In this issue:

Booting It Back to April '69

This month, we're going to "boot it back" to April 1969 and look at Led Zeppelin's music, especially by means of a rare, unauthorized recording called Flying High.

When Led Zeppelin started on its First U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1968-69 (from December 26, ’68 to February 15, 1969), the band served up a psychedelic slurry of blues, rhythm & blues and rock.

Songs like How Many More Times, As Long As I Have You and Killing Floor are notable examples of the blues/rhythm and blues/rock fusion that the band delivered to the world like no one else at the start of its career.

In particular, How Many More Times and Garnet Mimms’ As Long As I Have You, were improvisational structures in the form of medleys. They would serve as musical real estate on which Zeppelin would build some of its own inspirational musical influences and also develop a style of its own by incorporating such musical ideas and song references.

What they were doing at that time was truly groundbreaking in the field of popular music. North America (especially the United States) was completely in love with Led on that First Tour!

The band and its management decided it was essential to keep the love affair going in the U.S. and Canada, so a Second U.S. and Canadian Tour was slated for April/May 1969.

After a tour of Scandinavia and the United Kingdom (which started on February 24 at Club Lafayette in Wolverhampton and ended at the same venue on April 17), Zeppelin was ready to fly back to North America and keep the momentum going.

This April/May 1969 epoch of Led Zeppelin’s musical development was a time steeped in musical experimentation and improvisation. The band was crafting and discovering its own identity through the vehicles of psychedelia, blues and rock.

Although Led Zeppelin picked up from where its First Tour had left off, the band was also expanding tremendously.

Improvisations became more and more audacious. No doubt the band members were really getting to know what each one was doing and how to put the music across as a unit. They were also exploring a multitude of song references and experimental forays, much of the time by means of psychedelia.

Let’s examine a few of the live concert or bootleg recordings from that Second U.S. and Canadian Tour that we know exist to take a closer look at the crucibles fusing this material.

Numerous performances were recorded on that tour. Chief among them is a series of performances documented on tape from San Francisco’s Fillmore West and Winterland Ballroom in late April 1969.

Fillmore West, April 24, 1969

This performance was captured on a bootleg CD set called Psychededlic Raw Blues (IM 017-018). It’s so amazingly good, you feel as if you’re right in the middle of the band! The recording is almost professional in its quality.

Zeppelin had been playing R&B artist, Garnet Mimms’, song As Long As I Have You, on the band’s First U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1968-69, and quite likely before. The first known live performance of Zeppelin playing it was at Gonzaga University, on December 30, 1968.

They played As Long As I Have You as a medley type of exercise throughout that tour. It grew in sophistication and length as the band toured from December 1968-February 1969. However, by the time of this Fillmore West performance in April, Zeppelin is performing it with an astounding number of musical references woven together.

For instance, at this April 24, 1969 performance, As Long As I Have You was absolutely torrid.

Long instrumental jams, use of psychedelic feedback, a multitude of song references - all were masterfully sandwiched together within the confines of this number. And, to add extra drama and excitement to this version, Zeppelin shows that the band can keep the show going even when John Paul Jones' equipment breaks down!

Plant and company take over and do an adroit improvisation while Jones gets his bass guitar back on track. It has been blurting out foghorn-like blasts of sound, intermingled with groaning amplifiers and higher pitched sounds that definitely indicate problems with his gear.

It's a wonderful exercise in improvisation by Plant, Bonham and Page who carry on through all the bass guitar blurts, groans and squeals. More evidence that, no matter what comes Zeppelin's way, the group can deal with anything.

They even deliver a solitary rendition of As Long As I Have You with a multitude of ad lib lyrics we won't hear again on any other bootleg. This entire version is a sonic treat from start to finish, enhanced by the excellent sound quality that captures the Led Zeppelin so accurately at this point in the young band's career.

Some song references in this particular rendition of As Long As I Have You include ever-increasingly sophisticated and extemporized interpretations by all four members of Zeppelin of: Spirit’s Fresh Garbage, the traditional song, Hush Little Baby, CCR’s Suzie Q along with improvisational instrumental work by Page, Jones and Bonham PLUS Robert Plant offering made-up-on-the-spot lyrics.

Without question, this recording – which perfectly captures Zeppelin at this advanced exploration of psychedelia - yields one of the best-ever versions of As Long As I Have You, despite Jones' equipment woes.

Jimmy Page’s acidulous and nerve-jarring guitar work, Plant’s screeching vocals, Jones’ booming bass and Bonham’s thunderous drumming all come together to make this number stand out in psychedelic delirium. It shows that at this early stage of the band’s career, Led Zeppelin is already a master at creating a psychedelic storm in the form of a medley, within the framework of another’s song; in this case, Garnet Mimms’.

April 26, 1969 Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco, California

Legendary promoter Bill Graham owned and operated the Fillmore West, as well as this next venue. It was very important for bands to get booked at Graham’s Winterland Ballroom, too. Zeppelin performed there on both April 25 and April 26, 1969. This material is available on a Japanese bootleg set that is very rare, entitled Led Set (Tarantura LEAD-1), as well as on other bootleg CDs and vinyl records.

Led Zeppelin infused with psychedelia the old blues standards like I Can’t Quit You Baby , You Shook Me and others. But the band also injected this influence into its own compositions that had started making their way into Zeppelin’s shows. These numbers would soon be included among the tracks on the group’s second album, Led Zeppelin II.

The April 26, 1969 performance at the Winterland Ballroom was captured by a good quality audience tape. Here Zeppelin shows it is able to create and compose its own brand of blues, rock and psychedelia.

How Many More Times contains song references that are expanding the musical mood and depth of this medley: references to Smokestack Lightning, Girl of the North Country (a song Plant would perform in his solo career, many years later) and song references we don’t even know were performed that night!

Also in this April 26, 1969 recording we hear what is believed by many to be the earliest performance of what would become a Led Zeppelin anthem: Whole Lotta Love. This version is prototypical; instead of the sirenesque, wailing sounds of the theremin that we’ve come to know on the track of Whole Lotta Love laid down on Led Zeppelin II, Page gets into an outrageous guitar solo, giving the song a completely different arrangement and sonic sensibility from what would emerge on that second studio album.

This is just more evidence of Zeppelin being so highly experimental at this time, leaning heavily into psychedelia to make it all happen musically.

Dazed and Confused, with its psychedelic title, is finished off with the use of the screeching, wailing theremin by Page…yet another singular musical excursion, courtesy of this April 26, 1969 Winterland Ballroom performance of Led Zeppelin’s.

April 27, 1969 The Fillmore West

Zeppelin returned to the Fillmore West. There were both soundboard and audience recordings of excellent quality documenting this April 27, 1969 performance.

Among the highlights of this performance are numbers like Killing Floor, As Long As I Have You and How Many More Times.

Killing Floor had also been played on the First U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1968-69, but here it has taken a quantum leap forward in terms of development and experimentation.

It is heavily improvised. The band members are obviously going all out to see what they can do. Jimmy Page’s heavy-handed guitar intro with Robert Plant intertwining his vocal offerings sets your teeth on edge right away. The entire version is an improvisational odyssey into the blues tradition that’s being carved and sonically sculpted into solid rock by the four musicians of Led Zeppelin this evening at the Fillmore West.

As we know, Killing Floor will morph into The Lemon Song and appear on Led Zeppelin II. But again, this particular rendition of Killing Floor is totally different from what we’ll eventually hear burned into those grooves of LZII. This is further testament to the type and degree of musical experimentation and development that are going on at this time in Zeppelin’s performance history.

In another jaw-dropping version of As Long As I Have You, song references that haven’t been included on previous nights are also in evidence this evening: Cat’s Squirrel, No Money Down and I’m a Man are some examples of another incredible musical ride that is Zeppelin’s medley of As Long As I Have You.

Here’s another labyrinth of musical experimentation: How Many More Times. One of the highlights comes at the end, where Led Zeppelin polishes off the piece with a morosely entrancing extemporization of the children’s song, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush!

In 1985, I added to my vinyl collection a double-album bootleg of this April 27, 1969 performance at the Fillmore West. It was made in the United States but it looked as though it had come from Japan, possibly to disguise its true origin. The aptly named Flying High is a very old and quite rare boot. The soundboard recording that yielded it is especially fine.

The front and back covers are shown below. Please note that the picture on the front cover is actually one of Led Zeppelin in 1977, not 1969! And the date of November 8 is obviously wrong. In those days, it was very common for bootlegs to display such errors and inconsistencies.

Front and back covers of rare live recording, Flying High. Note that the performance date shown is incorrect. This boot actually captures Led Zeppelin at the Fillmore West on April 27, 1969. Photos courtesy of L.A. Reddon and the Enzepplopedia Archives, used with permission. Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc.

One of the most amazing treats on this boot is Zeppelin’s interpretation of an entire blues song by Buddy Guy, called Sittin’ and Thinkin’. It’s just a scathing version. Plant is in great bluesman’s voice. Page, Jones and Bonham become the quintessential blues band to back him up.

As Zeppelin created more and more of its own material, something had to go. Songs like As Long As I Have You and Killing Floor would be sacrificed in favour of the band’s emerging original compositions.

Led Zeppelin not only made a departure from these blues classics, the band also departed from its formative heavy experimentation in psychedelia. Although they would continue to explore psychedelia, the rawest sense of musical discovery in fusing it to blues and rock, as they had in numbers like As Long As I Have You, was never quite the same after this Second U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1969.

But that’s perfectly fine. After all, it’s musical evolution we’re dealing with here! That’s why I wanted to take a look at this specific period of Led Zeppelin’s musical history in April/May 1969. Hope you enjoyed the trip back in time.

Please note: The manufacture, distribution and sale of unauthorized and/or unlicensed recordings is illegal. Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc. does not produce, distribute or sell such material nor endorse those who do. Any reference, discussion or image presented here is intended solely for the purposes of historical research and context.

Sad notes...

Last month, we mentioned that this year’s first edition of Dave Lewis’ Tight But Loose magazine would be coming out at the end of April.

Dave’s publication has been THE source for all things Zeppelin since 1978.

We were deeply saddened to hear that Dave's father-in-law, Kenneth Squire, recently passed away. Our most sincere condolences go to the Lewis and Squire families.

Dave asked us to let you know that things have been put on hold and the TBL launch has been moved to the end of May. Dave recently interviewed UK rock journalist Nick Kent, who was close to Jimmy Page and company in the mid 1970s. This exclusive interview, which Dave is wrapping, will be in that issue of TBL. It should be ready to ship by the end of May.

Click here for subscription details: http://www.tightbutloose.co.uk/tblweb09/?page_id=1469

Reminders

Want to learn about Led? Visit Learn-about-Led.com

Order Sonic Boom Volume 1 here.

And don't forget to tell us what's YOUR favourite Led Zeppelin album!

Do you already own True Blues & Beyond, my e-book that explores Led Zeppelin's earliest influences in the blues? It's free for Enzepploziners. Click here to download it.