Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Led Zeppelin: The Band That Ruled the World [Episode 357]

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Led Zeppelin: The Band That Ruled the World [Episode 357] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A golden god front man, killer riffs, thunderous drums, iconic songs,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: and a well crafted mystique How led Zeppelin became the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Biggest band in the World.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Next, We're totally rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: You're reading. Little Hands says it's time to rock and roll.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Roll up, I totally booked.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to book dot Rock, the podcast for those
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: about to read and rock. My guest is Denny Somac.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: He is the author of Get the Letout, How led
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin Became the Biggest Band in the World, the updated edition. Denny,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: how you doing Okay? I want to set this up
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: with a brief bio on what I found on you.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Here.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: You tell me if everything is correct. Your production company
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is one of the most successful independent producers of syndicated
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and network rock radio programming in the US. You are
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: on air with the Rock and Roll for Grown Ups
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: at n WHD Radio, also The Rock Podcast with Denny Sohmack,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: available in video, on YouTube and audio on all popular platforms.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: You have worked with Yes, Alan Parsons, Dave Mason, Johnny Winter, Asia,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Dicky Bets, Todd Rundgren, among others. And you are the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: executive producer of Eric Johnson's Avia Musicom, which features the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Grammy Award winning song Cliffs of Dover. Did I get
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: it right?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Yes you did. Glad to be here, I hear your
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: show is a real perfect outlet for this type of.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Thing, absolutely, Man and I always love talking Led Zeppelin,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: and as we are now finding out that there are
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: younger generations discovering Zeppelin, which is always great.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It's the music number one, number two, it's the fact
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: that there's a great singer, Robert Plant. But the real
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: reason is Jimmy Page. He's a master of the studio.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: He was a session musician, which means people used to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: hire him to play guitar. He's on over a thousand records,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: everything from the Goldfinger theme song to several Who Records,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Kinks Records, Van Morrison Records, Donovan, He's on Joe Cocker's
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: with a little help for my friends. He just learned
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: the studio inside and out better than anybody, so when
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: it came time to record, he was an expert. And
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: that's why he produced all the records, and that's really
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: the main thing. He was a great producer, great musician.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: He found three other great musicians and the music is
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: incredible and it just keeps rolling over generation after generation.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Still the biggest band in the world.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And we're going to get into the history of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin and it comes from this book, which is based
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: on the original version came on twenty twelve, right, is that.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: The correct since then that sold out did very well.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: And my publisher said, you know, Zeppelin is still the
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: biggest pan in the world, and I said yeah. In fact,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: there's a documentary coming out called Being led Zeppelin or
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Becoming led Zeppelin. I said, maybe we should put the
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: book out again, and she said, well, my editor, what
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: can you add to it? And I wanted to do
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: a different type of book. By the way, just so
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: you know, this is not a book that says Robert
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Plant was born on such and such a date and
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: he went to school here. There's tons of Zeppelin books
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: that give you the background. What I wanted was the
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: information that the other people who have played with them,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: opened for them, worked with them, observed them, what their
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: stories are, because that's really what the essence is of Zeppelin.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: It's the magic of all the other people that they
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: worked with and how the music came about and every
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter where they were born or where they
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: lived's one hundred books to tell you that.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So, And it's based on Karen Miller's radio.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Show Well originally originally Well, I created that show a
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: long time ago, and then I got Carol to host it,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: and I produced it for five years. And there's like
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: a local version across the country a lot of stations.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Do I get the let out, it's usually three songs
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: by led Zeppelin in the evenings. But I said to
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the editor, I said, why don't I just take the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: best of There's like ten or twelve really good interviews
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: in here in the original and I'll add two hundred
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: and some pages. I'll get new interviews, I'll talk to
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: new people. I'll people that have been trying to get
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: the first time around, and get stories that haven't been told.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And that's basically what this book is, stories about led
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Zeppelin that have not previously been in other books. And
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: that meant tracking down people who had some sort of
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: interaction with them, but their stories were never recorded, or
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: they were recorded, but nobody really found them.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one story, I'm not sure it's ever been told,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: but it's regarding John Bonham joining the band. Jimmy Page
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: was putting together a new version of The Yardbirds ben
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: he'd been with for a few years. This is back
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: in sixty eight, and he brought in John Paul Jones,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a fellow veteran of London studio session work. Jimmy saw
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Robert Plant perform. Robert was on board right away, but
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Bonham's wife didn't want him to join the band.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Right because he was making He was playing drums for
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: a guy named Tim Rose. I don't know if you
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: know who he is, but yeah, the folks singer that
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I believe. He claims, along with other people to have
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: written Hey Joe and Morning Do so who knows, but
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: he was a folk singer. He is around a long
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: time and Bonham was his drummer, and he's making one
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty pounds a week. He didn't want to
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: give up the job. So actually, when Jimmy went to
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: see Robert, Bonham was playing with him that day and
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Chris Drea from The Yardbirds, the Yardbirds bass player, went
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: along with Jimmy and the manager Peter Grant, and Jimmy
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: initially said, this is from Chris told me this. He said, well,
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I like the singer I'm not sure, but I'll audition
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: him at my house. But that drummer, he's a must.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: He knew right away bottom and that's why the basic
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: sound of Zeppelin is all draped around the drums. It
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: all comes from the drums. That's why they couldn't continue
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: once he passed away. He couldn't go out and get
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Kenny Jones or the only guy that might have been
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: able to replace him would have been Carmine Apiece, a
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: heavy drummer, or the drummer Beb Bevan, who was in
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: a band called the Move very heavy drummer. But other
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: than that, there aren't too many people that I think
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: could even come close. And since Carmine was John Bonham's mentor,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: you can see where John Bonham got a lot of
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: his moves.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: From great forward from Carmine.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Like he says, I've been there. I was there from
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the beginning right up until the end when Bonham passed.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he. Vanilla Fudge were out on tour.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: They were a big band then they were headlining. Middle
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: act was a band called Spirit and the promoter said, listen,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: we're going to put this band, Led Zeppelin on as
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: the opener and Carmine and the rest of the band.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: So we don't need him, We're already sold out. What's
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: the point as well? You got to put them on.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: And not only that, they got to make fifteen hundred
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: dollars and you have to pay seven to fifty of
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: it and I'll pay the other seven fifty. And they
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: said what. So they ended up being the opening act
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: on that first tour, which started right after Christmas, and
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: within three or four weeks, you know, the band did
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: a two week tour and then they went off and
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: did like the Whiskey a Go Go in the film work,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: and that was the end of the first American tour.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: When they came back to the second American tour, the
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: album had taken off to the point where it was
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Vanilla Fudge and led Zeppelin equal billing. And then six
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: months after that when they came back, it was led
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Zeppelin opening act Vanilla Fudge. Yeah, so that's how fast
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: it happened. And Carmine said, you know, nobody knew what
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: they sounded like. We said, okay, well send us a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: test pressing of the record so we can hear it.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: So he was actually the first person to ever hear
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: the band because he got a test pressing. And you know,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: obviously since they opened for him, he was the first
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: person to see them play live. And he is the
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: only musician that has ever said to me, led Zeppelin,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: they blew us off the stage.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: So you know, very few people would admit that. But no,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: he said, these guys were just so good. I mean,
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: we were good, and we were very popular, but these
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: guys were amazing. Once they got into a rhythm and started,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: you know, the second album, they just exploded.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: The story about Bottom didn't but his wife thought that
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the band was too dangerous, Like he thought, these guys
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: are going to be trouble. This is a story I
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: think it was. It was in the documentary film.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: But yeah, well it was really pat His wife said,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I don't want you hanging around with that. With Robert Plants,
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: he's always getting into trouble. Yeah, and you're going to
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: get into trouble if you hang out with him. And
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: they'd been in several bands together, Obs, Tweedle and some
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: other bands, and like I said, he you know, you
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: didn't want to give up up a gig one hundred
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: and fifty pounds a week at that time, you know,
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: playing with a major known person. It was a big deal,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: and they had to send him several telegrams to tell
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: him they wanted him in the band, and he thought
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: it was a joke. So finally Peter Grant had to
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: send somebody in person to his house and tell him,
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Page would like to meet with you, and he
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: wants you to be in the New Yardbirds, which is
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: what they were called at the time.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Imagine if he did not go.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Same thing with Plant. He got a call and he
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: thought someone was playing a joke on him. So then
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: they sent a telegram and he ignored it, and then
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: finally somebody had to go deliver the message to him
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: in person.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: They recorded the first album, the self titled debut, but
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: still performing under the name the Yardbirds.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: The New Yardbirds, and the reason for that is they
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: had split up in the summer of sixty eight and
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: the Yardbirds had a tour of Scandinavia that was booked
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: and they couldn't get out of it. They would have
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: had they would have been sued, they would have you
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: know whatever. It was a short tour. So the manager said,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: you know what, We'll call the band the new Yardbirds,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: so we can fulfill that thing and then you can
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: change the name. The other thing that happened, which was interesting.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: When they first played in Denmark, Lady von Hindenberg, whose husband,
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the Hindenburg was named after, you know the Balloon, said
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: to them, if you use the name led Zeppelin, I'm
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: gonna sue you. So for two reasons, they couldn't call
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: themselves led Zeppelin, So they were the New Yardbirds. As
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: soon as they got back to America, I mean to England,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: play the you know, the different clubs they were billed
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: as the Yardbirds, had a good following. They had a
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: number of hits for Your Love and over under Sideways
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: dam so they had drawing power. So they were labeled
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: led Zeppelin formerly the Yardbirds or the New Yardbirds, now
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: led Zeppelin, and after a few weeks it stuck.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Has you read about how the year nineteen sixty nine
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: marked another watershed period for the group's history, and you
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: write in the book quote it was during nineteen sixty
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: nine that the band created the memories that would compel
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: them to continue their association for longer than a decade.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Take us through that year. It starts with the release
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: of the debut album, but they're also writing and recording
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: music for the second album during much of that year.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, first of all, Jimmy had most of the
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: stuff he wanted on the first album, and when they
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: went into rehearsals before the Scandinavian tour, he said, look,
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: we're just going to do these new songs that I
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: want to do on our first album. So that's what
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: they played the first album, and they put it in
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: for Your Love and one other song so they could
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: keep the Yardbird's identity. But basically after that tour, Jimmy
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: went into the studio. I didn't wait to get a
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: record deal, put the money up himself. It was seventeen
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: hundred pounds. He still has the receipts, and they just
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: he said, look, we're going to the studio and we're
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: going to do our live act that we've just been
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: doing for three weeks, and that's going to be our album.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And that's how the album got recorded in two weeks
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: and they were so well rehearsed. That's how it came
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: out to be the way it did. Okay, so they
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: come out with that. It's different than most anything else
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: happening at the time. It's very blues oriented rock. Now
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: English blues bands were big Saboy Brown and you know
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: John Mayle and Fleetwood Mac. There was a lot of
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the blues bands, but they were doing it like psychedelic
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: blues and that was the difference. So they since they'd
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: already had the first album and it was done, it
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: came out in January, they were writing the second album
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: all during that year of sixty nine and by the
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: end of the year and they were recording it along
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the way. While they were doing they did six tours
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: the first year. Wow, three tours, but six tours phenomenal
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: and one of the reasons that they really didn't play
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: that much in their home area of England because Peter
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Grant had noticed and Jimmy noticed because the Yardbirds used
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: to play the American colleges and stuff that in America
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: we have colleges everywhere that all have auditoriums that hold two,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: three four thousand people. In England they don't have that.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: In fact, if you look at Beatlemania did not exist
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: in Britain because the biggest place the Beatles ever played
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: was the Royal Albert Hall, which holds three thousand people.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: There were no stadiums that you could play and there
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: were no big hals. So the frenzy of Beatlemania happened
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: in America and then spilled back into England. So Jimmy
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: and Peter Grant, who had managed a band called the
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: New Vaudeville Band and had been a road managed for
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Jerry Lee Lewis and some other people, they understood the
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: American market that there was a place to play where
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: you didn't have to be have twenty five hits and
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: you just played colleges, you know, and you know, two three,
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: four thousand sedars. So they saw that was the future.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Let's play those. We'll still do the film Womers and
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the other places, but we're just going to play these colleges,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: which is what they did, and that's how they built
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: up their following.
• 15:29
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• 15:32
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• 15:35
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• 15:37
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• 15:40
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• 15:43
  Speaker 1: talk about the importance of Peter Grant. He had a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: game plan and he really built up helped to build
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: up the mystique of the band, like he didn't want cameras.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: How they where did they meet him? You mentioned he was.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, he was the when the Yardbirds last manager.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I can't remember his Simon Napier Bell.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I believe it was, Oh yeah, I had him on
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the show.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Oh you did.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's put out some books.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was the last manager of the Yardbirds and
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: he didn't want to do anything anymore in the last
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: couple of months, so he was working out of Peter
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: Grant's office and they were all working with Mickey most
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: who was an own producer, and he just said to
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Peter Grant, listen, why don't you just take over management
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: of the Yardbirds. I don't know how much the longer
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: they're going to stay together, but they're a hit band,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: and you know the ropes and everything. And Grant was
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: a gangster to some extent. He had also been a wrestler.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: He was a movie stunt double, and he was a
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: tough looking guy. But he wouldn't take crap from anybody.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: So Zeppelin always got paid. Everything that Jimmy wanted to do,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Grant was able able to do. So one of the
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: things that they talked about was I don't want to
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: release any singles because if you buy the single, you're
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: not going to buy the album that was number one.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: And in England it's different than it is here. They
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: allowed Whole Lot of Love to come out as a
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: single because here you put out a single and it's
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: included on the album. In England, you put out a single,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: it's not on the album, like Strawberry Fields and Penny
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Lane was part of Sergeant Pepper, but it came out
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: as a single. That's why it's not on Sergeant Pepper.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: So the two things that Grant said is we're not
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: going to do that, and we're not going to allow television.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: We're not going to do any TV shows. The other
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: thing is if we do singles in England and they
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: become number one, because of the way the English unions
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: and the musicians, you know, if you get a number
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: one song in England, you must go and do Top
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: of the Pops, which was their countdown show, and they
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: didn't want to piss off the government, so they said,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: if we don't have a number one song, we don't
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: have to go on Top of the Pops. So the
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: best story, one of the best stories of the book
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: is a guy named Bill Harry who had been the
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: editor of the Liverpool Echo and he was always cha
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: championing the Beatles and he ended up doing PR for
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: the Beatles. Now, when the Beatles left Liverpool, he decided
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: to move to London and everybody wanted him to be
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: their PR guy because he's been the PR guy for
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the Beatles. So he was doing prokel harm and all
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: these other bands. So Peter Grant calls him up and said, Bill,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: I want you to come to my office and have
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: a meeting. So Bill thought, okay, he's going to hire
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: me to be their PR that'd be great. So Bill
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: goes to the meeting and Peter Grant says, okay, here's
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: your job. Your job is to keep the press away.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And Bill Harry goes, what no press, no press, it's
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: your job to see that nobody interviews him and nobody
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: gets close to him, and he was like flabbergasted. But
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: that was his job to keep the press away, and
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: he talks about it in the book. Fascinating story. One
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: of the best stories I've ever heard.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Is he looking to also make it so when Zeppelin
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: comes to town it's a big deal because they're not
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: overexposed right. See.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he thought if people saw them live, if people
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: saw him on TV, they wouldn't go see them live, yeah,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: which is you know, it's usually the other way around.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: People see you on TV and then they'll go see
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: you live. But it can go either way. But this
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: way they controlled everything the releases, and when Jimmy signed
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the record deal with Atlantic. In the contract, he got
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: things that nobody ever got. Number one, nobody from the
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: record company is ever allowed to come to the studio.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Number two, we decide the covers of the album. Number three,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: No SA, number four, No TV and I'm an Ertigon
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: and Jerry Wexler, who signed them, were like, well okay,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: and they they got the biggest deal at the time.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: They got an advance. Now here's how it came out.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: One hundred and sixty one hundred and thirty five thousand
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: dollars advance, which that was like, that's like two million
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: today for an unknown band. But Wexler knew Jimmy Page
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: knew who he was. A virtuoso is what he called.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: And he said, anytime there's a virtuoso in a band,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: they always look for other virtuosos to play with. So
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: we're not taking that much of a gamble. We're gonna
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: sign them, and we know Jimmy's reputation, so we're gonna
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: give him that. Now, they had said we're gonna give
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: you two hundred grand I got one hundred and thirty
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: five thousand, which we're gonna put up for North America.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And Wexler said, I'll get the others sixty five thousand
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: from one of our licensees overseas. And he went out
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: and nobody wanted to give him the sixty five thousand.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Make it, make the deal. So finally, after figuring something out,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: they took money from this and that they got the
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: two hundred thousand. And that's how the band got the
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: two hundred thousand dollars deal. And that was for six records.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: You wonder where they would have been without Peter Grant,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: just as much as oh, you can say the same
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: for all the members of the band. He was a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: guy you didn't mess with. You said that. Do you
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: remember the story? We can look to the book if
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you need. But from seventy seven in Oakland, there was
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: yeah happened.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Was Peter Grant's son, I think his name is Mark.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: He was in his late mid teens. He saw a
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: poster you know, dayan the Greens Zeppelin, and he went
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: over and he picked it up and said, I want
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: to keep this as a souvenir. Well, Bill Graham got
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: his people got furious and they said put that back,
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: you can and just take that, and then they called
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: Bill Graham over and that's what started the fight. And
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: then they ended up going to jail overnight, right and
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: because because Grant said, wait a minute, my son wants
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: that poster, and you're going to tell him no, we'll
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: never play for you again ever. And then the biggest
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: band in the world, what's Bill Graham going to do? Say, well,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: I can book anybody, but I can never get led Zeppelin.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: So they resolved it, and if I remember correctly, things
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: got a bit physical too, I think Peter.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Graham's people got a couple of them got arrested,
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: and a couple of the Zeppelin wrote people got arrested
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: and they went to jail overnight.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: But you know, but that was the kind of thing
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: with Peter Graham, you just you know, he was the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: guy in charge. He protected the band, and he didn't whenever.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: He would see someone catch someone taping a show. He
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: would go over and he wouldn't just say you can't
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: do that, take the He would destroy the tape machine
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: and throw the people out. You also would go outside
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: to see who was selling bootleg shirts and stuff, and
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: he would confiscate everything. So he knew what was going on,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: and nothing got by him. No.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin two was huge, Whole Lot of Love top ten
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: single in nineteen seventy. Starts as a continuation of what
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: was begun late in nineteen sixty nine. And to give
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you an idea of how busy this band was, here's
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: what you write in the book, then he say quote.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: By the summer, a third album was being prepared and
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: was soon released, signaling a new direction for the band.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: By the end of the year, a fourth album was
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: already being prepared. Right at what point did Zeppelin go
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: from supporting act to headlining the bigger venues.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: Summer of the first year summer of sixty nine, they
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: became a headliner in Chicago at the Electric Circus, I believe,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: and they headlined the film Wore, But those weren't huge places.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: It was when they started playing the stadiums, selling them
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: out with no press other than the announcement they were coming,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: which also Peter Grant changed the dynamics of how promoters
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: promoted shows. Usually, promoter would offer a band a certain
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: amount of money to play a show, as stadium fifty
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: grand on your grande. Peter Grant said, no, no, no, no,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: we get eighty five percent of what the money is.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: You get fifteen because you don't have to do anything,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: you don't even have to pay for advertising. We're going
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: to sell out just by mentioning we're coming. And he
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: was right, and that changed the dynamics of the music business.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: So promoters could never make more than fifteen percent, you know,
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: but they also knew that they were going to sell
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: out and make some money. So but everybody started doing
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: that when Bill Graham started to do it with Santana
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: after that, and then it became a norm with big bands.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And sadly, Peter Grant died fairly young, right, he was
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: in maybe in his fifties.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was fit, but he was a heavy smoker,
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: he was overweight. He had some heart problems, so you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: it's not unexpected, but yeah, he yeah, dined in his
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: late fifties.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I think, hey, guys, we'll get back to the show.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: But first I want to tell you about an exclusive
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: deal for Booked on Rock. Listeners get fifteen percent off
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: any purchase at old glory dot com. Over three hundred
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: thousand officially licensed items covering music, sports, entertainment, and pop culture.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Merchandise featuring legendary music artists like Bob Marley, The Beatles,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, led Zeppelin, and many many more.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Go to old glory dot com. Make sure to use
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the promo code. Booked on Rock. Also find a link
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: in this episode show notes, or just go to Booked
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: on Rock dot com and click on my Deals. Denny Somack,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: the author of Get the Let Out How led Zeppelin
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: became the biggest band in the world. The updated edition
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: is out now. So just as the third album was
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: picking up steam at the start of seventy one, the
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: band of working on the fourth album. February fourteenth, Disc
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and Music announced led Zeppelin was the top group in
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: the world, as chosen by readers votes.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: They beat the Beatles out that year.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: It's a perfect storm of amazing music, electrifying live performances.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: The press is now giving the band major coverage. But also,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: you know, there was that mystique. As we talked about, press.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: Was giving him coverage, but they couldn't talk to anybody.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: First guy to get to him was Cameron Crowe, who
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: you know is a director today and wrote Fast Times
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: at Ridgemont High and he was he wrote reviews for
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: papers in San Diego, and he somehow got to be
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: a stringer at Rolling Stone when he was fifteen. He
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: said I'm going to get an interview with Led Zeppelin,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: and Ben Funktury said yeah, okay, sure, go ahead, and
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: he went out and actually was able to go on
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: tour with him and got an interview with the band,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: and it was the first cover of Rolling Stone that
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Zeppelin ever appeared on.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's quoted in the book Cameron crow right, yep,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: And he just put a book out recently. I'd love
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: to have him on.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a great book by the way he tells
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: that story, but it's a great book. He's also the
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: only guy you never hear Zeppelin. Well nowadays you do
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: every note now and then, but you never heard Zeppelin
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: songs in any movies because they would never license it.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Yes, Cameron made I can't remember the name.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Of his book now though almost famous as the film famous.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: He went out and asked the band if he could
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: license some music and they granted him permission.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Yes, well that's the way, and maybe another one.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember. But other than that, and I
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: remember the director who did the movie Dazed and Confused.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: There was a mood. Nothing to do with the band,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: I can't remember. He's a well known director did them,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: and he tried to license Stays and Confused for the
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: title track for the movie. They went licensed to him
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: and he offered him everything, and he said, nope, we're
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: not We don't license our music to films. And he
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: was so pissed because he'd named the movie, thinking that
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: he was going to get the rights to license the song.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: There's a story in the book I don't think I
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: ever heard before. It has to do with bon Scott
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of ACDC telling Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to get
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: lost right. Could you tell the story of what happened?
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: February eighteenth, nineteen seventy two.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Well, he you know, they were competition because ACDC were
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: a loud band and they were a big band, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Bond Scott was always coming out in the polls, you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: as either the top singer until Robert Plant started doing it,
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: and he just he was trying to annoy them, so
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: whenever he could, he annoyed them by saying things to
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: him like that they would get him upset.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they wanted to stop and see a show. And
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I think Bond I think too, he didn't realize who
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: it was. I think after the fact he's like, oh,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, that was the guys from led Zeppelin.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people, you know, because no one,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: no one ever saw him on TV, no one. Nobody
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: knows what they knew, what they looked like. Most people
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: didn't even know their name names are the guys in
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: the band. In fact, that's what I tell people. They go, well,
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: what makes you qualified to write a led Zeppelin book?
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I said, well, let me tell you something. There's about
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: one hundred books on led Zeppelin. Most of those books
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: are written by people who weren't born when the band
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: came out, never saw them live, you know. I checked
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: all the boxes. I was born before they came out.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: I saw them live. I knew their music because I
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: was a DJ and I played it, and I was
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: more familiar with them and all the people around them
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: than most anybody else. So that's why this book stands
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: out because you'll find stuff in here. It's not that
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: other people didn't, they just didn't know it because you know,
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: it was very hard to find these these details out.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: But I dug like. There's an interview in here with
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Nicky Hopkins, who was a session well known session musician.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: In fact, he just got inducted into the Rock and
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Roll Hall of Fame last year as the you know
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: not as a as a special mention nominee because he
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: played keyboards for Jefferson Airplane, Jeff Beck, Stone, the Stones,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: feels everybody, he was the most successful. There's a documentary
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: that just came out, by the way, and Jimmy originally
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: went to Nicky this is in the book, and he said,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: we'd like you to play piano and with Zeppelin, and
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: Nicki said no. He said, I want you to play
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: piano in my new band. And Nicki said to Jimmy Page,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: are you kidding? I don't want to be in the Yardbirds,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: the new Yardbirds. That's ridiculous. I'm going to go. I
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: got an offer from Jeff Beck I'm going to go
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: play with him. And then he goes the biggest mistake
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: I ever made, because remember you know they were called
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: the new Yardbirds. Nobody knew what they were. It's the
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: same thing with they tried to get Terry Reid as
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: the singer and also Steve Marriott of the Small Faces.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Terry Reid had just gotten a solo deal and had
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: the shot to open for the Stones in America, so
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: he said, you know, it's between that and joining the Yardbirds,
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: which didn't mean much in England. Their hits were in America.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: They put out albums. Some of their albums didn't even
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: come out in England. I mean they were a good band,
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: they played live and all that. But the whole thing
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: about Zeppelin, it's based on the Yardbirds and the Yardbirds,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: which I point out to people are behind the Beatles
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: and the Stones, the most important British act ever. Main reason.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Three guitar players in that band, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Page all went through the Yardbirds. So you know
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: that's why they're the third, you know, the third on
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: the list. Nobody else can come close. I tell that
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: to people and they go, oh yeah, I could see
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: that all three of those guys I said they were
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: all in the yardbirds.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and when Beck and Page were there together, they
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: didn't get along all that well, I don't think right.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Well, they got along, but Jeff didn't like the idea
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: of another guitar player. So they had been friends since
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: since high school. But in fact Jeff invited Jimmy to
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: join on bass when Paul Samuel Smith quit, he was
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: the bass player and Jimmy joined on bass for nine
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: months before they Chris Drea took over the bass and
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Jimmy and Jeff were the two leads and they recorded
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: one of the most unbelievable psychedelics singles of all time,
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Happenings ten Years Time Ago, which is where they do
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: a twin lead fighting off type thing and it gets
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: voted most unique single ever to come out of England.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
• 33:25
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• 33:29
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• 33:31
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• 33:33
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• 33:37
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• 33:40
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• 33:55
  Speaker 1: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: to the show. You mentioned how the band was built
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: around the drums, and there's something you interviewed ron Nevison,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: who was part of He was on hand with Ronning.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: He was a physical graffiti.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The reason is the band said, we want to
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: go to this place, Headley Grange, which was like an
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: old warehouse and our outside of London. But what are
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: we going to do to record? And ron Nevison had
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: built both the Small Faces and the Stones had a
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: mobile mobile studios that they could take around. So he
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: was able to get I think it was the Stones
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Mobile and that's how he became the engineer on the record.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: He had the Stones Mobile, he brought it to Headley
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Grange and they recorded, uh, you know, physical graffiti.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he said something about bottom playing just from
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: the guitar.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He says, the only guy he's ever seen that
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: that took his cues. He played to Jimmy's whatever Jimmy
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: was playing, he played to that, and he said, and
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: he's Ron Nevison has produced everybody from Dave Mason to
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Heart to Bad Company to everybody. A very well known producer,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: he said, and he's an American too. I never noticed
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: that until I saw Zeppelin play. And he said, that's
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: that's why the chemistry was so unbelievable, because they did
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: things that never really happened before. And a lot of
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: that had to do with the fact that Jimmy was
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: so experienced in the studio. He never listed anybody as
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: a co producer on any of the albums. Sometimes he
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: didn't even put the engineer down, but Ron got mentioned.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: It was basically Eddie Kramer and Ron Neverson were the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: two engineers that worked with Zepplin most of the time.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: The late night improvisations, you know that would lead to things,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: you know, they were just.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Jam yeah and I forget the song. But Nevison sent
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: his interview. He said they were recording. Sometimes they would
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: record outside and at one point, I forget the name
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: of the song, a jet flew over. Oh yeah, and
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: he said they left it in. So if you listen carefully,
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the song you can hear it.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: You know I'm blanking to but yeah, you can hear
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Robert Plancy now leave it. Yeah, Yeah, that's off of
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin three. Yeah, seventy five to seventy nine, Zeppelin were
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: at their commercial peak.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: And yeah it was seventy seven is what really did it.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: They did five nights at Madison Square Garden, all sold
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: out in a matter of hours.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Around that point, though, they're starting to fracture a little bit.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: John Paul Jones was getting a little tired of being
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: on the road and his wife said, you know, so
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: he was considering leaving the band. And he was an
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: arranger and you know, he worked, He worked with Jimmy
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: a lot in as studio sessions. But Peter Grant convinced
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: him not to quit, and so he stayed with the band.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: But that was the only time there was any problem, and.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Then planned the personal tragedies.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when his son losing his son breaking his leg.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: I mean he sang the lead parts on Presence while
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: he was in a wheelchair.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Presence is an interesting album. That that's the album
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: really that Jimmy kind of took over.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were you know, these guys were they were
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: so happy to be in this band to watch Jimmy
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: as a producer, because they'd never seen the tricks that
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: he did, you know, backward tapes and loops, and the
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: engineers he was working with never saw these things before.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: When they were doing the first album, Glenn Johns was
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: the engineer. Glen John's worked with the Beatles, and Jimmy said, well,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: I want you to, you know, cut this piece of
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: tape out and put it at the end and reverse it.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Glen john said what he said, no, just do it,
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: and that's how they got the sound on I forget what.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Song it was on the Breakdown, A Whole Lot of Love. Yeah,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: when you hear it's like you hear Robert's voice kind
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: of foreshadowing what's to come.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Actually, a Whole Lot of Love, like several Zeppelin songs,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: was stolen from the Small Faces. They had a song
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: based on Muddy Waters. Willie Dixon written a song called
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: who You Need Love, except the Small Faces did it
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: as you Need Love, and they did it just like
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Plant does it Woman You Need and Plant was a
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: huge fan of the Small Faces, so he saw that
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: when it got time for them to record a Whole
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: Lot of Love. That's where he got that from. If
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: you go to the Small Faces first album and play
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: You Need Love, you'll flip out. They stole a lot
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: of songs, and as you all know, the finally came
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: to a crescendo in the about fifteen years ago when
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: they got sued for the intro to Stairway to Heaven
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: by a band called Spirit. Now, Spirit was the middle
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: act so Zeppelin, and Zeppelin was big fans of Spirit.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: They actually on the Live of the BBC they do
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: a medley of two Spirit songs within another song. So
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: they were huge fans of Spirit. They knew the first
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: album which had the song Taurus on it. If you
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: play the intro to Taurus, it is identical to the
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: intro to Stairway to Heaven. But I'm surmising this. I
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: think a lot of people were upset when they thought
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: that Zeppelin stole their song. But as several of those
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: people who I interviewed, like Jake Colmes, who's in the
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: book he wrote Dazed and Confused, and she was an
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: opening act for the Yardbirds in sixty eight where they
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: saw him do it. They immediately ran down to the
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: village in New York to Bleeker Bob's and bought Jake
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Holmes's album and said, you know, we could really do
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: a number with this, but they didn't give credit to
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Jake Holmes. So anyway, I think that what happened was
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: when people complained and said, oh, you know, to their
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: managers or whoever. Everybody probably said, you can't suit led Zeppelin.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: It's too expensive. She's gonna go on forever. It'll never
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: get resolved, and that's really the reason why they never
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: got I mean, I remember I was interviewing Jake Holmes
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: and he didn't even know they stole the song from
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: him because he had a couple of albums out and
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: then he quit the music business to go into the
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: jingle business. He wrote I'm a Pepper, You're a Pepper,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: the doctor Pepper thing, and he writes to be all
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: you can be for the Army YEP. When I was
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: interviewing him, I said to him, I said, well, how
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: come you never He said, well, my kids told me
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: about it, but you know, I didn't even know. I
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: thought you could take any song and just change it
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: around and that was okay. And I said to him no.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: As soon as I got done with the interview, he
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: got a lawyer on the phone. Wow, he got settlement.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: And now the credits have all been changed. On the
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: first album, there's a woman named Anne Anne Breden who
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: wrote Babe, I'm going to Leave You, which Jimmy got
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: from a Joan Baez album and then Joan Biez album.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Said traditional arranged Joan Biez. She didn't know where it
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: came from. What happened was this woman is still around.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: She wasn't really playing that much anymore. She was a
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: folk singer and one day her fifteen year old son
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: came in and heard her playing and he said, Mom,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: why are you playing a Zeppelin song? And she said,
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Zeppelin song? Bab bum I wrote that song in nineteen
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: fifty eight, Are you kidding me? And he had to
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: go get the album and show her, and of course
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: she pursued it, and her name now appears in the
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: credits too. Wow.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Do you feel that that that affects the legacy of
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the band in a negative way or what are your
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: thoughts on that?
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Well, my feeling is that everybody steals from everybody. Zeppelin
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: could easily have given credit and paid something because they
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: stole most of the stuff from these Black Blues guys
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: who really could have used the money. I mean, Willie
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Dixon sued his daughters were driving around Chicago in nineteen
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: seventy four the first time they heard a Whole Lot
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: of Love on the radio, and they said, wait a minute,
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: our father wrote that. And they went and they pursued
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: a case and they won. Halan Wolf wrote a song
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: called called Well, which the Lemon song was a song
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: by him. I forget what he called it. How Many
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: More Times was really a Holland Wild's song called how
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Many More Years? So they could have easily given credit
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: and paid royalties, and even if they rearranged it, they
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: could still put their name on it. But you know,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: like I said, the managers.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Well, I was about to say, was that more of
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: a Peter Grant decision than the.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because they say, what should we do? You know,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, Jimmy, I'm sure knew that in most cases
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: he picked it up from somewhere, but who knew if
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: he did or not. But the case with Spirit, they
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: had the opportunity. They were fans of the band, they
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: saw him play live. H And you know, the the
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: other thing is you know you Shook Me, which was
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: on a muddy waters ep which both he and Jeff
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Beck had Jimmy and Jeff Peck, which is why it's
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: on the first Jeff back album. Also whereas Jeff Beck
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: accused Jimmy of stealing it from his album.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin's a big target. You know, they're a huge band too,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: so it happens a lot. But when it happens to them,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: you figure.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: They're going to settle because they don't want to. And
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: zeppelm was so rich that they would just if it
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: got to a point, they would either just continue to
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: sue until the other side was exhausted and then they'd
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: make a settlement. That's that's what they did because you know,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: every album was a platinum, double platinum, triple platinum. Every
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: tour was sold out. You know, they were selling out
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: Tampa Stadium in the early seventies, seventy five. Thou people
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: bigger than the Beatles at Shay Stadium.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Find the bookdown Rock website at Bookdownrock dot com. There
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: you can find all the back episodes of the show.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: We lit this episode in video and audio links to
• 44:53
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• 44:56
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• 44:59
  Speaker 1: face Book, Instagram, TikTok, and x Also check out the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: booked on Rock blog. Find your local independent bookstore, find
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: out all the latest hot rock book releases, and before
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: you go, check out the booked on Rock online store.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Pick up some booked on rock merch. It's all at
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: booked on rock dot com. There was that one point
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: there where they went into hiatus because of the death
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: of Robert sun Karak in July seventy seven, but they
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: came back in seventy nine with Into the Outdoor and
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: they go on the they go on the tour of Europe,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: and there's plans for a major North American tour and yeap.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: But things look as good as we get into the
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, right we get to September of nineteen eighty
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: John Bonham's death.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Now, I had tickets three weeks before the tour was
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: to start. Which show Philadelphia? I think it was the Spectrum.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: It was like the fourth or fifth show on the list. Now,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: one of the best stories is Simon Kirk, the drummer
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: from Bad Company, who were on Swansong on the same
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: label as Zeppelin, and they were a huge band. Obviously,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: Simon was in England and he gets a call. He
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: calls Peter Grant, who's also managing Bad Company, and he said, look,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: the Bad Company tour isn't going to start for another
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: six months. We just finished the record. I'm really bored.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Peter Grant said, well, get on a plane, come over
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: to Germany and you know, see if you u Zeppelin shows.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: So he goes over to Germany and the last two
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: dates were in Germany. I forget the cities. And the
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: night before the final date, Bonham said to him he
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: had been there for like a week. Bonham said, hey,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: would you like to play a whole Lot of Love
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: with me on stage? And Simon Kirk said, are you kidding?
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: No one's ever played with you. Absolutely. He said, good,
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: we'll rehearse tomorrow. So Simon thinks, okay, to go to
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: a studio. There'll be two sets of drums and we'll
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: do rehearsal. And he comes the next day and he goes, okay,
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: where we're going to rehearse and Bonham goes, right here
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: in my room on my bed. You use your hands.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: This is how it goes, and he showed him to
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: the song by using his hands, by hitting the bed.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Simon was like whoa yeah, And he went out and
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: he played a whole lot of Love with him and
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: then the next day was the final date, so he
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: was the last person to really see them play, and
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: his interview was excellent.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: The night before, John Bonham died September. This is September
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: twenty fourth and nineteen eighty. The band did get together
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: first day of rehearsals and it seems to start out great.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: John Paul Jones described it as a day of rejuvenation.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Talk about how that day went. Bonham was drinking throughout
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: the day.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: He was drinking. He had enough alcohol in him to
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: kill three people. I think he had twelve vodka cocktails
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: within the space of you know, fifteen hours, So he
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: didn't get up in the morning, and the road manager
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: found him. Just overdid it. I mean they all overdid everything.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: I mean, Jimmy was a heroin addict for a long time.
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: And when they did In Through the Outdoor, you'll notice
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: for the first time, there's not a single song on there.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, Jimmy either wrote or co wrote just about
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: every song on that album. There's songs written by Plant
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: and John Paul Jones. Another song, there's a couple of
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: songs without Jimmy, And that's because they went to record
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: the album and Jimmy didn't show up because it was,
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: you know, whacked out on heroin.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the evening they took parts of something he
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: was working on for the Death Wish soundtrack I think
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: if I recall correctly.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So anyway, the first song, All of My Love,
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: which is a great song, There's no Jimmy Page in
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: that at all. It's all plant and and John Paul Jones.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: How soon after did the surviving members announced Zeppelins No More.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: It was two weeks because the tour was coming up,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: and they already said, you know, what are we gonna do?
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I'd get Kenny Jones to play drums. I mean, that's ridiculous.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Nobody could. Nobody could do what Zeppelin did, what Bonham did,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: So we're not going to continue as they sort of
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: left it open ended. We can no longer continue as
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: we were. So that left the open possibility, which is
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: why they were able to play live aid and also
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: the Atlantic records for the anniversary concert and using Jason Bonham.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the eighty five show with Phil Collins and
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Tony Thompson right there, were, you know, the one off performances. Yeah?
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Where you about that? Oh cool?
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Where do you stand on that? No official Zeppelin union
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: tour ever happened? Is it best that they never got
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: back together for.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Nostalgia, although Jimmy would like to. In fact, Chris Squire
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: from Yes Was was a very good friend of mine,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: was at a show looking for a John Anderson sounded
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: like when John quit the band and he ran into
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: and Jimmy was like a neighbor of Chris is in Surrey,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: England and lived nearby, and he spots Page and he goes,
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: I guess you're here for the same reason. I am,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: huh looking for a singer, and Jimmy, yeah, you know,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Robert doesn't want to do it, but I really want to. Also,
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: I revealed that there were auditions with Steven Tyler, which
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: nobody I never saw reported anywhere.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Sammy Hagar said that he was approached about it.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: He might have been, but but Tyler actually flew over
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: to England and took his road manager was one of
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: his best friends, Henry Smith with him, and Henry he's
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: the one that told me about it, because it was
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: never really officially reported, but they did two days with
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: the rehearsals and just didn't feel right.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: And it was also Miles Kennedy.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was more from alter Bridge, from the that
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: was the press generated that. I mean, you see Zeppelin
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: going out with Miles Kennedy, I mean only because he
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: sounded a little bit like playing. But you know, whenever
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: I was at the Classic Rock Awards in England one
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: year and Jimmy was there getting an award for Zeppelin,
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: and Ian Anderson walked over to Jimmy wanted to ask
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: him a question. He says, now, I'm not going to
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: ask you, you know when if you're gonna go out
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: again and get a new singer. He goes, well, you know,
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: I'd like to, but it's not to me. You gotta
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: ask Robert. Wow.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: See that that. I always got that feeling too, that
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Jimmy would wanted to do it and it but Robert, Robert,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: he was really the integrity of of that. What they
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: did with John Bonham is really important to him.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: Robert didn't even do any Zeppelin songs on his first
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: solo tour, h nothing.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: And even the page Plant stuff. It was it was
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: with that idea that we're not going to just go
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: out there and play these songs exactly the same way.
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: We're going to do something different.
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they played a couple of Zeppelin songs in that,
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: and Coverdale was considered as a lead singer too.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: For what did you think of Coverdale Page? Yeah, what
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: did you think of that?
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: I gotta be honest with you, I'm not that familiar
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: because I was. I never got into the album. Yeah,
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: I just it was Coverdale. Okay, Deep Purple fine, but
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: you know, I really liked the original Deep Purple, so
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: I wasn't a big fan of the latter day Deep
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: Purple albums. And you know, Jimmy's ismy so and they
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: only toured Japan. They never toured in America.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: What about the firm.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: That was different? Paul Rodgers is probably many said the
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: best rock singer of all time, So nobody's gonna knock that.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: And he was on the label anyway. And Jimmy just said,
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: but before that, there's the x y Z story again.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: I got from Chris Squire. Chris had run into Jimmy
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: at a Christmas party and Jimmy said, you know, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Jimmy hadn't touched his guitar at a year and a half.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: He said, I, I'd really like to play some guitar.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: Can I come over to your house and we'll just jam?
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: Chris said, sure, anytime you want, he said, in fact,
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: I got Alan White's coming over. Why don't you come
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: next week and we'll hang out. And so they started playing,
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: and they actually came up with four songs which didn't
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: really appear anywhere, although I understand now they actually may
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: release them. I have copies of them. One song ended
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: up changed around a little bit as a Yes song
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: was on the Magnification album and another was on the
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: second Firm album. But they decided to call the band
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: x y z X you know zeptly yes. And Chris
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: told me there are a couple of reasons it didn't happen.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: One of the other ones was he said, I had
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: to go up to Peter Grant's house to tell him
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: about it, because he still managed Jimmy, he said, So
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: I went up to Peter Grant's house and all he
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: did was argue for twenty four hours because Peter Grant said, well,
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: I don't like the name X y Z, I don't
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: like Yes coming before Zeppelin. And Chris said, well, but Peter,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: that's how the alphabet natural name for the band X.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I kind of like it. Zeppelin's got to be first.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: I mean, just crazy stuff like that. So it never happened.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's one of those that's one of those projects.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin fans talk about that. Boy, you know what, what if?
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: What could have become of that? Well? What do you
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: think of Robert's solo career.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: I think he's uh. A couple of his albums are
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: really good. I particularly like the first two, and he's
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: always got great songs on each one of them. And
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: he's always changing styles. You know the album he did
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: with what's her name, I forget her.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: Name, Oh, Alison Krause.
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's always looking to do something different.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: So you're right now, that's what I respect about him.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: And I will tell you before we finish, I'll tell
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: you something that's pretty interesting. I interviewed the chairman of
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Atlantic Records, Craig Calman. He's in the book now. Craig
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: is a huge Zeppelin fan. Also. Now, Zeppelin, as you know,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: wouldn't allow singles to be released, but during their lifetime,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Atlantic was a label in America and they licensed their
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: stuff to you know, thirty countries around the world. And
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of these countries decided to put singles out
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: in picture sleeves and they had to send it to
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: New York to get approved, and of course Craig pulled
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: them off the market. I mean, Atlantic pulled them off
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: the market or destroyed them or whatever. But Craig was
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: able to get a copy of each picture sleeve and
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: he has them up on the wall in his office,
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: and I have it in the book because no one's
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: ever seen them, all these singles from different countries that
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: were going to be released that were never allowed to
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: be released. Now, he also told me something else. I said, well,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: is there anything left you know in the archives? He goes, no,
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: he said, but here's what I think is going to happen.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: This is what we're talking about. And this interview with
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: him was like about a year ago. He said, we
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: are discussing the possibility of putting out board tapes of
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: various live shows the way Springsteen does. Right, so you
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: may very well see a couple of board tapes come
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: out as albums. They're still mulling over it, and I
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: think it'll eventually happen, but not immediately, maybe after your
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Jimmy passes away or something I don't know, but that's
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: how the thirst for Zeppelin stuff is. You can probably
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: put out anything as long as it was decent, and
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: they never really did a bad show.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: The book Don Rock Podcast is part of the Boneless
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: dot app to find over twenty great shows there. That's
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Boneless downlovable dot app, or just go to booked on
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: rock dot com. Pick on the logo. It'll take you
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: right to the Boneless podcasting network. It is what you
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: want to be Listen with confidence. A ton of amazing
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: interviews in the book Page Plant, John Paul Jones, but
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: also Eddie Kramer, Cameron Crowe, you mentioned Jason Bonhams and
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: there Joe Perry, Alice Cooper, and and Nancy Wilson of Heart.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: In the new One, I got.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Geezer Butler Gezer Butler.
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: For Sabbath who said that they did a jam session
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: Robert and John Paul Jones and Tony and him, and
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: they actually recorded some songs and he refers to it
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: as the Black Zeppelin Album. And he says, I told
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: the engineer not to record anything well, we're doing this,
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: but of course that's a signal. They're definitely recorded. He said,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: somebody's got it and it will eventually leak out.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: The official word is because people have said I've heard
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: that story, but it did happen, but nobody knows. I
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: don't know. I don't have it unless it's in some warehouse,
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: but I don't know anybody else that. The engineer that
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: recorded it may have it, but it's never been leaked,
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: so that's out there too.
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: Ian Anderson's the book too. Yeah. John Paul Jones is
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: a guy. He doesn't seem to age. He looks the same.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually I like his first two solo albums.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you about that too. Yeah,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: I love the book.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: The first one's sort of an instrumental album, like a
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: New Way. It's just really good. The second one he
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: got a vocalist and has some some songs on it.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: But the first one I thought was brilliant.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I got to listen to that. I have thunder Chief.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the first one's much better.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: That was like the two thousands.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: It was on Robert Fripps's label EG, so it didn't
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: really get wide. You know, he was a friend of Frips,
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: and you know, John Paul Jones getting a record deal.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: He didn't want to go through that, so he was playing.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: Robert Fripp came by and Frip said, Hey, I'll tell
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: you what. We have a label, E G Records distributed.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Really you know streeted by Atlantic, Roxy music is on it,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: where on it. We'll put the record out because you
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: know they made it vir cheap, didn't cost a lot. Yeah.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: And then he worked with Cinderella on Heartbreak Station. I
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: don't know if he produced it, but he's playing.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: No, he worked on one song. He also worked on
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: a couple of songs with heart and he worked with
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: the Food Fighters, which is how the that them Crooked
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Them Crooked vultures came about.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: But otherwise, John Paul Jones his wife and kids, and
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: he's very happy to In fact, his real wish was
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: when Zeppein was over, he wanted to be a choir
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: master at a church.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's that.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: That makes sense funny. He played on sessions like Jimmy.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: He got a lot of fees. I mean he arranged
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: and like she comes in Colors on the Stones album,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: he arranged.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: Him really wow.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is a great arrangement. He did a lot
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: of other stuff too. He arranged a lot of the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Donovan stuff Sunshine Superman, and actually Jimmy plays guitar on that,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: so the two of them had worked together on numerous sessions.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: He's just so humble and quiet, you just don't know.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, and he very seldom, very seldom gave interviews.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: I was able to get an interview obviously when he
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: was doing the solo albums, but as a member of
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: Led Zeppelin, I was very friendly with Scott Muni, and
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: Scott was one of the few people that interviewed everybody
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: because nobody.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: For those who may not know Scott so right, Scott Munich, Ye.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: Scott so so he. I worked with him for several
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: years on his syndicated show, A Ticket to Ride, which
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: is a weekly beautiful show. So we became very close
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: and he gave me all his interviews. Wow.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: So tell us about the updated edition. Now people can
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: get it on Amazon and all the usual places.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: It's also hashet. My publishers are very the third largest
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: publisher in the world. So the book is in the stores.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: It's in Barnes and Noble. In fact, I'm doing a
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: book signing next week at the Barnes and Noble in
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: my neighborhood. I've also visited the other two Barns and
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Nobles in the area I live in, Florida.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I was gonna ask Florida, okay, and.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: They all have it. So you can walk into Barnes
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: and Noble if they you know, they have one or
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: two copies and they got a reorder or the easiest
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: thing is to I think Amazon has it on sale
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: right now. Okay, fifteen percent off or something like that.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Get the letout how led Zeppelin became the biggest band
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: in the world. Look, Florida. I'll put a link to
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: the Amazon Okay copy there and yeah, you know, gave you.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Some news you can use. The thing about the board
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: tapes and the Black Zeppelin and all that stuff has
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: never really been publicized anywhere. The final chapter of the
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: book is an interview with Mark Andy's. Mark Andy's is
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: the only surviving member of Spirit. He was in Firefall
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: and he played with Heart for ten years. So when
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: the estate of Randy, California, decided to go ahead with
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: the lawsuit for Staatewight of Heaven, they asked Mark Andys
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: to join the suit to make it more official. So
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: no one has spoken to him since that suit was settled.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if you know how it got settled,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: I'll be glad to tell you. It was never really explained.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: But I called Mark. He hadn't given an interview to anybody,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: and I said, would you give me an interviews to
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: this book? He said, okay, So what happened? A Zeppelin won.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: The judge ruled in their favor, but it got appealed,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: which was amazing. They appealed it, so they had to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: go back to court and spirits. The attorneys said, judge,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: all you have to do is play the first thirty
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: seconds of Steroid to have it the first thirty seconds
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: of Tarus by Spirit. Play it for the jury. There's
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: no question they're identical, no question. If you've ever heard Tars,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: you'll be blown away. It's only the first part of
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: the song.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: But still, it's been a long time since I played it,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: but I remember when I played it.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: You can hear anyway. The judge said, no, I can't
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: do that. What do you mean you can't do it?
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: The jury will know in two seconds. Can't do it.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: He said, what do you mean you can't do it.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: He said, well, Zeppelin didn't do demos or anything. They
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: copyrighted their material, you know by folios, like written down,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: you know, like the things you buy at music stores
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: to practice guitar get songs. So there were no tapes.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: So he said, because of that, it was copyrighted as
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: a folio. I can give the jury a copy of
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: each written out and they can decide. I think, lookers,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: that are you kidding? You think this jewelry is going
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: to be able to look at two pieces of paper
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: and no, it sounds alike. So they lost the appeal
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: they should have won.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I remember Rolling Stone covered and that was pretty
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: well covered at that time.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: I was actually hired as an expert witness in the case.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: Really yeah, so I got to follow it pretty closely,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: and uh, that's how I know the ending what happened.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: Well, and it also explains because it just kind of
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: came out of nowhere. Yeah, you know, your explanation is well, since.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Mark told me that they always talked about Zeppelin ripped
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: that off from us, and they said the same thing,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: what are we going to do? Sue them? Get food?
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: We don't have the money to sue them, you know,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: they got lawyers up to Wazoo. So that's what happened.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: And no one's ever interviewed Mark. He's in the book
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: towards the end. And so I got some real key interviews.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: I think that's a key interview. The Nicky Hopkins interview
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: is great, and you know there's a few others where
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: you just find out stuff that no one I mean,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: Chris Squire tells the whole story of X y Z
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: and he was part of it. So I tried to
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: get as close to the source for these stories as
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: I could. Uh, And that's why I'm proud of the book.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: Like I said, I didn't write he was a history.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: It's not a history of Zeppelin. It's it's why Zeppelin
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: is the biggest band in the world because these people say.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: So yep, and beautiful laid out, put together, the photos,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: the whole thing.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: So it's Yeah, anybody wants to get a hold of me.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: My website is rock and Roll for.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Grownups, Rock and Roll for grown Ups, okay.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: Dot com that's rock the Letter n Roll the number
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: four Grownups dot com and you can see all my
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: stuff there. You can send me notes, whatever.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: And I'll like Denny Somac. Thanks so much. Get the
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: letout how LED's up and became the biggest band in
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the world. Pick up your copy of the latest edition.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: There it is right there were.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: A forward by Carmina Peace, who was John Bonham's mentor.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: It's great. I appreciate you having me on. I know
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: your show. You know you have a lot of people
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: with authors, so this was a great venue for me
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: and I'm glad I was able to do it.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: No, I'm glad too. We were kind of going back
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: and forth for a while on this and I'm glad
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: we made it happen. So thank you so much, Denny.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: This was great man.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: You're welcome and it was great meeting you. That's it
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: in the books.