On this day 13 February

UNDER CONSTRUCTION FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG. I'm working on another (time consuming) project that takes precedence. Note that info on this page has not been fully updated yet and links may not work properly. Thank you for your patience.

Another day, another award, more glorious music

1972 13 February On This Day Led Zeppelin tourist stopover in Bombay
Jimmy Page's VIDEO (YouTube) 

• 1975 Led Zeppelin - Uniondale, NY at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum
• 1992 Jimmy Page with Harry Connick Jr. for encore at James L. Knight Center, Miami
• 1996 Page & Plant Unledded Tour – Tokyo at Nippon Budokan
• 2005 Led Zeppelin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award

1975:
An exciting show with some surprises:  an epic, 42 minute length Dazed and Confused, and a bit of theremin between Whole Lotta Love and Black Dog. Ron Wood joined Led Zeppelin for an encore of Communication Breakdown and Robert Plant sang a few lines from Roll Over Beethoven while the guitars got sorted out.

1975 Jimmy Page, Ron Wood, Peter Grant, Uniondale NY
(I always first think Ron is in handcuffs when I see this photo)

1992:
It's uncertain whether Jimmy Page, who was reportedly living on Florida's exclusive Jupiter Island at this time, attended  Harry Connick Jr's gig at the James L. Knight Center in Miami on 13 or 14 February - but it was definitely one of those two days.

"I'd been listening to his music, and I was keen to see what his concert would be like," says Page, 48, who was in Miami working on a new album. "We met before the concert, and Harry said, 'You should come up and play,' and I laughed. But I was sitting in the audience, and he suddenly said, 'We've got a really good friend here.... C'mon, Jimmy, come up and play with us.' I went up, and he put a guitar in my hands and said, 'Go ahead, it's your band.' So I did an improvised blues in B flat. I was so nervous! And he went over to the brass section and started singing these licks and cued them in." Would Page consider an encore? "Oh, yes, but I'll bring my own guitar the next time."
~ Jimmy Page interview

2002:
The Grammy Lifetime Achievement is a Special Merit Award, presented by vote of The Recording Academy's National Trustees to performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording. John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Zoe Bonham and Jason Bonham accepted the award for Led Zeppelin.

2005 John Paul Jones & Jimmy Page at Grammy Awards

2005 John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, Zoe Bonham and Jason Bonham
accept Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award from Neil Portnow,
president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (Uniondale NY at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, 13 February 1975) 
♪  Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin, with Ron Wood 1975) 

♪  Page & Plant Unledded Tour (Tokyo at Nippon Budokan, 13 February 1996)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1FyxCUM7Ls&list=PLf62FjbXtD1LDupHDsQYI3arCDZ2klemr&index=22&pp=gAQBiAQB8AUB
♪  Rain Song (Page & Plant, 13 February 1996, Japan) YouTube
(Just a cute brief clip of a funny moment)

On this day 09 February

UNDER CONSTRUCTION FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG. I'm working on another (time consuming) project that takes precedence. Note that info on this page has not been fully updated yet and links may not work properly. Thank you for your patience.

Jimmy Page walks onstage and the place erupts.  As it should.

2002 09 February On This Day Jimmy Page
with Paul Weller's band at Teenage Cancer Trust, Royal Albert Hall
AUDIO: Wild Wood - Paul Weller (Soundcloud)

• 1968 The Yardbirds - Cardiff, Wales at Top Rank Ballroom
• 1996 Page & Plant Unledded Tour – Tokyo at Nippon Budokan
• 2002 Jimmy Page with Paul Weller's Band - Teenage Cancer Trust at Royal Albert Hall  

2002:
On this day Jimmy Page and Robert Plant appeared separately at the Teenage Cancer benefit at Royal Albert Hall. The event was billed as "The Paul Weller Band with guests Jimmy Page, Gary Moore, plus Robert Plant & Strange Sensation".

This was Robert Plant’s first London appearance in over three years and Jimmy Page’s first for over two. Furthermore, while it had been seventeen years since Jimmy Page had last performed at RAH for the ARMS shows in September 1983, Robert Plant had not performed there since the Led Zeppelin days: 09 January 1970.

Dave Lewis' take on Jimmy Page at the 2002 show:

"[it was] as if someone had picked up the remote and switched the TV over everything changes.
"You can see the Gibson…Weller goes off, his band mates mill around, lights flash down…and there on stage is Jimmy Page.
"Cherubic smile, well cut shirt, slimmer than in very long time, low slung Gibson Les Paul and sure enough it’s Dazed And Confused the instrumental…
"The place erupts and throughout the eight minute performance there is no doubt that we are in the presence of a living legend..."
~ Dave Lewis, TBL

2002 Jimmy Page, Teenage Cancer Trust benefit at Royal Albert Hall (Freda Hyatt photos)

2002 Jimmy Page, Teenage Cancer Trust benefit at Royal Albert Hall (Freda Hyatt photo)

♪

♪  Dazed And Confused (Jimmy Page with Paul Weller band, RAH 2002) 

I forgot to post this the other day
♫   NBC News report with a brief comment by Peter Grant 07 February 1975

On this day 30 December

 Dazed thinking 2023 is about over

1968 30 December On This Day Led Zeppelin at Gonzaga University, Spokane WA
AUDIO: a minute and a half of Dazed and Confused (MP3)

• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Spokane, WA at Gonzaga University 

1968

The House of Gonzaga was the ruling family of Mantua, in Northern Italy, from 1328 to 1708. The most famous son was Aloysius Gonzaga, who was canonized in 1726. In 1729 Pope Benedict declared Aloysius to be the patron saint of young students. 

Gonzaga University is a private Jesuit university located in Spokane, Washington, founded in 1887.

As noted in today's post: The audience recording of Dazed and Confused from Gonzaga (9 minutes and 42 seconds long) was training for a number that would run much, much longer in later years.  According to Jimmy Page, the song had "all the movements of a classical symphony".  Note that Led Zeppelin performed Dazed and Confused  more than 200 times over the years, with the longest being nearly 45 minutes at The Forum in LA, 27 March 1975.

Also in 1968

Not on this day but interesting: In 1964 Jimmy Page, along with Big Jim Sullivan, had worked with PJ Proby on Proby's first studio album, I Am P. J. Proby. Four years later all four members of Led Zeppelin recorded together for the very first time -- but not on a Led Zeppelin album, on PJ Proby's final album Three Week Hero. The recording sessions took place starting August 1968 and the album was released in April 1969. Read more... 

According to Proby in a 2012 interview by Corbin of Finding Zoso:

"...we recorded that album, I think it was in two days. We even undershot, we recorded it with about thirty-five minutes left over, and so Roland yelled down, “Why don’t you all busket*? We shouldn’t waste the studio time.” I told the boys, “Y’all start picking and I’ll write as you pick.” So the three last numbers on the album, It's So Hard to Be a Nigger/Jim's Blues/George Wallace is Rollin' in This Mornin’, I just made up as the boys played."

Jimmy Page - Acoustic guitar, electric guitar

John Paul Jones - Bass guitar, keyboards, arrangements

John Bonham - Drums, conga

Robert Plant - Harmonica

* Re: "busket": Roland must have said "busk it", meaning improvise.

2008 Jimmy Page (Ross Halfin photo)

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (Spokane WA at Gonzaga University, 30 December 1968) 

♪  Jim's Blues (PJ Proby with Jimmy Page guitar recorded 1968 released 1969) 
Note: PJ's first name was Jim
♪  Mery Hopkins medley (PJ Proby with "The New Yardbirds" released 1994) 
Note: Proby calls out each member of the band, who then plays a little solo

On this day 20 October

 "It’s a pity we hadn’t done a commercial for Mercedes."  Or Gibson.

• 1966 The Yardbirds - London at IBC Studios to record for Great Shakes
• 1967 The Yardbirds - San Antonio, TX at Pusi-Kat Club
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Seattle, WA at Seattle Paramount Theatre (unconfirmed)
• 1976 Led Zeppelin - New York City at Cinema 1, premier of The Song Remains The Same 
• 2020 Jimmy Page: The Anthology released worldwide

1966:

Great Shakes was a General Foods product used to make milkshakes at home.  It included a shaker cup with lid, and a flavored powder to mix with milk.  The marketing was advanced for its time, and included one-minute radio spots recorded by the most popular bands of the day, generally reworks of existing songs. The commercials were released by Columbia Special Products on two volumes with four tracks each, as Great Shakes Shake-Out and Great Shakes Shake-Out 2.  A 1990s edition, Great Shaken' was also released (Mo-Donna EP), with the The Yardbirds' contribution, Over Under Sideways Down.  That EP also included a Pepsi song (by Stone Poneys) and a H.I.S. song (The Troggs).

The Who, The Byrds, Dusty Springfield and other musicians and bands from that era also did spots for Great Shakes.

1969:

JP's website says Led Zeppelin performed at the Seattle Paramount Theater on this day, but I can find no confirmation of this - no setlist, no recordings, no photos, no promo, no ticket stubs.

1976: 

The $25,000 proceeds from the world premiere of The Song Remains The Same (TSRTS) that went to the Save the Children Foundation would be $135,000 in today's dollars. The party thrown by Swan Song after the premiere was attended by Ahmet Ertegun (in a neck brace), Mick Jagger, Ron Wood and Linda Ronstadt, among others. 

1976 Jimmy Page at The Song Remains The Same movie premiere, New York City

1976 Jimmy Page at The Song Remains The Same movie premiere, New York City

The Song Remains the Same

In The Song Remains The Same movie Jimmy Page's fantasy sequence opens with him sitting on the lawn overlooking the moat that surrounds his Plumpton Place manor. He climbs up a mountain near his Boleskine House on Loch Ness in Scotland during the nights of a full moon. He seeks the Hermit, which turns out to be himself. The music that accompanies this is a monumental and powerful bow sequence of Dazed and Confused.

The Hermit, according to most tarot traditions, represents the turning away from the outer world and tuning in to the inner life, in order to search for a deeper, higher reality. The tarot card stands not just for seeking, but for maintaining independence as well as guiding others to the higher knowledge.

The image of the hermit with the lantern is based on Diogenes, the Greek ascetic, who was searching for an honest man - a metaphor for searching for higher truth. That depiction of Diogenes, in turn, could well be based on the Greco-Roman understanding of the Celtic Druid, described by Julius Caesar as highly educated and powerful priests who believed in the immortality of the soul and the transmigration of it into other lives (reincarnation). In modern-day illustrations Druids are often depicted as carrying a staff and a light.

According to the Thoth deck, designed by Aleister Crowley, the Hermit is also the Lord of Time whose lantern shines the light of his wisdom and who leans on the staff of his experience.

Lucifer, bringer of light.

Had Jimmy Page been exposed to a different culture, he might have portrayed himself as a shaman, who uses altered states of consciousness to access and interact with the energies of other planes of reality, and to channel those energies into this world.

Give the man a guitar, after all, and that's what he does.

Jimmy Page, The Song Remains The Same

2020

From JP's website: "Jimmy Page: The Anthology*. Both reflective and revealing, it is quite simply the legendary musician’s most comprehensive and fascinating account of his life to date."

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn a teeny tiny commission from qualifying purchases.

♪

♪  Great Shakes Commercial (the Yardbirds, 1966) 
♪  TSRTS movie trailer (Led Zeppelin 1976) 
♪  Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin, The Song Remains the Same 1976) 

On this day 03 September

 Sometimes touring is hard, hard, harder than it needs to be.

1998 03 September On This Day Page & Plant arrive in Vancouver

• 1966 The Yardbirds - Salem, OR at Salem Armory Auditorium
• 1970 Led Zeppelin - San Diego, CA at San Diego Sports Arena
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - New York, NY at Madison Square Garden
• 1998 Page & Plant arrive in Vancouver, British Columbia

1970

According to Dave Lewis the crowd in San Diego was rowdy. Then Jimmy Page had a problem with his guitar in the acoustic set and Bron Yr Aur was abandoned. Robert Plant got creative with Whole Lotta Love lyrics. 

After all that, a music critic from San Diego Union panned the show, ending with..."if this music is part of the new life style, it somehow makes the wrong side of 40 seem like the right side."  [D. Dierks/Music Critic/SD Union/9-4-70]

I always wonder if the music critics of then ever ate their words.

1970 Led Zeppelin San Diego bootleg insert

1971:
"I'm Scott Muni, from WNEW-FM. They take a poll over in England every year. For the second time, the greatest rock and roll band in the land, LED ZEPPELIN!"!

"...the stage collapsed. Plant and Page made their way to the top of the stacks of amps, then crawled down and off stage. The house lights came up and the P.A. announcer asked for calm and for everyone to return to their seats."
~ A.J. Crandall report on his experience of the 1971 show

1971 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin MSG

1971 Led Zeppelin MSG

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (San Diego at San Diego Sports Arena, 03 September 1970) 

♪  Led Zeppelin (New York at Madison Square Garden, 03 September 1971) 

On this day 21 August

Still standing ovations, after all these years.

1971 21 August On This Day Led Zeppelin at LA Forum

• 1966 The Yardbirds - Tucson, AZ at Thrift City
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Framingham, MA at Carousel Theatre
• 1970 Led Zeppelin - Tulsa, OK at Tulsa Assembly Center Arena
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Inglewood, CA at The Forum
• 1998 Page & Plant - Vaduz, Liechtenstein at Little Big One Festival

1969 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - Framingham, MA

1970 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - Tulsa, OK

1971 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - Inglewood, CA at The Forum

1971:

Eddie Cochran (1938 - 1960) was an American musician who earned a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. His rockabilly songs were covered by many later artists, including Led Zeppelin. Cochran experimented with multitrack recording and overdubbing, and is credited as one of the first to use an unwound third string in order to "bend" notes up a whole tone.

Eddie Cochran was killed, while on tour in the UK, in a single vehicle crash when he was only 21 years old. During the time that the taxi and its contents were at the local police station a police cadet taught himself to play guitar on Cochran's impounded Gretsch.

2015 Press release for  Proud Gallery's Led Zeppelin Exhibit

1993 Jimmy Page with Gretsch White Falcon guitar (Ross Halfin photo)

♪  Led Zeppelin (Tulsa OK at Tulsa Assembly Center Arena, 21 August 1970) 
♪  Led Zeppelin (Inglewood CA at LA Forum, 21 August 1971) 
♪  Weekend (Eddie Cochran, 1959) YouTube
♪  Weekend (Led Zeppelin, LA Forum 1971) YouTube

On this day 29 July

 Dum de dum dum...

1973 29 July On This Day Led Zeppelin - New York, NY at Madison Square Garden
♪ Drake Hotel (Dragnet radio & TV theme song) (Soundcloud)

• 1967 The Yardbirds - Danville, CA at San Ramon High School
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Edmonton, Alberta, at Kinsmen Field House
• 1973 Led Zeppelin - New York, NY at Madison Square Garden
• 1984 Jimmy Page with Roy Harper at Battersea Park, London

1973:
This was the third performance in a row at Madison Square Garden. At the end of Whole Lotta Love, East Indian fire-eater Mike Quashie came dancing out on the stage with a couple of torches. He lit John Bonham's gong and one drumstick, but Bonzo just kept on playing.

This is the show where the robbery occurred of MSG receipts from the safety deposit box at the Drake Hotel. Originally reported as $203,000, the amount was $180,000 and no one was ever arrested for the theft. The band later sued the hotel and received a settlement.

After the show, the band went to a party held by Ahmet Ertegun to present gold records for Houses of the Holy.

This final night was also the final performance in this 1973 North American tour.

1973 29 July Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin - New York, NY at Madison Square Garden

1973 Led Zeppelin at MSG - Mike Quashie lights Bonzo's fire

Led Zeppelin - New York  1973 - Houses of the Holy Gold Album Award.

1984:
GLC Free Festival Battersea Park in London was put on by the Greater London Council, the city's local authority from 1964 to 1986.  It was one of two music festivals used to highlight what the GLC was doing to fight unemployment, boost the London economy and help create and fund new jobs. 

1984 Jimmy Page at Battersea with Roy Harper

♪ Led Zeppelin (New York NY at Madison Square Garden day 3/3, 29 July 1973)

♪  Short & Sweet (Roy Harper feat Jimmy Page, Battersea Park London, 29 July 1984)

On this day 21 July

Jimmy Page, a man of many talents and interests

1961 21 July On This Day Jimmy Page accompanies Royston Ellis

• 1961 Jimmy Page guitar fusion with poet Royston Ellis at The Mermaid Festival
• 1966 The Yardbirds - Worthing, England at Worthing Assembly Rooms 
• 1967 The Yardbirds - Santa Rosa, CA at Santa Rosa Fairgrounds 
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - New York NY at Central Park Schaefer Music Festival
• 1973 Led Zeppelin - Providence, RI at Providence Civic Center
• 2011 Jimmy Page presents MOJO Maverick Award to Donovan

1961:

Royston Ellis was born in England in 1941 and now lives in Sri Lanka.  He is a novelist, travel writer and beat poet. As a young man seeking a name for himself he performed his poetry on stage and TV to backing by a number of Liverpool musicians, including Jimmy Page and by John Lennon's skiffle band (Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Stuart Sutcliff - no drummer at that point).  Ellis has published over 60 books; in 2013 he published a retrospective book of poetry, Gone Man Squared, with a forward by Jimmy Page. 

1969:
The Schaefer Music Festival was a recurring music festival held in summer between 1968 and 1976 at the Wollman Skating Rink in New York City's Central Park. The series was sponsored by F. & M. Schaefer Brewing Company, brewer of Schaefer Beer.  It began as a one day event but quickly expanded to an annual summer-long exposition.  B.B. King and Led Zeppelin performed two shows on July 21, 1969.

1969 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin at Schaeffer Music Festival, Central Park NY

1969 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin at Schaeffer Music Festival, Central Park NY (N Fields photo)

2011:
MOJO awards are voted for by readers of the monthly MOJO Magazine and MOJO's website as well as by music critics.  The awards celebrate the musical achievements of the last 12 months as well as career-long accomplishments.  Donovan was presented with the 2011 MOJO Maverick Award from Jimmy Page.

In 2004 Jimmy Page received the MOJO Maestro Award and in 2010 he was inducted into the MOJO Hall of Fame.

2011 Roy Harper, Jimmy Page and Donovan at MOJO Honors, London (Ross Halfin photo)

♪ Led Zeppelin (New York NY at Central Park Schaefer Music Festival, 21 July 1969) 
♪ Led Zeppelin (Providence RI at Providence Civic Center, 21 July 1973)