On this day 20 September

 A call to ARMS

1983 20 September On This Day Jimmy Page at Royal Albert Hall, ARMS benefit

• 1968 Led Zeppelin begins recording first album at Olympic Studios
• 1983 Jimmy Page - Royal Albert Hall, London for ARMS Concert

1971

Led Zeppelin in Japan. Great audiences, lots of sightseeing, a benefit for Hiroshima, and a relaxed and happy Jimmy Page.

Jimmy Page, Japan September 1971
Photo credit:  Koh Hasebe-Shinko Music/Getty Images

1983:
The ARMS Charity Concert started out with the idea for a single performance at Royal Albert Hall in London in support of Action into Research for Multiple Sclerosis (ARMS).  The concert was the brainchild of Ronnie Lane, former bassist for The Small Faces and The Faces, who had himself been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

The concert was such a success that it was decided to perform a further nine concerts in the US. These performances included Joe Cocker, with Paul Rodgers replacing Steve Winwood in Jimmy Page's set. 

There are a lot of nay-sayers out there who have decided that Jimmy Page was no good at the ARMS concerts. I simply say perhaps these people are "listening" with their eyes or their prejudices - and not their ears.

1983 20 September On This Day text

1983 Royal Albert Hall ARMS benefit musicians

1983 Jimmy Page, Royal Albert Hall ARMS benefit

1983 Jimmy Page, Royal Albert Hall ARMS benefit

1983 Jimmy Page, ARMS benefit

♪

♪  Prelude/City Sirens/Who's To Blame/Stairway to Heaven (Jimmy Page, ARMS RAH 1983) YouTube
♪   Layla (finale with all musicians, ARMS RAH 1983) YouTube
♪  Full concert with Ronnie Lane footage (ARMS RAH1983) YouTube

On this day 19 September

 Jimmy Page, from sea to shining sea

1998 19 September On This Day Page & Plant at Hollywood Bowl

♪  The Window (Page & Plant 1998) Soundcloud

• 1970 Led Zeppelin - New York, NY at Madison Square Garden- 2 Shows
• 1998 Page & Plant - Hollywood, CA at Hollywood Bowl

1970:

A little over one year from their first concert, Led Zeppelin not only was the only act on the bill, the band was booked for two shows in a row at Madison Square Garden.  At both shows Robert Plant spoke about the death of Jimi Hendrix on the previous day.

Jimi Hendrix death announcement by Robert Plant at MSG 

Today many consider the MSG performance to be one of the band's very best. Yet a reviewer back then said, "I found the group flashy but dull, somewhat contrived and certainly  not high energy excitement." Do reviewers ever acknowledge how far off they were in their assessment?

1970 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin at MSG

Led Zeppelin MSG 19 Sept 1970

Led Zeppelin MSG 19 Sept 1970

1998:

Most High is from the studio album Walking into Clarksdale, released through Atlantic Records in 1998. By May 1998 it reached #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. In 1999, the song won a Grammy for Page and Plant for Best Hard Rock Performance. 

Most High was released as a single. To me the real winner is the song on the B side, The Window.

Text from 19 September On This Day

1998 Hollywood Bowl setlist

2015:

A little fun at jimmypage.com today, with an interactive image. I've posted a few views from it for you, though none of them contain Jimmy Page or Robert Plant.

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin, New York NY at Madison Square Garden - 2nd show, 19 September 1970) 

♪  Page & Plant (Hollywood CA at Hollywood Bowl, 19 September 1998) 

♪  Most High (Page & Plant, Walking Into Clarksdale) 

♪  The Window (Page & Plant, B-side of Most High single 1998) 

On this day 18 September

 FIRMly under control and Satisfaction Guaranteed

1984 18 September On This Day Jimmy Page with The Firm, Sol Studios

• 1970 Page/Plant press conference New York, Savoy Hotel
• 1984 Jimmy Page recording at Sol Studio with The Firm
• 1998 Page & Plant - Laguna Hills, CA at Irving Meadows Amphitheatre

1970:

In New York for the two Madison Square Garden sets the next day, on this day Jimmy Page and Robert Plant sat down for a press conference at their hotel.  

Interviewer: How does it feel to be number one?
Plant: A shock...
Page: We knew we were appreciated by the fact that people were coming to along to see us in such great vast numbers all over the place - England and the continent and wherever... but no one expected this.

Perhaps Robert Plant was shocked, but somehow I've got a suspicion that Jimmy Page had vast numbers of appreciative audience in mind all along.

On this day in 1970 - likely unbeknownst yet to Jimmy Page or Robert Plant or anyone at the conference given all the laughter - Jimi Hendrix, the extraordinary left-handed guitarist and musician, had died. Led Zeppelin never played more than a few phrases of any of Jimi Hendrix's body of work other than The Killing Floor (below). It's extraordinary how uniquely different the two takes are. For Led Zeppelin, that song morphed into The Lemon Song. For Jimi Hendrix The Killing Floor is one of many monuments to his incredible talent.  The original, of course, was by Howlin' Wolf, in 1964.

RIP Jimi Hendrix (27 November 1942 - 18 September 1970)

1984:
One of the fun things for me in doing the Mage Music blog is the research involved with each On This Day post. I enjoy the challenge of searching the internet and my many books and magazines to find what I'm looking for. The research requires sifting out facts from all the copy/paste inaccuracies and fuzzy memories, hunting down obscure references, and learning new tidbits that I hadn't come across before, which I then share with you, my readers.

Most of all, though, this labor of love means I get to listen to lots of music every day.

In seeking out the various songs and their live performance versions I'm forced to listen to music I might otherwise pass over. That's not an onerous task mind you.  Far from it, in fact.

For instance, I tend to relegate The Firm and Mean Business to the background of my musical preferences, rarely calling them up to listen to - but that's a mistake on my part. Listening only to absolute favorites means always listening to the same stuff. As wonderful as that seems, doing so reduces contrast - the light and shade that Jimmy Page has so often referred to over the years. It means losing the perception of musical nuances.

The funny thing about listening to less-favorite music, though, is that I wind up with new appreciation for it because of the greater listening experience that I bring to it. And like Magick, what was not-so-interesting is transformed to very cool stuff after all.

So yeah, I'm hearing both of the albums and The Firm's live performances with new ears. And I'm liking it.

Why shouldn't I? After all, it's Jimmy Page: Satisfaction's guaranteed.

1986 Jimmy Page with The Firm, New Orleans (Mark Bowman photo) 

2013

Jimmy Page with a fan in Bangkok 

♪

♪  The Killing Floor (Jimi Hendrix, Stockholm 1969)  YouTube
♪  The Killing Floor (Led Zeppelin, LA 1969) YouTube
♪  Full set (The Firm, Hammersmith Odeon 1984) YouTube
♪  Satisfaction Guaranteed (The Firm, promo video 1984) YouTube
Les Paul appearing as The Bartender; May Pang (John Lennon's former girlfriend) making a 2-second cameo appearance; and Jimmy Page hamming it up for the camera.
♪  Page & Plant (Laguna Hills CA at Irving Meadows Amphitheatre, 18 September 1998)

On this day 17 September

 "This is my invitation, I want to change your destination..."

~ Cadillac, from The Firm's Mean Business album

1984 17 September On This Day 

• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Malmo, Sweden at Folkets Park 
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Honolulu, HI at Honolulu Civic Auditorium
• 1984 Jimmy Page with The Firm – finished recording Long Black Cadillac at The Sol
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Mesa, AZ at Mesa Amphitheatre
• 2013 Jimmy Page attends Queens of the Stone Age concert

1971

Hard to imagine this show isn't available to hear today. Somebody's got to be hoarding a tape!

1971 Led Zeppelin - Honolulu, HI at Honolulu Civic Auditorium (day 2)

1971

1975

Melody Maker Awards

1984
Given the experience of all the members of Jimmy Page's band, The Firm, it's no wonder they were able to record songs in one take. Recorded and mixed at Jimmy Page's Sol Studios in Berkshire, England, Cadillac appeared on The Firm's second album released in 1986, Mean Business.  There, it is just plain Cadillac, not to be confused with various versions of The Long Black Cadillac performed by other artists, light-years different from The Firm's song. Jimmy Page's Cadillac is dark and dirty. Magick oozes from his guitar.

As far as that version of "Cadillac" goes, we were lucky to get it. Because it was a live number and you can't do that in a room with a couple of takes because it has to be alive...
~ Jimmy Page, Guitar World July 1986, page 87

The Firm and Mean Business never did take off, though they were decently high on the charts. People still were expecting the Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, when in fact there was - and is - much more to Jimmy Page than that. 

Sad so many are so blind to that lovely musical Magick.

1988

2013 Jimmy Page backstage at Queens of the Stone Age (Ross Halfin photo)

2013 Jimmy Page with Josh Homme and Troy Van Leeuwen backstage at
Queens of the Stone Age concert (Ross Halfin photo)

2013 Jimmy Page and Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age

♪

♪  Cadillac (Jimmy Page The Firm, Mean Business 1986) 
♪  Cadillac (Jimmy Page The Firm, Birmingham England 1985) 
♪  Jimmy Page Outrider Tour (Mesa AZ at Mesa Amphitheatre, 17 September 1988) 

On this day 16 September

 Under construction

On this day 15 September

 Jam Sandwich.  Yeah.

1981 15 September On This Day Jimmy Page records main title music for Death Wish II
♪  Synth Track (Jimmy Page, Death Wish II soundtrack) Soundcloud

• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Goteborg, Sweden at Liseberg Amusement Park (billed as The Yardbirds)
• 1981 Jimmy Page records main title music for Death Wish II
• 1998 Page & Plant - West Valley, UT at E Center

1968:

Still billed as Yardbirds.

Photo taken by a fan outside a club on September 15, 1968

1968 Led Zeppelin - Goteborg, Sweden at Liseberg Amusement Park

1981:
Death Wish II is a soundtrack album by Jimmy Page, released (vinyl) by Swan Song Records on 15 February 1982, to accompany the late Michael Winner's film Death Wish II. Recorded at Sol Studio in Berkshire, UK, it was the first major work Jimmy Page had done since John Bonham's death.  Session drummer Dave Mattacks, who had worked with Jimmy before Led Zeppelin and was friends with Bonzo, was the drummer for the soundtrack and worked with Jimmy Page at Page's Sol Studio.

  “I set up in the middle of this room. Jimmy set up a little guitar amplifier beside me initially; then at one point told me he was going to place the amp in another room. He told me, ‘I don’t want to ruin your drum sound’. I went, ‘You’re not ruining my sound; we’re working on this together’. I realized later on that he was using ambient room mics to make the drums louder and he didn’t want them to pick up the guitar; he wanted separation. He’d do a guide guitar track with me, sometimes replacing it or overdubbing numerous times…what John Paul Jones termed ‘the army’. Jimmy was using a lot of different amplifiers.
  “Jimmy had just gotten the Roland guitar synth and there were occasions he couldn’t reach all the pedals and controls, so he’d be overdubbing another pedal, helping him get all these bizarre sounds, which you can hear on the soundtrack."
  ~ Dave Mattacks, drummer for Death Wish II, interview by T Bruce Wittet, 2012

The soundtrack was released in CD format in 1999.  To mark its 30th anniversary Jimmy Page released a limited remastered vinyl edition on 1 December 2011, of 30 autographed copies and 1000 individually-numbered, non-autographed copies of the soundtrack.  This anniversary version included previously unreleased material, updated artwork and new sleeve notes.

Roger Ebert gave the movie a "no star" rating (awarded only to movies that he considered "artistically inept and morally repugnant").  He didn't mention the soundtrack in his review.  I've never seen the movie, but the music gets four stars from me.

Track identification log for "Synth Track" for Death Wish II

Jimmy Page in his Sol Studio, Berkshire UK, recording Death Wish II

2017

Jimmy Page and Scarlett Sabet attended English celebrity photographer Richard Young's 70th birthday party at Langan's Brasserie, London.  Actress Joan Collins was there, too. 

♪

♪ Title music for Death Wish II (Jimmy Page, Death Wish II soundtrack 1982) 
♪ Who's To Blame outtake  (Jimmy Page, 1982) 
♪ City Sirens (Jimmy Page with Steve Winwood, Death Wish II soundtrack,  ARMS 1983) 
♪ Jam Sandwich  (Jimmy Page, Death Wish II soundtrack 1982) 
♪ Chopin's Prelude  (Jimmy Page, Death Wish II soundtrack 1982) 
♪ Closing scenes and credits for Death Wish II (Jimmy Page, Death Wish II soundtrack 1982) 

On this day 14 September

 Friends

1988 14 September On This Day Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Austin, TX at Frank Erwin Center
♪  How Come (Ronnie Lane) Soundcloud

• 1968 Led Zeppelin - Stockholm (Knivsta), Sweden at Angby Park
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Berkeley, CA at Berkeley Community Center
• 1974 Jimmy Page & John Bonham with David Crosby, Neil Young, Graham Nash & Stephen Stills - St. James Place, London at Quaglino's Restaurant 
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Austin, TX at Frank Erwin Center

1971

Originally the reviewers whined about how loud the band was, but the Berkeley Community Center show is immortalized in the bootleg, Going to California and is now considered a classic.

1974

After the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Joni Mitchell show at Wembley in London, all four members of Led Zeppelin joined in at the party at Quaglino's Restaurant in St. James Place.  The in-house band was determined to be no good, so Young, Nash and Stills took the stage.  They were joined by Jimmy Page and John Bonham for a jam that included Vampire Blues and On The Beach. Supposedly Robert Plant also joined in on guitar and vocals. If there are recordings of the jam, I haven't come across them. If you have, please share!

1974 Neil Young, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills & Jimmy Page
jam at Quaglino's in London after CSNY concert at Wembley.   (Photo Joseph Stevens)

1988:
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ronnie Lane was the driving force in the British bands the Small Faces and later, the Faces with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. In 1973 he quit the Faces and formed his own band, Ronnie Lane’s Slim Chance. They toured England in a caravan for a few years, playing in small towns like bards of old, complete with a circus tent, jugglers and clowns.

Lane also established a mobile studio after he left the Faces. Kashmir was recorded there. It was around this time that Lane was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, rendering him incapable of playing his instruments or singing. Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Joe Cocker, Steve Winwood and other musicians put together and performed the ARMS Tour in the UK and US in 1983 to raise awareness of MS and to promote a cure.  Lane died in 1997 from the disease.

1988 Jimmy Page with Bucks Burnett in Texas

1988 Jimmy Page with photographer Mark Bowman in Texas

2013 Jimmy Page with Bucks Burnett in London

♪

♪  Led Zeppelin (Berkeley CA at Berkeley Community Theater, 14 September 1971) 
♪  Jimmy Page Outrider Tour (Austin TX at Frank Erwin Center, 14 September 1988)