#1969article

The Single Challenge

Jimmy Page talks to Ian Middleton. Record Mirror, 20 September 1969

Led Zeppelin, October 1968

Jimmy Page and I had lost touch with each other since he had joined The Yardbirds, so you can imagine my surprise when I got a call from him out of the blue to tell me that he had put a band together with our mutual friend John Paul Jones, and a drummer and singer I had never heard of. He explained that they had assembled enough material and it was their intention to make an album, hopefully with me.

I was up for it, as Jimmy and I grew up in the same town and had been pals since the early sixties, and John had been the number-one session bass player in London for years. When I was an engineer I would see him almost every day, and a nicer guy you could not wish to meet.

Knowing that anything these two had put together was bound to be pretty good, I turned up at Olympic a couple of weeks later, not having any real idea of what I was walking into. I was blown off my feet. The album that we made in the next nine days was a landmark in rock and roll history, taking it to another level altogether.

The sound they created, the arrangements they came up with, and the standard of musicianship were equally astonishing. Each session seemed to be more exciting than the last, as what they had prepared unraveled in front of me. All I had to do was press record, sit back, and try to contain the excitement of being in the same room with what was going on.

The stereo mix of this record is certainly one of the best sounding that I ever made, but the credit has to go to the band, as all I did was try to faithfully put down on tape what they were giving me, adding a little echo here and there to enhance the mood.

We were putting together The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus just as the album was finished. So I took my acetate to a production meeting and played it to Mick, suggesting that I felt that the band was going to be huge and therefore we should have them on the show as it would be an enormous coup. My suggestion fell on deaf ears, as Mick did not get it at all. A couple of months later I dragged George Harrison to Olympic on the way home from a Beatles session and played him the master tape with the same result, he didn't get it either. I found this slightly disconcerting as I could not understand why they did not get what was so exciting to me. Prior to this I had always felt that we all shared pretty much the same taste in music. Jimmy and John Paul Jones were from the same era with the same influences and yet Mick and George openly disliked what they had done, seeing no value in it at all. In any event, they were perfectly entitled to their opinion, and fortunately a large portion of the record-buying population disagreed with them.

—Glyn Johns, Sound Man: A Life Recording Hits with the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, the Eagles, Eric Clapton, the Faces..., 2014

Glyn Johns talked about this night again in a May 2018 interview with Bob Spitz. His recollection was included in Spitz's biography on Led Zeppelin:

Flushed with excitement, he took the acetate to a preproduction meeting for the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus TV show. "Jimmy's put this band together," he told Mick Jagger during a break. "You've got to listen to this." Mick played a few bars and removed it from the turntable. "He didn't like it at all," Johns recalls. A few nights later, he was leaving Apple, where he'd been working on the Let It Be session. "George [Harrison] and I lived in the same direction, and I said, 'On your way home, let's pop around to Olympic. You've got to hear this record Jimmy's done. It's absolutely amazing.'" It was around ten o'clock at night when the two men settled into Studio A, where Johns had made the album. "I got a protection copy of the master that was stored in the basement and played it for George, start to finish. It wasn't that he just didn't get it—he thought it was awful."

Mick wasn't the only member of the Rolling Stones who didn't enjoy Zeppelin's music. Keith Richards said Robert's singing annoyed him in a 6 December 1969 interview with New Musical Express:

—Jimmy Page, Rolling Stone, 15 February 1969

Heavy Music: An Interview With Led Zeppelin

Great Zepplin [sic] closed Newport, despite ban!

By June Harris, New Musical Express, 19 July 1969

Newport, hardly used to rock, told George Wein to cancel Led Zeppelin's appearance on Sunday "in the interest of public safety"!

Wein announced the Zeppelin would not appear owing to the illness of one of the group. They showed up on Sunday anyway, following a knockout performance at the Atlanta Pop Festival, and at 1 am Monday morning, proceeded to go on stage and completely destroy the audience.

Page Gives Led Zeppelin Rock a Diamond Hardness. A review of the band's show in Kitchener, Ontario, 4 November 1969. By Jim Clemente, Kitchener Record, 5 November 1969

Page hunched shyly over his instrument when he was on stage, his long black hair hiding his face. He rarely took his eyes from his guitar long enough to look at the audience.

"I guess I am pretty shy. Nobody ever gets to really know me," he said softly after the show. "There's only a very few who know me well. It doesn't bother the rest of the group. I just sit back and try not to be noticed."

Here are more details about the concert:

After two performances at the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto Ontario, Canada on Nov. 2, Led Zeppelin had a rare night off before this Nov. 4 gig in Kitchener, Ontario where they played to a little over 2,000 fans in the 8,000-capacity venue that had recently seen a packed house for the likes of Diana Ross and the Supremes. Before the band could even do a soundcheck the troubles began when the Canadian tax authorities came to collect on the previous nights gate. While that was being sorted out, the local opening band Copperpenny found a case of beer in a dressing room and proceeded to drink up until Zepp roadies arrived telling them "That's Zeppelin's Beer!" Technical difficulties caused Zepp's set to be a short 45 minutes, but attendees demanded more tunes from the English quartet who came back out to close with an Eddy Cochrane tune.

Source

When the Led Zeppelin group do their songs they don’t just present a copy of their album cuts. They go all out, making them even more ludicrous and insane than the originals, adding parts of old blues or rock number.

Although the best rock ever to be held in this area, the Zeppelin group drew a very small crowd. Let’s hope the poor turnout won’t keep them from making a return trip.

Left: Led Zepelin climbs before its first LP. By Ritchie Yorke, G&M, 11 January 1969 Right: Unidentified publication, c.1969

First: Why Led Zeppelin took off in America and not Britain. By Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 22 March 1969 Second: "We Could Have Been A Bum Group!" Says Jimmy Page. Record Mirror, April 1969

Led Zeppelin. Beat Instrumental, April 1969

There were two articles on Led Zeppelin (Jimmy interviewed for both) in the 10 May 1969 issue of New Musical Express:

While In Los Angeles Zeppelin At Garbo Hotel. By Ann Moses, In Hollywood gossip column Led Zeppelin exceed their wildest dreams. By Nick Logan

Jimmy Page Talks About Led Zeppelin. By Valerie Wilmer, Hit Parader, July 1969

How they got Led Zeppelin off the ground . . . By Royston Eldridge, Melody Maker, 5 July 1969

Left: Underground Groove—Led Zeppelin. Tiger Beat, August 1969 Right: Led Zeppelin and how they made 37,000 dollars in one night. By Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 September 1969

Jimmy Page: 'Zeppelin Are Not Prefabricated.' By Keith Altham, Top Pops, 13 September 1969

Led Zeppelin: 'English band of the moment.' By Ritchie Yorke, 1969

Jimmy Page reviews the new sounds in Blind Date. Melody Maker, 27 December 1969, republished in Uncut's Ultimate Music Guide to Led Zeppelin

Left: Led Zeppelin Brings It On Home—Led Zeppelin II review. By Ritchie Yorke, December 1969 (interview with Jimmy took place on 17 October 1969) Right: To Turn Over a New Leaf Pick a Page. By Michael Edmunds, Go-Set, 24 January 1970

Superstar Jimmy Page. By Keith Altham, Record Mirror, 1 February 1970

Cops move in—and Zeppelin walk off to stop a 'police riot.' Disc, 18 April 1970

Led Zeppelin One. By Georgina Mells, Fab 208, 21 November 1970

The Yardbirds: Only Jimmy left to form the new Yardbirds. By Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 12 October 1968

The History of Rock 1969

Led Zeppelin exceed their wildest dreams. By Nick Logan, New Musical Express, 10 May

Led Zeppelin and how they made 37,000 dollars in one night. By Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 13 September

Robert Plant interview. By Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 27 September

Led Zeppelin at Carnegie Hall. By Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 25 October (says 29, but it's actually from the 25 October issue)