Robert Plant Loves To Dig in America

Robert Plant loves to dig in America's rich musical soil
9/14/2010 4:14 PM |
Enlarge By Josh Anderson, AP
Nashville fan: Robert Plant has spent a lot of time

in the music capital.
By Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY

NASHVILLE — When Raising Sand, Robert Plant's collaboration with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, sold more than 1.5 million albums and won
Grammy Awards, most people (Plant included) expected the two singers would record a follow-up.
Plant's Band of Joy, out today, isn't that album.
Plant and Krauss did start recording a successor, but he says those sessions never found their groove.
REVIEW: One jumpin' 'Band of Joy'
"I think we ran out of cakes," he says lightheartedly, deflecting further inquiry. "There was an amazing amount of cake and food and coffees and so
morning, we were ready for a nap."
But Plant, a restless musical soul who had spent considerable time in Nashville since Raising Sand, didn't think he was finished with the town's mu
So he contacted Buddy Miller, a highly regarded guitarist who toured with the Raising Sand band and has produced albums by Patty Griffin and so
"Buddy Miller is everybody's dream date," Plant says. "He's a master of mood and circumstance."
Band of Joy is plenty moody: Bassist Byron House and drummer Marco Giovino provide that low-end rhythm-section sound that Plant loves, while
guitars and other stringed instruments and Griffin serves as Plant's vocal foil.
Though the album bears similarities to Raising Sand, none of the musicians sought to re-create that album's sound.
"There's a thread connecting them," Miller says. "Not a huge piece of rope, but a definite thread. And there needed to be."
In some ways, Band of Joy goes further back into Plant's career. The album shares its name with various versions of Plant's pre-Led Zeppelin ban
American music.
"That was perfect for me" at the time, Plant says. "I was completely and totally besotted by the kind of rhythm and blues coming out of Texas and N
That affair with American music continues on the new album. Plant satisfies his love of Texas R&B by covering Barbara Lynn's 1965 single You Ca
the tunes range from traditional American numbers (Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down, Cindy, I'll Marry You Someday) to tunes by Los Lobo
Van Zandt and Minnesota indie-rockers Low.
"The idea with this Band of Joy is to open it up and let everybody play to their hearts' content," Plant says.
After two albums, Plant says he's nowhere near finished exploring Nashville's musical avenues, as long as he feels he isn't repeating himself. Whe
become a parody, it's clear why he has little patience for speculation about Led Zeppelin reunions.
"(What) I'm afraid of is being an older guy who thinks he's got it when, in fact, what he's doing is parroting the same old crap in different clothing," P
I'm learning, I'm OK."
"The Return of Led Zeppelin" - Rolling Stone
Magazine cover story
November 29, 2007
Behind the scenes at the rehearsals for the biggest show of the year
On June 10th of this year, at 2:30 in the afternoon, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin — guitarist
Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant and bassist John Paul Jones — met in a rehearsal space to play some
songs. It was the first time they had been in the same room with
instruments since their rough four-song set at Led Zeppelin's 1995
induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This time, the stakes were higher: to see if they had the
strength, empathy and appetite to truly perform as Led Zeppelin again, in their first full concert since the
death of drummer John Bonham in 1980.
The location of the rehearsal, somewhere in England, is still a zealously guarded secret. In interviews a
few weeks before Led Zeppelin's December 10th show at London's 02 arena — a benefit tribute to the late
Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records — Page, Plant and Jones claim they can't remember
the date, what they played or even how the idea of reuniting in honor of Ertegun, a close friend and
mentor during and after the band's years on the label, came up. They all agree that playing together
again, after so long, was a momentous, emotional occasion.
"It was immediate," Page says brightly, sporting a small splint on his left pinkie, the result of a fracture
suffered in a fall at home that forced a pause in rehearsals and the rescheduling of the concert, originally
set for November 26th. "Everybody went in with a will to work and to enjoy it. It was a delight."
Plant recalls "a lot of big smiles," wearing one himself. The day was "cathartic and therapeutic. No
pressure, no weight." Jones claims he "didn't have any doubts. Someone picked a song. We got through
it. And it rocked."
But Bonham's son, Jason, can tell you the exact date and hour Led Zeppelin became a band again,
because he was there, taking over for his dad. "They might not know what time it was," he says of the
other three, "but I know." For him, it was "a real lump in the throat."
"I didn't think there would be an instant sound," says Jason, 41, currently a member of Foreigner and now
a father of two himself. "I thought, 'It's going to take some time.' " He was wrong. The band went right
into the slow, dark fury of "No Quarter," from 1973's Houses of the Holy. "When the riff came in, there
was this look that went around. It was brilliant." Next, the four hit the desert-caravan march of "Kashmir,"
from 1975's Physical Graffiti. "Then we stopped. Jimmy said, 'Can you give me a hug?' And Robert
shouted, 'Yeah, sons of thunder!' "
Finally, at the end of that day, Jason says, "They said, 'When we get together next . . .' " He laughs. "I
thought, 'You mean I get another chance at this?' "
-DAVID FRICKE | Excerpt From Rolling Stone, Issue 1041
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Robert Plant
Robert Plant
By Rolling Stone
Mar 28, 2010 12:20 PM EDT
Robert Plant was the shrieking, swaggering golden god at the center of Led Zeppelin’s titanic hard-rock sound. An
archetypal frontman with razor-sharp phrasing and world-class pipes, he also co-wrote many of Zeppelin’s greatest
songs, including “Stairway to Heaven” and “Good Time Bad Times.” Plant’s post-Zep career hasn’t always been filled
with commercial success. But artistically he’s held his own, making interesting choices in repertoire and coming up
with several cool collaborations, and his work with country singer Allison Krauss made 2007’s Raising Sand an out-
of-the-blue smash.
Born in 1948, as a child Plant would hide behind the curtains of his living room and sing Elvis Presley songs. It was in
high school that he fell for American blues singers such Willie Dixon and Robert Johnson. He started singing with
local blues groups in the Midlands section of Britain and met up with drummer John Bonham. When ex-Yardbirds
guitarist Jimmy Page was putting together a new band, he was rebuffed by singer Terry Reid. Plant was there to step
in, and he brought Bonham with him. Bassist John Paul Jones rounded out the band, deemed Led Zeppelin. In short,
they basically lorded over the hard rock world from 1969 to 1980.
After Zep’s demise (due to Bonham’s death in 1980), Plant produced a series of progressive albums that have been
critical and commercial successes. In the 1980s and 1990s, he has been more interested in hip-hop, punk and world
music than the heavy metal or classic rock of Zeppelin imitators. He just didn’t want to look back.
But when he did look back, he went all the way. One of his first post-Zep musical adventures was a series of jam
sessions that featured swing and rockabilly with a bunch of pals who worked under the name the Honeydrippers. Plant
has a knack for bringing the 1950s rock & roll dialect to life, and although it took until 1984 for the band to release an
EP, the band brought the pleasure of that sound to foreground. “Sea of Love” was a ballad that reached Number 3 on
the charts. The old school approach was a far cry from his more formal work of the era; his first two solo discs Pictures
at 11 (Number 5, 1982) and The Principle of Moments (Number 8, 1983) were modern in their attack. With lithe
guitars and a huge drum sound, they spun away from the Zep vernacular without entirely refuting it. Indeed, the Zep
sound has never been too far away from the singer. The old crew (Page, Plant, and Zep bassist John Paul Jones) made
an appearance together at 1985’s Live Aid benefit show.
Synths met grooves on that year’s Shaken ‘n’ Stirred (Number 20), which found Little Feat’s funky drummer Richie
Hayward assisting. Plant’s material was moving away from the mainstream, but the trajectory was intriguing. Another
collaboration, one that would remain strong for years, was with keyboardist Phil Johnstone. Together they constructed
the bulk of Now and Zen (Number 6, 1988) featuring the impressive “Tall Cool One,” a track that boasted a guitar solo
from Page and samples of Zep songs. It was later used in a Coca-Cola commercial. Manic Nirvana (Number 13, 1990)
was similar in feel to its predecessor.
It was on Fate Of Nations (1993) that Plant returned to some of the more folksy and cosmic music that had always
been the mellow side of Zep’s thunder. He spoke of being inspired by the rediscovery of 1960s West Coast groups, such
as Moby Grape (in 1998 Plant worked with the Flaming Lips on a track for a tribute disc to the Grape’s Skip Spence).
Celtic singer Maire Brennan and guitarist Richard Thompson were noted guests. Tim Hardin’s folkie jewel “If I Were a
Carpenter” was the lead track.
In 1994 Page and Plant put their intermittent differences aside to record No Quarter in Wales, Morocco, and London,
where Unledded, the MTV Unplugged special, was taped. With a mix of Zep classics (“The Battle of Evermore”) and
new songs, the album featured musicians from Marrakech, India, and Egypt. Page and Plant embarked on a 1995 tour
to promote the album.
In 1998 Page and Plant released Walking Into Clarksdale, the first album of new material they had recorded together
in two decades. "Most High" recalled Zep's hypnotic "Kashmir," but the album (its title an allusion to the cradle of the
Delta blues) was more wistful than fierce.
In the same way that he sounded utterly convincing singing the ancient blues tunes on the first Zep disc, Plant was
remarkably at home in the cover songs of his next disc, Dreamland. Forward-thinking, his spins on tunes by the
Youngbloods, Tim Buckley, and Bob Dylan were powerful and evocative. It’s follow-up, 2005’s Mighty Rearranger
was a cosmopolitan affair, flecked with drama, spirituality and an array of beats and textures that stretched from New
Orleans to North Africa. Plant was in an ambitious mood, and he pulled it off nicely.
Led Zeppelin reunited on December 10th, 2007, at a London concert in honor of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet
Ertegün. With Jason Bonham on drums, the band performed 16 songs. The performance sparked speculation that
more reunion shows—and possibly even a worldwide tour—might be in the works, but Plant’s support of his successful
Alison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand may have gotten in the way; Jones and Page did get together with drummer
Taylor Hawkins and the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, however, to perform a few Zeppelin songs live in London in 2008.
Persistent subsequent rumors suggested that Jones, Page, and Jason Bonham might be on the verge of recording with
a new singer, but no such group ever materialized.
Raising Sand (Number 2, 2007), meanwhile, turned out to be a major album for Plant. A program of folk, twang, and
R&B produced by T-Bone Burnett, it made a case for Plant and Krauss as expert interpreters of American vernacular
music. They spent a good chunk of 2008 touring the material around the world, and at the 2009 Grammy Awards,
Raising Sand grabbed its fair share of nods, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Pop Collaboration with
Vocals, Country Collaboration with Vocals, and Contemporary Folk/Americana Album. Its success gave Plant the most
mainstream visibility he’s had in ages, including an interview with Charlie Rose, and the album went platinum.
Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
Jim Macnie contributed to this story.
Robert Plant: The Rolling Stone Interview

By David Fricke
Mar 24, 1988 12:00 PM EST
Below is an excerpt of an article that originally appeared in RS 522 from March 24, 1988[link to issue]. This issue
and the rest of the Rolling Stone archives are available via All Access, Rolling Stone’s premium subscription plan. If
you are already a subscriber, you can click here to see the full story [link to article]. Not a member? Click here to
learn more about All Access [link to benefits page].
In a brightly lit corner of an otherwise dark and cramped set at the studios of London Weekend Television, Robert
Plant settles comfortably onto the sofa where he is about his to be interviewed and glances at a monitor to his left. A
faint smile of bemused recognition spreads across his distinctive hawklike features as he watches vintage black-and-
white footage of a young man, barely out of his teens, wailing into the camera like a heavy-metal Mongol, thrusting his
bare chest forward, filling the screen with a golden avalanche of shoulder-length blond curls. The turn-of-the-
Seventies image — bell-bottom pants, a skimpy open floral blouse, exaggerated sex-warrior stage moves — seems
strange, even quaint, on the small screen. But the singer's voice and the roar of the band behind him are unmistakable.
"You need coolin'/Baby, I'm not foolin'," the young blond buck howls. "I'm gonna send ya/Back for schoolin'/Way
down inside/Uh, honey, you need it/I'm gonna give you my love/I'm gonna give you my love/ Wooooaaaah!"*
The band, of course, is Led Zeppelin. The song is "Whole Lotta Love." And the singer is a much younger Robert Plant,
then all of twenty-one years old. As the video fades out, the TV interviewer turns to the present-day Plant with a sly
grin and asks, "How does it feel to see that again, you sticking your chest out and throwing your hair back?"
Plant doesn't blink an eye. "Oh," he says with a sly grin of his own, "I still do that every night."
Back at his manager's London office later that afternoon, Plant is still grinning as he discusses his old stage image. "It
looks a little camp," he says sheepishly, swigging at a bottle of Perrier water. "But it was honest, and there was nothing
camp about it at the time. It was a young man, feeling his feet."
Now approaching his fortieth birthday, Plant is an older and wiser man, and still feeling his feet. With the death of
drummer John "Bonzo" Bonham in 1980 and Led Zeppelin's subsequent low-key dissolution, the singer lost not only
his band and his best friend but also the axis around which his musical world had spun for more than ten years —
guitarist Jimmy Page. Scorned by the punks and embarrassed by cheap Zeppelin imitations, Plant spent his first three
solo albums roaming the shifting terrain of Eighties rock in search of an identity that had nothing to do with lemon
squeezing or "Stairway to Heaven."
He never found it. He had a couple of hits along the trail, like "Big Log," from his 1983 album The Principle of
Moments. But for all of their adventuresome drive and hip future-rock angularity, Plant's solo records in general
lacked the unbridled passion and risky spontaneity of Zeppelin in full flight.
Now, after seven years of Zeppelin denial, Plant has come to his senses. His new LP, Now and Zen, is the biggest leap
forward of his solo career — and all it took was two steps backward to Led Zeppelin.
You can hear the old snap, crackle and pow all over "Tall Cool One," a high-tech rockabilly raver featuring ingeniously
deployed computer samples of platinum Zeppelin wax like "Black Dog." "Dazed and Confused" and "Whole Lotta
Love." At the end of "White, Clean and Neat." Plant slips in a brief vocal reprise of the 1970 Zep blues "Since I've Been
Loving You." The album is also a Zeppelin reunion of sorts; Jimmy Page plays guitar on both "Tall Cool One" and the
single "Heaven Knows." Even those Now and Zen songs lacking overt Zeppelin references, like the surging "Dance on
My Own" and "The Way I Feel," pack a familiar wallop.
"I've stopped apologizing to myself for having this great period of success and financial acceptance," Plant declares.
"It's tune to get on and enjoy it now. I want to have a great time instead of making all these excuses."
Plant has, in fact, been surrounded by echoes of Zeppelin for some time. Goth-rock bands like the Cult and the
Mission U.K. have racked up hits with shameless but clever rewrites of "Kashmir" and "The Immigrant Song." Def Jam
major-domo Rick Rubin boldly lifted the core Page riff from "The Ocean" for the Beastie Boys' "She's Crafty." But it
took a demo cassette of "Heaven Knows," written and performed by an eccentric British outfit called the Rest Is
History, to shake Plant out of his anti-Zeppelin mind-set.
The song itself was a knockout, a refreshing change from the derivative demos that usually arrived in his mail Plant
soon found out that Phil Johnstone, who co-wrote "Heaven Knows" and played keyboards on it, was also a dyed-in-
the-wool Zeppelin freak. "We immediately wrote Tall Cool One' and 'White, Clean and Neat' in the same afternoon,"
Plant raves. "It was bang! The guy had been a Zeppelin fan, and I suddenly remembered that, yeah, so had I." Plant
and Johnstone went on to co-write seven of Now and Zen's nine tracks. Johnstone also rounded up a band of like-
minded young compatriots, including guitarist Doug Boyle and drummer Chris Black-well, to heat up the songs in
concert and, on record.
As part of coming to terms with his past, Plant and the band have cooked up new versions of "Misty Mountain Hop,"
"Trampled Underfoot," "The Wanton Song" and "In the Evening" for the Now and Zen tour.
Johnstone says Plant's reconciliation with history did not come easy. "We were working on 'White, Clean and Neat,'
and I had this neat riff to go with it. He said, 'But, aw, man, that's bluesy.' And I said to him, 'But that's what you are.
You're a blues singer.' He'd denied that he was a blues singer for so long."
In fact, Plant had spent his teens bellowing the blues in folk and rock clubs up in the English Midlands. By age
eighteen, he'd already cut three singles for CBS in Britain, mostly Jack Jones cabaret pop dosed with cheap hippie
kitsch. He was back in Midlands clubs, this time singing "White Rabbit" and Moby Grape's "Omaha," when Jimmy
Page signed him to the fledgling Zeppelin. More than anything else, it was, Plant says with a smile, "just a chance to
get paid by the week. I opened a bank account in June 1968 and put in thirty-five dollars."
Though Plant is far richer today, he hasn't lost his open mind and eager ear. The owner of an enviable collection of
classic blues, R&B and rockabilly records, he is also constantly checking out pop's Next Big Things. Among his recent
faves are Hüsker Dü, the rising Irish star Sinead O'Connor and the San Francisco funk-metal band Faith No More. He
also digs Prince — for "sheer entertainment and audacity." He adds with a wink, "Prince and Page together would be
great."
Plant and Page back together is enough to send most of the world's rock populace swooning. Plant returned the favor
of Page's contributions to Now and Zen by singing and co-writing a song, "The Only One," on Page's forthcoming solo
album. There are also plans afoot for a live Plant-Page reunion this spring at a gala celebration marking the fortieth
anniversary of Atlantic Records, Zeppelin's original label.
If nothing else, the Zeppelin revival has certainly loosened Robert Plant's tongue. "If you had asked me a year ago
about Led Zeppelin or my relationship with Pagey," he says, "I'd have just beat around the bush, given you the
runaround." He smiles broadly. "But it feels okay to talk about it now."
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Been a long time for Led Zeppelin
The band that faded in 1980 rocked for a rapt London crowd. The players aged, but the song remains the same.
THE WORLD
December 11, 2007|Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer
LONDON — With a thunder of power chords and rock-and-roll swagger, Led Zeppelin broke a silence
of two decades Monday in a laser-and-smoke reunion for which more than a million fans from around
the world sought to book passage.
The band that boldly breached the barriers between rock, blues and airy mysticism and nurtured a
generation on the cusp between the 1960s and 1970s emerged for a sell-out performance in front of
about 20,000 concertgoers in east London -- one of the most eagerly awaited rock events of the
decade.
"Out there are people from 50 countries, and there's a sign out there that says 'Hammer of the Gods,' "
lead singer Robert Plant said, referring to one of the group's most famous lyrics, which has also come
to be its most enduring motto. "I can't believe that people from 50 countries would come to see that --
so late in life!" he said wryly.
"This is the 51st country!" he roared then, as the band broke into "Kashmir," the exotic, melodic and
deep-throated anthem that is one of its signatures, against a backdrop of wheeling batik suns and with
a sweating, white-haired Jimmy Page on lead guitar.
Concertgoers from as far away as New Zealand, Japan and California made the trek after winning a
ticket lottery that allocated a maximum of two seats per person at a price of $250 each, with
painstaking care to prevent entries being sold off to scalpers that left some fans waiting three hours in
the rain Sunday to secure their seats.
The event was organized as a tribute to the late Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, and
also featured performances by Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, led by the former Rolling Stones bassist;
Foreigner; Paul Rodgers; and Paolo Nutini.
Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham's alcohol-related death in 1980 spelled the end of the band, and
Monday's performance featured Bonham's son, Jason, now a drummer with Foreigner.
In a city accustomed to cultural happenings, the Led Zeppelin reunion assumed massive proportions,
with many here billing it the "concert of the millennium" by "the greatest rock and roll band ever."
A band that was already being dismissed by critics as self-indulgent by the late 1970s and passe by the
time new wave and punk strode onto the stage in the 1980s has suddenly acquired new currency,
simultaneously earning the covers this week of Rolling Stone in the U.S. and Q Magazine in the U.K.
"I don't think they were ever appreciated for the scale of band they were," Paul Rees, editor of Q, said
in an interview. "Maybe it's a sort of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder,' but it's taken people time
to realize the massive influence they had on an awful lot of music."
"They could be really heavy, but they could also be pastoral. They were ambitious, catchy, they had the
whole thing," said Scott Rowley, editor of Classic Rock magazine. "Is it a nostalgia fest? Yeah, it
probably is."
For many who flooded into London's O2 Arena, it was an unapologetic trip to a well-remembered
past.
"I saw them in '73, '75 and '77. I'm what you could call hard core. It's part of your soul. It's part of
everything you did in the '70s," said Tina Ricardo, co-owner of Rick's Sports Bar in San Francisco,
who left her husband at home when she won the ticket lottery and came with her girlfriend.
"How many chances do you get to live something over? That's it," she said. "I'm starting to cry now,
just thinking about it."
Likewise for fans from Tokyo. "I saw Led Zeppelin in 1971 and '72. That was 35 years ago. What can I
say? So exciting," said Yoshihiro Hoshina, 53, who won tickets after entering the lottery with three
different e-mail addresses.
"Led Zeppelin broke five hotel rooms in Japan -- that's a bit of Japan history," he said before the
concert. "But they're getting old; can Robert Plant sing in that high voice? Can Jimmy Page still play
so smooth?"
Answer: pretty much. The 59-year-old Plant had his shirt open modestly to the breastbone, a hint of
the bare-abdomened rooster swagger of yesteryear, but managed the high screeches near the end of
"Stairway to Heaven" -- still one of the most-played songs on U.S. radio, and which recently entered
the charts again last week with the release of Led Zeppelin's catalog online.
"Hey Ahmet, we did it!" Plant yelled in triumph as the band concluded the song that sounded a bit
mystical and silly in the old days but now has an aching touch of lost youth in its hint of possibilities:
"Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're
on."
Or there was.
The Bic lighters once held high by audience members were replaced by the glow of digital cameras
and cellphones, but there were still plenty of raised, clenched fists and waving hair -- plus plenty of
beer and an occasional waft of marijuana.
A large number of the couples were father and son
"I introduced my son to it. He wasn't into it at first, but he changed," said Owen Williams, 51, from
Berkeshire. "He started playing guitar himself, and the Led Zeppelin kicked in; everything changed.
He's stolen all my records and CDs."
The band opened with a clip from the newly remastered "The Song Remains the Same" DVD depicting
the group's triumphal U.S. gig in 1973 that surpassed a Beatles attendance record, then kicked into
"Good Times, Bad Times," the opening track from its 1969 debut album.
The concert marked the first live performance of "For Your Life," from the group's Presence album.
Instead of the old melodramatic hair-swinging and exaggerated erotic strutting, Plant; Page, 63; and
bassist John Paul Jones, 61, played the first sets with easygoing confidence. Their good humor built
into triumphant intensity as the night wore on; Page pulled out the cello bow on "Dazed and
Confused" and worked like a shaman conjurer, glowing under a twirling pyramid of green lasers.
"It's quite peculiar to imagine. I don't know how many songs we've recorded together, choosing songs
from 10 different albums for a dynamic event like this. There are certain songs that have to be there,
and this is one of them," Plant said as the song began.
The finale of "Whole Lotta Love," played as the first of two encores, was as raw and mesmerizing as
ever, and then the band fell into "Rock and Roll" -- It had been a long time, a long lonely, lonely time,
and with nothing but rumors of a tour, no one knew for sure when, or if, it would happen again.
14
Led Zeppelin by Dave Grohl
Illustration by Mark Stutzman
Heavy metal would not exist without Led Zeppelin, and if it did, it would suck. Led Zeppelin were more than just a
band — they were the perfect combination of the most intense elements: passion and mystery and expertise. It always
seemed like Led Zeppelin were searching for something. They weren't content being in one place, and they were
always trying something new. They could do anything, and I believe they would have done everything if they hadn't
been cut short by John Bonham's death. Zeppelin served as a great escape from a lot of things. There was a fantasy
element to everything they did, and it was such a major part of what made them important. Who knows if we'd all be
watching Lord of the Rings movies right now if it wasn't for Zeppelin.
They were never critically acclaimed in their day, because they were too experimental and they were too fringe. In
1968 and '69, there was some freaky shit going on, but Zeppelin were the freakiest. I consider Jimmy Page freakier
than Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was a genius on fire, whereas Page was a genius possessed. Zeppelin concerts and albums
were like exorcisms for them. People had their asses blown out by Hendrix and Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton, but Page
took it to a whole new level, and he did it in such a beautifully human and imperfect way. He plays the guitar like an
old bluesman on acid. When I listen to Zeppelin bootlegs, his solos can make me laugh or they can make me tear up.
Any live version of "Since I Been Loving You" will bring you to tears and fill you with joy all at once. Page doesn't just
use his guitar as an instrument. For him, it's like some sort of emotional translator.
John Bonham played the drums like someone who didn't know what was going to happen next — like he was teetering
on the edge of a cliff. No one has come close to that since, and I don't think anybody ever will. I think he will forever be
the greatest drummer of all time. You have no idea how much he influenced me. I spent years in my bedroom —
literally fucking years — listening to Bonham's drums and trying to emulate his swing or his behind-the-beat swagger
or his speed or power. Not just memorizing what he did on those albums but getting myself into a place where I would
have the same instinctual direction as he had. I have John Bonham tattoos all over my body — on my wrists, my arms,
my shoulders. I gave myself one when I was fifteen. It's the three circles that were his insignia on Zeppelin IV and on
the front of his kick drum.
"Black Dog," from Zeppelin IV, is what Led Zeppelin were all about in their most rocking moments, a perfect example
of their true might. It didn't have to be really distorted or really fast, it just had to be Zeppelin and it was really heavy.
Then there's Zeppelin's sensitive side — something people overlook, because we think of them as rock beasts, but
Zeppelin III was full of gentle beauty. That was the soundtrack to me dropping out of high school. I listened to it every
single day in my VW bug, while I contemplated my direction in life. That album, for whatever reason, saved some light
in me that I still have.
I heard them for the first time on AM radio in the Seventies, right around the time that "Stairway to Heaven" was so
popular. I was six or seven years old, which is when I'd just started discovering music. But it wasn't until I was a
teenager that I discovered the first two Zeppelin records, which were handed down to me from the real stoners. We
had a lot of those in the suburbs of Virginia, and a lot of muscle cars and keggers and Zeppelin and acid and weed.
Somehow they all went hand in hand. To me, Zeppelin were spiritually inspirational. I was going to Catholic school
and questioning God, but I believed in Led Zeppelin. I wasn't really buying into this Christianity thing, but I had faith
in Led Zeppelin as a spiritual entity. They showed me that human beings could channel this music somehow and that
it was coming from somewhere. It wasn't coming from a songbook. It wasn't coming from a producer. It wasn't coming
from an instructor. It was coming from somewhere else.
I believe Zeppelin will come back and prove themselves to once again be the greatest rock band of all time. It will
happen. They'll find someone to play the drums and I'll be right there, front row at every goddamn show. Then I could
finally die a happy man.
^ "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5939214/the_immortals_the_first_fifty.
^ a b Mick Wall (2008), When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin, London: Orion, pp. 13–15, 52.
Tag Archive | "Robert Plant"
Led Zeppelin book excerpt: ‘When Giants Walked the Earth’
EDITOR’S NOTE: This excerpt, “Chapter Eleven: We Are Your Overlords,”

appears from “When Giants Walked the Earth” by Mick Wall. Copyright © 2009 by the author and reprinted by permission of St.
Martin’s Press, LLC. Now available in paperback, the book is available at macmillan.com
By Mick Wall
If the first four years in the life of Led Zeppelin had been about empire-building, the next four — from 1972 to ’75 — would find
them overseeing their kingdom with all the splendid pomp and inherent arrogance of Pharaohs. Self-made millionaires so famous they
now hid behind armed guards, employed their own drug-dealers and flew by private jet.
The 16-date U.S. tour that summer had again been phenomenally successful, including two blistering performances in L.A. at the
Forum on June 25 and Long Beach Arena two nights later. Ticket-wise, Zeppelin was now outselling the Stones — touring their
“Exile on Main Street” album that year — by a ratio of 2:1. In terms of publicity, though, Zeppelin still came a poor second to Jagger
and Co., with their impossibly glamorous entourage that included Princess Lee Radziwell (sister of Jackie Onassis) and writer Truman
Capote. As Jimmy moaned to the NME, “Who wants to know that Led Zeppelin broke an attendance record at such-and-such a place
when Mick Jagger’s hanging around with Truman Capote?”
Now the biggest-selling band in the world, Peter Grant was boasting to anyone within earshot how the band would rake in “over 30
million dollars alone this year.” The fact that the band might, if all went well, make even a tenth of that sum was unheard of in those
days when promoters still ruled the roost, taking the lion’s share of the gross with artists lucky to walk away with a small percentage.
Grant was one of the first managers to stand up to such ‘standard’ practices. Having already faced-down the record industry by
demanding — and getting — the most lucrative signing-on deal in history, G now took on the promoters, demanding an
unprecedented 90 percent of gross receipts for every Led Zeppelin show.
“You have to understand the kind of man Peter Grant was,” said Plant, “He smashed through so many of the remnants of the old
regime of business in America [when] nobody got a cent apart from the promoter. Then we came along and Grant would say to
promoters, ‘OK, you want these guys but we’re not taking what you say, we’ll tell you what we want and when you’re ready to
discuss it you can call us.’ And of course, they would call us and do things on our terms, on Grant’s terms, because otherwise they’d
be stuck with Iron Butterfly.” As Plant told me, Grant not only rewrote the rules, “Peter Grant had written a new book. And we were
right in the middle of it all. We were the kind of standard bearers, if you like, from which that kind of patent has been used so many
times now, it’s become the general way that people operate.”
It was now in 1973 that the feeling of invincibility that Grant had helped foster really began to take hold of the band. No ’70s guitar
god represented the extreme Byronic sensibility in person quite like Jimmy Page. He may have begun cultivating this dark mystique as
a way of concealing his, in reality, more introspective, quietly spoken, earnestly-watching-from-a-distance nature, but by 1973 things
had started to change. It was still just possible, for those that knew him, to tell the difference, but as the next few years skittered and
jolted by, the mask would become harder and harder for him to peel off. While both Bonham and Plant invested in new farmhouse
estates in the country — a hundred-acre pile in Worcestershire, for the former, which he employed his father and brother to help him
develop into “a home fit for a king,” replete with livestock; a working sheep farm in the Llyfnant Valley on the southern fringe of
Snowdonia for the latter, where he took Welsh lessons and pursued his fascination with Celtic mythology at the National Library of
Wales in nearby Aberystwyth, naming his first son, born that year, Karac, after the legendary Welsh general Caractacus — Page flitted
between his own newly acquired 18th-century manor in Sussex — another riverside abode named Plumpton Place, replete with moat
and terraces off into lakes — and flying visits to Boleskine House, intent on furthering his “studies” into Crowley and the occult. It
was as though, having conquered this world, Page and Zeppelin now looked for dominion of the next.
Their ninth American tour opened on May 4 with a huge outdoor show at the Atlanta Braves football stadium where a crowd of
49,236 paid a total of $246,180 to see them, beating the previous record of just over 33,000 set by the Beatles in 1965. The following
night in Tampa, Florida, an even bigger crowd of 56,800 paid $309,000 to watch them perform — then the most lucrative single
performance in show business history, again beating the Beatles’ previous high of 55,000 (and a gross of $301,000) at Shea Stadium
eight years before. As the limousine pulled up at the backstage gates, Plant turned to Grant and said, “F**king hell, G! Where did all
these people come from?” As Jimmy told me, “That was one of the most surprising times. We didn’t even have a support act, and we
thought, hey, what’s going on? I mean, I knew that we were pretty big, but I hadn’t imagined it to be on that sort of scale. In fact, even
now I still find it difficult to take it all in, just how much it all meant, you know?”
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For Led Zeppelin, third time was the charm
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Photo courtesy Richard Kwasniewski/Frank White Photo Agency
By Mick Wall
Led Zeppelin’s monumentally successful second album – simply titled “Led Zeppelin II” – had transformed them from promising
hopefuls into fully-fledged superstars. The older, beard-stroking critics on Rolling Stone may not have gotten it, still too enthral to The
Beatles and The Stones to take England’s latest hard-rocking exports even remotely as seriously, but the kids tuned into Zeppelin
immediately. With monolithically heavy tracks like “Whole Lotta Love” and, from their first album, “Dazed And Confused now a
staple of the hip new FM stations, for teenage, denim-clad, reefer-toking America, Zeppelin became the spearhead of a “second
British invasion” that had begun with Cream and the Jeff Beck Group and would continue into the early 1970s with such no-quarter-
giving rock goliaths as Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Head-shaking, album-oriented outcasts from the pop mainstream, blasting out
whiplash riffs and singing tripped-out anthems about war pigs, fireballs and witchy women that squeezed your lemon till the juice ran
down your leg.
Had Zeppelin chosen to follow up its second album with more of the same, no
one would have argued. Instead, Zep’s music took such an unexpected turn it resulted in an album that initially baffled all but their
most ardent fans. Indeed, to this day “Led Zeppelin III” remains perhaps the most enigmatic of all the band’s albums: 10 tracks only
one of which – the one-chord powerhouse wonder that is “Immigrant Song” — conforming to the previous heavy rock template; the
rest an initially baffling but ultimately alluring amalgam of acoustic folk, west coast psychedelia, country rock, metropolitan blues,
and that strange collusion of Celtic, Indian and Asian influences — what guitarist Jimmy Page called “My CIA” — unique to
Zeppelin.
Until then the question was whether they would be able to come up with another “Whole Lotta Love”? But as Page later told me:
“People that thought like that missed the point. The whole point was not to try and follow-up “Whole Lotta Love.” We recognized that
it had been a milestone for us, but the idea was to try and do something different. To sum up where the band was now, not where it
had been a year ago.”
Where the band was now – or where Page and vocalist Robert Plant were anyway – was halfway up a mountainside in Wales, the tiny
principality that borders the west coast of England. Plant had told Page about a ramshackle 18th century cottage he remembered from
a childhood vacation named Bron-Yr-Aur: Welsh for, variously, ‘golden hill’, ‘breast of gold’ or ‘hill of gold’, and pronounced Bron-
raaar. Owned by a friend of his father’s and located a couple of miles outside the small market town of Machynlleth, Robert regaled
Jimmy with tales of the mythical Welsh giant Idris Gawr, whose magical seat lay on nearby mountain Cader Idris, and how King
Arthur had fought his final battle in nearby Ochr-yr-Bwlch.
So it was that in the spring of 1970 Page and Plant ended up together, with their partners – Charlotte and Maureen, respectively, plus
Plant’s dog Strider and a couple of Zep roadies, Clive Coulson and Sandy Macgregor – living in the Welsh mountains. Both still under
the influence of the debut album the year before from The Band, “Music from Big Pink,” named after the pink wooden house in
Upstate New York it was made in, the idea of sitting before the fire, smoking weed and drinking the local cider, mulled by hot pokers,
playing acoustic guitars and writing together was a compelling one for them.
It was also the first time they had actually sat and worked together. Plant had only begun contributing lyrics to Zeppelin on their
second album – coming up with verses and lines as they interrupted constant touring to dash into a nearby studio and lay down a track
or two. Working with Page at Bron-Yr-Aur would be completely different; a chance also for the two men to really get to know each
other, away from the madness of life on the road.
“It was the tranquillity of the place that set the tone of the album,” Page recalled. “After all the heavy, intense vibe of touring which is
reflected in the raw energy of the second album, it was just a totally different feeling.”
Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” which Robert was then obsessed with, was to be another influence on the new direction their
songwriting took; similarly Joni Mitchell, who Jimmy had lately discovered and whose esoteric guitar tunings were almost a match for
his own. Most of all, there was the influence of Crosby Stills & Nash, whose startling debut both men had been blown away by.
With no electricity, running water or sanitation, it was up to Coulson and Macgregor to fetch water from the stream and gather wood
for a fire. At night, candles were the only light. “A bath was once a week in Machynlleth at the Owen Glendower pub,” Coulson
remembered.
The songs came quickly, beginning with ‘Friends’, framed around some strange guitar scales Page had discovered on a previous trip to
India, underpinned by a conga drum rhythm that recalled the opening stanza of ‘Mars’ from Holst’s “The Planets Suite.” Next to come
was Plant’s summery “That’s The Way,” followed by an upbeat ode to their new stone dwelling, the misspelled “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp”
(the latter from an electric number originally titled “Jennings Farm Blues,” now transformed into a jug-band hoedown dedicated to
Strider.
Robert Plant brings much ‘Joy’ to the Bowery
Robert Plant
Band of Joy
Bowery Ballroom, New York City
9.12.10
By Pat Prince
Goldmine correspondent Steve Sauer was spot-on in his review of Robert Plant’s last tour through the American south. Made up of
veteran players, Plant’s Band of Joy delivers a sermon of Americana that is both exciting and fresh.
The band’s name seems to embody Plant’s newfound enthusiasm for the American music he continues to discover. He admitted in
between songs at the wonderfully intimate Bowery Ballroom that he had spent so many years focused on the Mississippi Delta that he
had overlooked the plains of Texas and the highlands of Tennessee.
As much as Plant has made of his age and his retired profession as Rock God of Led Zeppelin, his vocals were excellent — perfectly
restrained and often soothing. And as much fun it must have been deconstructing Zeppelin tunes onstage, it was certainly fun listening
to them.
“Houses of the Holy,” for instance, was turned into a true blues boogie where guitarist Buddy Miller incorporated the spirit of Joe
Walsh rather than Jimmy Page. “Gallows Pole” took on a nice bluegrass stomp, but unlike some, I still prefer the song untouched —
more Celtic folk than Appalachian. And then the crowd-pleasing encore, “Rock and Roll,” became pure roots rock. Instead of a
Corona, I could have been holding a cup of moonshine at an after hours Memphis juke joint.
Throughout this Plant revival, the band remained tight. But no song was as pristine-sounding as Los Lobos’ “Angel Dance.” It came
naturally, as if not adopted at all. And as Band of Joy closed with the spiritual hymn “And We Bid You Goodnight,” it took a moment
for Plant’s gospel embrace to sink in. But it was a beautiful message to deliver to the faithful.
Dionysus has come down to earth and now sings amongst the mortals, and brings much joy.
To read a review of Robert Plant’s tour of the American south, click here.
By Steve Sauer
Chasing the inspirations of Robert Plant is becoming increasingly easier to do, now that he has shown interest in more kinds of music.
Yet no matter how much he has channeled Arab and African sounds in his music over the years — going back to the 1975 Led
Zeppelin track “Kashmir” to a song like “Takamba” from only five years ago — it is American music that has arguably provided the
most lasting effect. At the time he joined Alison Krauss in promoting their lauded “Raising Sand” disc from 2007, the word from him
was that Americana music was more than ever before becoming his muse. Raiding the vaults of Doc Watson and Townes Van Zandt
gave him some new impetus to forge ahead as a singer.
It should be no surprise, then, that his latest studio set, the new “Band of Joy” release from Rounder Records, stems almost exclusively
from American roots music. With the exception of one track written by a former member of Fairport Convention, the group that also
brought Sandy Denny to light and yielded the female vocalist heard on Led Zeppelin’s “The Battle of Evermore,” Plant has chosen 11
songs hailing from a variety of genres and geographic locations. The common bond for them all is their country of origin.
Back before Plant’s 20th birthday, he and his mates in the British Midlands would gig under the name Band of Joy wherever and
whenever they could. The long-haired hippie music of the American West Coast particularly energized them at the time, Plant later
commenting that he was driven at the time by his reverence for bands like Love, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and the Youngbloods.
Shortly afterward, Jimmy Page came looking for a singer to perform in the new Yardbirds, he was sure he’d found the right man for
the job when they learned of their shared interest in a live take of “Baby, I’m Gonna Leave You” by transplanted New Yorker Joan
Baez. Their rendition of it, filled with dramatic highs and lows, became an off-beat highlight of the first Led Zeppelin album. Other
parts of the disc reflected the work of American blues songwriter Willie Dixon, as did two songs on the following album as well.
Plant’s Band of Joy is the next step for one singer who, for more than 40 years, has consistently drawn inspiration from varied
American sources.
Most of the contrast in approach today deals with his personnel, this time scooping up the best musicians Nashville, Tenn., has to
offer. The understated Darrell Scott is the sleeper in the band, with an expressionless face tucked away behind a burly beard. In
concert, one memorable vision of him has the multi-instrumentalist seated at his pedal steel with a guitar hanging at his waist for him
to employ during the same song. As for the album’s co-producer, Buddy Miller, don’t let his exhaustive curriculum vitae in the
Nashville music industry fool you, for he’ll occasionally zing you with a guitar solo you’d swear came from a hard rocker who
couldn’t look less like this tall, gray-haired presence in a red velvet suit. His choice baritone guitar gives his solos those extra low
notes that provide some additional punch.
Tickets for Plant’s series of summer concert dates went on sale in March and April, with little being announced ahead of time as to
what the music would sound like. By the time the shows happened, the public did have access to the full list of song titles that adorn
the “Band of Joy” album. However, without further investigation, names like “Monkey” and “Even This Shall Pass Away” don’t reek
of the same instant recognition as would titles like “My Sharona” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Plant leaves the obvious cover songs to other artists, such as Bettye LaVette, who opened for him on some of his tour dates in July;
this American singer’s “Interpretations” album release from May features her takes on historically notable British tunes like “Wish
You Were Here,” “Love Reign O’er Me” and “Nights in White Satin,” not to mention several dalliances in the individual Beatles’
catalogs as well as a take on the Led Zeppelin song “All My Love.” Plant has criticized fellow Brit Rod Stewart’s four discs of “The
Great American Songbook” for not straying far enough off the beaten path; of course, he once said the same thing of Emerson, Lake
and Palmer when their sophomore LP turned out to contain not much other than a near-century-old classical work by Mussorgsky.
On July 13, 2010, while the general public knew precious little about what kind of a stage show Robert Plant would be presenting, he
lifted the veil on his new album, playing half of it before a sympathetic crowd in Memphis, Tenn. Since five of the six musicians had
made much of their names in the same state, holding the concert there was a stroke of genius on Plant’s part. Early on in the show, he
told the audience Memphis was his second home; if anybody hadn’t already accepted him for his sincere stint with Alison Krauss,
their hardened hearts likely melted at that very moment.
ROBERT PLANT performs in Memphis, Tenn., while touring to support his new album, “Band of Joy.” Photo
courtesy Frank Melfi
Judging from the reactions to the new numbers, the evening was a success. Among the very favorites of the evening came as Plant
turned spiritual. “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” was a sing-along inside the Orpheum Theatre, either because the decades-
old standard was recognizable or simply an easy lyric to pick up. The other spirituals aren’t on the “Band of Joy” disc, but two of them
— namely “In My Time of Dying” and “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” — surely earned extra applause because they first appeared on Led
Zeppelin’s back-to-back albums “Physical Graffiti” and “Presence” in 1975 and 1976. However, the accompaniment on these was
faithful to versions that long preceded Zep’s hard-rock takes, and “In My Time of Dying” was part of a medley that also included “Oh,
What a Beautiful City (Twelve Gates to the City)” and “Wade in the Water.” The treatment evidenced where these songs really come
from.
It was on these songs especially that Plant benefited from trading off lead vocals with Patty Griffin. She’s another secret weapon
onstage. In January, she released a solo album called “Downtown Church” (Credential Recordings), produced by Buddy Miller.
During one stop on her solo tour that brought her to a stormy day at the Old Settler’s Music Festival in Driftwood, Texas, she hailed
Miller as “a walking encyclopedia of all-American roots music” and the person responsible for introducing her to serious gospel
music. No matter who’s to be credited with making it so, Griffin now fits the part as a gospel singer, showcasing the kind of euphoric
spirit Plant so earnestly had tried to bring out in Alison Krauss during their 2008 “Raising Sand” tour (during which I personally
observed no less than five concerts). Griffin at times demonstrates the deep strains of a voice like that of Memphis Minnie, whose
1929 “When the Levee Breaks” with her husband, Kansas Joe McCoy, earned the cover treatment by Led Zeppelin for that infamous
untitled album of 1971. At other times, Griffin provides something light and airy, suitable for the “Raising Sand” songs for which her
best Krauss imitation is expected, such as the Grammy-winner “Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Me Wrong).” She’s also Plant’s go-to
person for harmonies on “Misty Mountain Hop.”
Griffin’s best results during the concert occurred during two of the new songs, one of them being “House of Cards,” the
aforementioned track that flowed from the pen of Richard Thompson, former guitarist for Fairport Convention. The song originally
appeared on the 1978 album “First Light” (Chrysalis) by him and wife Linda Thompson, with their version featuring a rich ensemble
of various supporting voices. Band of Joy personnel have done their best to recreate this effect, with no member spared from vocal
duties. Another of the in-concert favorites was “Monkey,” one of two album tracks to have been sourced from the 2005 album (“The
Great Destroyer,” Sub Pop) by Low, a Duluth-based slowcore band whose discs Plant says have been lingering in his car for the past
eight or nine years. On this song, the combination of Plant and Griffin’s vocals should have worked better than it did, thanks to them
falling flat in places. Some of the time, their unsavory notes were drowned out by Miller’s deep and heavily distorted guitar.
IN MOBILE, ALABAMA: Patty Griffin lends vocal support to Robert Plant on his “Band Of Joy” tour. Photo
courtesy Frank Melfi
For all of Plant’s attempts to use press opportunities in ways that would distance himself from the lingering and ever-distant shadow
of Led Zeppelin, he must inevitably find it futile to do so. The second concert of his tour, in Little Rock, Ark., featured four Zep songs
in a row. Granted, one of them was “Gallows Pole,” which one would rightfully argue evolved from international tradition centuries
before it graced “Led Zeppelin III.” It is now the set closer, and the encores include “Thank You” and “Rock and Roll.” But again,
note must be made that they sound like various offshoots of country music, given the twang Darrell Scott’s pedal steel offers “Thank
You” or the rockabilly feel employed on “Rock and Roll.” Reacting to crowds’ enthusiastic reactions in Memphis and Little Rock,
Plant even remarked between songs that he was sure the audiences would be into country music. He gave his own 1988 hit, “Tall Cool
One,” the same treatment.
Recent memories of that fateful night in London on Dec. 10, 2007, are still ingrained in Plant’s mind, prompting him to tell one
reporter he’d found the reunion concert with Led Zeppelin “too heavy.” He said in widely published comments, “Talk about
examining your own mortality.” Plant now finds himself in the position to sing about death, which he does on at least two songs on
“Band of Joy.” The track “Harm’s Swift Way” exists today only because it was one of the final tunes to escape from the brain of its
writer, Townes Van Zandt, and onto tape in the days that immediately preceded his death on New Year’s Day in 1997. Van Zandt’s
widow, Jeanene, was so moved in 2008 by Plant’s live take on the song “Nothin’” that she gave him a copy of Townes’ uncirculated
demo of “Harm’s Swift Way,” with its dark lyrics centering on the meaning of life and the great beyond. That made it to Plant’s live
set, but one song that didn’t is the one he uses to close his album, “Even This Shall Pass Away,” based on the words of a poem from
1866 that reflect on a wise Persian king’s observation that you can’t take it with you when you go.
Music as enduring and timeless as the songs Plant is now performing, even though they lack the immediate recognition of “My
Sharona” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” — make up one of the things that transcends the limitations of life itself. This is the essence
of what motivates Robert Plant. And yes, it always has.
Steve Sauer is the editor of LedZepOnline.com, a contributor to Carol Miller’s nationally syndicated radio program “Get the Led
Out,” and founding content producer of the web site Lemon Squeezings: Led Zeppelin News at www.LedZeppelinNews.com.
Robert Plant's Band of Joy will be released in September
Your friends from Goldmine attended a listening party for “Band of Joy,” Robert Plant’s new release, last night in New York City.
The new disc, produced with Americana musician Buddy Miller in Nashville for Rounder Records, will be in stores and online in late
September.
The tracks are eclectic but very Robert — uptempo, bluegrass and rockabilly influences with some power-chords nicely interspersed.
One track with Patty Griffin’s vocals backing Robert’s reminded us of his collaboration with Alison Krauss, but Robert compared it to
the Cocteau Twins crossed with the Shangri-Las.
Robert looked great and gave props to epic American musical strains emanating out of out-of-the way, south of the Mason-Dixon line
locales. He’s headed that way for an abbreviated tour this summer “without the record — not even the Eagles would do that.”
Robert said it’s taken him 41 years to get to the essence of the American psyche through its music. Though his collaboration with
Alison demonstrated Robert’s grasp of the American soul, these tracks illustrate he continues to create distinctive, interesting music
for and about us.
For all of you Led Zeppelin fans, don’t expect a ZoSo reunion anytime soon. Robert’s reference to “getting nowhere near churning out
music” for the sake of it was code for no plans to revisit O2.
But at least he paid homage to the notorious Zep days with a nostalgic aside about only being able to survive U.S. tours on shots of
penicillin. Those days have already been well documented for Robert’s original band of joy.
Jimmy Page rarely sat down for interviews in the late 1970s, a fact that has been attributed to his growing mistrust of the press at that
time. One interview with the Led Zeppelin guitarist taped during this successful period for the group will be heard for the first time
next week.
This interview of Page was conducted by one of his peers in the musical field, singer Long John Baldry (shown at left), who along
with Page had been a member of the Cyril Davies R&B All Stars in 1963. Their recorded conversation takes place during Led
Zeppelin’s heyday, looking back on the time both musicians took part in the U.K. blues boom of the early ’60s.
Their interview is both “intimate and revealing,” according to a press release issued by Denny Somach Productions for the nationally
syndicated “Get the Led Out” radio show hosted by Carol Miller.
In addition to reflecting on their days performing live with Cyril Davies, Page recalls the formation of Led Zeppelin and discusses
their first tour as a new lineup of the Yardbirds. In this exclusive, Web-only audio sample of the interview, Page chats about Led
Zeppelin’s earliest American gigs leading up to a supporting role at the Fillmore West in San Francisco in 1969.
“Get the Led Out” airs on about 70 radio markets in the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Indianapolis.
Local airdates for this episode vary by station but should take place between Monday, June 14, and Sunday, June 20. Check your local
listings or call your local classic rock station for more information.
Stairway to excess.(heyday of rock group Led Zeppelin)
Vanity Fair
| November 01, 2003 | Robinson, Lisa
As Led Zeppelin's concerts broke attendance records across America, the band was dismissed by critics, while gaining a reputation for
unprecedented debauchery, thanks to tales (often true) of drugs, sex, and violence. Unearthing her diaries, written on tour with "the
boys" and maverick manager Peter Grant between 1973 and 1979, lisa robinson recalls the men behind the mayhem, the integrity and
innovation of their music, and why the biggest-selling rock group of all time was so short-lived
With all due respect to the movie Almost Famous, I never went on a Led Zeppelin tour where the band spontaneously burst into an
Elton John song on a tour bus. Nor do I recall hootenannies with acoustic guitars in the Continental Hyatt House on the Sunset Strip. I
remember the band's needle-thin guitarist, Jimmy Page, sitting in the dark on a sofa in a corner suite at the Plaza hotel in New York
City with a cadaverous David Bowie by his side, watching the same 15 minutes of Kenneth Anger's film Lucifer Rising over and over
again-with lines of cocaine on the table. I recall a flight to Detroit aboard the band's private jet when Jimmy got into a fight with a
Fleet Street reporter, and the tour manager, the menacing Richard Cole, pulled out a gun.
And, of course, I remember the rumors: Jimmy traveled with a suitcase full of whips. One time he was naked, covered with whipped
cream, put on a room-service table, and wheeled into a room to be served up to a bunch of teenage girls. The band attacked a female
reporter from Life magazine, ripping her clothes, until, in tears, she was rescued by the band's manager. And, in 1969 at Seattle's
Edgewater Inn, in a notorious episode that has achieved mythic proportion, the band violated a teenage girl with a live shark. ("It
wasn't a shark," Richard Cole told me years later. "It was a red snapper. And it wasn't some big ritualistic thing; it was in and out and a
laugh and the girl wasn't sobbing-she was a willing participant. It was so fast, and over and done with, and no one from the band was
there. I don't think anyone who was there remembers the same thing.")
They were the most adventurous group. The more you listen to their albums, the more you discover, and that's the sign of real
greatness. There was always more there than meets the eye.
--Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder, Atlantic Records, 2003.
With more than 200 million albums sold, Led Zeppelin is the biggest-selling rock group in history. Tour promoters have offered
untold millions for a Zeppelin reunion. A whole new generation has discovered the band with a TV ad for Cadillac that features their
song "Rock and Roll." This past spring, Zeppelin entered both the CD and DVD charts at No. 1 with eight and a half hours of live
material recorded more than 20 years ago.
At the time of Led Zeppelin's ascent, at the end of the 1960s, their reviews were at best dismissive and at worst, devastating. A Rolling
Stone critique of the band's second album stated, "Robert Plant sings notes that only dogs can hear." Zeppelin was labeled derivative, a
hype, and every vile name anyone could possibly think of, and their U.S. tours were scandalous, rapacious, excessive, arrogant sprees.
There was nothing new about girls waiting in hotel lobbies, jumping into limousines, hanging out at clubs until the musicians passed
out, then accompanying them back to their beds. What was new was the level of decadence (high or low, depending on your point of
view) that accompanied Led Zeppelin, especially in the U.S.
At the beginning of the 1970s people were liberated and angry, frustrated and bored. There were no cell phones, no Game Boys, no
DVDs, no Walkmans, no Internet, no reality TV. Music was it. And, just when big music and big money came together, Led Zeppelin
gave new meaning to "sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll." Everything was offered to them. They turned nothing down. But if a legend
was about debauchery only, people would still be extolling the virtues of the 1980s hair band Poison, or David Lee Roth. And they're
not. According to producer Rick Rubin, "Jimmy Page revolutionized everything. There was no real blues rock in that bombastic way
before Zeppelin. Plus, with the insane drumming of John Bonham, it was radical, playing at a very, very high level-improvisational on
a big-rock scale. It was brand new."
In 1970 the Beatles, no longer on tour, seemed tame. The Rolling Stones, while fashionably louche, played songs. Led Zeppelin was
neither a hippie jam band nor an improvisational jazz outfit, but they took the blues, added Eastern influences, switched into acoustic
folk in the middle of a number (they even did a cover version of Joan Baez's "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You"), and you never knew what
they would do next. Twenty-six-year-old Jimmy Page, a sophisticated London studio musician, had toured the U.S. as a member of
the Yardbirds-a superior blues-rock band that had also, at different times, featured Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. Bassist-keyboardist
John Paul Jones, 24, was also a seasoned London session musician. Combine that with two novices from the provinces-the randy 22-
year-old singer Robert Plant, besotted with flower power, blues, and rockabilly, and drummer John "Bonzo" Bonham, 22, who knew
all about Motown and James Brown-and you had a group that took rock music to a progressive new level: loud, fast, complex, heavy,
virile.
And the band's manager, Peter Grant, changed the rules of the music business. A baroque, bearded, 300-pound former bouncer, tour
manager, and professional wrestler (who had gone by the name of Count Massimo), Peter was an intimidating presence. When he
worked with Jimmy and the Yardbirds, concert promoters "split" the take 50-50 with bands, but the bands rarely made a dime. Peter
signed Zeppelin to Atlantic Records for the then unheard-of sum of $200,000, before anyone at the label had even heard a note of the
first album (recorded for $3,500, which Jimmy paid out of his own pocket). Peter refused to let the band release singles, so that fans
had to buy the albums. After the band got big, he wouldn't let them make television appearances, so if people wanted to see Led
Zeppelin they had to pay to go to the concerts. And, in a move that forever changed the rock-concert business, he forced promoters to
give the band 90 percent of the gate-take it or leave it. They took it. Instead of employing the usual local promoters, Peter hired Jerry
Weintraub's Concerts West to oversee the band's tours. (Weintraub, now the movie producer, was then John Denver's manager and the
concert promoter for Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.)
Led Zeppelin enjoyed immediate and massive financial success with their first album, which included such rock classics as "Dazed
and Confused" and "Communication Breakdown." They pretended not to care about the bad reviews. Defensively, they did no
interviews. Peter and Jimmy (at the start this was clearly Jimmy's band and Peter worked for Jimmy) encouraged a mystique. But
eventually they wanted to be famous. Robert Plant, in particular, was irritated that Zeppelin was breaking attendance records but the
Rolling Stones were getting all the press. So they hired a press agent.
1973: Danny Goldberg, hired to do publicity for the band, asked me to go see them on the southern leg of the U.S. tour. I was terrified.
I had heard all the stories and wanted no part of this band. But my editors at the British music weekly Disc-and later at the New
Musical Express, Hit Parader, Creem, and the New York Post-all insisted that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to talk to what was
quickly becoming the world's biggest rock band. So, from 1973 to 1979, I traveled on and off with Zeppelin in the U.S. and taped
more than 50 hours of interviews (published sections of which were "sampled" by others without permission in books written about
the band). I endured the disdain of my so-called colleagues, all of whom considered Led Zeppelin declasse: hyped-up barbarians who
drew a working-class-or, worse, white-trash-and mostly male audience.
I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first American tour in 1969. We started off not even on the bill in
Denver, and by the time we got to New York City we were second to Iron Butterfly and after we finished our set they didn't even want
to go on.
--Robert Plant, 1973.
May 7, 1973, Jacksonville, Florida: Zeppelin had just broken the Beatles' attendance record for the largest paying crowd ever at a
single group's concert-56,800 people at Tampa Stadium-but the first show I went to see was at an indoor arena. Backstage, I saw a
phalanx of security guards. Peter Grant was screaming at some T-shirt bootleggers and at a policeman who had been rough with a
female fan. Richard Cole, after politely shaking my hand, placed me on the side of the stage near the amplifiers. To my astonishment,
I loved the three-and-a-half-hour show. The next day, at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami, I was told that the band asked if I was
"hiding" in my room. I took the challenge and went downstairs to the pool. John Bonham and John Paul Jones were nowhere in sight.
Jimmy Page was aloof. Robert Plant, wearing a tiny red bikini, was charming. I asked about the band's bad reputation. "It's all true,"
he said. "When we do something, we just do it bigger and better than anybody else. When there are no holds barred, there are no holds
barred."
May 13, 1973, the Royal Orleans Hotel, New Orleans: The band and their entourage were assembled at the rooftop pool. Jimmy Page
was fully dressed, looked very pale, and talked about the bad press the band received in England. "I wouldn't mind constructive
criticism," he said-whatever that is, I said-"but they seem to be losing the essence of what's important, which is music, purely. They
wallow in rubbish. And while I may be a masochist in other regions, I'm not that much of a masochist that I'm going to pay money to
tear myself to bits-reading." Robert Plant, dressed in the same red bikini he wore in Miami, talked about the band's image. "There are
so many people who come around just because of that. We've been to California and that Continental Hyatt House and there are guys
who book in there with whips and goodness knows what just because they hear we're coming. It's crazy. I like to think that people
know we're pretty raunchy and that we really do a lot of the things that people say we do. But what we're getting across [onstage] is
goodness. It ain't 'stand up and put your fist in the air-we want revolution.' I'd like them to go away feeling the way you do at the end
of a good chick, satisfied and exhausted. Some nights I look out and want to fuck the whole front row."
Peter Grant instructed Danny Goldberg to make up a press release that stated, "The 49,000 people at the Atlanta Led Zeppelin show
was the biggest thing in Atlanta since Gone with the Wind," and to attribute the quote to the mayor of Atlanta. In both Atlanta and
Tampa, the band got front-page billing with the Watergate hearings. In New Orleans, Ahmet Ertegun rented Cosimos Studios, a big,
funky, warehouse recording studio, for a party for Zeppelin after their show, and invited the Meters, Ernie K-Doe, and Professor
Longhair to perform. A large portable air conditioner was set up to cool the room. Ernie K-Doe was wearing white linen trousers and a
pink sport coat and white tie. Art Neville sat at the organ, ready to perform with the Meters. Blind blues great Snooks Eaglin had his
guitar, and Professor Longhair was at the piano. The members of Led Zeppelin, who grew up in England hearing these guys on pirate
radio, were thrilled.
We change the show every night. We never get two guitar breaks that are the same. That's why every album has been so different. I'm
not going to name anybody, but obviously there are groups that play every guitar note the same as on the record and it becomes so
predictable. Once you know what's coming, and that relates to anything you get into, it becomes a bore.
--Jimmy Page, 1973.
Led Zeppelin were aware that when the Rolling Stones walked into a room they created an ambience. So when Zeppelin went to a
club, Richard Cole called ahead to say the band was on its way and to make sure that bottles of Dom Perignon were waiting at the
table. When Zeppelin was in town, especially in New York City and more especially in Los Angeles, the groupie grapevine went into
overdrive. In Hollywood, at the Rainbow on the Sunset Strip-just down the street from the Hyatt House where the band stayed-
bodyguards manned the booths reserved for "the boys." (They were always "the boys," and, in fact, musicians now well into their 50s
and 60s are still, on tour, referred to as "the boys.") Teenage girls lined up in front of them. "No head, no backstage pass" was the
mantra among the roadies who were in a position to get the former and give the latter to the 14- to 18-year-olds who wanted to get to
the band.
One 15-year-old, who modeled in the rock publication Star Magazine and caught Jimmy's eye at an L.A. club, was Lori Mattix. ("We
were madly in love," says Lori today, now a 45-year-old fashion buyer and mother of a 17-year-old boy. "My mother knew all about
us. She adored Jimmy. He sent her flowers.") Lori was Jimmy's steady girl whenever he was in L.A. She says he called her every day
even when he was in England, where he lived in a reportedly contentious relationship with longtime girlfriend Charlotte Martin, the
mother of his daughter Scarlet. Lori says she never saw a whip in his room, Jimmy was always delightful to her, he would never let
her touch a drug, and he was so furious when he once saw her smoke a cigarette that he made her smoke an entire pack of Salems so
she'd never do it again. During the 1973 tour, when Robert got the flu and a show was canceled, there was talk of sending the band's
empty jet to fetch Lori to bring her to be with Jimmy in the Midwest. Instead, the band went to Los Angeles-their favorite playground-
for a few days off.
Robert's tour amours were girls he managed to convince that he was, at any given moment, about to leave his wife, Maureen, the
mother of his two young children. Once, when he went back home to his farm on the Welsh border after a tour, Maureen came
running out of the house furiously waving a copy of the English music weekly Melody Maker. A photo of Zeppelin at Rodney
Bingenheimer's Sunset Strip club with a bunch of young girls was on the front page. "Maureen," Robert cried, "you know we don't
take that paper!"
July 24, 1973, New York City: The limousines were lined up outside the Plaza, and our seven-car procession made its way out of
Manhattan to Newark airport, where the band's private 720B jet would take us to Pittsburgh. The Starship (which would later be used
by the Rolling Stones and Elton John) was some plane: gold and bronze, with led zeppelin painted along the side. I persuaded the band
to line up alongside the wing (no easy feat) for Bob Gruen to take the photo that would eventually become a postcard. The
stewardesses were Wendy-who wore a blue feather boa and whose uncle was Bobby Sherman's manager-and Susan, dressed in
maroon and pink. The walls of the plane were orange and red; there were circular velvet couches, white leather swivel chairs, a
mirror-covered bar, a nonfunctioning fireplace, and a white fake-fur-covered bed in the back bedroom. Tour manager Richard Cole
described the plane as "elegant." John Paul Jones (nicknamed "Jonesy") usually played a quiet game of backgammon. John Bonham
(always called "Bonzo") sat alone in the front. Bonzo was homesick. He'd been getting drunk and wild and would bang on Danny
Goldberg's door in the middle of the night, demanding to do interviews right there and then. Peter Grant told Danny to get two rooms:
a secret one to actually sleep in, and an empty one to deflect Bonzo's four a.m. rampages. Once, on a street in Dallas, Bonzo saw a
Corvette Stingray he wanted, and instructed Richard Cole to wait until the owner showed up and insist that "Mr. Bonham from Led
Zeppelin wanted to buy him a drink." He paid $18,000 for the car, which was worth considerably less, shipped it to L.A., and put it in
the basement of the Hyatt House while the band's lawyer went through the necessary rigamarole to get the insurance transferred.
Bonzo then dragged musicians from other bands over to admire the car, drove it for two days, and sold it.
July 29, 1973, New York City: Possibly because Jimmy was a known collector of memorabilia relating to the English satanist Aleister
Crowley, and especially because he bought Crowley's house in Scotland, he got bizarre mail and death threats. On the final night of a
five-night run at Madison Square Garden, more security men than usual checked out the area underneath the stage. The band did a
blistering three-and-a-half-hour set, and when it was over we were inexplicably shoved into cars and raced to the Upper East Side
apartment of the band's lawyer's secretary. No one told us why we were there, but for some reason "the boys" needed to be kept away
from the Drake Hotel. Later that night, at a party given for the band by Ahmet Ertegun at the Carlyle Hotel, we learned that $203,000
in cash had been stolen from the group's safe-deposit box at the Drake. ("Peter did have a funny expression on his face," Robert said,
"but what were we going to do? Break down and cry? We had just done a great gig.") The Drake was crawling with cops and F.B.I.
agents; the band's roadies had to get into the rooms and get rid of the drugs. The next morning Peter Grant, Richard Cole, and Danny
Goldberg faced press accusations that the robbery was faked by the band. The band's position was that someone who worked at the
hotel had taken the money. The "case," such as it was, was never solved. And the 1973 tour was over.
May 7, 1974, New York City: By now, Atlantic Records gave Led Zeppelin anything they wanted, and what they wanted was their
own record label, like the Rolling Stones had. Zeppelin's Swan Song Records signed other acts-the 60s band the Pretty Things,
Scottish singer Maggie Bell, and rock band Bad Company, led by ex-Free singer Paul Rodgers. Zeppelin came to New York for a
Swan Song launch at the Four Seasons restaurant, where they instructed Danny Goldberg to get some swans for the pool. He couldn't
find any, so he got geese instead. The band was furious. "We all live on farms!," Robert shouted. "Don't you think we know the
fucking difference?" Bonzo and Richard Cole picked up the geese and let them loose on Park Avenue. The band then traveled to L.A.
for a Swan Song launch at the Bel-Air Hotel (with real swans) attended by Bryan Ferry, Bill Wyman, and Groucho Marx. They went
back to England to record Physical Graffiti, the double album that included the Eastern-flavored "Kashmir," which many consider the
band's real masterpiece, as opposed to what was undoubtedly the biggest song of their career-the song that has been played on radio
more than any other, the song that ended every one of their shows, the song that was Jimmy's pride but privately referred to by Robert
as "that wedding song"-the pompous "Stairway to Heaven." ("Every band should end their show with 'Stairway to Heaven,'" Robert
said. "In fact, the Who do a very nice version of it.")
It's not just that we think we're the best group in the world; it's that we think we're so much better than whoever is number two.
January 20, 1975, Chicago: There were box-office riots in New York City, Long Island, and Boston when tickets went on sale for
Zeppelin's 1975 U.S. tour. Right before the tour, Jimmy injured his finger getting off a train in England. Robert had the flu. Bonzo's
stomach hurt constantly and he was more homesick than ever. This was not a good start. "I'd like to have it publicized that I came in
after Karen Carpenter in the Playboy drummer poll!," Bonzo roared in the band's dressing room at the Chicago Stadium. "She couldn't
last 10 minutes with a Zeppelin number," he sneered. Danny Goldberg told me that Bonzo had just shown up wearing his Clockwork
Orange boilersuit and said, wasn't it a good idea, and who was going to argue with him? When Bonzo was sober, he was a sweetheart-
articulate and a gentleman. Drunk, and particularly during a full moon-a nightmare. His drum solo, the 20-minute-long "Moby Dick,"
was a concert crowd-pleaser and an opportunity for Jimmy to go back into the dressing room for some sexual activity. Once, Jimmy
went back to the hotel during the drum solo. After the show, everyone went to Busters to see Buddy Guy play guitar with a small amp
perched on top of a pinball machine. The next morning, Jimmy came to my room in the Ambassador East Hotel around noon for
breakfast. He often wouldn't eat for days on tour (he weighed 130 pounds and wanted to get down to 125), but this time he'd been
making vitamin-enriched banana daiquiris in his room-for sustenance. In Peter Grant's ornate suite (the only one Zsa Zsa Gabor stays
in when she's in Chicago), Peter reminisced about a Midwest hotel clerk from the last tour who admitted that the worst trashing of
hotel rooms had occurred during a Methodist youth convention. "The guy was so frustrated about not being able to just go bonkers in
a room himself," Peter said, "that I told him to go and have one on us. He went upstairs, tossed a TV set against the wall, tore up the
bed, and I paid the $490 bill." Late that night at the Bistro, Bonzo-the man known as "the Beast" when he got wild-was sitting quietly
in a booth, alone. "You know my wife is expecting again in July," he told me. "She's really terrific, the type of lady that when you
walk into our house she comes right out with a cup of tea, or a drink, or a sandwich. We met when we were 16, got married at 17. I
was a carpenter for a few years; I'd get up at seven in the morning, then change my clothes in the van to go to gigs at night. How do
you think I feel, not being taken seriously, coming in after Karen Carpenter in the Playboy poll.... Karen Carpenter ... what a load of
shit."
January 31, 1975, New York City to Detroit: On the plane, Jimmy was having a heated discussion with a reporter from the London
Daily Express. "You're not supposed to make intelligent remarks," said the reporter, smirking. Uh-oh. After we landed in Detroit, in
the car on the way to Olympia Stadium, Jimmy was incredulous. "Can you believe that man referred to my guitar playing as a trade?"
During Bonzo's drum solo, the other band members went into the dressing room. The reporter tried to follow, but was stopped by
Richard Cole, who said the band was having a "meeting." The reporter was enraged: "I write for 10 million people and I won't have
you humiliate me in front of a member of my staff!" The member of his "staff": a blonde woman swathed in rabbit fur. On the way
back to the plane, the reporter demanded that the radio be turned off in the car. "After two hours of that Led Zeppelin racket, I can't
stand any more!" Back on the Starship, people whispered in groups of twos and threes. Jimmy, who had been huddled under a red
blanket, suddenly came to life and got right back into the argument. "You don't want to know about my music-all you care about is the
grosses and the interior of the plane. You're a Communist!," Jimmy exclaimed. Meanwhile, Robert was muttering under his breath, "I
don't think he's such a bad bloke. Ten million people read the paper. Me mum and dad read the paper. The singer was good ... " Jimmy
started yelling about the way he had voted in the last election, someone threw a drink at the reporter, and a scuffle ensued. The
reporter got more belligerent. All of a sudden, Richard Cole stood in the aisle holding a gun. I had never seen a gun before. We were
25,000 feet in the air. I cowered in my seat. Nervous glances all around. Silence. Two of the band's security guards (off-duty
policemen) walked over and stood next to Richard. "for christ's sake," Bonzo yelled from the front of the plane, "will you all shut up?
i'm trying to get some sleep!"
February 3, 1975, New York City: The band was ensconced in the Plaza hotel, where every so often, in the middle of the night, tour
photographer Neal Preston had to give them a slide show of every picture he shot, for their approval. Shouts of "Flab!" could be heard
as they made fun of one another during the cumbersome process that often took hours. Jimmy hated his suite, which he said looked
like "the fucking Versailles palace." The TV set didn't work because the black candles he had in his room dripped down into it. The
volume of the Lucifer Rising screenings was so loud he was afraid he'd be thrown out of the hotel. John Paul Jones either had a secret
life or just kept to himself; most of the time, the only time anyone saw him was at the shows. Bonzo's suite had a pool table. We all
left the Plaza and walked down the street to the Nirvana restaurant for some Indian food. "Have you got any fresh dania?" Robert
asked, showing off to the waiters. "I know about this food; I'm married to an Indian," he said. Jimmy laughed: "So you tell them every
time you come here." I told them that John Lennon heard "Stairway to Heaven" and loved it. "He's only just heard it now?," Robert
said.
February 1975, backstage at Madison Square Garden: Perhaps as an answer to Truman Capote's hanging around the Stones, William
Burroughs was there, enlisted to interview Jimmy for the underground rock magazine Crawdaddy. (Burroughs came to a show, spent
two sessions interviewing Jimmy, then wrote mostly about himself and arcane black-magic practices.) Mick Jagger stopped by to
check out the sound system. In Los Angeles, David Geffen came to see Peter Grant, and George Harrison showed up at a party and
threw some cake at Bonzo-who then threw the former Beatle in the pool. But Zeppelin did not draw a celebrity crowd; no Andy
Warhol or Liza Minnelli or the Studio 54 gang. Led Zeppelin was just not fashionable.
August 4, 1975: While vacationing in Greece, Robert Plant and his family were in a serious car crash. They were airlifted back to
London. His wife, Maureen, was in intensive care with a broken pelvis and fractured skull, his seven-year-old daughter, Carmen, had a
broken wrist, and his four-year-old son, Karac, a fractured leg. Robert suffered multiple fractures of the elbow, ankle, and other bones.
All of the rest of the band's concerts for 1975 were canceled.
No one knows how long this can go on. Look at Sinatra. He came to terms with his age and the time, and we can do that, too. Who do
they say is getting old and can't do it anymore-Jagger? Oh, he'll go on forever and ever. --Robert Plant, 1977.
In 1977, for the heavy-rock fan, there still was no greater group than Led Zeppelin. But the big news in England was the Sex Pistols
and the Clash. In New York, it was the punk scene at CBGB. The members of Zeppelin were portrayed by some in the press as
bloated, self-regarding dinosaurs. Self-doubt started to creep into the band's conversations. And the heroin that became an unspoken
fact of life around the band, management, and crew didn't help. Doctors accompanied the band on tours to minister to their medical
needs and write prescriptions. According to someone close to the band, the drugs were getting so out of hand that there were times
onstage when Jimmy would be playing a completely different song than the rest of the band.
We're not heavy metal. Heavy metal is so unhealthy, it's luring kids into a kind of confusion. With rock 'n' roll or rockabilly, it was
about sex and revolt. But this is a demented dwarf giving strange hand signals as he walks out of a volcano onstage. Or someone with
a tongue three feet long wheeling it around.
April 7, 1977, Chicago: Late at night after the show, Jimmy talked about the band's reputation ("We haven't really stopped") and the
rumors ("I must have had a good time"). Either very tired or very stoned, he slurred his words. Later, in another room, Robert, as
always, joked: "All this stuff about us being barbarians is perpetuated by the road crew. They check into hotels under our names. They
run up disgusting room-service bills and then they take the women of the town by storm by applying masks of the four members of the
group. It gets us a bad name. And sells a lot of records." He added, "I've met members of the opposite sex who were only eight or nine
when we first went into a studio ... and they're great fucks."
Around June 1977 everything started to go terribly wrong. Bill Graham, who escaped Nazi Germany, was the larger-than-life
promoter in San Francisco, the founder of the Fillmores West and East, and a highly regarded man in the music business. He always
thought that the band brought an unpleasant element of male aggression to their shows. When the band performed the first of two
shows for Graham in Oakland on June 23, 1977, Peter Grant's 11-year-old son, Warren, tried to remove a led zeppelin sign from a
dressing-room trailer. According to Graham, one of his security guards told the child nicely that he couldn't have it. According to
Bonzo, who said he saw it from the stage, the guard hit the kid. A hideous, violent scene followed. Peter Grant, Bonzo, and John
Bindon, a thug who'd been hired for extra security, beat up Graham's man while Richard Cole stood guard outside the trailer.
Graham's staffer was rushed, bleeding, to the hospital. The band refused to do the next day's show unless Graham signed a paper
absolving the band of guilt. Graham, fearing a riot if Zeppelin didn't play, signed the paper after being assured it was legally
worthless. After the show, Peter Grant, Richard Cole, John Bonham, and John Bindon were arrested at their hotel. A civil case
dragged on for more than a year, was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, and Bill Graham-no pussycat himself when it came
to intimidation (verbal, not physical)-devoted an entire chapter to the episode in his posthumously published 1992 autobiography.
(Reportedly, when a sobered-up Peter Grant read it, he cried.)
The rumors continued. Limo drivers, always ready to blab, gossiped that the band's hopped-up road managers and bodyguards stormed
into drugstores and, threatening physical force, demanded that prescriptions be filled. A restaurant had been trashed and waiters
humiliated in Pennsylvania. It was understood that (with the exception of Bonzo in Oakland) the band members were never involved
in these incidents; it is likely that they didn't even know about them at the time. Still, the crew was hired in the band's name and
represented them and it all took its toll.
Then, two weeks after the Oakland incident, as the band checked into the Maison Dupuy Hotel in New Orleans, Robert got a phone
call at the front desk, took it upstairs in his room, and was told that after being rushed to the hospital with a mysterious respiratory
infection his five-year-old son, Karac, had died.
Robert, accompanied by Richard, Bonzo, and assistant Dennis Sheehan, immediately flew back to England. The U.S. tour-a tour
marked by increasing turmoil, tension, drug use, violence, and estrangement among band members-was over. Robert, devastated by
his son's death (and reportedly upset too that Jimmy and Peter had not attended the funeral), went into seclusion.
The press wrote about Jimmy's "bad karma" and his interest in Aleister Crowley. They dredged up all sorts of crackpot theories about
a "Zeppelin curse" and suggested that Page and the band (but especially Page)-like blues great Robert Johnson, supposedly, years
before-had made a "deal with the devil."
August 4, 1979, Knebworth, Hertfordshire: Peter Grant invited me to come see the band at Knebworth, site of one of the stately homes
of England, where Zeppelin would do their first shows in two years-two concerts for 300,000 people. The band sent me a round-trip
Concorde ticket, then put me up in a Holiday Inn. Typical Zeppelin: high-low. Before the show, Bonzo told me that he watched his
11-year-old son, Jason, sit in on drums during the sound check: "He can play 'Trampled Underfoot' perfectly," he said. "It's the first
time I've ever seen Led Zeppelin." Very few people were allowed in the closed-off backstage enclave that housed the dressing-room
trailers. The band seemed nervous. "Now, don't you go and say this is nostalgia," Robert said to me. (In truth, with Blitz, the hottest
club in London, drawing drag queens in science-fiction outfits, this massive denim-clad audience-10 years after Woodstock-did seem
like a throwback to another age.) With Robert was his wife, Maureen, and daughter, Carmen. His six-month-old baby boy, Logan, was
at home with his grandparents. Jimmy Page flew in by helicopter to the site a half-hour before the show with his girlfriend, Charlotte.
No longer in his white satin pop-star outfit, he wore a blue silk shirt and baggy cream-colored trousers. The band played for three and
a half hours, the audience sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" for 15 minutes after the third encore, and Robert appeared to be crying
backstage. I hung out for hours after the show with Jimmy Page and Ron Wood's wife, Chrissie-both of whom seemed totally out of it.
Zeppelin certainly was not the same band that had stepped onstage 10 years ago. For those of us who'd seen the band at their peak,
they were more than just rusty; the wit and the wonder weren't really there. But Knebworth was to be a new beginning, and everyone
was excited about a 1980 tour.
A little over a year later, on September 25, 1980, after a night of overeating and drinking, John Bonham choked to death in his sleep at
age 32 at Jimmy Page's house. Two weeks later, the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin met with Peter Grant at the Savoy hotel
in London and issued a statement that said, in part, "We can no longer continue the way we were." Because of the ambiguity of that
statement, speculation ran rampant for months that the band would reunite with another drummer. And even though no one involved
would admit it, it was rumored that the three did get together and rehearse with other drummers to see if it would work. But nothing
ever came of it. No one had the interest, or the heart, for Zeppelin without Bonham. "When John died, there was a big hole in
Zeppelin," John Paul Jones told me years later. "The Who and the Stones are song-based bands, but Zeppelin wasn't like that. We did
things differently every night, and we were all tied to each other onstage. I couldn't even think how to do this without John."
The few "spontaneous" reunions of the three surviving Zeppelin members-1985's Live Aid concert and Atlantic Records' 40th
anniversary in 1988-were abysmal. The band was out of practice, out of time, and out of tune. But most of the audience, who had
never seen the group in its heyday, didn't know the difference. In 1994, Plant and Page did an Unledded show together for MTV,
toured with Egyptian musicians, and released two albums (and did not include a very displeased Jones). All three stood together for
Zep's 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (where Jones pointedly thanked "my friends for finally remembering my
phone number"). Plant, who told me he "refused to be one of the dying embers of poodle rock," always insisted that there could be no
Zeppelin reunion, because "no one could ever replace Bonzo" and "we weren't going to give anyone the opportunity."
I think the bands that rip off Zeppelin have got great gall. And I think when Willie Dixon turned on the radio in Chicago 20 years after
he wrote his blues, he thought, that's my song. When we ripped it off, I said to Jimmy, "Hey, that's not our song." And he said, "Shut
up and keep walking."
2003: Richard Cole is a recovering alcoholic who hasn't had a drink since 1986. He's worked closely with Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne
and is in demand to tour-manage young bands. Peter Grant died of a heart attack in 1995 at age 60. John Bindon, the bodyguard
involved in the Oakland incident, died of pneumonia in 1993. Bill Graham died in a helicopter crash in 1991. In the past 23 years,
Jimmy Page has worked with musicians as diverse as singer David Coverdale (a Robert Plant imitator) and former Bad Company
singer Paul Rodgers, and recently toured with the Black Crowes. John Paul Jones has done string arrangements for, among others,
R.E.M. and has toured with avant-garde vocalist Diamanda Galas. Of all the members of Zeppelin, Robert Plant has had the most
successful solo career.
However, last year, the word was that Robert was not happy opening up arena shows for the Who. His manager reportedly said to him,
"Here's a phone number of a guitarist. Here's a phone number of a bass player. Call them up and you can headline any stadium
anywhere in the world." Rumors of Zeppelin reunions surface as regularly as Elvis Presley sightings. When all three came to New
York last May for the premiere of the DVD and CD live archival sets (featuring material Page bought from bootleggers and then spent
more than a year synching up, mixing, producing, and remastering), the reunion buzz started all over again. But those who knew Page
and Plant wondered if their egos could coexist for a week's worth of promotional activities, much less a prolonged reunion concert
tour.
May 28, 2003, the Plaza Hotel, New York City: A very clear-eyed Jimmy Page still only wants to talk about the music. "I can
understand why we got bad reviews," he says. "We went right over people's heads. One album would follow another and would have
nothing to do with what we'd done before. People didn't know what was going on." He coyly referred to the band's reputation as
"offstage antics" and said, "We were doing three-and-a-half-hour concerts. We unleashed floodgates of music. By the end of that, you
come offstage and you're not going back to the hotel to have a cup of cocoa. Of course it was crazy; of course it was a mad life." Later,
in another room, Robert Plant said, "How can we be reviled in so many different generations and then find out that we were people's
favorite band? We were considered underground, and I've got band members whose parents wouldn't let them listen to us; they
thought it was the devil's music. We questioned the whole order of things, and not just for one or two albums, but for 10 years. We
took a whole core of people who knew we were nothing like Bobby Goldsboro, or Rod Stewart. Led Zeppelin wasn't an aerobics
session. It was dealing with the devil, taking all that beautiful blues music, and screwing around with it."
There's a tune left in us somewhere. We have a tune somewhere, the three of us. We could go back somehow, at some point, to that
chord. And that chord has no color-it's open to whatever dictation we give it. At some point.
Cite this article
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APA
Robinson, Lisa. "Stairway to excess.(heyday of rock group Led Zeppelin)." Vanity Fair. 2003. Retrieved September 24, 2010 from
accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7037836_ITM
MLA
Robinson, Lisa. "Stairway to excess.(heyday of rock group Led Zeppelin)." Vanity Fair. Conde Nast Publications, Inc. 2003.
AccessMyLibrary. 24 Sep. 2010 <http://www.accessmylibrary.com>.
Chicago
Robinson, Lisa. "Stairway to excess.(heyday of rock group Led Zeppelin)." Vanity Fair. 2003. accessmylibrary. (September 24, 2010).
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-7037836_ITM
Stairway to Here.(Led Zeppelin at the O Arena in London, United Kingdom)

(Concert review)
The New Yorker
| December 24, 2007 | Frere-Jones, Sasha
Last Monday, in London, Led Zeppelin played its first full live set since 1980, at the O Arena--formerly the Millennium Dome--
which seats twenty-two thousand and was built in 1999, during the early, optimistic days of Tony Blair's tenure. (The giant spiked
dome looks like a satellite that has crashed to earth, been filled with air, and turned into a mall done up with holographic snowflakes
and futuristic blue lights.) Twenty million people applied in an online lottery for tickets to the concert and crashed the computer
system. Before the show, tickets were going for more than a thousand dollars apiece on eBay. After all, this was a reunion that was not
supposed to happen. Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980, following the death of its drummer, John Bonham, and since then the remaining
members--the singer, Robert Plant, the guitarist, Jimmy Page, and the bassist, John Paul Jones--have made only three public
appearances together, none well received. In a recent interview, Plant cited the low quality of these performances, including one at a
Live Aid concert in 1985, as an impetus for reuniting to play "one last great show," with Bonham's son, Jason, on drums.
The show was billed as a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records, who signed the band in 1968 and died in 2006,
and who came as close to being universally beloved as any music executive could be. Ertegun's careful nurturing of acts like Ray
Charles and Led Zeppelin is often cited as evidence of the kind of patient temperament now lacking at major labels. As eager to score
hits as any other record man, he seemed just as determined to let artists muck about. To the chagrin of other Atlantic executives and
record-store employees everywhere, Ertegun allowed Led Zeppelin to release its fourth album, "Led Zeppelin IV" (1971), without
any words on the jacket. (The album is the band's biggest seller and the fourth-biggest-selling album of all time.)
My affection for Led Zeppelin is limitless and somewhat irrational. I often say that my respect for the band's music is mathematical:
there are fewer bad songs on its eight studio albums than on anyone else's. But such shaky calculations mask what is an involuntary
response to the music. John Bonham played the drums as if the fate of the universe depended on how hard he could hit them; he could
both dissolve a song and send it rocketing forward. Bonham played rope-a-dope with the clock: sometimes his accents arrive a tiny bit
behind the beat; at others, they land a split second ahead. (If you can isolate Bonham's placement of the hi-hat, kick drum, and cowbell
on "Good Times, Bad Times"--never mind the tomtom rolls, themselves a prizeworthy achievement--you'll have heard proof that 4/4
time is limiting only if you believe it is.) Page's guitar playing was born during an era of British reverence for the American blues, but
it went somewhere else entirely, drawing on acoustic English folk guitarists like Bert Jansch and on a battery of studio effects that
made his work irreproducible and strange. Listen to Page's sound on "Custard Pie," a song from the 1975 album "Physical Graffiti"
which was stitched together from a handful of famous blues numbers. Page, like many other rock guitarists, uses a Marshall amplifier,
but the result is simultaneously nasty, small, and big, as though a tornado were happening inside a tin can. Jones, officially the band's
bassist, was equally skilled on the keyboards. The sepulchral electric piano chords that open "No Quarter," from "Houses of the Holy"
(1973), could be ambient music, and Jones's electric-piano part on the heavy and freewheeling "Misty Mountain Hop," from "Led
Zeppelin IV," makes the song sound like one extended bass line, though it contains no bass.
Plant is the member of the band who is most likely to be mocked. Those tight jeans! That long, unmanly hair! Those open shirts!
Those operatic high notes! What a peacock! But his work is unique and unpredictable. His lyrics for Led Zeppelin were oddly eco-
friendly--odes to ice, snow, trees, and England's sylvan beauty (several songs were inspired by "The Lord of the Rings")--and, in
retrospect, his singing, which often sounded distinctly un-Western, seemed to anticipate the globalization of pop. This may be one
reason that so many rock critics at first misunderstood Plant; his keening high notes make him sound more like a muezzin than like a
blues singer, and his cackles and screeches don't belong to any particular pop tradition. Since Led Zeppelin disbanded, Plant has
remained active. He has released ten albums, including, in October, "Raising Sand," a calm and gorgeous collection of country and R.
& B. covers that he recorded with the singer Alison Krauss.
For Led Zeppelin, whose music is so rhythmic, hard, and loud, the perils of undertaking a reunion in late middle age are greater than
they might be for, say, Bob Dylan or Neil Young, who began their careers sounding like old men. Led Zeppelin's catalogue is in large
part a testament to young men and their libidinal drive: lemons squeezed, inches of love delivered. (Plant, as he put it in the song
"Hey, Hey, What Can I Do," attended to women who wanted to "ball all day," while Dylan sang about going his way while you went
yours.) Still, it's unlikely that you will see another band with a collective age of two hundred and twenty-four that is as ferocious as
this one. (Page, the oldest member, is sixty-three; Jason Bonham, the youngest, is forty-one.)
The O Arena is not hospitable to amplified sound, and the audio quality depended largely on where you were sitting. From where I sat,
fairly far from the stage, Plant seemed to be singing over a big muddle. Heard from the floor, the group sounded hard and coherent,
and close to the stage the sound was fierce. Plant is no longer the priapic castrato (mull that one) that he once was--many of the songs
were transposed down a few notes--but his charisma is undiminished. Before playing "Nobody's Fault But Mine," from 1976, he joked
that the band first heard the song performed at a Mississippi church in 1932. During another break, he noted that people from fifty
countries had come to the show. "This is the fifty-first," Plant said, as the band launched into "Kashmir," from "Physical Graffiti," the
evening's highlight.
"Kashmir" is as good an example as any of Zeppelin's weird genius. The lumbering riff pits three guitar beats against two drumbeats,
executing a Sisyphean march that cycles over and over without becoming tiresome; on the record, it is the shortest eight-and-a-half-
minute song I know. Its minute-long breakdown is like one long drum sample, held together by the motion of John Bonham's dancing
right foot. (P. Diddy and Schoolly D have rapped over "Kashmir.") The lyrics are allegedly inspired by the Sahara Desert--"the storm
that leaves no trace"--and the combination of strings, guitar, and Mellotron keyboard has often been described as Middle Eastern. In
concert, though, it became clear that "Middle Eastern" is just one way of capturing an implausibly big and eerie song that wanders
through a spooky fog in enormous boots and could just as easily be about settling on the moon or diving to the bottom of the ocean.
Led Zeppelin version 2.0 did a magnificent job with it. Plant's voice was rich and strong, and the mingling of Page's guitar with
Jones's keyboards was thrilling. The distorted whine could have been a cue in a summer-blockbuster score, perhaps for the moment
when the dragon decides to eat Baltimore. Jason Bonham is a fussier player than his father was, and a bit anxious for my taste, but he
provided the necessary weight, in a song that could easily make an average drummer seem desperate.
There were several moments when Page's complex compositions defeated him as a performer. "Stairway to Heaven" was one of the
few numbers that never quite hung together, mostly because of the fast, tricky figures, which Page struggled to nail. (His inaccuracies
have long been part of his charm.) On the recorded version, the transitions between the seven sections are metrically subtle and
dramatically balanced--the song is famous for more than hedgerows--but at the O Arena the narrative line eluded the band. By
contrast, the encore rendition of "Whole Lotta Love" (1969), a song not about making love but about fucking, was gloriously brutal
and noisy. During the middle section, which expands into noise before the reprise of the main riff, Page played his guitar with a violin
bow, unleashing a blizzard of sound that made the recorded version seem timid.
In November, the English rock band the Cult announced that it planned to tour in 2008 with a band whose name starts with an "l" and
has a "z" in it, and rumors have floated that next summer Led Zeppelin is going to play at the Bonnaroo Music Festival, in Tennessee.
This might seem like a good idea, but Led Zeppelin is a cover band now, covering its own material. Without John Bonham, the band
can only sound like Led Zeppelin; it can't be Led Zeppelin. The band should turn down the money and let its record stand. The failed
gigs of the nineteen-eighties and nineties have been supplanted by a triumph, and the band should be pleased to have done Ertegun
proud with such a spirited performance. I look forward to any chance I get to see Plant, Page, or Jones play live. But let the songs
remain.
Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.
APA
Frere-Jones, Sasha. "Stairway to Here.(Led Zeppelin at the O Arena in London, United Kingdom)(Concert review)." The New Yorker. 2007.
Retrieved September 24, 2010 from accessmylibrary: http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-33727035_ITM
MLA
Frere-Jones, Sasha. "Stairway to Here.(Led Zeppelin at the O Arena in London, United Kingdom)(Concert review)." The New Yorker. Conde
Nast Publications, Inc. 2007. AccessMyLibrary. 24 Sep. 2010 <http://www.accessmylibrary.com>.
Chicago
Frere-Jones, Sasha. "Stairway to Here.(Led Zeppelin at the O Arena in London, United Kingdom)(Concert review)." The New Yorker. 2007.
accessmylibrary. (September 24, 2010). http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-33727035_ITM

Robert Plant Loves To Dig in America

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Robert Plant loves to dig in America's rich musical soil

9/14/2010 4:14 PM |

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Nashville fan: Robert Plant has spent a lot of time

By Brian Mansfield, Special for USA TODAY

1. ^ a b "Led Zeppelin Biography". Rolling Stone. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/ledzeppelin/biography.

[edit] Published sources

By Rolling Stone

Mar 28, 2010 12:20 PM EDT

Robert Plant: The Rolling Stone Interview

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December 11, 2007|Kim Murphy, Times Staff Writer

A large number of the couples were father and son

Illustration by Mark Stutzman

Led Zeppelin book excerpt: ‘When Giants Walked the Earth’

EDITOR’S NOTE: This excerpt, “Chapter Eleven: We Are Your Overlords,”

For Led Zeppelin, third time was the charm

Robert Plant brings much ‘Joy’ to the Bowery

Robert Plant's Band of Joy will be released in September

--Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder, Atlantic Records, 2003.

--Robert Plant, 1973.

--Jimmy Page, 1973.

--Robert Plant, 1975.

--Robert Plant, 1977.

--Robert Plant, 1985.

--Robert Plant, 2003.

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Stairway to Here.(Led Zeppelin at the O Arena in London, United Kingdom)

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