On This Day In Led Zeppelin History
May 9, 2006
Special "Summer 2006" edition
May 9 marks the eighth anniversary of Jimmy Page's television appearance
on "Saturday Night Live" playing his famous " Kashmir" riff alongside
the rapper then known as Puff Daddy. But rather than dwell on this
frozen and perhaps forgettable moment in Led Zeppelin history, this
edition of the newsletter will focus on some upcoming and hopefully more
memorable events. Try this headline on for size:
Former Zep Members Announce Concert Schedules
All three surviving members of Led Zeppelin are said to be working on
new recording projects, something fans of the group should be used to
hearing for some time now. However, a point that will be easier to prove
is that at least two of the former members of the group will be playing
concerts this summer. The news of upcoming concert events seems to put
Jimmy Page back onstage for the first time since a couple of one-off
appearances 2002, this time alongside a couple of faces that popped up
more often during his music career of over 45 years than did that of P.
Diddy.
Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation are already fresh off some
completed concert engagements in Italy, France, the Netherlands and
Switzerland that have taken place over the past few months. More live
dates by the band will follow throughout the continent throughout August
or later.
Page, who has not played regularly since he sustained a back injury
while on tour with the Black Crowes in 2000, has two concerts lined up
over the next few months. Some newly recorded Page guitar work is
expected to be released on an album this September, while his past
remarks that he would be undertaking another new project remain elusive.
John Paul Jones, in a message on his official Web site posted in
February, thanked his fans for their patience while he readies what will
be his third solo album since 1999. It is one he claims to have been
working on since 2004, just after he last embarked on a concert tour
– that being with an all-star bluegrass band called Mutual
Admiration Society. Jones' February message also recounted some more of
his recent one-off concerts, and he said he would take some time off
from the solo project to produce a record for an all-female folk string
ensemble he met two years ago, called Uncle Earl.
While announcements from the Page and Jones camps are so scant, tour
plans from Plant and the Strange Sensation are high in frequency.
Despite the rumors of a North American tour, there has been no
announcement as such. The group was on the road for several months last
year, including in the United States, in support of the album Mighty
ReArranger. The Strange Sensation has committed to a number of festival
dates throughout Europe that will keep them busy touring for the next
several months.
The few dates apparently lined up for 62-year-old Page this summer will
pair him up first in June with Plant, and second in August with Roy
Harper, who was a constant touring companion with Led Zeppelin in the
1970s. There is also the possibility of Page sitting in with Jerry Lee
Lewis of "Great Balls of Fire" fame this August.
Just days before Plant and the Strange Sensation played their first show
this year, the music world suffered the loss of prominent guitarist Ali
Farka Toure, who died in his home country of Mali on March 7 after a
long bout with bone cancer. Plant was a fan of his music, and the two
played together in Mali at the Festival in the Desert in January 2003.
Plant's most recent live appearance, a concert tribute to Toure, took
place on May 4 in Milan, Italy . Also playing the event was Tinariwen, a
group Plant has called in recent years as one of his favorites
worldwide. However, at the time of the show, Plant was said to be
suffering from the flu and a throat infection. As a result, he limited
his singing to only one number: a version of "Win My Train Fare Home"
performed with the members of Tinariwen and Strange Sensation bandmates
Clive Deamer, Billy Fuller and Justin Adams. He also played guitar on a
few other songs.
Plant is among artists scheduled to appear June 23 at a benefit concert
for another of his musical heroes: Arthur Lee, the singer and songwriter
behind the group Love, who is reportedly battling acute lymphoblastic
leukemia. Lee has undergone three weeks of chemotherapy and faces
possible surgery. Plant's Web site says Lee's medical bills already top
six figures. "I'm really glad to be able to do something for him, you
know, raising funds and stuff because I don't think he's got any health
insurance," Plant said this weekend during an interview on DJ Johnnie
Walker's BBC Radio 2 show. All proceeds from the concert will go to
Lee's medical expenses.
Plant spoke briefly in this interview about his appreciation of Lee and
his contemporaries from San Francisco and other West Coast hotbeds of
late-1960s psychedelic music. "I must have been about 17 when I first
heard 'The Castle' and his version of 'Hey Joe,'" he said, referring to
songs from the first two Love albums, released in 1966 and 1967. Love's
next opus in 1967, Forever Changes, is routinely mentioned as Plant's
favorite album of all time, and it provided him with a pair of songs he
often covers in concert – "A House Is Not a Motel" and "Bummer in
the Summer."
The Arthur Lee benefit concert is set to take place at the Beacon
Theatre in New York. Besides Plant, other performers on the bill,
according to Plant's Web site, are Love member Johnny Echols, the Ian
Hunter Band, David Johansen of the New York Dolls, New York-based
songwriter Garland Jeffreys, and Alec Ounsworth of indie-rock band Clap
Your Hands Say Yeah. (Tickets to Beacon Theatre events are normally sold
online at www.ticketmaster.com/venue/11
<http://www.ticketmaster.com/venue/11> and at www.beacontheater.net
<http://www.beacontheater.net/> , although the concert has not yet been
listed at either site.)
For now, Plant's next concert is set to take place today in England, at
a benefit by the RD Crusaders. In addition to Plant, the RD Crusaders
concert lineup is to include Roger Daltrey, drummer Richard Desmond,
Lulu, Greg Lake, Russ Ballard, Zoot Money, Simon Townshend, Steve Smith,
Nick Newall, Nicky Lambourne, Steve Balsamo and Margot Buchanan.
Richard Desmond formed the RD Crusaders in 2003, and the group has
raised over 1 million British pounds for charity since then. Proceeds
from the May 9 show benefit the Evelina Children's Hospital Appeal and
Camp Simcha. The hospital appeal project aims to raise 10 million pounds
through this concert and several other events. More information about
the charities can be obtained online at www.evelinaappeal.org
<http://www.evelinaappeal.org/> and www.campsimcha.org.uk
<http://www.campsimcha.org.uk/> .
Both Plant and Page are among artists slated to appear on June 30 in
Montreux, Switzerland, at a special tribute show for Ahmet Ertegun. The
Atlantic Records cofounder will be one month short of turning 83. It is
unclear whether Page and Plant will play together.
The Ertegun tribute concert takes place as part of the Montreux Jazz
Festival, which was the setting of the set Page and Plant last played
together, on July 7, 2001. Then, the two collaborated on a set that
included the first-ever performance of Led Zeppelin's "Candy Store
Rock," paying tribute to the Sun record label that first made the names
of rockabilly legends Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry
Lee Lewis famous in the 1950s.
A new album by Lewis, called Redemption, is slated for release in
September, and it will feature Page sitting in on a new rendition of Led
Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll." Both Lewis and Page are scheduled to appear
at the Rhythm Festival in England this August, so it is not unreasonable
to assume that the former Led Zeppelin guitarist could show up to play
during the Jerry Lee Lewis and the Killer Band's festival set on Aug. 6.
Page is being mentioned as a guest of Roy Harper's, who will perform at
the Rhythm Festival on Aug. 5. According to promotion for the event,
Harper is to play his 1971 album Stormcock, which includes Page on a
12-and-a-half-minute song called "The Same Old Rock." (Page's role was
attributed on the album sleeve to the pseudonym S. Flavius Mercurius.)
David Bedford, who provided the orchestral arrangement for the song that
closes Stormcock, is also listed on the bill as involved with Harper's
August festival set.
For more information on the Rhythm Festival or to purchase tickets for
the event, visit www.rhythmfestival.net <http://www.rhythmfestival.net/>
.
Harper, after whom Led Zeppelin named the blues medley featured at the
end of Led Zeppelin III, included Page on the songs "Bank of the Dead"
and "The Lord's Prayer," both from his 1973 album Lifemask, as well as
on the song "Male Chauvanist Pig Blues," separate versions of which were
included on Harper's 1974 albums Valentine and Flashes from the Archives
of Oblivion. In 1984, the two released a collaborative album called
Jugula, for which they played a handful of festival dates. A London
concert in 2001 honoring Harper's 60th birthday provided fodder for a
rumor that Page would pick up a guitar; Page attended the event but did
not grace the stage.
For a complete listing of upcoming concert appearances from Plant and
the Strange Sensation, visit Plant's official Web site at
www.robertplant.com <http://www.robertplant.com/> . To stay up-to-date
on the latest happenings from Jones, visit his official Web site at
www.johnpauljones.com <http://www.johnpauljones.com/> . Page is without
an official Web site to call his own, but the Led Zeppelin fan site
Tight But Loose does a fine job of keeping up with his news as well as
that of his fellow former bandmates. Visit www.tightbutloose.co.uk
<http://www.tightbutloose.co.uk/> for the latest news and tour updates
from all three. There's been talk that Plant said the Strange Sensation
is working on another album, so consider that three separate projects
are potentially forthcoming from the surviving members of Led Zeppelin,
forcing the history of this group ever onward.
Rock and roll,
Steve "The Lemon" Sauer