On This Day 20 March

Any container of amphibians is toadally improved with the right guitarist added to the mix.

1986 20 March On This Day Asylum by Box of Frogs, feat. Jimmy Page 

2012 20 March On This Day Lucifer Rising by Jimmy Page
AUDIO (Soundcloud)

• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Sutton England at The Belfry
• 1975 Led Zeppelin - Vancouver Canada at Pacific Coliseum (day 2 of 2)
• 1995 Page & Plant Unledded Tour - Lexington KY at Rupp Arena

1975 Led Zeppelin, Vancouver Canada

1986:
Box of Frogs was a band formed in 1983 by former members of The Yardbirds (Chris Dreja, Paul Samwell-Smith, and Jim McCarty).  They released their first album, Box of Frogs, in 1984 (Jeff Beck guest guitar) and their second and final album, Strange Land, in 1986 (Jimmy Page, guest guitar).

2012:
Lucifer Rising started out as a soundtrack for a Kenneth Anger movie, though Jimmy Page's music didn't end up being used for the film. Dave Lewis wrote a review of it, which he graciously allowed Mage Music to post.

♪

♪  Trampled Under Foot (Led Zeppelin, Vancouver 20 March 1975) YouTube
♪  Asylum (Box of Frogs feat. Jimmy Page 1986) YouTube
♪  Lucifer Rising, album (Jimmy Page) YouTube

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 19 March

Over the years and far away

1969 19 March On This Day Led Zeppelin recorded at BBC Maida Vale
AUDIO Country Line Special (Cyril Davies R&B Allstars)

• 1969 Led Zeppelin - London at Maida Vale,Studio 4
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Manchester England at University of Manchester
• 1973 Led Zeppelin - Berlin at Deutschlandhalle
• 1975 Led Zeppelin - Vancouver Canada at Pacific Coliseum (day 1 of 2)
• 1986 The Firm - Largo MD at Capital Centre 

1969 Jimmy Page / Led Zeppelin, BBC Maida Vale 

1969:
Although this was a BBC recording of Alexis Korner's Rhythm and Blues Show, it wasn't included in the Led Zeppelin BBC CDs.

1971 Led Zeppelin, Manchester

1973 Led Zeppelin, Berlin

1975:
Jimmy Page "... has always been an innovator going back to his Yardbird days and enjoys skirting the peripheries of accepted sounds and forms."
~Press review, CMS, March 1975

1975 Led Zeppelin, Vancouver Canada

1985:
“The main aim is to play some rock ‘n’ roll and have some fun.”
~ Jimmy Page, Page On Stage '85. Interview by Chris Welch, Creem, April 1985

♪

♪  Sunshine Woman (Led Zeppelin, Maida Vale BBC session 1969) YouTube
♪  I Can’t Quit You Baby (Led Zeppelin, Maida Vale BBC session 1969) YouTube
♪  Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin Berlin 1973) YouTube
♪  Over The Hills And Far Away (Led Zeppelin, Vancouver 1975) YouTube
♫  Jimmy Page & Paul Rodgers - Entertainment Tonight interview 1985

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 18 March

1969 18 March On This Day, Led Zeppelin recorded Supershow

• 1968 The Yardbirds - BBC Radio Pete Brady Show
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Newcastle upon Tyne, England at Mayfair Ballroom
• 1985 The Firm - Albuquerque, NM at Tingley Coliseum
• 1995 Page & Plant Unledded Tour - Dallas, TX at Reunion Arena

1969:
I'm definitely dazed and confused. The Supershow was a music documentary film directed by John Crome and produced by Tom Parkinson. It included many of the big names in jazz, rock and blues of the time:  The Modern Jazz Quartet,  Buddy Guy, Buddy Miles, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Stephen Sills, and of course, Led Zeppelin. It was filmed over two days' time, 25 and 26 March, in an vacant linoleum factor at Staines, England because the project was hush-hush. The cost to film was supposedly over $150 (in 2016 dollars) per minute.  Reportedly Jimi Hendrix would have been included but he missed his flight from the US.

Whatever Led Zeppelin was doing on 18 March 1969, it wasn't being filmed performing Dazed and Confused for Supershow, because there are plenty of witnesses to their doing so the following week.

The film premiered in London at the Lyceum Theatre in November 1969 and in 1986 was released on video. This version of Dazed and Confused was included on the Led Zeppelin DVD in 2003.

1985 Jimmy Page / The Firm, Albuquerque

♪

♪ Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin, Supershow 1969) YouTube
♪  The Firm (Albuquerque 1985) YouTube
♪  Page & Plant (Dallas 1995) YouTube



♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 17 March

Fascinating... but I'll take the original, thank you very much.

1988 17 March On This Day Jimmy Page with Puff Daddy, New York
AUDIO Come With Me 

• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Gladsaxe, Denmark at Danmarks Radio
• 1973 Led Zeppelin - Munich, Germany at Munich Olympiahalle
• 1975 Led Zeppelin - Seattle, WA at Seattle Center Coliseum
• 1986 Jimmy Page The Firm - Daytona Beach, FL at Ocean Center
• 1995 Page & Plant Unledded Tour - Little Rock, AR at Barton Coliseum
• 1998 Jimmy Page visits Puff Daddy in NYC to hear 'Come With Me' overdubs

1969:
Led Zeppelin was filmed for Danish TV in black & white in front of a polite audience of fans and friends, and aired a few months later in May.

1969 Led Zeppelin, Gladsaxe at Danmarks Radio

1973 Led Zeppelin, Munich

1986 Jimmy Page / The Firm (Daytona Beach?)

1998:
Jimmy Page recorded his guitar track for Come With Me on 17 February at CTS Studios in London. On this day in March he and Robert were in New York to promote the upcoming release of Walking Into Clarksdale and their US tour.

♪

♪  Full set (Led  Zeppelin, Gladsaxe Danish TV 1969) YouTube
♪  Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin, Munich 1973) YouTube
♪  Sick Again (Led Zeppelin, Seattle 17 March 1975) YouTube
♪ Come With Me (official video) YouTube
♪ Kashmir (Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti) YouTube

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 16 March

A riot wherever Jimmy Page appears

1965 16 March On This Day Jimmy Page visiting LA with Immediate Records

• 1968 The Yardbirds - Paris, France at Le Terminus
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Copenhagen, Denmark at Tivolis Koncertsal
• 1973 Led Zeppelin - Vienna, Austria at Weiner Stadhalle
• 1985 Jimmy Page - The Firm - Costa Mesa, CA at Pacific Coliseum

1965:
Jimmy Page worked briefly with Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate Records as staff producer, which included auditioning musicians for the label. His experience as a session guitarist stood him in good stead since even at just 21 years old Jimmy Page already had worked with many of the big names in music, and through Immediate he would network with even more. However, the lure of performing was greater than that of the production end of music - in June of the following year Jimmy Page joined The Yardbirds.
 
1968:
The Yardbirds were in France on this day but the band had pre-recorded a segment that BBC aired as  Episode 493 of Live with the BBC.

1985 Jimmy Page, possibly after the Costa Mesa show with The Firm (Steve Jones collection)

2012 16 March Lucifer Rising release date announced

Lucifer Rising album cover

♪

♪  Good Night Sweet Josephine (The Yardbirds, Live at the BBC 1968) YouTube
♪  Think About It (The Yardbirds, Live at the BBC 1968) YouTube
♪  White Summer / Black Mountain Side (Led Zeppelin, Copenhagen 1969) YouTube
♪  Radioactive (The Firm, special mix 1985) YouTube

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 15 March

Hot. HOT. HOT!!

1993 15 March On This Day Coverdale/Page released
AUDIO: Shake My Tree (Coverdale Page)

• 1967 The Yardbirds – Offenbach ,Germany at Stadhalle, Beat Beat Beat TV Show
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Gladsaxe, Denmark at Egegard Skole,Box 45 Teen Club and Brondby,Denmark at Norregards-hallen,Brondby Pop-Club
• 1985 The Firm - Oakland, CA at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum
• 1986 The Firm - Hollywood, FL at Hollywood Sportatorium
• 1993 Coverdale/Page album released

1993:
It's no secret I'm a Coverdale/Page fan. I've written about the duo in this blog before HERE and HERE. People who profess to be Jimmy Page fans tend to get stuck in the Led Zeppelin years, dismissing his later work as mere add-ons. I believe Coverdale/Page is an excellent example of why thinking that way is a mistake. 

It's fascinating to follow how Jimmy Page's guitar work has changed over the years. While his earliest work was crisp and technical, the more Mr. Page matured the more emotion he put into the guitar and the deeper, darker and more nebulous the playing got. He pushed the envelope as he plumbed the depths of his psyche and higher meaning. 

Coverdale/Page brings in a maturity to the music that could not exist with Led Zeppelin - the boys were just too young still. Years of living change a person. Fans clamor for more Led Zeppelin but there's no need to hang on to the past when there is so much to reveal about the now. The added layers of experience, of new understanding of what has been lived before, and of knowing that the past is gone forever, gives an emotional depth and poignancy to the collaboration of David Coverdale and Jimmy Page that raises this music to new levels that Mr. Page had not been able to achieve before. 

Plain truth:  Athough Coverdale/Page has been relegated to "imitation Robert Plant", in fact Robert Plant has never tried, as a mature musician, to bring to Jimmy Page what David Coverdale did. 

1993 Coverdale/Page promo photo

Listen to Take Me For A Little While and weep for what has slipped into the past. Listen carefully to this whole album, my friends, because it bears a truth that should truly shake your tree: The best is yet to come.

♪

♪  I Can’t Quit You (Led Zeppelin, Brondby 1969) YouTube
♪  Take Me For A Little While (Coverdale/Page 1993) YouTube
♪  Coverdale/Page playlist

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube

On This Day 14 March

Break and make

1969 14 March On This Day Led Zeppelin ham it up on Swedish TV
VIDEO

• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Stockholm at Sveriges Radio TV Studios & at Stockholm Konserthuset; Uppsala, Sweden at Uppsala University
• 1971 Led Zeppelin - Henley, England at Trentham Gardens Ballroom
• 1973 Led Zeppelin - Nuremberg, Germany at Nuremberg Messehalle
• 1975 Led Zeppelin - San Diego, CA at San Diego Sports Arena
• 1985 The Firm - Inglewood, CA at The Forum
• 1986 The Firm - Tampa, FL at USF Sun Dome
• 1995 Page & Plant Unledded Tour - Houston, TX at The Summit 

1969:
A marathon of three performances in one day. The first was at the Swedish TV studio, to be filmed miming Communication Breakdown, and this was the first of a number of TV and radio appearances over the next few weeks. The boys appeared to have a good time hamming it up for the camera.

Jimmy Page broke a string at the second gig at the Stockholm Konserthuset, and while it was being replaced the others performed I Got To Move, attributed by Robert Plant to Otis Rush. They sound pretty nice as a trio, though it lacks a certain something. Oh yeah. Guitar.

The second and third gigs' billings were shared with Country Joe and the Fish. Led Zeppelin hit the stage at 11 PM. They were probably tired puppies by the time they were done.

1969 Jimmy Page / Led Zeppelin, Stockholm Konserthuset 

1973 Led Zeppelin, Nuremberg

1985 Jimmy Page / The Firm Inglewood, CA at The Forum

1986:
"...if it's a good band, I think very musician is bound to be a strong person in their own right. But it's the way they come together on stage..."
~ Jimmy Page, WYNF Tampa radio interview

I'm not sure why Jimmy Page picked Spirit of Love as his favorite from Mean Business.  He sounded tired and bored and almost seemed to pick the song at random. It does have a great guitar solo in it, though.

1986 Jimmy Page with staff of WYNF Tampa Radio

♪

♪  Communication Breakdown (Led Zeppelin, Sveriges Radio TV Studios, Sweden 1969) YouTube
♪  I Gotta Move (Led Zeppelin, Stockholm Konserthuset 1969) YouTube
♪  The Rain Song (Led Zeppelin, Nuremberg 1973) YouTube
♪  Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin, San Diego 1975) YouTube
♪  No Quarter (Led Zeppelin, San Diego 1975) YouTube
♪  Make or Break (The Firm, Inglewood 1985) YouTube
♪  Spirit of Love (The Firm, Mean Business 1986) YouTube
♫  WYNF Tampa radio spot recordings & interview 1986

♪ Mage Music 1 playlist at YouTube
♪ Mage Music 2 playlist at YouTube
♪ Page & Plant playlist at YouTube