On this day 12 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.

"Ladies and gentlemen of New York ... you're too much ... and we ain't so bad ourselves!"
~ Robert Plant, MSG 12 February 1975

1965 12 February On This Day Heinz and the Wild Boys release Digging My Potatoes
AUDIO: Digging My Potatoes (Soundcloud)

• 1975 Led Zeppelin - New York, Madison Square Garden
• 1996 Page & Plant Unledded Tour – Tokyo at Nippon Budokan 

1965:

Heinz Burt, a protégé of record producer and song writer Joe Meek, was the bassist for The Tornados, the band that released the multi-million dollar instrumental, Telstar, in 1962. With Meek's encouragement, Heinz Burt launched on a solo career, touring with Jerry Lee Lewis, but never quite successful on his own. Heinz asked Jimmy Page to do an overdub solo  on‘Digging My Potatoes’. It was recorded at Joe Meek's home studio in London. Two years later, Meeks was dead by suicide.

1975:
This was Led Zeppelin's third show at Madison Square Garden in February.  Robert Plant told the crowd that the band had to come four blocks through the snow to get there.  It might have been cold outside but the music was hot in MSG that night. Check out the awesome work when Jimmy Page takes off around 3:58 of Sick Again (below).

1975 12 February Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden

1975 Jimmy Page / Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden

2005:
American record producer Clive Davis hosted a pre-Grammy Awards party in Beverly Hills on this day. Led Zeppelin would be awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award the next night at the Staples Center ceremony.

2005 Jimmy Page & Ahmut Ertegun at pre-Grammy party (Ross Halfin photo)

2005 Jimmy Page at pre-Grammy party

♪

♪  Diggin' My Potatoes (Heinz and the Wild Boys feat Jimmy Page 1965) 
♪  Sick Again (Led Zeppelin, MSG 12 February 1975) YouTube
♪  Led Zeppelin (New York NY at Madison Square Garden, 12 February 1975) 
♫ 2005 Jimmy Page interview Grammy Awards party

On This Day 30 October

Jimmy Page wins it all if you ask me.

1987 30 October On This Day Writes of Winter nominated for a Grammy Award
♪ Writes of Winter (Soundcloud)

• 1966 The Yardbirds - Dick Clark Caravan of Stars tour, Harlingen, TX at Harlingen Municipal Auditorium
• 1966 The Yardbirds - Corpus Christi, TX at Corpus Christi Memorial Coliseum (last show with Jeff  Beck)
• 1969 Led Zeppelin - Buffalo, NY at Kleinhans Music Hall
• 1988 Jimmy Page Outrider Tour - Philadelphia, PA at The Spectrum
• 1998 Page & Plant – London, at University of London Union 

1969:

"As a unit, they are taskmasters. The intensity with which they look at each other while working is amazing. Their unit concentration is amazing. And their musical tightness is also amazing.

"Jimmy Page... gave a fascinating technical display of guitar artistry.  In [White Summer] Page pulls up a chair and calmly tunes his old Silvertone guitar. He strives for a strange form of musical tonality in his guitar and proceeds to through his paces. The number combined an interesting musical texture which hinted of the Far East, the folk idiom and the country-western style. in a dazzling display of manual dexterity . Page made his music become his speech. He communicated what he felt at the time. Page was the featured performer that night. His brilliance on the guitar let the crowd to numerous ovations.
~ Buffalo News, Oct. '69

Jimmy Page was using his 1961 Danelectro 3021 for session work in 1965 and began using it in 1967 on stage for White Summer with The Yardbirds. 

"I used a special tuning for that; the low string down to B, then A, D, G, A and D. It’s like a modal tuning, a sitar tuning, in fact."
~ Jimmy Page, Steve Rosen interview 1977

1969 Jimmy Page with Danelectro 3021 at Buffalo (photo Art Juchno)

1969 Jimmy Page/Led Zeppelin Buffalo (photo Art Juchno)

1969 Led Zeppelin Buffalo  (photo Art Juchno)

1987:
It's hard to imagine how any work of Jimmy Page's would not win any award it was nominated for. On the other hand, the way the Grammy Awards are determined gave Outrider a handicap right out of the gate because of the timing.

The Grammy process begins with members of the Recording Academy and record companies submitting entries for the eligibility year.  For Outrider that would have been 1 October 1987 through 30 September 1988.

Only Recording Academy Voting Members vote to nominate, however - record companies do not vote. Outrider was not released until June 1988. Thus the mystery: how did the October 1987 nomination come about at all when the album hadn't been released yet?

What's not a mystery is to know how incredible Outrider would have been as a double album if the tapes hadn't been stolen from Jimmy Page's house. Where are they now? And who do we have to kill to get them?

ca 1998 Jimmy Page with Danelectro  3021 "Silvertone" with replacement bridge

♪

♪  White Summer (The Yardbirds feat. Jimmy Page 30 March 1968) YouTube
♪  Full set (Led Zeppelin Buffalo 1969) YouTube
♪  Writes of Winter (Jimmy Page, Outrider) YouTube
♪  Night Flight (Page & Plant, London 1998) YouTube
♪  Full set (Page & Plant, London 1998) YouTube