Other birthdays : JIMMY PAGE (82)

 Happy 82nd birthday to Jimmy Page! 

Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times (Danmarks Radio 1969)

Don’s Tunes

Never the biggest fan but I grant you he has a place in the pantheon of riff kings I guess . . . once the third album came out I gave up . . . . . I have said though the effect the first album had on me when we ALL bought it when it came out . . . I hadn’t heard anything like it, with guitar drums or those soaring vocals which sounded like music from another realm to me

The work we shared recently with the Black Crowe’s shows he is one style heavy blues interpreter I suppose but not in Robert’s league in terms of spreading his talents wider . . . . . . . IMHO

I’ve got a bird that whistles, I’ve got a bird that sings . . . . . . 

Led Zeppelin - You Shook Me Beat Club (March 27, 1969).

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

Blow Up - Michelangelo Antonioni (starring David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave etc) feat. THE YARDBIRDS Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page

 The Yardbirds in the film 'Blow Up'

The Train Kept a Rollin’

From the 1966 movie "Blowup" starring David Hemmings, featuring Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Birkin, Sarah Miles and model Veruschka. With Jeff Beck having a fit (unhappy to wreck the guitar it is said). The song "Stroll On" was a movie lyrics re-write of their hit song "Train Kept 'A Rollin'. Notice at the very end of the clip that no one was at all interested in Jeff Beck's discarded guitar. Well Hemmings character does run out carrying the neck and discards it on the street Also note all the Vox amps, which were all used during that period.

         featuring it is said (not least by her) Janet Street-Porter

well despite Janet even being on record as saying it IS her and her rate of pay the rest of the daily picked up student extras got £5 a day and she was chosen then to dance so got the princely sum of £35 it is said, she noted exactly what she was wearing too. Even though this looks nothing like her to me but then we were all so much younger then . . . . . . . we’re older than that now!

Gary Lucas on Led Zeppelin [1969]

 Gary Lucas is BRAVE and shared this article about ‘Lead Zeppelin’ (sic) with the comment 

"WAS I NAIVE OR WHAT?? from my high school underground newspaper COGITO Spring ’69” 

Bless him it WAS 1969 so those were different times . . . . . worth a read and so self aware and self effacing too! Gary goes on to say "

at this point, the depths of Page's rampant plagiarism were still unplumbed. But there were inklings. Case in point: the last Yardbirds single "Think About It" (B-side of "Good Night Sweet Josephine") --where in Page plays an appropriately stuttering manic guitar solo he was to repeat note for note verbatim a year later on Led Zeppellin's "Dazed and Confused"--he was plagiarizing himself!!"

I am minded of what Jeff Beck said about all three guitarist when they first heard Jimi Hendrix on his arrival here

"When I saw Jimi we knew he was going to be trouble. And by ‘we’ I mean me and Eric [Clapton], because Jimmy [Page] wasn’t in the frame at that point. I saw him at one of his earliest performances in Britain, and it was quite devastating. He did all the dirty tricks – setting fire to his guitar, doing swoops up and down his neck, all the great showmanship to put the final nail in our coffin."

Classic Rock Louder Sound - Jeff Beck on Hendrix, Page and Clapton

Jimmy Page - Lucifer Rising Take 7 - Cabala

Despite the Abrahamic hocus pokus hokum! This is actually quite impressive . . . .  

https://www.tumblr.com/jt1674/774866834995527680/jimmy-page-lucifer-rising-take-seven

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)

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]

"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!

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, 1970 The "Whoosh” Picture by photographer Jorgen Angel

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, 1970

The "Whoosh" Picture. From photographer Jorgen Angel: 

"On 28 February 1970 I took this picture at a Led Zeppelin concert at K.B. Hallen in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was 18 years old and working free-lance as a rock photographer. It was an amazing concert. The photo is the most popular among all my photos and it has become my signature photo. The biggest recognition came when Jimmy Page himself chose the photo as one of five best taken of him. Jimmy included it when he made an exclusive collection of art prints in a Limited Edition, long sold out. It was Jimmy who named the picture The Whoosh Picture. The image is included in the National Portrait Gallery in London.”

buy an original print from Jorgen here . . . .

Jeff Beck on Stevie Ray and Jimi Hendrix

Photo: Aaron Rapoport

Jeff Beck: “I think Stevie Ray was the closest thing to Hendrix when it came to playing the blues,” 

When I saw Jimi we knew he was going to be trouble. And by ‘we’ I mean me and Eric Clapton, because Jimmy Page wasn’t in the frame at that point. I saw him at one of his earliest performances in Britain, and it was quite devastating. He did all the dirty tricks – setting fire to his guitar, doing swoops up and down his neck, all the great showmanship to put the final nail in our coffin. I had the same temperament as Hendrix in terms of ‘I’ll kill you’, but he did in such a good package with beautiful songs.

I don’t want to say that I knew him well, I don’t think anybody did, but there was a period in London when I went to visit him quite few times. He invited me down to Olympic studios and I gave him a bottleneck. That’s what he plays on Axis: Bold As Love. We hooked up in New York and played at Steve Paul’s club The Scene.

Stevie:  I feel like I’ve gotten more in touch with the blues. It’s usually when I go and see somebody play who’s playing clubs and isn’t used to running around in a fancy tour bus and playing arenas. There’s a difference there. On one side of the coin, it’s like, “The guy sounds that way so we can’t sell him,” but on the other side of the coin is, “I’ve been sold, so I can’t sound like that.” Every time I get to hear somebody sound real, once again I get the chance to come home, inside. That makes me want to play that way even that much more and still snicker when someone says, “Hey, the record sold!” 

( From Texas Flood: The Inside Story of Stevie Ray Vaughan by Alan Paul)

Mo’ JEFF BECK . . . . .

 Jeff Beck & Billy Gibbons and ZZ Top - Sixteen Tones (sic!) [Tennessee Ernie Ford]

 

Jeff Beck - Cause We've Ended As Lovers - (Live at Ronnie Scott's) . . .with Tal again . . . . "We Miss THE Chief and the mischief!”

   

 Jeff Beck - Cause We've Ended As Lovers - (Crossroads intr the Rock God that is Bill Murray!)

Jeff Beck Big Block - Crossroads 2007 (more Tal . . . .do you think they had fun?!)

Inductee into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame

I have been finding these posted on Facebook by various folk and wow what a treat . . . . . we will miss you Jeff!

CHARLOTTE MARTIN : : Famous Muses & Groupies, Girlfriends and Wives in Rock Music

Famous Muses & Groupies, Girlfriends and Wives in Rock Music

MUSE: Charlotte Martin (born Catherine Martin)

Charlotte was born on September 20th, 1948 in Paris, France, and spent most of her education as a youth in local boarding schools. When she was 17, she moved to London, England and changed her first name from ‘Catherine’ to the more feminine ‘Charlotte’ when she started modeling. Charlotte’s impressive work as a model includes numerous photoshoots for Vogue, Petticoat, Apple Boutique and ’19.’ She can also be seen on the inside sleeves of the album cover for Cream’s ‘Disraeli Gears’ from 1967.

Not long after she crossed over to the UK, Charlotte met up-and-coming guitarist Eric Clapton in the summer of 1966 around the time drummer Ginger Baker asked Eric to join his new hard rock trio Cream. Eric and Charlotte became instantly attached to each other and she tagged along to nearly every social event and tour date as his girlfriend for the next two years. As Eric and Charlotte were falling in love, Eric also formed a close friendship with Beatle George Harrison. Both Eric and Charlotte can be seen sitting behind John Lennon in the live promo video for ‘All You Need is Love’ in 1967.

John Bishop - Charlotte Martin Wearing a Outfit from Biba (19 Magazine 1970)

By October 1968, Cream had imploded, and the trio not only disbanded, but Eric broke up with Charlotte. Infamously, Eric found himself growing an attraction to George’s own model wife Pattie Boyd and it caused a tiff in all four’s personal lives. Pattie originally denied Eric’s advances, and instead she and George invited Charlotte to stay in the couple’s guest room after the separation. Some sources claim that George and Charlotte secretly had an affair before the break-up, but in Pattie’s 2007 memoir Wonderful Tonight, she suggests that George and Charlotte’s brief affair was only a few days in between Christmas and New Year’s ’68. In Eric’s own 2007 book, Clapton, he makes no mention of George at all and states he only left Charlotte because he couldn’t stop thinking about Pattie.

On January 9th, 1970, Charlotte was invited to attend Led Zeppelin’s iconic Royal Albert Hall concert and met lead guitarist Jimmy Page backstage (coincidentally his 26th birthday). It was love at first sight once again for Charlotte, and Jimmy spent the next four months of all his personal time with her. Charlotte even traveled with the band on their short UK tour in early ’70. By the time the couple moved in together that summer, Charlotte was pregnant with their daughter Scarlet, later born on March 24th, 1971. During a 1994 Page & Plant show, Robert Plant cheekily commented that the Zeppelin ballad ‘That’s the Way’ was written “a half hour before Scarlet was conceived.” Charlotte and Scarlet also briefly appeared during one of the fantasy sequences in the band’s concert movie The Song Remains the Same (1976). Unfortunately, Jimmy eventually went back to his womanizing rockstar ways by 1971 and would carry on with groupies when out of town, including infamous flings with Pamela des Barres, Lori Maddox, Bebe Buell and Jenny Dino. 

According to friends and acquaintances close to Jimmy and Charlotte, the couple’s relationship began rather tempestuously and the two would argue heatedly sometimes. Though some articles label Jimmy and Charlotte as a married couple, both Zep’s head tour roadie Richard Cole and rock journalist/LZ acquaintance Lisa Robinson recall Charlotte and Jimmy not being interested in marriage. Some pieces even erroneously claim that Charlotte left Jimmy after she discovered he was having an affair with Ronnie Wood’s wife, Krissy in 1974. This is also false, as Jimmy and Charlotte didn’t officially separate until 1983 (though Jimmy and Krissy’s affair was real). Amazingly, Jimmy and Charlotte got along better in the second half of their relationship, and Jimmy was by Charlotte’s side when she had to spend a week in the hospital seriously ill in 1976. Charlotte also made sure to stay with Jimmy until he was completely clean of his heroin addiction in spring 1983. 

These days Charlotte is happily married in a lowkey, comfortable life as a painter in Maidenhead, England. She is one of the few famous rock girlfriends to have never done an interview on her relationships, and is still on good terms with both Eric and Jimmy.

Charlotte (left) and daughter Scarlet

Thanks to  Pooneil Corner

Revamped profile on Charlotte over at the new Meggie Sue blog/newsletter

Charlotte Martin - From Little Queenies here

more on Charlotte here

Page & Plant '98 - Viva Las Vegas - Hear Rock City

 Page & Plant 98!

Blimey its a busy weekend here in blogspot city . . . . . . . . had kinda given up on Led Zeppelin apart from Southampton rarity the best boot ever and then finding more of similar quality came as a shock but here's a beauty from 1998 when Jimmy and Robert 'reformed' to present new material and revisit Led Zeppelin classics and then some . . . . . this is heavy! Great quality and great fun! Where? From the master of heavy rock ROIO's and no equal (well nearly in that at least one of the boots of Led Zeppelin is featured by Voodoo Wagon!) Hear Rock City who specialises in Heavy Metal . . . . . you know you want it!

Page & Plant '98 - Viva Las Vegas - Hear Rock City

Blimey this ROCKS!

UPDATE:

In reply to Jobe from Voodoo Wagon who posted an enquiry about the Zeppelin ROIOs I mentioned above  there is this the following was previously the greatest (IMHO) legendary Long Lost Bootleg of Led Zeppelin that caused me to let go all previous ones was Southampton in '73

which I have no links to anymore (P.M. me if you want it!) and yet . . . . . . 

Then the boys at Floppy Boot Stomp and Voodoo Wagon as well as Hear Rock City have found boots that are at least as good I reckon and bearing in mind I have bee known to say the Southampton Great Lost Set was BETER than Mothership! the official live album . . . . . . .which may be stretching a point but I did believe it at the time . . . . 

So others worth checking out (at least!) and you should really have this lot

https://swappers-swappers.blogspot.com/2021/02/led-zeppelin-live-in-dallas-1969-hear.html

https://swappers-swappers.blogspot.com/2020/05/led-zeppelin-chasing-dragon-voodoo.html

https://swappers-swappers.blogspot.com/2020/03/led-zeppelin-osaka-1971-led-zeppelin.html