December 23, 2009
In this issue:
Season's Greetings from Enzepplopedia
It has been an exciting year for Lou Anne and me. The past year saw the release of our first two e-books and there’ll be more to come in 2010. We’ve made a lot of new friends in Zep and it has been our pleasure to share with you some information about your favourite band that may have been news to you.
We could think of no better way to review the past decade than to have the man behind Lemon Squeezings: Led Zeppelin News, Steve "The Lemon" Sauer, give us the highlights. He very generously shares a recent interview he conducted with Myles Kennedy, who for the first time speaks in depth about the band he was nearly able to form a year ago with half of Led Zeppelin.
Before we get into that, we’d like to wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas or a joyous holiday of your choice and every happiness for the coming decade.
As you know, my first book is called Sonic Boom: The IMPACT of Led Zeppelin. Well, folks, here’s an unusual example of how that impact endures.
This is a bottle of table wine produced in the Finger Lakes region of New York state. Look at the label. It’s called “Red Zeppelin”! On the back, the producers, Fulkerson Wine Cellars of Dundee, NY, admonish us: “Come on, wine people. Loosen up! Have fun with this zesty, etc. ROCK ON!”
We salute the musical taste of these vintners and will raise a glass to all of you this season.
Cheers!
Frank Reddon, Author
Sonic Boom: The Impact of Led Zeppelin.
Volume 1 - Break & Enter
What Was and What Should Ever Be:
A Year-end, Decade-end Led Zeppelin Retrospective
By Steve Sauer, www.ledzeppelinnews.com
The end of any year gives cause for reflection, but especially so at the end of the tenth consecutive year with the same digit in the tens place. Although some would argue the decade technically will not end for another year, I invite you to join me in a retrospective review of the past 10 years with regard to Led Zeppelin history.
The presence of Led Zeppelin in the twenty-first century is definitely felt, despite the band having been largely absent in the most real sense since John Bonham's death in 1980. The drummer would have turned 60 in May 2008. Meanwhile, his surviving band mates all surpassed this milestone age one after another: Jimmy Page in January 2004, John Paul Jones in January 2006 and, finally, Robert Plant in August 2008.
Page has adopted a new look, his silver hair now pulled back into a pony tail or, on occasion, dangling at shoulder length over a typically black ensemble. At the same time, he still has a youthful smile.
Part of Plant's wrinkled face is now hidden behind a distinguished full beard and mustache. He now opts for boots and covers his chest a lot more than in previous decades, but his hair is still long and flowing, just as in days long gone.
Jones, whose appearance changed often throughout the 1970s, has over the past 10 years settled on a short, trimmed haircut. With the publicity he is currently getting, his age-defying face is becoming more of a household icon than ever before.
The public appreciation for Led Zeppelin has significantly improved over the past 10 years.
For one thing, it is hard not to notice that Led Zeppelin shirts have been all the rage among teens.
The steady flow of books dedicated to the band has given way to a tidal wave of them in the past three years, helped in part by the buzz accompanying official band activity in 2007 as well as the more recent 40th anniversaries of Led Zeppelin's formation and debut album.
Magazines' treatment of Led Zeppelin was highly improved in the past 10 years. It was in 2003 that Rolling Stone magazine, which had been famously unsupportive of the group decades earlier, made a long overdue turnaround and produced a positive reassessment of Led Zeppelin and its music.
Other publications expressed similar sentiments toward the band's influence, with Q Magazine boldly declaring Led Zeppelin on a 2005 cover, "The Most Important Band in the World ... Today!"
Two years later, all over the world, coverage of and reaction to the group's final reunion concert was overwhelmingly glowing.
On the musical front between 1990 and 1999, we witnessed the remastering of the entire Led Zeppelin catalogue, several comprehensive box set releases, the emergence of BBC Sessions, and a further compilation of the band's best studio moments. Likewise, the current 10-year period has not failed to deliver.
Technological advances finally allowed Jimmy Page to complete, much to his satisfaction and that of tireless fans, the long-promised chronological live set, simply titled Led Zeppelin DVD but with stunning visuals of the band at its multiple career peaks.
Issued simultaneously in 2003, How the West Was Won was a triple set that has been regarded as one of the best albums of its kind ever released. It was only Zeppelin’s second live album.
Sales of Mothership, another double-disc compilation of studio material have impressed, and the debut of Led Zeppelin's music on the iTunes platform presented the same great material to the first online generation.
The Song Remains the Same was revisited, with new versions of the movie and its soundtrack being released in a whirlwind of official activity all under the group's banner.
The activity above all coincided with new achievements in the enduring legacies of the individual members.
Jimmy Page took to the road with the Black Crowes on a highly successful collaborative tour in 2000 that highlighted a surplus of Led Zeppelin material performed well. Their work together the previous year was documented in the double album release Live at the Greek.
The tour was sidelined by Page's injury, and he has since refrained from hitting the road for prolonged periods. His selective appearances, however, continue to make a splash, whether it's the ringing of the opening bell on Wall Street in 2005 or his ongoing ventures to raise money for street children in Brazil, such as at a fundraiser held last month in Rio de Janeiro.
He took on a brilliant role being one of three guitarists featured in It Might Get Loud. The film documentary was completed in 2008. Page attended its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September of that year and it debuted publicly in 2009.
In August 2008, Page brought Whole Lotta Love to the world stage at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing, celebrating the Games' planned arrival in London in 2012.
John Paul Jones spent 2000 completing a victory lap of touring in support of his first true solo album, Zooma, released the year before. He was back on the road again in 2001, this time singing with his band (even on a tasty version of Led Zeppelin's That's the Way), while also debuting some new material in advance of its release the following year on his second album, The Thunderthief.
He remained a viable musical force throughout the decade, with production credits including Uncle Earl and Sara Watkins, plus appearances sitting in with Julie Felix, Robyn Hitchcock, Ben Harper, and even the Allman Brothers Band. However, eyes returned to Jones in a big way this year as he treated the world to his hard-rockin' new all-star band, Them Crooked Vultures.
The most active member over this period by far has been Robert Plant, who debuted a new band called the Strange Sensation in 2001 and collaborated with them on two albums, Dreamland in 2002 and Mighty ReArranger in 2005.
Plant circumnavigated the globe with members of this band, playing one tribal music festival in North Africa, a memorable gig in the Arctic Circle, and all points in between. Plant's biggest success of this time came after he found a new muse in Alison Krauss and a new guide in T Bone Burnett.
As a result of their highly successful and award-winning album Raising Sand in 2007 and their subsequent world tour of 2008, Plant and Krauss were among the most recognized figures in music.
While the world certainly saw plenty of joint concert appearances from Jimmy Page and Robert Plant between 1994 and 1998, the 2000s had only one such concert with them performing as a duo. It was a tribute to Sun Records, which was approaching its 50th anniversary. Surgery reportedly kept Page from participating in another planned appearance with Plant in June 2006; this would have been a tribute to Ahmet Ertegün, whose untimely death was six months later.
They certainly made it up to him the following year by reuniting with John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham, and blasting out an amazing two-hour performance under the Led Zeppelin banner. This concert held in Ertegün's honor, which also featured several other Atlantic Records mainstays, took place in London during the week of the first anniversary of Ertegün's passing.
With Jason Bonham gloriously filling in for his late father, this Led Zeppelin performance on December 10, 2007, provided a fitting farewell from the band, if indeed that is how it was intended. Fans all over the world still hope to see the concert officially released for home viewing, especially since it appears rather unlikely that further reformations of the group will take place, despite universal desire.
In the months following that one-night Led Zeppelin reunion, ramblings of Jones, Page and Bonham secretly rehearsing together turned out to be correct.
Jones and Page surprised an outdoor audience of 86,000 Foo Fighters fans at Wembley Stadium in June 2008 by turning up for an encore set of two Led Zeppelin songs. Ironically, it was a hint not of a band to come pairing Jones and Page but Jones and Dave Grohl, although nobody knew it at the time.
There was an attempt to form a new band featuring Page, Jones, Bonham and a singer of their choice. While management insisted their line-up was never intended to be called Led Zeppelin, their declarations largely fell upon deaf ears within the mainstream press, which wrongly characterized the grouping as being an intended Led Zeppelin reunion with a Robert Plant replacement. Plans to unleash their band were subsequently abandoned.
As a fitting coda to this development, singer Myles Kennedy granted me an exclusive interview this month, one year after their rehearsal sessions took place. He detailed once and for all how his involvement came about and what it was like writing lyrics and melodies on top of new riffs and rhythms written by musicians he refers to as "the masters."
What a year 2009 has been for Led Zeppelin fans! Full of ups and downs.
For one, the year began with the abrupt and jarring disclosure by Jimmy Page's manager that the anticipated band with Page, Jones and Bonham was history. While the guitarist seemed at times to be in retirement, the year is ending on a high note as Page has only very recently promised to be seen in concert playing new music in 2010.
Meanwhile, we already knew Jones would be continuing to tour with Them Crooked Vultures in the new year. To many across multiple generations, this is a very fulfilling venture; that band's concerts are expanding in length, new songs are continually being written and debuted live, and a second album has also been declared among their future plans.
As for Robert Plant, he started out the year in pre-production for a second album with Alison Krauss. February saw their sweep at the Grammy Awards ceremony. The status of their sophomore collaboration is not currently known, and Krauss has turned her attention, for the time being, to her band Union Station.
Plant has definitely been up to something, appearing in concert with Buddy Miller and even recording with producer Daniel Lanois. What is up his sleeve next is not currently known but is welcome as long as it keeps him in high spirits and in fine voice.
With all that happened over the past twelve months and likewise the past ten years, and despite the things that didn't happen, this has absolutely been a great time to be a Led Zeppelin fan. Whatever the future holds, I look forward to it unfolding in time, with the enduring notion that "all will be revealed."
Click here to read the exclusive Myles Kennedy interview!
Reminders
Want to learn about Led? Visit Learn-about-Led.com
Order Sonic Boom Volume 1 at Enzepplopedia.com.
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.