The Yardbirds Dazed And Confused 1968 | Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

The Yardbirds - Dazed and Confused . . . . . 1968

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

For all those who though it was a Led Zep original here Jimmy just lifted it straight from the Yards to his new Yardbird incarnation bandmates Robert and John Bonham and bassist John Paul notwithstanding making it overall somewhat heavier! Sorry John Paul but a bass is a bass is a bass and fine effort you did but the original here is not far off hey? Plant and Bonham transform it into a another league entirely

Jimmy Page 81!

Happy 81st birthday to Jimmy Page!

Image credit: Mirrorpix

Never the greatest fan of Jimmy post the first two Led Zeppelin albums which I still think were revolutionary but the master of the riff is little else in my humble opinion not the greatest soloist as many would have it. Still 81 is an event worth noticing and the effect that the first two album had on most of us shouldn’t be minimised. There was definitely something going on and the band as a quartet achieved something quite mystical almost (ask Robert Plant!) the sum being greater than the parts as ‘there and nothing wrong with riffing either IMHO but since there is little he has achieved outside of this and Jeff Beck and folks have wrapped up his credit quite succinctly else where. The main reason I post this here is his acknowledged debt to Lonnie Donegan and I can only agree and worshipped Lonnie early on much like Jimmy did! ‘Puttin’On The Style’indeed

Led Zeppelin at the Gladsaxe Teen Club in Gladsaxe, Denmark

March 17, 1969

"I know this is heavily circulated but this is always a very fun listen..

However I can say this video is unique in that I boosted the bass a bit.. ;)

Also instead of just downloading this from YouTube, I used the original bootleg and video, just for the sake of quality.” 

https://www.youtube.com/@LedZeppelinRarities

 

“I wanted to have my own approach to what I did. I didn’t want to … do a carbon copy of B.B. King, but I really love the blues. The blues had so much effect on me and I just wanted to make my own contribution in my own way.”

Jimmy’s story as a musician begins with the song that changed his life: Lonnie Donegan’s “Rock Island line,” a big hit in England in 1955 as performed by the Scottish-born singer. it’s an American blues to and about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad line. It was first recorded by John and Alan Lomax in Arkansas prison, and later made famous by the Louisiana blues legend Lead Belly. Jimmy had heard Donegan’s version many times on the radio, and even owned the record, but he wasn’t inspired to pick up the guitar until the day he heard Rod Wyatt, a kid at school, play it on his. Jimmy told Rod about the guitar he had at home, and Rob promised that if Jimmy brought it in, he’d show him how to tune it and play a few chords.

“It was a campfire guitar … but it did have all the strings on it which is pretty useful because I wouldn’t have known where to get guitar strings from. And then [Rod] showed me how to tune it up … and then I started strumming away like not quite like — not quite like Lonnie Donegan, but I was having a go.”

Donegan took the past, owned the present, and influenced a generation of great rock musicians. “He really understood all that stuff, Lonnie Donegan,” Page says. “But this is the way that he sort of, should we say, jazzed it up or skiffled it up. By the time you get to the end of this he’s really spitting it out … he keeps singing ‘Rock Island line, Rock Island’ [and] you really get this whole staccato aspect of it. It’s fantastic stuff! So many guitarist from the Sixties will all say Lonnie Donegan was [their] influence.”

From Your Song Changed My Life by Bob Boilen.

Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused (Live at The Royal Albert Hall 1970)

 Damn! This gal can rock it! There was criticism on the Facebook page this morning who I found posting it that this is way inferior to Led Zepp’s original! I’d go get your ears checked. Its s a perfectly ( and I use the word advisedly) legitimate cover of a great great number and the backing band a pretty damn good too . So There . . . . . . . . !

Beth Hart - Black Dog 

from two years ago . . . . . . . 

Led Zeppelin - 1979-08-04 - Knebworth, UK - So Many Roads to Ease My Soul (A Speedy Special)

LED ZEPPELIN - THE END OF ROCK ’n’ ROLL 1979

Led Zeppelin KNEBWORTH 79 - so many roads

As Speedy says in his comprehensive introduction:

 

Led Zeppelin, who had taken the rock world by storm earlier in 1969 with their ground breaking debut album, was invited to play Woodstock. The band declined, opting to play 2 shows at the convention  center in Asbury Park instead. The band's manager, Peter Grant, apparently decided that headlining their own concert was preferable, explaining "I said no because at Woodstock we'd have just been another band on the bill."  Of course, that explanation seems a bit hollow given that the band played the Texas Pop Festival on August 31, 1969, just 2 weeks after Woodstock where they were just one of over a dozen bands on the bill!

A decade after Woodtsock, Led Zeppelin found themselves on the grounds at Knebworth House, located 26 miles north of London. The site hosted its first rock festival in 1974, when the Allman Brothers, Van Morrison and The Doobie Brothers took the stage in front of 60,000 fans (go here for more on Knebworth's history). Additional festivals were held in 1975, 1976, and 1978 with acts such as The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Genesis. No Knebworth show might have been more anticipated, however, than the one in 1979, when Led Zeppelin agreed to perform. For Led Zep, it would be their first live show since the death of Robert Plant's son in 1977, and their first show in the UK in 4 years. Ticket demand for the initial August 4 performance was so great that a second show was added on August 11. Zeppelin would return to the stage in front of over 400,000 fans during those 2 days, reinforcing their place at the time as rock's biggest act. Their shows would also feature the first live performances of tunes from their soon to be released album. In Through The Out Door. Some reviews claimed the band sounded rusty -- hardly surprising after a 2 year lay off - and the band members themselves were not completely satisfied with their performance. Maybe they sensed it was the beginning of the end. Led Zep's original line up would never again perform live in their home country. In fact, within a year, John Bonham would be dead and Led Zeppelin would be no more. Download this soundboard of their 1st Knebworth show from 45 years ago today, August 4, 1979, therefore, to capture their next to last live performance in England.

Led Zeppein

1979-08-04

1979 Knebworth Festival

Knebworth, England

Soundboard Recording

320 kbps

CD 1:

01. Introduction

02. The Song Remains The Same

03. Celebration Day

04. Black Dog

05. Nobody's Fault But Mine

06. Over The Hills And Far Away

07. Misty Mountain Hop

08. Since I've Been Loving You

09. No Quarter

CD 2:

01. Ten Years Gone

02. Hot Dog

03. The Rain Song

04. White Summer - Black Mountain Side

05. Kashmir

06. Trampled Underfoot

07. Sick Again

08. Achilles Last Stand

CD 3:

01. Guitar Solo

02. In The Evening

03. Stairway To Heaven

04. Rock And Roll

05. Whole Lotta Love

06. Heartbreaker

This is far from the best I’ve heard but I am spoiled [and choosy - ED] and this is highly listenable and high quality so well worth the checking it out!

LED ZEPPELIN FANS - KNEBWORTH 1979

Song of the Day | Classics revisited | Led Zeppelin - Thank You

O My Soul

Led Zeppelin - Thank You

Really to state the obvious thanks to the guys at HQ FLOPPY BOOT STOMP who posted the Led Zepp from the BBC Paris Theatre 1971 t’other day . . . . . it is featured LARGE in the house vaults playlist

y’ere ’tis! . . .

Also this month (May) comes this about legendary band leader and creative enigma: KEITH RELF

 On the 14 of this month back in 1976, Keith Relf was electrocuted.

"The former frontman and singer with The Yardbirds was in his basement studio when an ungrounded amp resulted in a bizarre almost Spinal Tap-like rock casualty. Relf was only 33.

In the years since the Yardbirds went their separate ways having featured both Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck in 1968, Relf stayed musically active; first with the duo Together, then immediately thereafter with the art-prog group Renaissance. Both acts included Yardbirds drummer/multi-instrumentalist Jim McCarty, while the latter act included Relf’s sister Jane. Posted above (see below)  is some live footage of the act, prior to Keith’s departure.

In 1974, Keith founded Armageddon with ex-members of Steamhammer and Captain Beyond. They released a single self-titled album in 1975; it was well-received but Relf’s health issues (he was developing emphysema) and managerial issues led to its dissolution before a single tour had been staged, making their high quality work swiftly forgotten (but you can read about it and hear it here: 

https://metalstorm.net/pub/article.php?article_id=1218

Keith was making plans to work again with members of Renaissance (in an act eventually called Illusion) at the time of his death. He left a wife and two sons."

Renaissance - Kings and Queens

the link as shared by the source doesn’t play in the UK so this version is equally good and interesting . . . . . .a transitional era for the band and for Relf remained a something of an enigmatic character from the R’n’B source with the Yardbirds (from which Led Zeppelin arose like a phoenix) but Relf never seems to settle and his vocals at time limited (the recording live quality of the sixties letting him down) but that he was a band leader and catalyst is undeniable! Not widely known for his guitar work here he showed forth and why would have previously featuring future stars like Page and Beck!? Extraordinary and at once a tragic end to a man possessed of great creative powers. He was survived by his wife and children

Over Under Sideways Down anyone?

Renaissance - Island [feat Keith Relf and sister Jane Relf]

LED ZEPPELIN - ODDS AND ENDS [SOUTHAMPTON SOUNDCHECK, + BRADFORD AND DUNDEE] - Hear Rock City

 The final part of the Led Zeppelin from 1973 from Smoker at Hear Rock City comes this collection of Odd and Ends including Southampton legendary boot's soundcheck! Which I for one hadn’t heard before I don’t think . . . . . again as ever Hear Rock City offers two sources for this, file factory or work upload (who I love!)

Led Zeppelin - Odds and Ends [Southampton Soundcheck, Bradford and Dundee] - Hear Rock City

This finishes Smoker's covering of the 1973 British tour selections and well worth it too!

Enjoy!

Oh and TURN IT UP!

1973 Houses Of The Holy Tour | LED ZEPPELIN : OXFORD & LIVERPOOL | HEAR ROCK CITY

Led Zeppelin - Oxford and Liverpool - Hear Rock City

Wow! -  the Zeppelin from Liverpool to Oxford my journey too . . . my birth place to my home!

Don’t quite know how they managed to fit in the New Theatre but hey, I missed it anyway, having just left home to go to college so this is most welcome . . . not half bad quality as it goes!

This is great fun and TURN IT RIGHT UP!

"DAZED & CONFUSED" JAKE HOLMES [the ORIGINAL] 1967 | PSYCHEDELIC JUNGLE

The YouTube poster of this ORIGINAL song notes

Dazed and Confused was written by the folk-rock singer Jake Holmes and released as a track in his debut album "The Above Ground Sound" Of Jake Holmes in 1967. That same year Jake Holmes opened for The Yardbirds in a show in New York where Jimmy Page heard the song. The song was rearranged and later became one of Led Zeppelin best-known songs, the debt to Jake Holmes however went largely unacknowledged by the band until 2012. 

The superb and always fascinating psychedelic jungle notes also

"The songs I like : Jake Holmes - Dazed and Confused (1967).

Page heard this song when Holmes was opening for the Yardbirds, and he covered it. Without crediting the original author. Page doesn’t like having to. Without Led Zeppelin, this song would have remained in the shadows, but still… a little mention of the author would have been honest. Page finally reached an out-of-court settlement with Holmes… in 2012! It is for this type of fact (among others, because it is not the most disturbing of the long list of stupid things committed during their great career) that, although I love their music (especially the first album in fact) I have not a lot of esteem for this group, humanly speaking.

Finally: the original version of Jake Holmes is excellent!!!” 

Jimmy what did you think would happen?

Robert? What did Jimmy tell you? He’d written a song whilst with the Yardbirds that you should cover?!

Prolly! I admire Robert immensely and his later career is an inspiration as much as the first two Led Zeppelin albums were groundbreaking and truly astonishing but as for Jimmy? Not so much . . . . . . 

Hell there’s even a magazine named after HOLMES' song!

It is called just desserts and you let the side down with this behaviour . . . . . . . . . 

 It is a cultural artefact

with an emphasis on the FACT! The singing and the descending bass accompaniment are straight lifts never mind the vocals and expression and delivery LET ALONE THE WORDS! written in 1967 and you sorted it out when? 45 years later . . . . . . . . . 

SHAME!

Led Zeppelin - Destroyer Final Edition - Cleveland, OH. 1977 - VOODOO WAGON

 

So the Boss over at HQ posted a legendary Led Zeppelin triple ROIO despite my insane struggles to sort getting this, the link and download are all now totally fine and it’s really worth the effort!

Led Zeppelin - Destroyer The Definitive Edition - Voodoo Wagon

See the notes posted by Silent Way for the extensive history of this indispensable boot!

Now this may not be my preferred era for the Zeppsters (they were really getting a tad pompous by now for these ears) but the quality is beyond doubt and for fans and collectors alike you really need to have this one. It supersedes all other incarnations and is in FLAC format so is staggering quality

In My Time of Dying - Cleveland 1977 - DESTROYER 

Rock ’n’ Roll - Cleveland 1977 - DESTROYER

Soul Of A Woman Was Created Below . . .LED ZEPPELIN Scandinavian Broadcasts 1969 | HEAR ROCK CITY

 

This is really highly listenable and much better quality than I expected . . . . . . 

Early Led Zeppelin 1969 - The Scandinavian sets - Hear Rock City

sometime later . . . . . . 

Led Zeppelin. 30 April 1977. Pontiac Silverdome, Pontiac, Michigan. 

A record in attendance for the time with 76,229 people.

LED ZEPPELIN [Eelgrass, 3CD] Live at Madison Square Garden, New York, NY; June 7, 1977. - Big O

Led Zeppelin Madison Square Gardens 1977 - Big O

Oh you wanted it LOUD!

Breathtakingly good quality Led Zeppelin from Big O yesterday and you better download it now or it won’t be there long (7 days only!) . . . . it exists in various formats over the years and known widely as Magical Sound Boogie but the guys here have tinkered and tweaked it back up to maximum quality. Grab it now and turn it RIGHT UP to 11

The notes from Dime clear this up

Thanks to nakedeye25 for the remaster and for sharing the show at Dime.

nakedeye25 noted:

This is Zep’s first show of a six-show run at MSG in New York in 1977. The original release is the EVSD “Magical Sound Boogie”, which is a soundboard release of the show. For this remaster I used RipX to separate the original tracks into four wav stems each (Bass, Drums, Other, Vocal).

While it is not a perfect sound separation, it does a surprisingly good job at it. The good part is it does a nice job of separating out the bass, drums and vocals. The tricky part is it combines the keyboards, acoustic guitars, and electric guitars into one track. So please don’t confuse this with a muti-track mixdown…

Having said all that, I believe the results are good enough to share with the community. The original tape cuts are still there. No Quarter has a slight cut in it. Most of the end of Black Country Woman is missing as is the beginning of the next song Bron-Y-Aur Stomp. There is also a slight cut in Over The Top. I have applied some EQ to this recording as well. I also fixed some volume issues in places throughout the show. The tracks are now set up to run as one continuous show.

+ + + + +

pp25texas, Dime:

this sounds amazing to my ears. just about melted my speakers down to IN MY TIME OF DYING on the drive into work today. many, many thanks to the people responsible for making this recording and remaster happen. if you are on the fence trying to decide whether or not to grab this one (as I was), trust me grab it. you won’t be disappointed.

Brackstar, Dime:

What a gem this is. Incredible sound, well balanced, Jimmy is on fire, Robert is on point, & the band seems to be having a GREAT time. No idea who pressed ‘record’ to save this amazing show to tape, or who released it to the masses, but THANKS!

Nicky19, Dime:

Hello Nakedeye25, I Love this show. It’s a dream come true to have it in this sound quality. Thanks so much for the time and effort you put in. It’s greatly appreciated.

+ + + + +

and you know what? They are not wrong . . . . . . . . . . 

Alternate artwork:

Magical Sound Boogie - LED ZEPPELIN 1977 - Collectors Music Review

Robert Plant & Sandy Denny - Melody Maker Awards 1970

 

Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny outside Melody Maker’s Annual Poll Awards in London on September 15th, 1970. 

That night, Robert won Best Male Singer, while Sandy was chosen Best Female Singer. 

A year later the two duetted on the track ‘The Battle of Evermore’ for Led Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, which ended up being the only time a guest vocalist appeared on a Led Zeppelin song.

Led Zeppelin - The Battle Of Evermore

Acoustic  Guitar: Jimmy Page

Mandolin: Jimmy Page

Producer: Jimmy Page

Remastering  Engineer: John Davis

Vocals: Robert Plant

Vocals: Sandy Denny

Writer: Jimmy Page

Writer: Robert Plant

COLLECTOR'S EDITION : : LED ZEPPELIN 'UPON REQUEST' SOUTHAMPTON UNIVERSITY 1973 :: HEAR ROCK CITY

We have mentioned the legendary Great Missing Live Bootleg of Led Zeppelin at SOUTHAMPTON UNIVERSITY back in 1973 before and I still consider it the best ROIO of Led Zeppelin in their absolute prime. The volume and balance is fantastic and whilst the vocal takes a few phrases to get adjusted it is two albums worth of material that in my opinion is even better than THE MOTHERSHIP official release of Live Zepp!

Led Zeppelin - The Great Lost Bootleg v.2 - Hear Rock City

Hear Rock City says:

And As We Wind On Down The Road...

Another mega Zeppelin show.

Touring the all killer no filler fourth album.*

This time from Southampton,UK and the venue

is the university.

Looks like you got your moneys worth

at a Zep show,seems they would

play all night if they could.

* well by then Houses of The Holy had been released so it doesn't really feature specifically the 4th album per se but their entire output to date but anyway it is amongst the best performances ever and catches them at their absolute pinnacle. 

From here things started to go down hill after the tour takings (over a million dollars for the last nights takings in todays money!) were robbed from a hotel in New York and the excessive purchase of Hammerwood Park didn't really work as a stately home sized recording studio and failed and was boarded up in 1976. In 1975 Robert and his wife suffered a terrible car crash Plant suffered a broken ankle and Maureen was badly injured; a blood transfusion saved her life which required much of the following 12 months recuperating and they did not tour the following year. In 1977 Robert's beloved son Karac died of a terrible stomach illness aged 5. By the time 'Presence' was released that hit fans hard and was a critical failure for many (me included) and the signs from their live performances showed dark forces afoot and the indulgences of excess had really begin to take their toll. Presence received a mixed reaction among fans and the music press alike, with some critics suggesting that the band's excesses may have caught up with them. Page had begun using heroin during recording sessions for the album, a habit which may have affected the band's later live shows and studio recordings, although he has since denied this personally I think you can even hear his descent into chaos and then in 1980 John Bonham dies from his alcoholism and medication side effects. The song was pretty much over . . . . . . . . . 

Robert has of course gone on to rehabilitate himself and began his swansong of reinvention and apart from sporadic projects with Page, Plants musical direction has gone to other places revealing a new creativity reborn and hidden strengths (see Ailson Krauss, and Sensational Space Shifters

There are other versions of this Southampton  concert available  but they are largely the same and alter in only settings of balance and you could mistake them all for the other with a little tweaking of the graphic qualifier IMHO.

Enjoy! and TURN IT UP!

LED ZEPPELIN:: The Cutting Room Floor - FLOPPY BOOT STOMP

           I have been downloading and listening to a lot of Led Zeppelin over the past year and finding a mysterious if not sinister element in the work at times or rather as times progressed through their live career and while I bought the first three studio albums when they came out and the impact of the first album astonished us at the time and friends and I rushed round to each others houses as schoolboys to play and listen to this extraordinary debut over and over, the later development of the band seemed to possess darker moods or forebodings even. 

We were shaken (sic) by the first groundbreaking efforts finding them almost superhuman, the problem with believing the hype is that ego can play funny games and later times there seems to me to be a surly throw away element and a sinister tone begins to seep in to the work and especially the live performances . 

. . . . . the penultimate live bootleg for me is the long lost (so called) gig at Southampton (1973) and I have still never really found anything to equal it (I have kept on saying it is better than 'Mothership' of 2015) and yet recently there have been better and better quality soundboard tapes emerging of past performances. Also of late sites I enjoy have been posting some really heavy weird performances to be fair and I find them quite disturbing. 

One needs to study the progression of the band towards the end of their history both Robert and Jimmy and after the deaths of poor Robert's beloved son Karac aged 5 (1977) and then the terrible death of their cornerstone stalwart drummer in the demise of the tragically alcoholic John Bonham (1980); Bonham interestingly the only one to visit and truly respond to Robert's grief at the loss of his son, Jimmy was curiously silently which caused a schism between the brains behind the dirigible and if the apocryphal accounts are to be believed the two fell out at this point and maybe only really reconciled when Jimmy explained he came from a British middle class tradition of stiff upper lip and where you left someone alone to deal with too personal an aspect of life, which does kind of make sense but we thought our generation was different, that hugs and weeping, care and concern might come uppermost to the incarnations of the mystical and deeper generation, rather than our parents who had lived through WWII with stoic silence as a rule of thumb and the long held belief that we don't talk about such things especially the menfolk! In ten years the song was over . . . . . . for me as you will see the story remained pertinent to only about a year Led Zeppelin I & II coming out in 1969 and II in 1970 and that's where I left them . . . . . .the pomposity for me took over and the darkness descended 1973 to 1977 at least seemed to sound the death knell if that is not too heavy handed a simile

Well worth the visit and download for sure is this exception to the above experience of late and that is this extraordinary triple disc document Led Zeppelin: The Cutting Room Floor over at the mighty sharing site par excellence from the usual place our beloved Floppy Boot Stomp

Thanks to first bo'sun Brother Jobe

ALL MY LOVE SWEDEN 1978

This compilation is well worth downloading and whether you agree with my mini thesis or nay consider the following . . . . . . . .:

It actually started to freak me out a bit and the three disc set from Jobe is the first set I have been able to listen to in a while and I thoroughly enjoyed it . . . . .that something else entirely was going on later and nearing the end of the band's true incarnation is for others to decide

Interestingly I found most recently the more disturbing examples of what I found rather sinister or even doom laden . . . . . bad vibes if you will centred around the more than 50 Led Zepp boots and especially of late the last three or for after a really good one on weblog Fresh & Alive. There are some doozies here and it is worth checking them all out to be fair but the more recent ones started to give me the herbie jeebies . . . . . . . . .wether the boys went through a period of complacency and ego that meant the performances were more cursory and throw away is moot and I leave that up to you but that darker arts were involved seem at best to me (anyway) as unlikely. However notwithstanding the bad vibes something was happening . . . . .

Fresh & Alive link to Led Zeppelin concerts