incorporating a variety of world music, and a new
acoustic rendering of "Whole Lotta Love (You Need Love)", with
the "(You Need Love)" added to appease a legal finding against
Led Zeppelin.
o Robert played a concert for charity at a Kidderminster supermarket
in 1988, covering a variety of songs by Sting, Bryan Adams, and
the covering "Rock And Roll" with the backing band.
o Plant put in an appearance at Woodinville Stock 94, minus Page who
was rumoured to be joining him, and played what was reportedly an
excellent set.
o There is an interview disc from the "Manic Nirvana" era available
where Plant admits his voice was somewhat "dormant" between 1981
and the "Now And Zen" era.
o Plant was very much into the hippie ethos during the Zeppelin
days, as evidenced by by his apparel at the early concert at Bath
and through his love for Californian music.
o In, or around 1982, Plant performed at a benefit concert for the
family of a guitarist in Worcester who had died recently, at the
Stourport Civic Hall in front of around 200 people. Plant's
initial appearance for the evening was with a band called The Big
Town Playboys, with Jason Bonham on drums. This set was mainly
comprised of old standards such as Billy "The Kid", and Emerson's
"Red Hot". After their set, the Big Town Playboys were followed
by a variety of local bands until, around 12:30, Plant re-emerged
onstage with Robbie Blunt and Jason Bonham. After a few rhythm
and blues standards, Plant made the surprise announcement to the
crowd that, "An old mate of mine was in town today so he's dropped
in to play". To the astonishment of those present Jimmy Page then
appeared onstage. They jammed out a few more rhythm and blues
standards, then moved on to to "Black Dog" and "Rock And Roll" to
conclude the evening. This all took place before a crowd of about
200. This sort of cameo appearance by Plant was not uncommon in
the Worcester area at the time, and he popped up frequently to jam
with local bands in Stourport.
o "The Movie Show" on SBS in Australia in mid-1994 showed a brief
excerpt from a black and white Australian art-type film going to
the Venice Film Festival, accompanied by "Greatest Gift" from
Plant's "Fate Of Nations" album.
o _Q_ magazine's 1993 awards ceremony saw an award go to singer/
songwriter Tori Amos, and there was at least one picture of her
and Robert Plant together at the ceremony.
o An English magazine claimed in 1994 that Plant had had a facelift
by showing picture of him at the 1990 Knebworth show and several
years later. This is obviously not true, you only need to see
Plant being interviewed on television to see that he has plenty of
facial wrinkles.
o Both Page and Plant were backstage at the Fairport Convention
Annual Reunion at Cropredy on Friday, August 12th, 1994, and were
scheduled to play on Saturday night, but didn't for reasons that
were described as "problems with the Performing Rights Society".
Rumour has it that this was because Plant had run off with Roy
Harper's wife, the one prior to the one who ran off with Nigel
Kennedy the violinist who appeared on the Plant song "Calling To
You". Harper and Plant were apparently not getting on that well
since Kennedy's appearance on "Fate Of Nations", but Plant's
behaviour seems to make a mockery of gestures from Harper such as
writing the song "Evening Star" for Plant's daughter Carmen.
o During the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, Plant gave an
interview to MTV's Kurt Loder, and said that he was completing an
album that was very much in the vein of the Seattle grunge sound,
and that the album would be available around October 1992. What
happened to this album and material is unclear, as "Fate Of
Nations" could hardly be described as being grunge. On the topic
of grunge, Plant has gone on the record praising Soundgarden a
few times in recent years.
o Richard Cole's, erm, interpretation, of where Plant got the, much
overused by the media, nickname Percy is that the band were
sitting around watching a gardening show on tv, the host of which
was called Percy, and who took great delight in growing his plants
to perfection. However, it has also been claimed the nickname
sprung from Plant's campy onstage behaviour and effeminate type of
mannerisms in the early days of the band. Another possible source
of the nickname was The Kink's rock-opera, later made into a film
starring Hwyel Bennet, called "Percy". The film was named after
the main character whose preoccupation in life was his libido and
inordinately large genitals. On the other hand, Percy may have
just been a one-time joke that has been cliche'd by the media, and
not really a regularly used nickname at all. More recently, Plant
has been referred to as Planty by his ex-guitarist and friend
Francis Dunnery.
o The nature of relations between Plant and Paul McCartney would
appear to at least be cordial, if the photo of him, his son Logan,
and Paul and Linda McCartney backstage at Knewbworth in 1990 is
any indication. Going back further, Plant joined McCartney
onstage during one of the latter's concerts in 1979. That
particular jam session took place at the 29/12/79 concert at the
Hammersmith Odeon by Wings for a Kampuchea benefit show. Also
onstage with Plant were Jones and Bonham, while Page had attended
a Wings gig on December 2 in Brighton, and Plant and Bonham had
popped up at a Wings show on December 12 in Birmingham. Jones was
later to appear on McCartney's "Give My Regards To Broadstreet".
o On at least one of his 1990 dates Plant and his band played a
portion of "Give Peace A Chance" and the Beatles song "Things We
Said Today" just before he played "Living Loving Maid (She's Just
A Woman)".
o In the video for "Hurting Kind" Plant's plays a white `Flying V'
style guitar, and rather sparingly too.
o At the end of the credits on his "Mumbo Jumbo" video it lists
Plant as the Executive Producer, and then at the bottom of the
screen, "If you can't take a joke...!" appears.
o Storm Thorgerson, the guru behind the renowned sleeve designers
Hipgnosis, and long-time Pink Floyd associate, was the director
for the video for Plant's songs "Big Log" and "In The Mood".
o Plant's "Heaven Knows" video was filmed in Morocco.
o Plant contributed the track "If It's Really Got To Be This Way"
to "Adios Amigo", a tribute album for Arthur Alexander, who was
an early influence on Plant's singing. The album is on the Razor
& Tie label. Arthur Alexander was one of the first soul artists,
his combination of blues, country and '50s rhythm and blues was
instrumental in laying the foundation for later artists such as
Otis Redding and James Carr. Early in their careers both the
Beatles and the Rolling Stones covered his songs, "Anna", and "You
Better Move On" respectively. The following quote from Paul
McCartney is taken from the liner notes from Alexander's last
release, "Lonely Just Like Me", on Elektra.
"If the Beatles ever wanted a sound it was R&B. That's what
we used to listen to, what we used to like, and what we
wanted to be like. Black, that was basically it. Arthur
Alexander."
Another of his better known songs is "Every Day I Have To Cry".
His career was anything but consistent however, as he was ripped
off with a disturbing regularity, and suffered the rigours of
long term drug abuse and a downturn in his career that lasted for
several decades. He was poised to make a comeback in the early
1990s with a performance for the "In Their Words" series at The
Bottom Line in 1991, which was followed by a new album in 1992.
In a cruel blow Arthur Alexander died at just 53 only a short
time after the album, "Lonely Just Like Me" was released to rave
reviews. His performance for the aforementioned series can be
found on "In Their Words Volume One", also on the Razor & Tie
label.
o The song "Oompah (Watery Bint)" is a b-side recorded during the
"Now And Zen" period, appearing on the "Hurting Kind" cd single,
and features a series of amazing screams from Plant towards the
end.
o There were rumours doing the rounds in 1988 that Plant was in
some sort of relationship with Joan Jett, who was opening for him
at the time on the "Now And Zen" tour.
o Various explanations have been offered for the changes that have
taken place in Plant's voice.
- Up to the mid-1970s Plant had very bad teeth, but he later had
them corrected, which may cause a change in how his voice sounds.
- Cocaine snorting can result in a deviated septum, which leads to
a constantly running nose, although this can be corrected by
surgery, which has the effect of making a voice more nasal.
- Plant was known to smoke pot in the early days of the band. In
small quantities, some singers claim that it improves such things
as lung capacity and gives a nice crisp, clear sound. This leads
to the rather tenuous theory that after Plant became less frequent
in his use of pot,in the late 1970s, his voice changed.
- Plant and the rest of the band smoked cigarettes, and these
alone have well-documented effects upon the throat and lungs to
name but a few things.
- More likely is that Plant permanently damaged his voice by
pushing it too far, too often, and scarring his vocal chords.
- Certain types of surgery, such as cosmetic surgery, can have
varying effects on the voice, not that it is proven that Plant has
ever had any.
o The song "Calling To You" is in a phrygian mode.
o "The Honeydrippers: Live At The Bluenote Derby in 1981" released
by Box Top Records in 1984 is nothing to do with Plant's band of
the same name, as in 1981 their formation was still a few years
away. Plant's Hondeydrippers band is rumoured to have featured
Paul Schaeffer, who is nowadays in charge of the CBS Orchestra on
"Late Night With David Letterman". Plant did however do gigs
dating back to 1981 with bands called "The Skinnydippers" and
The Honeydrippers".
o At the time of the "Unledded" special with Jimmy Page, Plant was
said to be dating Indian singer Najma Akhtar, who sang with him
on "The Battle Of Evermore".
o The girl in Plant's "Hurting Kind" video is rumoured to be his
daughter.
o Robert Plant was spotted on October 29, 1994 around 4.00pm at
Avebury, near Bath, Bristol. Avebury has similar attractions to
Stonehenge for tourists.
o Plant has often asserted his admiration for Sonny Boy Williamson
II, and how he believes he is a great model for how musicians
should be when they get older. Whether this amounted to the
rumour that Plant stole one his harmonicas is unlikely though.
o Alannah Myles' most recent album makes a few pointed references
to Plant, such as in the liner notes a notation, "those who you
recognize between the lines", as well as song lyrics beginning
with "Heaven knows...".
o Zeppelin's former publicist, B.P. Fallon, in his book about the
1994 U2 Zoo TV Tour reports that Plant's favourite U2 song is
"Salome~", and that he actually quite likes Bono, and in a phone
call to Fallon compared him to Ral Donner, an English Elvis
copier who Elvis stole "The Girl Of My Best Friend From", and
as Plant is said to practically worship Ral Donner, that is high
praise indeed.
o Plant once suggested that Zeppelin gigs should conclude with a
cover of The Incredible String Band's "Hedgehog Song", but was
chastised by Bonham.
o According to a 1988 interview, Plant had an operation on his
throat around 1973/74 that rendered him unable to sing or talk
for weeks. One particularly inane rumour I heard recently was
that this operation was undertaken by Hindu religious leaders
in India.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2 - The Sorceror's Apprentice : Jimmy Page

o James Patrick Page was born on January 9, 1944, in Heston,
Middlesex, England.
o When Jimmy appeared on the "Huw Wheldon Show" in 1956, after
playing a brief excerpt from "Mama Don't Wanna Play No Skiffle
No More," he said he wanted to become a biotechnologist and work
with germs.
o Jimmy's first job was as a lab assistant, giving him something in
common with Henry Rollins, whose tales of rat and animal problems
can be found on his "Talking From The Box" spoken word double cd.
o Page's early inspiration to play guitar came from the Elvis
Presley song "Let's Play House."
o Jimmy stopped playing guitar for two years while he went to art
school.
o Jimmy Page has known Jeff Beck since he was 11.
o When questioned about which songs he did play on as a session
player, especially ones where some controversy as to what his
exact role is has arisen, Jimmy usually pleads ignorance and
points out that it is hard to remember exactly what he did given
the huge amount of sessions he was playing at the time.
o Jimmy was a session guitarist for three years, playing on
literally hundreds of recordings of an incredibly diverse nature
playing anything from a few licks to a solo. Various estimates
have him playing on anything from 50% to 90% of the records that
were recorded in England between 1963 and 1965.
o Page was the favoured session guitarist of producer Shel Talmy,
and ended up doing session work on songs for The Who and The Kinks
as a direct result of this.
o As a session player, Page's involvement with Herman's Hermits has
been a source of much controversy, possibly due to a wrangle
between Page and the producer. One rumour has it that he played
on all their early hits, although a more likely scenario is that
he played on several of them. In the case of Herman's Hermits,
the backing tracks for their songs were usually cut while Peter
Noone and the rest of the band were on tour.
o The Who song "I Can't Explain" features Jimmy in a minor role.
Although there is a story that Jimmy played the main rhythm part
while Peter Townshend played the solo.
o Page supplied the rhythm guitar for The Kink's "You Really Got Me"
and "All Day And All Of The Night", which has not really been
contested by Dave Davies. What he has contested however is that
Page played the solos in these songs, which he almost certainly
didn't, they don't sound very Page-like at all. However, Page may
well have played the main riffs in both these songs which prompted
Elliot Easton to claim in _Guitar_World_ that if he did play the
riff in "You Really Got Me" then he invented heavy metal there and
then. Page claims he contributed "bits of feedback" to The Kinks
song "I Need You" which appeared on one of their early albums.
Further fuel for the debate comes from Ray Davies autobiography
_X-Ray_, where he says that Page was present but he didn't do the
solo.
"When we went upstairs to hear the playback in the tiny
control room, we found it crowded with onlookers and assorted
musicians. Among them was Jimmy Page, who cringed as it came
to Dave's guitar solo. Perhaps Page was put out about not
being asked to play on the track, and we were slightly
embarassed by the amount of jealousy shown by the eminent
guitarist. Perhaps he thought Dave's solo was inferior to
anything he could have played, but Dave not only invented a
sound, but also had every right to play whatever solo he felt
fitted the track."
However, the released track is the third take of the song and
while Dave Davies features on the first and third takes, Page
may be on the second. Ray Davies also says that Page played the
tambourine on the Kink's first record, attempting to minimalise
Page's contribution. However, the song both Page and Davies agree
features Page is "I'm A Lover Not A Fighter" which Jimmy plays 12
string guitar on. A few other tracks on that particular album
also feature Jimmy playing rhythm guitar, but he denies ever
having tambourine on any Kinks record.
o Page has long been rumoured to feature on songs by Van Morrison's
Them such as "Baby Please Dont Go", "Here Comes The Night",
"Gloria", and "Mystic Eyes". The exact details are unclear, and
while the first two are likely, he may have played bass on "Baby
Please Don't Go", there is some doubt about "Gloria", but his
fiery style is very evident on "Mystic Eyes". He probably also
played on the b-sides of all these songs. However, as with The
Kinks, by saying he played on these songs does not automatically
mean he played lead guitar on them. But as "Gloria" was the
b-side of "Baby Please Don't Go" he probably played on at least
one of those two songs.
o Page may have played on several songs by Donovan such as "Sunshine
Superman" although the long held belief that Jimmy played on
"Hurdy Gurdy Man" has been questioned recently, with the
contention that it is in fact Allan Holdsworth, and not Page.
Jones on the other hand, who most certainly did work on the track
says it was Alan Parker. Donovan in a radio interview in 1988 on
KCRW in Santa Monica, said that it was Holdsworth not Page, as
they tried to get Page but he was unavailable, and tried out a new
young guy, Holdsworth, instead. An answer to this perplexing
question that could be seen as definitive came from Allan's wife
Claire, when she was asked this by a member of the Allan
Holdsworth mailing list. The response she gave was (included
without permission), "Allan is bemused by the number of people,
including Donovan, who have said that he played on that song -
because he didn't!! He thinks it might have been Ollie Halsell
but he is dead now so I guess we can't ask him." Page, who denies
playing on it claimed in a 1977 interview that it was Alan Parker.
To confuse matters further, in the liner notes for Donovan's
"Trouabdour" box set it claims Page played on the track.
o A bootleg 2 cd set called "James Patrick Page: Session Man"
features many of Page's notable early performances as a session
man with bands such as The First Gear, Dave Berry & The Cruisers,
and Lulu And The Luvvers. A portion of these probably also
feature John Paul Jones who was the leading session bass player
and arranger at the time. However, these album aren't really
bootlegs. The record label, AIP, sidestepped any possible legal
problems by licensing the album through a third party, the "Jimmy
Page Fan Club." Greg Shaw, President of Bomp/AIP records had
this to say on the matter in the May 12, 1995 "Special Independent
Label Issue" of _Goldmine_.
"I wasn't constrained by the traditional way of doing things:
going through legal departments and making sure every
contract is 100 percent firm. Most of the best reissues are
done by going directly to the artist, maybe circumventing
people who are the legitimate owners. I wasn't too sure
about the legality of the _Pebbles_ [a reissue compilation]
so I worked with these Australian guys and had them issued
there, but after a couple of years it appeared there wasn't
going to be a problem. So I started the AIP label."
o Page's favourite guitar solo is said to be the one from "Reeling
Away The Years" by Steely Dan. The guitarist responsible is
Elliot Randall. This detail comes from a postcard circulated by
Metal Leg advertising a show featuring Elliot Randall in a band
called Chain O'Fools, on February 5, 1994, 10.30pm, at Le Bar Bat,
311 W. 57th St., New York City. The quote on the postcard reads,
"My favorite guitar solo of all time was Elliot Randall's on
Reelin' in The Years".
o For information relating to Jimmy's symbol please refer to the
FAQL for a detailed explanation. The most recent theory that
seeks to explain it has it that it that it symbolizes a near-
death or Tantric sex experience to unify the worlds of the
living and the dead, and thus to reveal the secrets of the
universe. A few points are worth clarifying.
- It is not a word that can be prounounced "Zoso".
- The symbol was designed by Jimmy, and the only person he has
revealed its meaning to was Plant, long ago, and he has since
forgotten. Nigel Eaton, hurdy gurdy player on the Page & Plant
world tour was reported in _Q_ as having asked about it and
been greeted with a deathly silence.
- It is also unlikely to symbolize Cerebus, the guardian hound at
the gates of hell.
- It is not a stylisied "666".
- The closest thing to an explanation from the man himself came on
his November 1994 appearance on _Denton_ with Plant. At the end
of their interview a member of the studio audience yelled
"What's your symbol mean Jimmy?" After some confusion as to
what was being yelled, understanding dawned on Plant's face and
he replied "Frying tonight". Page did not elaborate further.
- It most likely has absoluely nothing to do with Curious George
The Monkey, known as Zoso, a character in English children's
books.
- It doesn't have anything to do with the pyramid of Zoser in
Egypt.
o The "Wall of Sound" phenomenen that is attributed to Page as some
sort of invention can be traced back to Phil Spector in the days
before multi-track recorders. John Coltrane was attributed as
having a wall of sound too, but this was a reference to his
playing and arranging style and not his production techniques.
o An amusing story relating to the guitarist from Jethro Tull is
that Page was passing through the studio when the guitarist was
recording the solo for "Aqualung" and recognizing a prior
acquaintance waved to him, nearly distracting the guitarist enough
to break his concentration and ruin the solo.
o Page was not a fan of Jethro Tull's live performance, labelling
them as "Jethro Dull."
o Carlos Santana in the notes for "Viva Santana," hails Jimmy Page's
studio and compositional genius, `He really is the Stravinsky of
the Les Paul.'
o Like Paul McCartney, Page admits to having no real grasp of
reading sheet music, although he can puzzle it out given time.
When he began his session career he had to be taught the basics by
fellow session man, "Big" Jim Sullivan. But even then Page found
it difficult and time consuming to work out what he was supposed
to be playing. Tony Meehan once recalled,
"He came down and I knew right away that he was faking it.
He couldn't read the music I'd written for him. But he was
doing well enough on his own - I switched him from lead to
rhythm guitar and all went well. The session was at IPC
Studios in 1962, and I'm positive the song we did,
"Diamonds", was the first number one record that Jimmy had
ever played on."
Even today Jimmy admits he is not that great at reading music,
although he says he is better at writing it down.
o In October 1982, Page received a 12-month conditional discharge
for drug related offences.
o Jimmy donated the Yamaha acoustic guitar he used on the 1975 world
tour as a prize in a local radio contest in 1982. On the guitar
he wrote, "This guitar was stolen from Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin
(Officially of course)."
o Jimmy owns Aleister Crowley's former residence Boleskine House,
and at one stage opened a shop called Equinox, with a front door
facing an alley adjoining a shopping center, which sold various
items of Crowley paraphenalia.
o Jimmy Page performs the guitar solos on two tracks from Plant's
"Now And Zen" album, "Heaven Knows" and "Tall Cool One." In each
case, in the cd booklet Jimmy's ZoSo symbol is used to indicate
which songs he played on. The Zeppelin samples were added to
"Tall Cool One", which annoyed Jimmy immensely.
o The Rolling Stones album "Dirty Work" features Jimmy on "One Hit
(To The Body), and according to the "Rolling Stones Complete
Studio Recording Sessions" also on "Back to Zero." Page is
credited in the liner notes as having played on the album, but
apparently the reason the songs he plays on are not identified is
for contractural reasons. Page does not play the solo on either
track. On "One Hit (To The Body)" Page plays a modified Fender
Telecaster with a GeneParson/Clarence White B-String Bender, which
he also used on the ARMS tour, with the Firm and on the "Outrider"
tour.
o The soundtrack to the film "Death Wish II" features Page
experimenting with a Roland Guitar Synthesizer.
o Contrary to Plant, Page loathes the tacky imitation of Dread
Zeppelin.
o The theme song to the tv show "The Wonder Years" features Page.
o Page recently identified one of his influences as the contemporary
classical composer, Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-), particularly his
use of dissonance for dramatic effect. Some further details on
this composer reveal how his influence may have been felt by Page,
"It is a remarkable aspect of Penderecki's career that he has
been able to, and almost from the first, to write music of
wide and direct appeal which makes use of advanced vocal and
instrumental effects and places no long-term reliance on
tonality. His success may be ascribed in part to his
treatment of momentous subject matter, whether religious or
secular: tearing conflicts, drama, mourning and victory are
his strong points. ... In his vocal writing for example,
prayerful psalmody appears alongside singing, speaking,
shouting and impressions of uproar."
o Page entered into an agreement with Kenneth Anger to supply the
soundtrack for Anger's film "Lucifer Rising", which had some
Crowlean content. Page even let Anger use the cellar of Boleskine
House for filming. But in the end Page only delivered twenty
three minutes of material, which Anger thought was useless. Anger
went public with his displeasure in 1976 slamming Page as an
addict and a pretentious dabbler in the occult, something that
must have annoyed Page as he always seemed to take his studies
quite seriously. Anger himself is deeply involved in such
matters, he likes to call himself a satanist although probably in
much the same way as Aleister Crowley did. The music eventually
came from Bobby Beausoleil, a member of the Manson family. The
Page material was released on a soundtrack album of uncertain
legitimacy on the label Boleskine House Records, BHR 666, 1987.
The pressings were very limited edition, and were done on blue
vinyl at 45 rpm, although other coloured vinyl is rumoured to
exist, and the final recordings may not be entirely Page content
alone. The music itself consists of a lot of theramin driven
material. Interestingly, director Anger, who was a friend
of Anita Pallenberg, wanted to cast Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
in the film, with Mick in the role of Lucifer. In the end, Anger
cast Marianne Faithfull along with Chris Jagger, brother of Mick,
although he lasted only a day on the set before being sacked. The
story behind this particular film is related in Marianne
Faithfull's autobiography, _Faithfull_.
o The raging guitar track for Joe Cocker's cover of "With A Little
Help From My Friends" is Page.
o Page is featured on two tracks on Stephen Stills' solo album
"Right By You."
o Page made the album "Whatever Happened to Jugula" with Roy Harper.
o Page's technique is by his own admission `sloppy,' something he
finds amusing considering he took lessons from John McLaughlin,
reputedly one of the `cleanest' guitarists ever.
o At a concert in Chicago in 1977 Page experienced stomach cramps
and the show was called off after "Ten Years Gone."
o Some information on one of Page's toys, the theremin:
"This is the first device to use alternative means of
interaction to produce music. It was invented by Leo
Theremin, a Russian living in England, in the 1930's, and
was made popular in the 1960's by Sun Ra. The instrument
produces sine-wave sounds by the beat frequencies between a
reference RF oscillator and an oscillator tuned by the change
in capacitance between an antenna and the performer's hands,
arms or body caused by movement. The closer you came to the
antenna, the higher the capacitance and higher the pitch.
Later versions of the instrument have volume control from a
second antenna. The Theramin is used at the beginning of the
Beach Boys' song "Good Vibrations". Bob Moog, of synthesizer
fame, built these as a way to make money while in college."
o Singer Chris Farlowe who contributed vocals to Page's "Outrider"
album had been involved with Page previously, when Page as a
session player had played on Farlowe's 1966 album "14 Things To
Think About" and on the single "Out Of Time/Baby Make It Soon."
In a long and varied career Farlowe also performed with Atomic
Rooster ("Made in England", (1972), and "Nice & Greasy", (1973),
Colosseum ("Daughter of Time", (1970), "Colosseum Live", (1971)),
and under his own name ("Chris Farlowe Band Live", (1975)).
Farlowe also did a lot of covers of Rolling Stones material during
the 1960's.
o Jimmy gets a mention in the `Inspiration and Coolness' section of
the liner notes for Bob Rock's most recent album. Coincidentally,
the third produer of "Coverdale/Page" Mike Fraser engineered
Rock's album. Rock, a Canadian producer and musician is also
known for his work with bands like Motley Crue ("Dr Feelgood"),
Metallica, The Cult, and Bon Jovi.
o According to MTV, a man in Palm Springs, California, recently
built a swimming pool in the shape of Jimmy's double neck Gibson
guitar. The pool is over 59 feet long, 23 feet wide, and cost
over $87,000 to build. The pool is even accurate to the extent of
including the knobs on the guitar which double as underwater bar
stools. Only in America.
o Over the years Page has jammed with, amongst others, Aerosmith,
Bon Jovi, Jaco Pastorius, and Mason Ruffner.
o Jimmy has a guest spot on Norton Buffalo's album "Draw Blues,"
which also features Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, and Dan Ackroyd. There
is some speculation that it was Buffalo who blows the whistle
during "Fool In The Rain." A possible highlight of the "Draw
Blues" album, judge for yourself, is a harp `duel' between Beck,
Guy, and Ackroyd. The album is available on Japanese import, and
features a cover of Cole Porter's "Being The Beguine" with Jeff
Beck playing blues sitar.
o Joe Walsh gives Jimmy a mention in the liner notes for his early
seventies album "So What?" The link between Jimmy and Joe is that
Joe gave Jimmy a 1959 Gibson Les Paul guitar, which is Page's
second string guitar. It has been modified in several areas by
Page's recording studio maintenance engineer, Steve Hoyland. The
guitar has a custom bridge that raises the strings in the
following manner:
_ _
_ - - _
This makes it possible when playing the guitar with a violin bow
to play individual strings, not just the top and bottom 'E'
strings. Orchestral stringed instruments are constructed in this
way. Another reason Page is credited on that album is that he
played on the original take of "Country Fair", although that
version didn't make it onto the album.
o In a 1977 interview with _Guitar_Player_, Jimmy recalled how the
idea was suggested to him.
"The first time I recorded with it was with the Yardbirds.
But the idea was put to me by a classical string player when
I was doing studio work. One of us tried to bow the guitar,
then we tried it between us, and it worked. At that point I
was just bowing it, but the other effects I've obviously come
up with on my own using wah-wah and echo. You have to put
rosin on the bow, and the rosin sticks to the strings and
makes it vibrate."
Dave Lewis further hones this by revealing that the son of the
session violinist who suggested it to Page was the actor David
McCallum of "Man From U.N.C.L.E." fame.
o Page favours Herco Flex 75 picks.
o Page was at one time involved with well-known groupie and tell-all
author Pamela Des Barres. Des Barres's book "I'm With The Band"
linked the two, and Des Barres was interviewed for Stephen Davis'
"Hammer Of The Gods" where she contributed the following slightly
erroneous and suspect observation, "I believe that Jimmy was very
into black magic and probably did a lot of rituals, candles, bat's
blood, the whole thing. I believe he did that stuff." After
Page, Pamela married musician and actor Michael Des Barres,
although they have long since split.
o Page married in 1988, and now has a son, James Patrick Page Jr.
Page's daughter Scarlett is in her mid twenties. Information on
who it is that Page married are sketchy, which is probably the way
he wants it, and we're happy to leave it at that.
o Jeff Beck was supposed to play "Stairway To Heaven" with Jimmy on
the ARMS video but is strangely absent and Jimmy can be seen to
look up at Andy Fairweather Low after the song and ask "Where's
Jeff?"
o Chris Squire who was with Page in XYZ has said that one of the
songs XYZ did turned up on one of the Firm albums.
o The `Jimmy' mentioned in the Rolling Stones song, "You Can't
Always Get What You Want", `...I was standin' in line with Mr.
Jimmy... So I sung my song to Mr. Jimmy...', is not a reference
to Jimmy Page. Jimmy does feature though in the credits for the
Stones album "Metamorphisis" although it is unclear which tracks
he played on. Jimmy may have been involved in the early days of
the Rolling Stones during his days a session player and producer,
no-one can say for sure. He has played on an album with Ron Wood
and Paul Rodgers, and Bill Wyman was present on the ARMS tour, so
there is ample evidence the bands got on reasonably well, although
Keith Richards has said he thinks Plant is a bit of an egomaniac.
The reference to Page on the back cover of "Metamorphisis" reads:
"This new elpee is for your home rack
with songs and stars to take you back
Some old, some new, some gone, some due
From days when people wrote for the fun of it
And played for the hell of it
With pictures taken when all was smart
and just another piece of art,
From sessions gone by, when friends dropped in
to play or stay or grin and drink
No one kept a list to say
Who played like this or clapped that way
The toads of parking lots weren't around to state
Pay up or you've got no sound
So thank you Jimmy Page, John McLaughlin....
...John Paul Jones..."
Two tracks on "Metamorphisis" that seem the most likely candidates
for Page's involvement are "Heart Of Stone" and "Memo From
Turner". Keith Richards has admitted that the guitar part on the
released version of "Heart Of Stone" was copied straight from
Jimmy's demo tape. Additional 1964 demos are avilable on other
Stones bootlegs, including the recently released "Metamorphisis"
pirate.
o The guitar Page played at the Knebworth 1990 jam with Plant's
band was one of his Les Pauls equipped with a Gene Parson/Clarence
White B-String Bender, evident from the small item that looks like
a knob behind the bridge. This cherry red guitar is the one Page
is holding on the May 1993 cover of "Guitar World." It was his
main guitar on the "Outrider" tour. This 1970's Les Paul is a
goldtop that was repsrayed cherry red, and was used on the
"Unledded" special.
o Jimmy's main guitars with the Firm were his 1959 Fender Telecaster
with the B-Bender, and his sixties Lake Placid blue Fender
Stratocaster.
o In 1963 Jimmy played as session guitarist on a song with Brian
Auger and Sonny Boy Williamson, "Don't Send Me No Flowers" which
is available on the Marmalade label.
o In the future the former singer of Pink Floyd, now a solo artist,
Roger Waters is due to record an album with Jimmy Page, if his
trend of recording with ex-Yardbirds guitarists continues. Eric
Clapton features on Roger's first album "The Pros And Cons of
Hitchiking", and Jeff Beck features on "Amused To Death."
o Jim Sullivan, who appears with Page on "No Introduction
Necessary", along with Page dominated the session player scene in
London during the 1960's. Sullivan was known as "Big Jim" while
Page was nicknamed "Little Jimmy."
o One of Richard Cole's more interesting recollections is that when
he heard one of the band had died he assumed it was Page, probably
due to Page's drug problems, his malnutrition, heavy drinking, and
physical exhaustion.
o Page has pointed out in interviews that he was surprised that
Zeppelin were not accused of copying Howlin' Wolf, as that is who
he thought he was borrowing from.
o One of Jimmy's houses is Tower House in London.
o From a live Paul McCartney album from the 1970's comes a song
called "Rock Show", the opening lyrics of which are, "Who's that
man walkin' 'cross the stage? Looks like the one they call Jimmy
Page...".
o Rumour has it that one Zeppelin song includes Page being sick and
coughing constantly in the background, although which song this is
has never been established, if it happened at all.
o An album called "The White Album" by Phish features a song called
"A Letter To Jimmy Page." Phish have also been known to cover
"Good Times Bad Times" and other Zeppelin songs as encores.
o On tour it is likely Jimmy has several bows, as there have been
instances where road crew complained of having no idea of where to
get a bow restrung in the city the band had just arrived in.
o Redd Kross have a song called "Jimmy's Fantasy", the first line of
which is 'Climb the mountain with your fingertips.'
o Contrary to popular myth, it is not Page that was playing with
Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison at The Scene, 301 West 46th St, on
March 6, 1968, in New York. Page in an interview with "Guitar
World" in 1993, revealed he had never played with Hendrix. The
guitarist in question is Johnny Winter, and not Jimmy Page. The
reason for the uncertainty is that Winter plays a small excerpt
from Page's "White Summer". Page never actually played with
Hendrix, contrary to what is claimed in David Hendersen's "Excuse
Me While I Kiss The Sky", that Page and Hendrix jammed during the
time of the Jimi Hendrix Experience in the autumn of 1968. Page
has said that the only time he ever got to meet Hendrix was in a
bar, and that Hendrix was completely gone and there was no point
in trying to talk to him, let alone jam.
o As well as being the bass player in The Firm and Blue Murder, Tony
Franklin has also played with Roy Harper.
o Page attributes his string-bending style to Elvis Presley's
guitarist and Cliff Gallup.
o Jimmy helped out on the ARMS tour, which was a benefit organised
for former bass player for the Faces, Ronnie Lane, who was
diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Lane's treatment was a
prohibitively expensive experimental snake venom treatement, which
was at the time not available to other sufferers. Some of the
participants were Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Bill
Wyman, Kenny Jones, Andy Fairweather Low, and Jimmy Page. The
benefit concert was held in London, and a highlight was to be the
appearance of Jimmy Page, being his first notable public
appearance in a long time. The previous year Page had been
charged with drug related offences, and he did not look in the
best of health, very thin and pale, and didn't play all that well.
The London shows were on September 20 and 21 1983 at the Royal
Albert Hall. Page performed amonst other things "Who's To Blame"
(with Winwood on vocals), "Prelude" (The Chopin prelude he used
for "Death Wish 2"), and an instrumental version of "Stairway To
Heaven." The finale was "Layla" with Beck, Page and Clapton
jamming, and "Goodnight Irene" with Ronnie Lane on vocals. The
show then moved to the USA for dates in Dallas, Los Angeles, San
Francisco and New York's Madison Square Garden. Paul Rodgers of
Bad Company replaced Winwood, and Joe Cocker turned up at some of
the shows. Page's playing improved steadily throughout the tour,
with multiple dates played at each venue. Page even spoke
onstage, something he rarely ever did with Zeppelin, the exception
being during the 1980 tour. A bow segment was added, and Page
began playing a song he and Paul Rodgers were working on called
"Bird On A Wing" (A descdendant of the unfinished Zeppelin song
"Swan Song") which went on to become "Midnight Moonlight" during
The Firm years. The instrumental version of "Stairway To Heaven"
also featured Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton joining Page for a jam at
the end.
o The debut album by a band called Cartoone credits Jimmy as the
producer, and he is quite likely to have also played on it. The
album was recorded in 1969, and according to "A Celebration" Page
is featured as a guest artist on unspecified tracks, and he seems
to recall playing acoustic rhythm guitar on the album in a couple
of places. Interestingly, the beginning of the song "Ice Cream
Dreams" is very reminiscent of "Stairway To Heaven". On the
subject of this album, in _Proximity_#10_ the following appeared.
"Another Atlantic release shortly following _Led Zeppelin_,
the only redeeming feature of this album is the fact that
Jimmy Page's name appears on the jacket. His guitar playing
is nowhere in evidence and the music is uniformly awful.
Page claimed in an interview once that he thinks he strummed
an acoustic guitar on a few of the tracks, and for that he
receives equal billing with the band members on the jacket as
'guest artiste'."
o When playing "Heartbreaker" live, Page liked to segue into two
unusual covers midway through the song. The first of these was
"Bouree", which is essentially Jethro Tull's popularised version
of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Lute Suite No. 5". The other was
Simon and Garfunkel's "59th Street Bridge Song" or "Feelin'
Groovy" as it is sometimes called. Page did this a lot on the
early tours, 1970 and 1971, less in the middle years, but again
on the 1980 encores.
o In recent times Page is said to reside in Berkshire, adjacent to
his home studio. Jimmy does not currently live in Aleister
Crowley's old home, Boleskine House, although he apparently still
owns it.
o Page and Jones get a "thank you" credit on the "Rock Aid Armenia"
remake single of "Smoke On The Water" which featured amongst
others, Ritchie Blackmore, David Gilmour, Tony Iommi, Alex
Lifeson, Brian May, Bryan Adams, Bruce Dickinson, Ian Gillan, Paul
Rodgers, Chris Squire, Keith Emerson, Geoff Downess, Roger Taylor,
and Geoff Beauchamp.
o The Yardbirds song "Glimpses" feature some of Page early, and very
psychedelic attempts to utilitise his bowing technique.
o Jimmy has his own star on the "Rock Walk" at the entrance to the
Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. The inlay in the
footpath has imprints of Page's hands and his signature. Fellow
guitar legend Edward van Halen was present at the unveiling and
was reported as saying the following in _Rolling_Stone_, "Led
Zeppelin is universally considered to be one of the heaviest bands
of all time, and yet 90% of their music was acoustic. I think
that's great!" A photo of Page at the ceremony appeared in the
February 1994 issue of _Q_.
o From early in Jimmy's career is a song he cut with Sonny Boy
Williamson II, "I See A Man Downstairs".
o In interviews Page has stated he prefers AAD to DDD purely for
"feel".
o Page's relationship with Lori Maddox is frequently brought up by
people such as Richard Cole and Stephen Davis in their quest to
find dirt on the band. The exact nature of the relationship
remains slightly unknown, but if it what they claim it is, it
could well be judged illegal as she was 14 when they first started
going out together.
o While playing "Take Me For A Little While" during a Coverdale/Page
show in Japan, Jimmy succummbed to the urge to throw in some licks
from "Stairway To Heaven", the chords of which are the same.
o Jimmy's 1965 solo single, "She Just Satisfies/Keep Moving" was
released on cd in 1991. The song is very derivative of the Kinks
song "Revenge" Kinks, which was co-written by Larry Page, manager
of the Kinks, of whose recordings, Jimmy appears on several as a
session player, probably including "Revenge". This cd single is
part 1 of a set of 12 Fontana collectable single reissues. The
single is also part of a boxed set of similar vintage and rarity
recordings.
o During the April 28, 1977 show at Cleveland, Page's "White Summer/
Black Mountainside" very clearly contains a snippet of what was to
become the Firm song "Midnight Moonlight". The bootleg of this
show, the night after the more common "Destroyer" bootleg, is
available on a cd by the Japanese company Smilin' Ears.
o The second part of the "Sha la la la" harmonies in "Fool In The
Rain" could well be Page.
o "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You", "Ten Years Gone" and "Since I've Been
Loving You" all illustrate Page's "light and shade" musical
philosophy.
o In early 1994 _Guitar_For_The_Practising_Musician_ voted Page
"Getting Better All The Time".
"It's hard to see how Page - the acknowledged master of
creating guitar-driven songs - could get much better, but he
did. Despite what you think of Coverdale/Page, listen to
"Absolution Blues" and "Whisper A Prayer for the Dying" to
hear what a master sounds like when he puts his mind to it.
The riff in "Whisper" is as truly menacing as anything Page
has ever done."
o At the April 21, 1977 show at the L.A. Forum, misfortune befell
Jimmy, when, early in the show, apparently after "Sick Again", his
pants fell down! After starting the show in his white suit, he
was forced to change into his black suit to avoid a repetition of
this unfortunate incident.
o Page in the Zeppelin days had a habit of recycling riffs, or
making slight changes to them and turning them into new songs.
The guitar at the start of "Rock And Roll" sounds very similar to
the one in "Boogie With Stu", played at a different speed. These
are typical of Page's fixation with a position in A, which he uses
a lot. For example, "Hots On For Nowhere" uses the same thing, in
E later in A, and the riff from that, in A, is used again in
"Walter's Walk". This is also strongly reminiscent of the guitar
in "Custard Pie".
o The professionally shot footage from the August 11, 1979 Knebworth
show is officially unreleased and two possible explanations for
its recent appearance are, that it was among the material stolen
from Jimmy's house at the time of "Outrider", or that it was
secretly dubbed when Jimmy released the footage for use at the
Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary, where the footage was shown
during band changeovers. Also stolen from Jimmy's house at the
same time were the extensive demos he had put together for his
upcoming "Outrider" album. Originally intended to be a double
album, it eventually emerged as a single album thanks to the theft
of so much material. The burglary took place in 1987 at Jimmy's
house where his home studio, The Sol, is located, in Cookham,
Berkshire.
o Another unfortunate concert incident occurred when Jimmy jumped on
stage with then musical ally David Coverdale for a jam session
with Poison. This occurred at a show at either Reno or Las Vegas.
The unfortunate incident involved Page falling into one of the
onstage pits, destroying one of Poison guitarist C.C. Deville's
prized Ibanez guitars, and having to be helped out of the pit by a
roadie. David Coverdale's contribution was to appear not to know
the words to several Zeppelin covers they did.
o There is a Japanese release called "Jimmy Page Studio Works
1964-68" which collects together 27 tracks from that period that
he played on.
o In an article in _Musician_ dating back to the "Outrider" days,
Jimmy and the interviewer discuss songs that rip off "Kashmir".
While not mentioned during the interview, in a side bar, Robert
Plant's "Heaven Knows" is mentioned. Page played the solo on
this track.
o The Firm that appears on the Dr. Demento compilation is not The
Firm that Page was involved in, not unless his Firm sampled old
Star Trek dialogue that is. There is even a note on the
compilation that says "No connection with Jimmy Page's band".
The song was, apparently, called "Star Trekkin'" and featured
lyrics such as the following, `There's Klingons on the starboard
bow, Starboard bow, starboard bow, There's Klingons on the
starboard bow, Scrape 'em off, Jim!"
o Page appears on an album by a band called Box Of Frogs made up of
ex-members of the Yardbirds. The core members of the group were
Jim McCarty, Chris Dreja and Paul Samwell-Smith. The lead
guitarists varied, with some appearances by Jeff Beck on the
first album, and Page on the second. A 1986 album saw the
involvement of Rory Gallagher, but not Page. Page's involvement
only came about in the first place after some well-publicised
whining that he had not been invited to contribute to the first
album. The track featuring Page on the 1986 album is "Asylum".
o And, should the question of what happened to former Yardbirds
vocalist Keith Relf, who only had one lung, be raised, the
following is a brief summary. After the Yardbirds split, Relf
formed a new band in 1969, which lasted only one year by the name
of Renaissance. The band also featured Jim McCarty, and Jane
Relf. After that, Relf's career was sporadic at best, until he
died tragically at the age of just 33 in May 1976, after being
electrocuted in his Hounslow home. Renaissance however, kept
on going, and its later incarnations minus Relf have received
much critical acclaim.
o The version of "White Summer" on the "James Patrick Page - Session
Man Volume 2" bootleg is credited to The New Yardbirds live at the
Marquee Club 18/10/68. This is almost certainly incorrect. This
is more likely to be from the 27/6/69 performance at the London
Playhouse Theatre, broadcast by the BBC. This version appears on
the recent box sets, and the bootleg of the performance is quite
common, and mostly known as "White Summer".
o The mystery surrounding a Page guitar instrumental entitled "Swan
Song" has long intrigued Zeppelin fans. The piece is a further
evolution of the exotic tunings that produced "White Summer/Black
Mountainside". It in fact, was performed live, in small excerpts,
as part of this number on several occasions, particularly on the
last two Zeppelin tours. It was then adapted to become "Bird On
The Wing" during the ARMS tour, and finally got an official airing
as part of the Firm song "Midnight Moonglight". By this stage,
however, it was a big progression from the earlier versions. It
shares it's tuning with "Kashmir" too. This version of the story
is endorsed by former journalist and Zep associate Cameron Crowe.
Dave Lewis however, speculates that "Swan Song" may have been an
early version of "Ten Years Gone". Furthemore, in the collectors
column in the magazine "Electric Magic", details were provided
about a bootleg of "Swan Song". The details provided were, that
it runs roughly an hour or so in length and is broken up into
twelve sections. Some of the sections contain bass, mellotron,
overdubbed guitar parts, and synthesizers, signs that it was
toyed with by the band, or at least someone else, on various
occasions. The magazine described the piece as a musical diary
from about 1976 to 1980. The source for this, if it is available,
could possibly be the tapes that were stolen from Jimmy's house in
the mid 1980's. No other source seems likely, as Jimmy would
not release music of this rough and unfinished nature to the
public. Legend has it that the band was working on the song
during the "Houses Of The Holy" sessions, but stopped recording
when someone yelled out "Swan Song!", which then became the
working title for the album, and then the name of their record
label.
o According to Page, Richard Cole was not privy to 90% of the things
he wrote about in his sleaze expedition "Led Zeppelin Uncensored".
o "Dazed And Confused" was dropped from the setlist of the 1975 US
tour for the first two weeks because Jimmy sprained his finger by
catching it in a fence. It was replaced with "How Many More
Times".
o The Rolling Stones song "Through The Lonely Nights" which appeared
as a b-side on the single of "It's Only Rock'n'Roll (But I Like
It)", is rumoured to feature Jimmy Page on guitar. The track was
a leftover from the "Goats Head Soup" sessions in late 1972 and
early 1973.
o According to a Peter Grant interview aried on April 21, 1994 on
Q-107 Toronto, Jimmy bought Boleskine House, Aleister Crowley's
former residence around 1967.
o The May 1994 issue of _Q_ magazine featured a competition where
readers had to guess the names of guitarists from pictures of
their guitars. Jimmy was featured with the red Gibson double-neck
in picture 20 with the hint "'60s session man."
o During one of the 1980 performances of "Since I've Been Loving
You" Jimmy sounds rather wasted, as evidenced by his rather
bizarre behaviour and introduction and comments about his glasses,
and multiple "Good evening"'s.
o Legend has it that Page recorded all the guitar overdubs for
"Presence" in one night, including those on "Achilles Last Stand",
an intensely harmonically complex song.
o The 1967 Michaelangelo Antonioni directed film "Blow Up" features
a performance by the Yardbird's of "Stroll On", which is
actually "Train Kept A-Rollin'" with alternate lyrics. The actual
performance takes place in a club, roughly sixty minutes into
the film, when the photographer main character is searching for
someone and stumbles into a club in his search for her. The
people in the club look rather wasted and most are basically
motionless as the Yardbirds are playing. The performance is
mimed, and Jimmy is miming his guitar parts on a yellow 1958
Fender Stratocaster given to him by Jeff Beck, which later that
year was repainted in psychedelic colours. The main action during
the scene takes place when one of Beck's amps strats to play up.
Despite some adjustments by singer Keith Relf and Beck it
continues to crackle. Beck then thumps it a few times with the
cheap looking hollow-bodied guitar he is playing at the time. A
sound technician scampers onstage and tries to correct the problem
but Beck seems not to care and thumps the guitar against the amp a
few more times, then takes it off and proceeds to destroy it by
jumping on it and breaking off the fretboard. He tosses the
fretboard into the crowd, and the main character grabs it and runs
out of the club frantically, only to discard it on the pavement
when he gets outside. Beck can be seen putting on another guitar
right near the end of the clip. The crowd is awoken out of their
apathy by Beck's actions and the retrieval of the fretboard by the
main character is preceeded by some raucous behaviour by the
crowd. Jimmy is decked out in hip clothing, including a very cool
lapel badge for the performance and has a suitably trendy haircut
and extensive sideburns. The original soundtrack album to the
movie was released in March 1967 (MGM SE 4447) and "Stroll On" can
be found on that. There is some debate as to what instrument
Jimmy plays on what was one of the very few Yardbirds tracks to
feature both him and Jeff Beck. Conventional wisdom may suggest
the second guitar part, but some will have us believe he played
bass on that particular song instead of the Yardbirds's regular
bass player Chris Dreja. The reason Beck actually destroyed the
guitar makes an interesting anecdote. Antonioni had originally
wanted The Who for the scene, and at the time Pete Townshend had
made a name for himself by breaking guitars onstage. However, it
turned out that Antonioni couldn't afford The Who so he hired the
Yardbirds instead, and asked Beck to smash his guitar in keeping
with his original idea for the scene. Beck is not known for
destroying instruments, and his reaction to this suggestion was
not recorded. In 1995, Antonioni received an Oscar for a his
cinematic achievements, during the presentation of which, a brief
clip from "Blow Up" was shown, the tennis scene.
o Page did some recordings around 1969 with American slide guitarist
John Fahey at Olympic Studios.
o The question of which Yardbird's songs featured both Page and Beck
was addressed by page in a 1977 interview in _Guitar_Player_. The
portions in square brackets were listed in the original article as
sources for the material.
"`Happenings Time Years Time Ago' [The Yardbirds' Greatest
Hits], `Stroll On' [Blow Up], `The Train Kept A-Rollin''
[Having A Rave-Up With The Yardbirds], and `Psycho Daisies'
[available only on the B side of the English single release
of `Happenings Ten Years Time Ago,' and an obscure bottleg
titled _More_Golden_Eggs_ (Trademark of Quality, TMQ-61003)],
`Bolero' [Truth], and a few other things. None of them were
with the Yardbirds, but earlier on just some studio things,
unreleased songs: `Louie Louie' and things like that; really
good though, really great."
Beck and Page are also both featured on the "Great Shakes" U.S.
radio commercial, while the "Roger The Enginner" album which has
both "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" and "Psycho Daises" on it has
recently been re-released.
o Another guitarist who uses a Gibson double-neck guitar is Slash,
the guitarist from Guns 'n' Roses, although his is a blue, navy
blue colour. His most notable use of it was on the version of
"Knockin' On Heaven's Door" that the band played at the Freddie
Mercury Tribute Concert that was subsequently released as a
single. Carlos Santana is apparently another who owns one of
these guitars, while one, possibly a replica, hangs in The Hard
Rock Cafe in New York.
o Succubus Music Inc. is the name of Jimmy's publishing company,
used since "Outrider". The name is taken from that of a demon,
one in the form of a woman who seeks to have carnal intercourse
with men. An incubus is the direct opposite of this. If anyone
meets one of these, please direct her to the compiler of this
document for a stern talking to.
o A picture of Jimmy appears in the book _Eight_Days_A_Week_, which
is a photographic history of rock. Jimmy is decked out in a
cowboy outfit for the photo, with a hat which looks several sizes
too small.
o Jimmy didn't attend the Gibson Guitars 100th Anniversary Show at
Wembley Stadium in 1994.
o A bootleg of outtakes from the "Outrider" album lists three tracks
originating from the Sol Studio in February 1987, "Judas Touch",
"Muddy Water Blues" and a cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'". Paul
Rodgers later released a song called "Muddy Water Blues" with
Jason Bonham on drums.
o The following extract regarding Page is taken from Jim Miller's
_The_Rolling_Stone_Illustrated_History_of_Rock_n_Roll_, p. 457.
"...Page, in contrast to Cream's trio of superstars, grasped
the importance of crafting a cohesive ensemble. Taking his
cues from old Chess and Sun recordings, he used reverb and
echo to mold the band into a unit, always accenting the
bottom (bass and drums), always aiming at the biggest
possible sound. As a result, the best of Led Zeppelin's
records still sound powerful, whereas Cream tracks like
"White Room" sound pale and disjointed."
o Page was clearly not used to miming for videos when he made the
video that accompanied The Firm's "Satisfaction Guaranteed".
Jimmy himself admitted this, claiming he can never remember what
he was supposed to be playing, making the miming difficult.
o The February 1994 issue of _Guitar_World_ reported that Page was
featured in the book _Gibson_-_100_Years_Of_An_American_Icon_.
The book features more than 500 photographs of Gibson guitars
through the years in the hands of artists such as Robert Johnson,
Les Paul, Duane Allman, B.B. King, Slash, and Page.
o Page introduced "Black Dog" on every night of the 1980 tour, and
his erratic introductions indicate his fried and drug-affected
state of mind at the time.
o Jimmy is responsible for the "Little drops of rain" backing vocals
during the bridge in "Thank You". Page may also be the one doing
the "Ahhhh-uh-huh" parts near the end of "Gallows Pole". When the
band played live Jimmy infrequently did background vocals, most
notably on "Whole Lotta Love", and with a somewhat inconsistent
quality. Back in the studio, the "All right, all right" backing
vocals in "Candy Store Rock" sound as if they might be Page.
Other songs with Page on back vocals include "Your Time Is Gonna
Come", "Communication Breakdown", "Whole Lotta Love", "Living
Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)", and possibly "Good Times Bad
Times" and "Baby Come On Home".
o Page made an uncredited appearance on an album by the Dubliners in
the early to mid 1960s.
o Page has only ever been recorded once singing lead vocals, and
that was on his 1965 solo single "She Just Satisfies", on which
he also plays most of the instruments, including harmonica. The
b-side, a song called "Keep Moving" which was co-written with
Barry Mason is arguably a better song. The vocals on "She Just
Satisifes", also written with Mason, do actually sound quite a
lot like Keith Relf, as does the harmonica, although most sources
claim that it was in fact Page singing. The song is available on
the Yardbird's bootleg "More Golden Eggs".
o In August 1998, Page joined Aerosmith onstage on at the Donington
Monsters of rock festival for a couple of songs, then two days
later he jammed with them again at the Marquee Club in London, in
a five song set which included "Immigrant Song". One of the tunes
they jammed on at Donington was "Train Kept A-Rollin'", and just
before the solo, Steven Tyler, Aerosmith's lead singer, yells
"Stroll on, Jimmy!" in reference to Page's participation in the
Yardbird's cover of "Train Kept A-Rollin'" with alternate lyrics,
"Stroll On", from the Antonioni film "Blow Up". Aerosmith are
noted Yardbirds fans and used to cover "Shapes Of Things" during
their shows.
o The first single Page ever played on, as opposed to the first hit
single he ever played on, was a session for Englebert Humperdinck.
John Paul Jones claims to have played on most of Englebert's
sessions, so he may well be on the track too. This question is
used occasionally in radio competitons.
o The first hit single Page played on was "Diamonds" by Jet Harris
and Tony Meehan.
o Page's daughter Scarlett attended the 1994 Led Zeppelin Convention
organised by Dave Lewis.
o Jimmy has reportedly said he wanted his new band in 1968 to be
something along the lines of Pentangle. That was until he heard
Bonham play, which changed his mind completely. Pentangle were a
1960's English group who played similar material to Fairport
Convention, but in a more traditional style. Several very well-
known musicians have come out of the band, including several major
influences on Page, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn. Another to
rise to fame in Pentangle was upright bassist Danny Thompson, who
has recently been playing with Richard Thompson, former Fairport
Convention member, and Indigo Girls.
o One of Page's classmates at Art College was Sandy Denny, who later
on became a singer for Fairport Convention and contributed vocals
to "The Battle Of Evermore".
o Former Fairport Convention member Dave Mattacks plays on Page's
"Deathwish II" soundtrack.
o The deleted, and withdrawn thanks to Page, Yardbird's album "Live
Yardbirds With Jimmy Page" has turned up again on a cd called
"Yardbirds Rare Concerts 1965-68".
o An interview cd with Page is available where he discusses the
trials and tribulations of making "The Song Remains The Same".
However, the sound quality is poor and the interview content is
not that interesting.
o Throughout his solo career, Page has written music that has
complimented his vocalists, all of which have been much less
versatile than Plant, and inhibited Jimmy in this way. For
example, the material he wrote with The Firm, such as
"Satisfaction Guaranteed" would not have worked with David
Coverdale, nor would "Whisper A Prayer For The Dying", from the
Coverdale/Page album, have worked with Paul Rodgers. Neither
of these two could cover the terrain that Plant does which goes
a long way to explaing why Jimmy's hasn't written songs like
"D'yer Mak'er", "The Rain Song" or "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"
during his solo career. The plethora of vocalists on "Outrider",
three in fact, John Miles, Chris Farlowe, and Plant, may have
contributed to the unfocussed nature of the album. Robert Plant's
involvement was minimal anyway, Page gave him the song and asked
him to write some lyrics for it.
o At one of the Knebworth 1979 shows Page broke a string during
"Over The Hills And Far Away". Plant mutters something like "He
broke a string?" while Jimmy tries to continue, then gives up,
strums a G chord and smiles at the crowd.
o At a concert in 1970 Jimmy played a special solo as a tribute to
Jimi Hendrix, soon after the death of the latter.
o The following is one of the many, and in this case incorrect,
interpretations of what Jimmy's symbol from the fourth album
means. The first step pyramid in Egypt was created in the third
dynasty, under the rule of the Pharoah Zoser. The pyramid's name
is attributed to him in the same way most of the pyramids in Egypt
are known. The architect of this particular pyramid was a man
called Imhotep. All pyramids were considered to have an intensely
spiritual nature, as the burial place of kings. The early step
pyramids were considered to be stairways to heaven for the spirit
of the pharoah. Hence it follows, well it doesn't actually, but
never mind, that the centrepiece of the fourth album is the song
"Stairway To Heaven" and if Jimmy's synbol was a word, which it
isn't, it would be close to Zoser. Unfortunately, this is the
flaw in this theory, the symbol can't be pronounced as word. But
as Jimmy isn't telling us exactly what his symbol means, no-one
can say for sure what it means. However, there may be some sort
of Egyptian content in its meaning, as Jimmy is known to have
visited Egypt and been interested in the pyramids, plus Aleister
Crowley was the conduit for what he considered to be some of the
most significant knowledge he ever had access to while in Cairo
from his guardian angel Aiswass. It was there that he wrote "The
Book Of Law" from the dictation of that particular angel.
o Another theory on the infamous "ZoSo" symbol is that it is in
fact, nothing more than a smiling face with eyes, a nose and a
mouth. This is said to tie in with the supposed deep and
meaningless ideology of the band, in that it looks complicated
and mysterious, but probably means nothing.
o A few excerpts from the book _On_Tour_With_Led_Zeppelin_ make for
amusing reading. In 1978 in _NME_ Nick Kent reported that Page
had suddenly and for no apparent reason flown to Cairo, possibly
because he saw UFOs on his tv screen. The following extract is
from a 1978 interview.
"Another current favourite is the one about Pagey enjoying a
spot of television viewing, suddenly seeing UFOs on the
screen, grabbing his toothbrush and tearing off to Cairo,
presumably for a rendezvous with little green men."
Page's response to this is fairly predictable.
"That's because somebody didn't really read what I'd said,
and they were just being bloody stupid."
The rumour was aired again in an interview the following year
with some more detail.
"We talk about Egypt for a minute or two. Page's trip to
Cairo had, indeed, been the subject of some quite splendid
rumours. On the first leg, I think it was, of that last
ill-fated Led Zeppelin US tour, it was said that one night
he'd been watching TV when the screen became filled with
flashing lines. Immediately, so the tale went, he cancelled
the next dates and flew off to Egypt."
All this makes for just one more bizarre rumour to add to the
collection. The time this is supposed to have taken place is in
May 1977. Dave Lewis lists Page's visit to Cairo as being for
a mid-tour break.
o Jimmy's reunion with Robert Plant at the 1994 Alexis Korner
benefit concert was not the first time he had performed at an
Alexis Korner show. He also performed at a show on 6/5/84 along
with Ruby Turner, Jack Bruce, Dick Heckstall-Smith, Charlie Watts,
John Paul Jones, Ian Stewart, accompanied by a horn section. The
show was broadcast by Radio Trent and it is from that telecast
that the bootleg "Jimmy Page And Friends", from the show at the
Nottingham Palais, comes from. The concert is also on 2 albums
of the 10 album set "Strange Tales From The Road".
o Page has only played with Beck a handful of times on record, but
more frequently live. When Paul Samwell-Smith quit the Yardbirds,
Page replaced him on bass, and then swapped with rhythm guitarist
Chris Dreja, playing dual lead guitar with Jeff Beck. He also
appears, along with John Paul Jones, on the Page composed track,
although Beck disputes this, "Beck's Bolero" on Beck's "Truth"
album. More recently Page played with Beck at the induction of
the Yardbirds into the Rock 'n Roll Hall Of Fame. Only a handful
of Yardbirds recordings feature both Beck and Page, "Stroll On",
"Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", "Psycho-Daisies", "Beck's
Bolero" (from Truth), and "Great Shakes America", a jingle that
was released on "Little Games Sessions And More". On the
Honeydrippers and Box of Frogs albums they appear on different
tracks.
o Page, Clapton and Beck all played together on the ARMS benefit,
including jamming on Clapton's "Layla". Page by himself played
"Prelude", "Who's To Blame", "City Sirens", and "Stairway To
Heaven" before joining Beck and Clapton for "Layla", "Tulsa Time",
and "Goodnight Irene". The three also played on the four date
ARMS tour of the USA. Page added a composition he was working on
at the time with Paul Rodgers, later to become "Midnight
Moonlight", and had Clapton and Beck join him for the solo in
"Stairway To Heaven".
o Page jammed with Clapton at Guildford Hall on May 24, 1983,
during a Clapton concert there, which wasn't bootlegged.
o In a curious move, Page had Durban LaVerde overdub all of Tony
Franklin's bass parts on "Outrider".
o One of the most unusual theories on the meaning of Page's "ZoSo"
symbol is that it was taken from the name for Curious George The
Monkey, a famous character in Eglish children's books who was
known as Zoso. The adventures of George stem from his name, his
innate curiosity, although when he got into unfortunate situations
he was always saved by a Ranger. What the connection might be
with Jimmy Page though is unclear, and as "ZoSo" is not actually
a word, this theory can also be consigned to the ever-growing pile
of discredited ideas.
o The source of Page's red and blue ZoSo sweater is unknown, it may
well have been a gift from a fan, but judging from the pictures of
him in it, it looks a fraction too small.
o Page didn't play on any of the recordings Clapton made with John
Mayall's Bluesbreakers, but he did produce both songs on their
first single, "Telephone Blues"/"I'm Your Witchdoctor". At the
same session "Double Crossing Time" was also recorded, and Page is
reasonably certain that this was the version that ended up on the
classic "Beano" album, even though he is not credited on the album
sleeve. He was credited on the single though. The Mayall and
Clapton Bluesbreakers recordings are now the stuff of legend,
with Jimmy crediting Clapton as being the first to marry the Les
Paul guitar with the Marshall amplifier to create the "fat" sound
that has become a rock trademark. Jimmy's contribution to the
proceedings is the echo-laden production which brings out the best
in Mayall's falsetto vocals and Clapton's guitar. Jimmy did
however, reportedly, play bass on some Immediate recordings of the
period. Richie Yorke's biography also claims that Page produced
the Bluesbreakers song "On Top Of The World", although this is
somewhat uncertain.
o The cd "The Early Eric Clapton Collection" features seven tracks
on which Page and Clapton are listed as having played together
in the "Immediate All-Stars". All seven of these songs are
instrumentals and according to the liner notes all of the songs
recorded by this combination were instrumental. These are the
frequently copied and redistributed Page/Clapton jams that were
released by the Immediate label much to the chagrin of Page and
particularly Clapton. Also featured on the cd are three
Bluesbreakers tracks, including the two produced by Page for
their first single, and "On Top Of The World", as well as some
Yardbirds era material.
o On the track "Tulsa Time" on the ARMS concert video during the
Clapton/Beck/Page jam, the very country sounding solos were
inadvertently blemished by Andy Fairweather-Low backing onto
Page's volume pedal.
o Two more cd's featuring early Page material are "British Blues
Heroes", the first of which is based on Jeff Beck and features
Jimmy on a couple of tracks. The second is based on Clapton and
features 3 or 4 tracks with Page.
o The early Page Immediate outtake "Miles Road" is named after the
location of Jimmy's parent's house.
o "Miles Road", "Freight Loader", "Choker", "Draggin' My Tail",
"West Coast Idea", "Tribute To Elmore" and "Snake Drive" were all
recorded on a two-track reel-to-reel deck in Eric Clapton's
mother's house in the drawing room, in London. The jams took
place in the period when Clapton was between stints with the
Yardbirds and Mayall's Bluesbreakers. These were later released
by Immediate Records, who Page was working for at the time, who
claimed that they had the rights to anything Jimmy had recorded,
and asked him to tidy them up a bit for release. Clapton, now
along with Page a "marketable name" was furious about this, and
felt that was Page was responsible. Page claims that he had to
hand over the tapes or he would be sued by Immediate, since they
decided that the tapes were their rightful property. Clapton,
however, didn't buy this story, despite Page also being upset that
the jams were released too, and this virtually destroyed their
close friendship. The relationship was not really healed until
their appearances together on the 1983 ARMS benefit shows.
o The rest of the personnel involved in the many Page/Clapton jams
that have surfaced, may include luminaries such as Mick Jagger
playing harmonica on one or more tracks.
o Page is featured in the book "Koenige des Griffbretts" a German
publication about guitar heroes, also featuring Duane Allman and
Albert Lee. The section on Jimmy is nearly 50 pages long and
looks at his pre-Zeppelin session work in some depth. It is
unfortunate that there is no English translation available.
o Page has recorded a large amount of material with Roy Harper over
the years. He features on all the tracks on Harper's "Whatever
Happened To Jugula?", the song "Same Old Rock" on the "Stormcock"
album, and a handful of the song on the live "Flashes From The
Archives Of Oblivion" album. Page plays both acoustic and
electric on the latter. The "Lifemask" album also features Page
on some tracks, including the 20 minute epic "The Lord's Prayer".
Some other notable musicians that have appeared with Harper
include John Paul Jones, Bill Bruford, David Gilmour, Keith Moon,
Kate Bush and Tony Franklin amongst others.
o The chair used by Page for "White Summer/Black Mountain Side" on
the Coverdale/Page tour looks very similar to one he used when
touring with Zeppelin.
o Page is one of the people thanked on Adrian VanDenberg's album,
imaginatively entitled, "VanDenberg".
o Inevitably, over the years Page's dexterity has diminshed somewhat
and the "fluttery" style and flexibility his left hand used to
have seems to have deteriorated. The broken finger which Page
suffered in 1975, may be troubling him, as he may be suffering
arthritis from lingering damage caused by that mishap, which
was probably accentuated by him keeping playing on that tour.
Another possible source of trouble for Page may be hinted at by
his admission that he didn't play guitar for nearly a year after
Bonham died. While this may be an exaggeration, a prolonged
absence from playing, and then playing again regularly might have
increased the likelihood of getting arthritis in his previously
broken finger.
o Jimmy has two children, Scarlett from a relationship during the
1970s, and a son James from his marriage during the 1980s which
ended around 1994/95 and in _People_ was said to be leading to a
a custody battle between Jimmy and his ex-wife for custody of
James. A story doing the rounds at the time "Outrider" when
Jimmy was happily married has been told by Jon Miles. Jimmy was
late for a rehearsal, and upon ringing him up at home Jimmy's wife
said in her Louisiana accent that "Jimmy cain't come to the phone
right now, he chaingin' the baby's nappy".
o It was widely reported around the time of "Unledded" that one of
the tasks Page had assigned to his publicist was to break in any
new shoes he might acquire. Additionally, those working for Page
and Plant were assigned all sorts of menial tasks such as going
out and buying cds for them.
o Page joined the Yardbirds in controversial circumstances. Going
backstage after a particularly anarchic gig, he found bassplayer
Paul Samwell-Smith on the verge of leaving and suggesting that
singer Keith Relf depart with him. In the end Relf stayed, but
Samwell-Smith, an original member, left. Page, at the time
feeling his creativity was blunted by session work, offered his
services to the band. So, in July 1966, more than month after
Samwell-Smith quit in May 1996, Page joined the Yardbirds on the
second offer. He turned down an offer to join the band when Eric
Clapton left, feeling it would be unfriendly to Eric, so he
suggested Jeff Beck. Page spent a week acclimatising himself to
the bass before joining. However his position on bass seemed
uncertain as he admitted that he and Beck had trialled a dual-
guitar lineup in the studio in late 1966. Page was officially on
bass when the band recorded "Stroll On", however the second guitar
part does not sound like Dreja, unless he had drastically improved
overnight, so there remains some uncertainty as to what Page did
in fact play on that track. The reason for the relabelling of
"Train Kept A-Rollin'" was that the publisher demanded more money
from director Michaelangelo Antonioni than he thought it was
worth, so Relf rewrote the lyrics. By the end of 1966, Beck's
increasing unreliability led to Page's move to lead guitar and
Dreja's relocation to bass.
o The ARMS concert video which features Page has been released by
M.I.A. under the alternative title "Rock Legends Part II". The
video is exactly the same as the ARMS concert video, except the
packaging of course. The interview is the same, where each of the
three guitarists say who they enjoy playing with the most at the
concert.
Jeff Beck : "Jimmy!"
Jimmy Page : "Jeff!"
Eric Clapton : "Jimmy and Jeff!"
o According to notorious groupie, and recently tell-all author Pam
DesBarres, Page's daughter Scarlett was at one point going to join
a convent. This revelation appeared in her book "I'm With The
Band". Scarlett has been more recently spotted at Yale, and is
now reportedly a photographer in London. The gossip column in
_Q_ magazine reported that she was at the "Unledded" tapings as
a photographer.
o The encore of The Firm's "Mean Business" tour was "You've Lost
That Loving Feeling". An unusual choice.
o The first couple of chords of The Firm's "Midnight Moonlight" bear
a vague resemblance to "Wonderful One" from "Unledded".
o The ARMS video captures a moment of inspired playing from Page,
where in one move he changes from the 12 string to the 6 string
on his double-neck guitar, switches pickups, switches the active
neck, and adjusts both volumes in one fluid process.
o Chorused and multi-tracked guitars were primarily an invention of
Jimmy Page.
o Jimmy's main guitar is a 1958 Les Paul Standard, in a flame-top
finish. The guitar has no serial number, and various changes have
been made to it over the years. The back pickup cover is chrome
instead of nickel, and it has gold Grover tuning heads, and a
white selector cap in place of the original parts.
o Jimmy's 1959 Les Paul Standard, also a flame-top finish, was a
gift from Joe Walsh. Its neck has been shaved to give it a
similar profile to his 1958 Les Paul. Further modifications have
been made beneath the lower edge of the scratchplate, where two
spring loaded buttons have been installed. One is for setting
the pickups to serial or parallel, while the other is for
alternating between ordinary and phased guitar sound. The regular
pots have been discarded in favour of two push/pulls that provide
coil tapping on either pickups, and the feature of offering all
four coils in parallel. These modifications were undertaken by
Page's guitar technician, Steve Hoyland.
o Page's Sixties Danelectro was assembled from the parts of two
different Danelectros, and also features a retro-fitted Badass
bridge. This guitar is made from masonite, of all things, and
has concentric volume volume/tone controls.
o Page's legendary doubleneck is really not that unusual. It is
quite cumbersome though, featuring a 6 and a 12 string neck. The
guitar differs from the standard SG in that it is obviously wider
and has a better sustain. Each neck has a volume and tone control
knob, but there is only one pickup selector, which is used with
both necks. The guitar also has a selector switch for having one
or both necks active on the guitar's circuit. To produce some
sympathetic resonances Page usually had both necks active.
o All of Page's electric guitars are strung with light gauge Ernie
Ball Super Slinky Strings.
o Page made a very brief appearance on the documentary "The History
Of Rock 'n Roll By The People Who Made It", which was screen in
Australia on November 3, 1995. Page's appearance, all of five
seconds in the guitar hero section where he was shown saying,
"It's amazing what you can do with six strings," or words to that
effect, was accompanied with some dramatic footage of his violin
bow solo from "The Song Remains The Same."
o This list is by no means comprehensive, but is a listing of some
of the people who Page either player sessions for, or appeared on
their albums, at various stages of his career from session man to
established star. Herman's Hermits and Donovan are not included
because Page has claimed, with some evidence to support him, that
he didn't play on any of the records of either of these artists.
The long running debate over whether Page plays on Donovan's
"Hurdy Gurdy Man" can be settled, as Page says he was in the USA
at the time and it was Alan Parker, the guitarist with Blue Mink,
that did the session. In the case of Herman's Hermits it is less
clear cut. Mutterings of legal action may have made Page rather
secretive and there is a chance he did play on their records.
Brenda Lee, Sonny Boy Williamson, Brian Poole And The
Tremeloes, Dave Berry, Everly Brothers, The Pretty Things,
Tom Jones, Lulu And The Luvvers, The Kinks, John Mayall,
John Williams, Them, Twice As Much, Chris Farlowe, The
Who, Crispian St. Peters, The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck, P.J.
Proby, Cartoone, Family Dogg, Joe Cocker, Al Stewart,
Screaming Lord Sutch, Roy Harper, Maggie Bell, Dave Barry,
Jet Harris And Tony Meehan, Robert Plant, Steve Stills, The
Firm, Willie And The Poor Boys, John Paul Jones, The Rolling
Stones, Box Of Frogs, Mannish Boys And Davey Jones, Carter
Lewis And The Southerners, Neil Christian And The Crusaders,
The Redcaps, Mickie Most, The Brooks, Mickey Finn And The
Pills, Neil Christian, The First Gear, Billy Fury, Wayne
Gibson And The Dynamic Sound, The Sneekers, The Primitives,
Pat Wayne And The Beachcombers, The Lancastrians, The
Zephyrs, Judi Smith, The Outsiders, Nico, The Masterminds,
Bobby Graham, The Fifth Avenue, Glyn Johns, Gregory Phillips,
Jimmy Tarbuck, Twice As Much, Les Fleurs De Lys, Mickey Finn
And The Blue Men, Jackie DeShannon, The Dubliners, Paul Anka,
Petula Clark, Cliff Richard, Johnny Hallyday, Burt Bacharch,
Chris Ravel And The Ravers, Dave Berry And The Cruisers,
Mickie Most And The Gear, The Pickwicks, The Blue Rondos, The
Talisman, Mickie Most And The Most Brothers, The Untamed,
Scott McKay Quintet, Sean Buckley And The Breadcrumbs,
Philamore Lincoln, Val Doonican, The Authentics, Brian Howard
And The Silhouettes, Led Zeppelin.
o At age 17, Jimmy occasionally jammed with British blues legend
Cyril Davies. It was at one of these jams that producer Mike
Leander offered Jimmy some session work.
o Jimmy was not the first person to use a violin bow with a guitar,
that honour goes to Eddie Phillips of Creation, one of the bands
managed by Shel Talmy, whom Page worked for.
o During their 1966/67 tour The Yardbirds played and jammed with
local bands in the areas they passed through. One such artist was
Fort Worth local-legend Scotty McKay, a musician with a career
that stretched back to the 1950s. McKay and his band impressed
The Yardbirds so much that Jim McCarty later produced a single
with him, "I Can't Make Your Way", with The Yardbirds, and sold
it to EMI, although whether this features Page is unknown. McKay
also recorded a version of "The Train Kept A-Rollin'", and mailed
it to Page, who overdubbed a jaw-dropping solo and returned it.
This single is incredibly obscure, mainly because it was only
pressed locally.
o Some further info on the B-String Bender, invented by Gene Parsons
and Clarence White, that Page used throughout his career with
Zeppelin and right up to the current day. The information is from
_The_Guitar_Handbook_.
"Also known as a "pull-string', this is a mechanical system
of levers and springs which allows you to raise the pitch of
the top E or B strings, according to type. It simulates some
pedal-steel guitar techniques. The rods and springs are
fitted into a cavity in the guitar body, and a pivoting arm
is connected to the string at the bridge. A second arm is
attached to the strap button, so that pushing down on the
guitar at this point raises the pitch by a tone. Palm pedals
such as those made by Bigsby also allow you to raise one or
two notes without affecting others, whereas a tremolo arm
alters the pitch of all six strings."
Page recently used this during "Thank You" for the "Unledded"
special.
o The "No Introduction Necessary" album, recently re-released on cd
as "Jimmy Page & Albert Lee", also features John Paul Jones on
bass. Page and Lee do not apparently both play on any one song,
and the ones Page played on are uncertain. The rest of the band
is Clem Cattini, drums, Nicky Hopkins, piano, Chris Hughes, sax,
and Jim Sullivan, guitar.
o The material Page recorded with blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson
has been frequently bootleged over the years. The other personnel
on the album were, Brain Auger, keyboards, Joe Harriott, sax, Alan
Skidmore, sax, Mickey Waller, drums, and Sonny Boy Williamson II
on vocals.
o The triple-necked guiar Jimmy used on "Unledded" was made by
Ovation, but where their triple necks usually go, mandolin, 6
string, then 12 string, Jimmy's goes, mandolin, 12 string, then 6
string.
o Page was the producer when Clapton was recording "I'm Your
Witchdoctor", and the somewhat older engineer, who was used to
recording big bands and orchestras and was bewildered by Clapton's
use of distortion and feedback made the famous comment that "This
guy is unrecordable!" Page had to convince him that he'd take
full responsiblity for the session to put his mind at ease.
o The original Led Zeppelin, the idea for which was formed at the
session for "Beck's Bolero" was Page on acoustic guitar, Beck
on lead guitar, Keith Moon, then unhappy with The Who, on drums,
and not John Paul Jones, on bass, but Jon Entwistle, as suggested
by Moon. Stevie Winwood was the suggested vocalist but after they
found out that he was unavilable, still heavily comitted to
Traffic, they tried getting in touch with Steve Marriott. A
message came back from his camp that said, "How would you like to
play guitar with broken fingers? You will be if you don't stay
away from Stevie". After that the idea pretty much died, until
Page put together his own version of the band. It was at this
time that the famous naming incident with Keith Moon occurred.
o Page worked out how to play pedal-steel guitar specially for
"Your Time Is Gonna Come".
o When Keith Richards went to see Zeppelin play he remarked to Page
that, "You ought to get another guitarist; you're rapidly becoming
known as the most overworked guitarist in the business."
o In 1975, Page got together with Keith Richards and Rick Grech and
recorded a song called "Scarlet".
o At June 1984 tribute concert for bluesman Alexis Korner, a band of
Jimmy Page, Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart, Paul Young and
Ruby Turner, performed as The Alexis Light Orchestra. The
performance was broadcast on Radio Trent.
o Original Rolling Stone the late Brian Jones recorded a soundtrack
for the film "A Degree Of Murder" which featured his then
girlfriend Anita Pallenberg. Amongst the people who played on
the album were Jimmy Page and Nicky Hopkins, both recruited to the
project by Glyn Johns.
o According to Rolling Stones biographer Phillip Norman, Page was
one of the candidates considered to replace Mick Taylor when he
left the band.
o Page says his motivation to visit Morocco came from the
encouragement of William Burroughs, who he did an interview with
discussing the hypnotic power of rock and how it related to Arabic
music in _Crawdaddy_ magazine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.3 - The Omnipresent Force : John Paul Jones

o John Baldwin was born on January 3, 1946, in Sidcup, Kent,
England.
o John's first experience of playing music was playing the organ in
a church choir as a child. He reprised his talents on the organ
for the song "Your Time Is Gonna Come" on the debut album.
o John Paul Jones released a solo single entitled "Baja" produced by
Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham. The flipside entitled
"A Foggy Day In Vietnam" does not feature Jones and is thought to
instead feature several members of the Rolling Stones.
o Jones is responsible for the string arrangements on the Rolling
Stones song "She's A Rainbow" from the album "Their Satanic
Majesties Request." "2000 Light Years From Home", from the same
album, also has a string section so it seems likely that Jones
did that arrangement for that as well.
o Jones composed a piece called "Maastricht Time", which was
performed by the Mondrian Quarter at the New Zealand Music
Festival in 1993.
o Jones and the band found touring with Jethro Tull a rather
tiresome experience, Jones calling Tull's Ian Anderson "...a pain
in the ass." Page labelled their live performance as "Jethro Dull"
and Bonham suggested Tull should make an album called "Bore 'Em At
The Forum."
o Jones wrote an opera "The Happy Prince" in 1992, with some help
from Manu Katche and Red Byrd.
o Amonsgt the bewildering variety of things Jonesy has worked on
since Zep split up is Macondo, a composition he wrote for steel
drummer Ricardo Gallandro Maconda.
o At one point in the 1970's Jones approached Peter Grant about
leaving the band as he was sick of Page and Plant getting all the
attention. It dawned on him that perhaps he didn't necessarily
want all the baggage that went with that and he continued with the
band.
o The variety of instruments Jones played in the studio and on the
road is staggering. Clavinet, mellotron, bass, organ, keyboards,
triple necked guitar with one six string guitar, a twelve string
and a mandolin as well as pedals in combination with this, bass
and keyboards. The triple necked guitar was used on "Ten Years
Gone". Jones also sang backing vocals live, notably on "The
Battle Of Evermore."
o Jones once described a rendition of "Kashmir" the band did where
he claimed they got completely lost in the song. The point where
it all started to go awry was where the song changes and he was
responsible for giving the onstage cues. They were saved by
Bonzo who launched into a drum solo, and the band picked up again
when he finished the solo and played the song out. The
performance was at Zurich in 1980 and appears on the bootleg
"Silver Coated Rails" complete with some explanation from Plant
to prospective bootleggers that Jonesy had messed up during the
song.
o In early concerts the loudness of Jones amps was partially
designed to cover up when Plant forgot the words, something he has
been known to do on occasion.
o A John Paul Jones gets a credit for involvement in the music for
the film "Splash" although it is hard to say whether it is the JPJ
from Led Zeppelin or someone else with the same name.
o Jones recorded a soundtrack album for the film "Scream for Help"
which also features Page on the songs "Spaghetti Junction" and
"Crackback".
o Jones involvement in the Peter Gabriel album "Us" was apparently
much more exentsive than was eventually released. He is listed
as having contributed to "Fourteen Black Paintings", and some more
of his work may appear on "Plus From Us", an album of extra
material from the people who contributed to Gabriel's "Us" album.
o Jonesy made a guest appearance playing bass on the Butthole
Surfers album "Independent Worm Saloon." Ironic considering the
band has a song called "Hairway To Steven." Jones not only
produced this album, but also played some bass on it as well.
o The only time Jones has jammed with either of the remaining
Zeppelin members outside the various reunions was on Plant's first
solo tour, on December 4, 1983 at Colston Hall in Bristol. Jones
apparently made some negative comments about the experience to
Page afterwards. Of course, Jimmy appeared on two tracks on
Jones' soundtrack to the film "Scream For Help." But apart from
these two things, the reunions and the choice of songs for the
1990 box set he has had little to do with his former bandmates.
Although more recently he jammed with them again at the induction
of Led Zeppelin into the rock'n'roll hall of fame.
o Jones produced Raging Slab's "Dynamite Monster Boogie Concert"
album.
o For some time now Jones has been rumoured to be working very
slowly on a solo album.
o Jones appears to have a very offbeat sense of humour, frequently
giving very bizarre answers to questions during interviews. One
interesting case is where Jonesy jokingly proclaimed in _Rolling_
_Stone_ that Bob Dylan's songwriting was slacking because he had
found Jesus. Months later Dylan announced that for real and
released "Slow Train Coming."
o Keith Emerson was the lucky recipient of a gift from Jones once,
Jones giving him his GX-1 synthesizer. Emerson later related how
it had packed up and died him, rendered totally useless. It was
used though, such as for the Emerson Lake and Palmer song
"Fanfare For The Common Man."
o On several Zeppelin songs Jones uses a mellotron, which was
basically the first sampler. They're primitive by today's
standards and required extreme amounts of skill and patience to
get anything useful from. The most interesting feature of the
mellotron was it's use of samples, which were recorded on tape,
causing a huge amount of problems to do with rewinding,
durability, speed variations, the fragility of the unit, and a
susceptibility to endless technical problems, meaning it was handy
to have a technician around to fix it all the time. Apart from
Zeppelin, the Moody Blues also used a mellotron, notably on their
song "Knights In White Satin." Despite all it's shortcomings, the
mellotron did have a very good string sound, which is why it is
still used occasionally, and emulated, such as on the U2 song
"One."
o Jones appears on the album "No Introduction Necessary" along with
Jimmy Page, Nicky Hopkins, the pianist for the Rolling Stones
during some of their tours in the mid-seventies, Clem Catinni, the
leading session drummer during the 1960s, Chris Hughes, who
produced and played on Plant's "Fate Of Nations", Keith de Groot,
Albert Lee, and Jim Sullivan.
o Jones's symbol has been seen on the cover of a book about the
Rosicrucians, a religious cult in the middle ages which was of
some interest to Aleister Crowley and his fellow members of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, such as Westcott.
o In the early stages of the band's career, Jones would appear to be
the only group member fluent in reading and writing sheet music.
He would also have needed this skill to do his previous string
arrangements, such as on the Yardbirds song "Little Games".
o One of the most obvious edits in "The Song Remains The Same" film
is in "Whole Lotta Love" where Jones's shirt changes, clearly
showing he didn't wear the same shirt at each concert. Not to
mention the section at the end where he takes off his bass twice.
o On February 20, 1994, BBC 1 aired an hour or so of Zeppelin
related material recorded during BBC sessions. This included an
interview with Jones which went something like this.
Interviewer : So John Paul Jones, you are the keyboardist
with Led Zeppelin and you also do some
arranging?
Jones : No.
Interviewer : OK, so you are the main composer and arranger
with Led Zeppelin?
Jones : No.
Interviewer : Well, what are you then?
Jones : I'm a bass player and arranger.
Interviewer : Damn, perhaps we should start this interview
again.
This is apparently indicative of Jones wacky sense of humour. A
similar type of interview was conducted in the short lived
_Keyboard_Player_ magazine.
o Jones made an appearance with Lenny Kravitz, playing bass at the
1994 MTV awards. The reason for his appearance was that Lenny's
regular bass player had quit shortly beforehand and, Lenny, very
roughly paraphrased, thought that "Why not get the person who you
were trying to copy?"
o The reason for Jones's change of surname from Baldwin, is unclear,
nor is a vague date known for when he did this.
o Jones did the string arrangements for the songs "Drive",
"Everybody Hurts", and "Nightswimming", on R.E.M.'s "Automatic For
The People" album.
o Jonesy was responsible for the string arrangements on Cinderella's
"Heartbreak Station" album, for "Winds Of Change" and the title
track.
o A project of Jones's that has recieved several awards was his
original soundtrack for the adult animation "The Secret Adventures
Of Tom Thumb". The animation is about an hour long and belongs in
the horror genre.
o Less certain is Jones's involvement on an ancient Christmas single
called "The Man From Nazareth" which supposedly features Jones
doing the commentary. A short exceprt from this appeared on BBC's
"Tops Of The Pops" in a worst pop songs segment titled "TV Hell".
o In 1994 John Paul Jones teamed up with Diamanda Galas, playing
bass on her album "The Sporting Life" and co-writing some of the
material. The pair toured later in the year as well. A video was
made for the single "Do You Take This Man" which featues Jones
playing a six string bass. Galas's previous work centred around
the theme of AIDS and subsequent deaths from it, after her brother
and some of her friends succumbed to the disease. The album with
Jones is available on the Mute label and features him playing
bass, and keyboards, as well as producing it. Interestingly,
there are no guitars on the album whatsoever. The drummer was
Pete Thomas, from Elvis Costello's Attractions. Galas described
it as "A collection of homicidal love songs". One of Jonesy's
comments was "With a voice like Diamanda's, a guitar would simply
be a cosmetic device". Diamanda has a rather frightening 3 octave
range to her voice which she uses to full effect on the album. An
amusing picture of Galas and Jones in a car, with JPJ driving,
appeared in a 1994 issue of _Musician_. Some of Galas's previous
albums were titled "Litanies Of Satan" and "Saint Of The Pit",
while one of her songs from "Litanies Of Satan" was called "Wild
Women With Steak Knives (The Homicidal Love Song For Solo
Scream)".
o In 1994 _Rolling_Stone_ reported that Jones was doing some work
with Michael Penn. Jones' role in this case being that of
producer, although this material has yet to surface.
o 1994 was a busy year for Jones, he was also involved with playing
and producing a live album from Heart, which was recored in
Seattle at The Backstage club, a 500 seat venue, over five nights.
Jones played mandolin on most of the tracks, but on a few he
played piano and at different times, bass, one of which was "What
Is And What Should Never Be".
o In the summer of 1993 a DJ on a Boston radio station told an
amusing, and supposedly true story, about Jones' visit to a music
shop in New York City while there on a promotional tour recently.
Jones reportedly walked into the shop and was inspecting some of
the older equipment at the rear of the shop when a young store
salesperson approached him, and not recognising him, asked if he
could be of assistance. Upon noticing that Jones was interested
in older equipment he said, "Yeah this stuff is dated, but it's
great, bands like the Stones and Led Zeppelin used this stuff all
the time". According to the story, Jones left the store laughing
his head off.
o John Renbourn was amongst the several people who contributed to
Jones's "Scream For Help" soundtrack. Jones later ended up
producing Renbourn's 1987 album "The Three Kingdoms".
o On Zeppelin's final tour Jones used a Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer, as
well as on "In Through The Out Door", an instrument the size of
an upright piano, that is notoriously unreliable.
o Jonesy's main bass is a 1962 Fender Jazz. This bass was used from
his days with Jet Harris & Tony Meehan right up until the mid
1970s. He also used a Fender fretless upright bass for playing
songs like "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" live for a time. He also used a
standard fretless bass, non-upright, bass. In 1976 he got some
new basses from Rick Baker, which are Alembic copies, and are
frequently mis-identified as such. One was an 8 string, which was
used on "Nobody's Fault But Mine" and "Achilles Last Stand", while
the other was a standard four string. These were deployed on the
1977 and 1980 tours, and with a lot less rounder tone than his
jazz bass, on earlier material such as "Black Dog" he had a much
increased presence. 8 string basses are not very common, a noted
user being Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament, who also has a twelve string
bass, with three groups of four strings. At Live Aid Jones used a
1952 Fender Telecaster bass, while he returned to the old jazz
bass for the Atlantic 40th Anniversary Reunion, Jason Bonham's
wedding, and the MTV Awards performance with Lenny Kravitz.
Jones most notable other guitar is the triple necked monster he
had custom built with pedals for performances of "Ten Years Gone"
on the 1977 and 1979 tours. The guitar has piezo pickups which
were still farily new at the time and were very trebly, which can
be heard on various bootlegs.
o Jones uses Hecro Grey bass picks.
o Among the keyboards he has used over the years are a Hammond C3
Organ, a Hohner Clavinet, a Fender Rhodes, a Mellotron 216, and a
Mellotron 400, a Yamaha GX1 Organ and a Yamaha GP 70B electric
grand piano.
o At the time it was claimed that John Paul Jones was ill when he
was absent from the sessions in November 1973. However, it later
transpired that Jones was seriously considering quitting the group
to take up a position as choirmaster at Winchester Cathedral.
Peter Grant strongly urged Jones to stay with the group and to
give him some time to sort out his affairs Jones took a break for
a few weeks. The uncertainty regarding his future is supposed to
have come about because Jones was overwrought from the incessant
tours the group embarked upon. Jones later decided not to quit
and resumed with the band at Headley Grange in early 1974.
o Jonesy composed the theme music to the award winning BBC serial
Odysseus.
o In 1986 Jones wrote an organ piece fpr Christopher Bowers-
Broadbent.
o Jones contributed an instrumental to the Opal label's Music For
Films compilation in 1989.
o This is a list, by no means comprehensive, of artists and groups
that John Paul Jones has worked with from his early session days
right up until the present time.
Jeff Beck, Madeline Bell, Dave Berry, Donovan, Downliner's
Sect, Family Dogg, Diamanda Galas, Graham Gouldman, Roy
Harper, Herman's Hermits, Jobriah, John Paul Jones, Ben E.
King, Lulu And The Luvvers, Paul McCartney And Wings, The
Mission, Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra, P.J. Proby, The
Rolling Stones, Del Shannon, Dusty Springfield, Rod Stewart,
The Mighty Avengers, Billy Nicholls And The Mockingbirds,
The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, Greenbeats, High Society,
Manchester Mob, Tony Meehan, The Mindbenders, Paul And Barry
Ryan, Marianne Faithfull, Burt Bacharach, Etta James, Tom
Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck, Kathy Kirby, The Walker
Brothers, The Everly Brothers, Champion Jack Dupree, Led
Zeppelin, Heart, The Lovemongers.
o Jones put in some stage appearance in early 1991 with Red Byrd.
o Jones was behind the movie soundtrack for the 1993 film "Risk".
o Jonesy's symbol from the fourth album was taken from a book of
runes and symbolises a person with confidence and competence. It
shares the common characterisitc with Bonham's symbol of having
trisected ovals, termed "yonics", which are in opposite aspects
on the two symbols, indicating that the two symbols reflect two
very different people.
o In 1982, Jones taught Electronic Composition at Dartingnton
College of Arts, Devon.
o Jones appears on Paul McCartney's "Give My Regards To Broad
Street", playing bass on the track "Ballroom Dancing".
o Jones composed a trombone piece for Jim Fulkerson, for the
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 1984. The piece
was titled "Showdown".
o 1990 was a busy year for Jones. He did the string arrangements
on Cinderella's "Heartbreak Station", produced La Sura Dels Baus's
"Noun" album, produced an album for his daughter Jacinda, set up
a 32 track digital electronic studio near Bath, and a was
commissioned to come up with a one hour duration multimedia show,
Memory Palace, for Art Futura at the Seville Expo in 1992.
o Jones composed and produced a multimedia show for a Mercedes Benz
launch in 1991, as well as scoring a computer animation piece for
Rebecca Allen, of Aimatica Spain.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4 - The Engine Room : John Bonham

o John Henry Bonham was born on May 31, 1948 in Redditch,
Worcestershire, England.
o Bonzo married Pat at 17, whom he met a dance. They had two
children, Jason and Zoe.
o Bonham's explosive power and endurance may well have come from his
days as a hod carrier on building sites.
o At one stage Bonzo owned 21 cars.
o A notorious episode involving John Bonham was when he walked into
the Rainbow in Los Angeles and ordered 20 Black Russians, drank
them all quickly in succession and left.
o Another incident saw Bonzo ride a Harley Davidson motorcycle
through the lobby of the Hyatt House Hotel in Los Angeles.
o The hot rod John Bonham drives in "The Song Remains The Same" was
originally imported by Jeff Beck in 1969 before being sold to
Bonham. It is a "Blown Model T" with a 500bhp Chevy Engine, 1932
Ford dropped beam, 1942 Ford front drums, 1962 Chevy rear axle,
Convair steering boxes and a Holeshot torque converter. The car
was nicknamed "The Boston Strangler."
o Jimmy has said that Bonzo was the reason the band had to buy
bigger amps.
o When tempers flared in the band it was not unheard of for Robert
and Bonzo to dig up old arguments from their Band of Joy days,
such as who had paid for what in 1968.
o Bonzo's symbol from the fourth album, the three linked circles
came from the same book of runes that Jonesy's came from, and is
meant to symbolise the man-wife-child trilogy. Bonham's symbol
has a common elements with Jones's, trisected ovals, or "yonics",
which are in opposite aspect in their symbols, reflecting that
they symbolise two very different people. Plant has pointed
out that it also looks like the emblem for Ballantine beer.
Another source says that Bonham picked the symbol at random,
simply because he liked it, and it reminded him of drumheads. A
DJ in Britain, Danny Baker, came up with the interesting theory
that Bonham was sitting in the pub with his customary glass of the
amber fluid and plonked it down on his beer mat a couple of times
and noticed what a nice little symbol the marks formed. Jason
Bonham has said, on the same DJ's show that the symbol is the
man-wife-child trilogy rune. The German company Krupp AG also
has a symbol with three interlocking circles, although it is the
opposite way up to Bonham's. A German band called the Krupps has
used this symbol and pictures of zeppelins for album art. Another
reasonably plausible thought, is that the symbol looks a bit like
a drum kit when seen from in front, with bass kickers, or above
with toms and cymbals slightly overlapping.
o The drumbeat from "When The Levee Breaks" is the most frequently
used sample in dance music, notably featuring in the hit song
"Relax" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. At one time the remaining
band members took legal action against The Beastie Boys for their
use of this drum sample. The Beastie Boys use several Zep samples
on their album "Paul's Boutique".
o John Bonham, band manager Peter Grant, tour manager Richard Cole
and security man John Bindon were charged with battery after an
incident following a show at the Oakland Coliseum on July 23,
1977 involving the staff of promoter Bill Graham. The source of
the incident was a member of Graham's entourage refusing to give
a carved wooden plaque with "Led Zeppelin" written on it that was
hanging outside the dressing room door to Grant's son Warren.
Not only did the guard refuse the request, but he also slapped
Grant's son, which turned out to be a somewhat ill-advised idea.
According to notorious liar, crack addict and alcholic Tour
Manager Richard Cole, he stood in front of the door to a trailer
while Grant and Bindon beat the man up. However, before this,
Bonzo who had actually witnessed the incident, kicked the security
guard in the groin before going onstage assuming that was the end
of it. It wasn't and the performance was delayed while Graham
threatened severe legal action and vowed never to promote a
Zeppelin show again. Other reports claim Bonham beat up three of
Graham's other security men, and that the plaque had been
requested by his son Jason. However, if this was the case Bonham,
notoriously protective of his son, would probably not have gone
onstage so readily, so the story with Warren Grant at the centre
of it sounds more likely. A civil suit for 2 million pounds for
punitive damages was filed against the group. The charges against
Bonham, Grant, Cole and Bindon were heard in California, on
February 16, 1978, all of them escaped with suspended prison
sentences and fines. The security guard in question, came out of
the whole incident the worst, as he needed hospital treatment
after the show for his injuries. To make matters worse, the band
had to play another show in Oakland the following night. Page
reportedly sat down for the entire performance. Back at the hotel
after the show the four involved were arrested, and were released
within two hours on $250 bail each. Cole claims that before the
arrest it was necessary to rid the band's rooms of drugs and any
other illegal substances. Things only got worse, as the following
weekend Karac Plant died. However, relations between the band
members and Graham appeared to have improved by the time of Live
Aid and the Atlantic 40th Anniversary show.
o Dave Lewis in _A_Celebration_ rates Bonzo's top 10 performances
as,
1) Moby Dick 2) Whole Lotta Love 3) Poor Tom 4) Rock And Roll 5) When The Levee Breaks 6) D'yer Mak'er
7) In My Time Of Dying
8) No Quarter (Live)
9) Achilles Last Stand
10) Hots On For Nowhere
o Bonham's funeral was held in Rushock, Worcestershire.
o Bozo's drumming is characterised by a tendency to play slightly
behind the beat rather than in front of it. This gave Page a
solid base from which to expand his riffs, while Plant seems to
find a huge beat very inspiring, whether it is energy or volume
providing that power.
o Bonham's symbol has also been observed on the side flap of a one
pound container of Challenge Butter.
o A 1982 issue of US _Playboy_ featured the following tribute to
Bonham, when he was inducted into their rock'n'roll Hall Of Fame.
"John "Bonzo" Bonham was part of a well equipped army
that scaled the face of rock and roll until, for a few years,
there was nothing left but rock - power rock, heavy metal,
lude and lascivious rock. For 12 years, Bonham's drumming
for Led Zeppelin managed to avoid setting the critics on
fire. They called him heavy handed, leaden. That did not
deter the listeners who supported Bonzo from the beginning.
Led Zep's founder, guitarist Jimmy Page, described
encountering Bonham for the first time: "I couldn't believe
how he was living his music. When he gets into a trip, the
audience goes with him." He was inventive and unpredictable,
raw and basic. It was as though he recognized no rules, no
conventions. Sometimes he'd drum with his hands, which
prompted one manufacturer to claim its drums were as tough
as Bonham. Perhaps the same insistent push to the limit that
characterized his work crushed him in his private life. On
September 25, 1981, as American fans lined up to buy tickets
to Led Zeppelin's first tour since 1977, Bonzo, exhausted
from touring and drink, died in his sleep, yet another
casualty of rock and roll life. Since then, the tour has
been cancelled and the band has called it quits, a rather
heartfelt testimonial to Bonham's talent. We'll miss the
incredible timekeeper who could solo for 30 minutes and
leave his audience screaming for more. He spawned hundreds
of imitators, but no one in the world plays drums the way he
did."
o Bonzo's symbol has been sighted on a church steeple in Italy.
o Bonham claimed that Zeppelin came away from the Earl's Court shows
in 1975 with nothing more than a few hundred quid each to show for
their efforts.
o The drummer on Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man", a song arranged by
John Paul Jones, is reputed to be Bonham, although this is very
unlikely.
o One of Bonham's defining characteristics as a drummer was his
lightning fast bass pedal foot, and his amazing endurance. He
could also triplets and quads very quickly and with a very even
rhythm, he didn't even need to build up to them, he could just
jump straight into them. Several examples of this being in
"The Song Remains The Same" film during his drum solo.
o Bonham played Ludwig drum kits throughout his career with
Zeppelin, even getting a custom miniature set made up for his
son Jason. He used Ludwig 2A sized drumsticks.