Led Zeppelin Flying High with New Concert Discs

Reuters (via Yahoo) ^ | 05/28/03 | Dean Goodman

[Mr. Mojo]

Good question. He needed to lose about 100 pounds back in the mid-70's, and his lifestyle was far from healthy (to put it mildly), so my guess is that he isn't. ....But now I'm curious, so I'll give it a Google. Loved those stories about him walking into record stores (in both the States and in England), grabbing all the Zep bootlegs, and then breaking them all in the street outside the store.

[Mr. Mojo]

Have always wanted to read "Hammer", but just never got around to it. One day...

[Mr. Mojo]

Ah...he died of a heart attack in Nov. of '95.

[Drew68]

Ah...he died of a heart attack in Nov. of '95.

There's a shocker.

[wardaddy]

Can't say I'm suprised...bet it was a fun ride in the 70s.

[Mr. Mojo]

Yep, the only thing that's shocking is that he lived that long. It wouldn't surprise me if he did mass amounts of blow consistently for decades.

[Senator Pardek]

The way you guys tune it - it must be murder on a gitter's neck!

[WRhine]

Yep, I hear a lot of Zeppelin's first album in the Beck/Stewart colloborations Truth and Beck-ola. They even share the cover blues number "You Shook Me".

It's true. Zep's first album was very bluesy and similar in many respects to Beck's work with Stewart. The way both bands played the cover song "You Shook Me" though was radically different. Beck took that old Elvis song, put a fast almost jazz like beat to it, and made it into something almost unrecognizable from the original while Page pretty much stayed within the bounds of the original and let Plant work his magic. I agree, by ZepIII, Page was definitely breaking new ground and had developed a uniqueness all his own.

Beck's most innovative work was from 1965-68, spanning the period from his stay with the Yarbirds through the Jeff Beck Group albums (with Stewart) I mentioned above.

Beck took a lot of detours after 1968. In the early 70s with his second group it appeared that R&B and Motown was the sound he was going for in a semi-Jazzy kinda way with vocalist Bob Tench. I think some of his stuff then was innovative but yeah, not to the same degree of the The Yardbirds or Zepplin.

Where I think he got back to breaking new ground was with his album Blow by Blow. That album to this day is one of the very few works that effectively captures elements of Rock and Jazz in a very listenable style without all the mindless rapid fire scales a la John McCloughlin (sp) that defines most of fusion. I think George Martin the producer of the album was a large creative force here. But on the follow up Wired album Beck seemed to be back to his old habit of doing great guitar work over mediocre songs, though there were a few good songs in there.

What I see in his latest Tecno kick is that what he is really doing is layering his patented tracks over a tecno beat but his solos aren't true tecno. It's Jeff Beck soloing over tecno. The first album "Who Else" though nonetheless was a pretty good album. Unfortunately I hear his upcoming album will be more of the same tecno stuff following the disappointing You Had It Coming album.

Some of Beck's best work in the late 80s can be found on the soundtrack to Frankie's House. He collaborated with a keyboardist (Jed??) and can up with some interesting takes on oriental music and does a fantastic Clapton like solo which follows a beautiful but short passage. If you can take the abrupt changes in music that apparently tracks the movie scenes it is well worth a listen.

Insane envy over Page's overwhelming success didn't help, I'd imagine.

Yeah, Beck is kinda strange in that way. He once ragged on Peter Frampton for ripping off his "bagpipe" idea and making it a huge success...AS IF Beck wanted to go Pop/Rock and play before screaming teens! If mega success didn’t appeal to Beck then he has no reason to be envious of the artists that wrote and marketed their music to a wider crowd.

[WRhine]

Well I sure wish Beck would just come out and do a bluesy sharp album again...oddly Rod Stewart would be great for the vocals.....not so odd actually.

I've wished for the same thing for many years and Beck's running out of time. Beck and Stewart always reminded me of the musical version of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Though their brief reunion in the 80s did produce a couple of great songs like "People Get Ready".

I liked Zep for the whole package and the aura of it all. I sort of lost immediate interest after HOTH...although PG was not too shabby. I bet most middle aged Zep fans recall PG as the highwater mark....for me it was IV...not a bad song on it.

By now I'm not surprised you'd have this opinion. ZepIV was tough act to follow--yet the band still did an admirable job with their later works. For me that was mostly in retrospect.

[WRhine]

I had just started to play guitar when I saw them in '77, so I was all set to fix my attention almost exclusively on Page during the show. That lasted for about 3 to 4 songs, after which my attention was inexorably drawn to Bonham. A musician who exuded more power there never was, at least none that I've seen. Tone, power, technique, timing, ....gravitas (I hesitate to say) ....he had it all.

Well said. Bonham was definately that. Just about every musician on the rock scene thought Bonham was in a class by himself. His sound was incredible and impossible to reproduce.

[wardaddy]

Album preference has a lot to do with age timeline in the formative years.

LZI was recorded in 1968 and released in early 69....7th grade for me.

LZII was released probably less than a year later and whole lotta love really put them on the map...arguably the most powerful rock song to that date...(Hendrix was different)

LZIII an anomaly that I loved was what late 1970 or 71...8th grade or so

LZIV....Stairway took off summer of 1972...it had been released what about 6 months earlier.(recording, release, and heavy airplay were pretty spread out back then)..man I can remember that like yesterday. I was ready to follow that pied piper right off the inside cover page artwork of a book on medieval fairy tales...it had such a strong aura of that...overlaid with Delta blues...a very familiar genre in my blood given my locale.

HOTH....took off the fall of my junior year..1973...very crisp...different.


My tastes sort of evolved after that....it just happens. I was in college when PG came out and I was not superimpressed but I bet highschoolers were ga-ga.

Like ZZ Top is for me First Album, Rio Grande Mud and Tres Hombres but for younger it might have been Fandango or Tejas or Billy's later infatuation with synthisizers.

Or Skynyrd...for me it was "pronounced" and Second Helping and then they got cliche till Street Survivors...(the end)

Or Floyd...for me all pre-Wall....for some all pre DSOTM

My cousin thinks of Lou Reed as garage band sounding Velvet Underground (which is pivotal granted) but for me it'll always be Transformer and Rock and Roll Animal (with Alice's Steve Hunter of I"m 18 on axe)....I love that still listen to Sweet Jane on occasion.

You get my drift.
By the time I was in college, I was going back and discovering older 60s stuff I'd missed because it was too esoteric for my youth...Beefheart, old Dead, old Airplane, Buff Springfield, The Byrds (Untitled..a must have)...and so on.

Now...I don't explore as much...I just re-up. My lovely wife is better at the exploring part.

We watched a video last night about the guy who managed Joy Division and the Mondays and started the Manchester Ecstasy rave music scene later in the late 80s....damn she knew every frigguin band from 1976 punk to New Order (I knew New Order myself but.....I never knew Joy Division was named after a Hitler gentic coupling experiment with a "division" of SS troopers and willing frauleins...lol

Music is such a timeline for us all...I'm sorry to see that fade as I've aged.

[Helms]

Sorry about the PC thing- I was trying to find out about your favorites- and much of my intense concert going lasted for a period over only about 5 years. I have spoken to people who saw a broader and more impressive number of groups. I like to think that mine was a qualitative experience. In fact Floyds Pulse and Crazy Horses (both earlier 90's) have been the last I have attended.

What is great about this music is how it allows folks like you and I and from different generations to relate on a similar level and topic. Having said this, Jimmy Page's bell bottom pants and his shirts were so outrageously cool that even for their wardrobes it was well worth the money.

I also came to the conclusion that LZ was almost Tolkein-like in creating broad brushed mythologies and epic performances.

[Mr. Mojo]

All this 70's talk has inspired me to put together a list of my favorite LIVE albums of the decade (in no particular order):

Rock of Ages - The Band
Live Rust - Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Live at Leeds - The Who
Band of Gypsies - Jimi Hendrix
Live at the Fillmore East - The Allman Brothers
Europe '72 - The Grateful Dead
It's Too Late to Stop Now - Van Morrison
The Song Remains the Same - Led Zeppelin
One for the Road - The Kinks
Wings Over America - Paul McCartney (a sentimental favorite ...one of the shows that was recorded was the first concert I ever attended).

[BenR2]

Apropos of nothing, I have an interesting (to me, at least) Led Zeppelin story.

While stationed (with the AF) on Okinawa in the mid-80s, I participated in a 24-hour relay marathon that the Marines sponsored every year at the Kadena High School track.

I remember doing one of my last one-mile stints at about 0400 on a chilly and drizzly Sunday morning and having to endure (in my sore and sleep-deprived state) a Led Zeppelin tune being broadcast at full-blast through the stadium's loud-speaker system.

While I found it horrible music, the blaring notes accomplished their intended task -- keeping me awake enough to slug out another one-mile run.

[Fred Hayek]

methinks the "lead zepellin" term was from Peter Townsend. - "It would go over like a lead zeppelin"

[Helms]

Lead Zeppelin?

One day the Who's late drummer Keith Moon told Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and the other members of a rival group that "they'd go over like a lead zeppelin". In a mockingly ironic move, they promptly adopted the term (Led Zeppelin) as the name of their band.

Plant, Robert (1948- ) British musician, Led Zeppelin frontman [noted for such works (with Led Zeppelin) as Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Physical Graffiti, and Houses Of The Holy]

[Sources: M. Driscoll, ed., 5087 Trivia Questions & Answers]

http://www.anecdotage.com/index.php?aid=7900

[Helms]

On a deserted island w/ flora, fauna and a girl by the name of Fawn:

Led Zeppelin-I

Jethro Tull- Benefit

Hendrix-Electric Ladyland

Neil Young-Live Rust

Springsteen-Darkness on the Edge of Town

Roger Waters- In the Flesh Live

Floyd-Thw Wall, Live In Berlin

Talking Heads-STOP MAKING SENSE

10,000 Maniacs-MTV Unplugged

The Dave Matthews Band-various

[wardaddy]

Good diverse picks. This Fawn (Ollie's Assistant...remember her?)

[Fred Hayek]

Thanks, I stand corrected. I knew it was a member of The Who.

[Helms]

Actually, I thought it important to bring in Keith Moon, RIP, who did not survive to see LZ equal or surpass his band.