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From: andrew@grkermi.UUCP (Andrew W. Rogers)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Re: Led Zeppelin fans and Jimmy Page
Message-ID: <640@grkermi.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 21:26:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: grkermi.640
Posted: Thu Sep 26 21:26:42 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Sep-85 07:38:37 EDT
References: <1126@ritvp.UUCP> <862@udenva.UUCP>
Reply-To: andrew@grkermi.UUCP (Andrew W. Rogers)
Organization: GenRad, Inc., Concord, Mass.
Lines: 61

In article <862@udenva.UUCP> showard@udenva.UUCP (showard) writes:
>>I'd like to know if there are any hardcore Zeppelin fans, especially ones  
>>who think Jimmy Page is the greatest thing on strings...
>
>  How about people who think that Jimmy Page was a very good guitar player
>who has been riding on his reputation for about 5 years?  Anyone who saw the 
>Plant-Page reunion (why wasn't JPJ there?) on Live Aid knows what I'm talking 
>about.

Anyone who's heard The Firm knows what you're talking about, too.  Hasn't done
much for Paul Rodgers' reputation either (assuming you think he had one)!

I didn't see Live Aid, so I wasn't aware of JPJ's absence... who took his
place?  And once and for all, just who did play drums?

>  I do, however, feel that Led Zeppelin was one of the few bands who made the
> 70's more than just fragments of the 60's (musically speaking of course).
>
>  Their best songs (in my not-so-humble opinion) were "Fool in the Rain" and
>"I'm Gonna Crawl" from "In Through the Out Door,"  "Dazed and Confused" from
>the first album, and "Misty Mountain Hop" from the fourth.  Notice which song
>is deliberately eliminated, due mostly to over-exposure.

Speaking of a certain over-exposed tune... I was a college DJ circa '72-'73,
and when someone would request you-know-what, I'd play the Neil Sedaka song
of the same title!  

>  Something for LZ fans to think about:  To what extent do you agree with the
>Rolling Stone Book of Rock Lists that the first album was "recycled Jeff Beck
>Group"?

Consider John Mendelsohn's RS review of the first album (quoted from memory):

"The formula seems to be: take an ex-Yardbirds guitarist, add a pretty
soul-belter who can do a good spade impression and a competent rhythm
section...  Led Zeppelin has little to offer that its twin, the Jeff Beck
Group, hasn't already done better..."

Let's see... Page wrote "Beck's Bolero", JPJ played organ on "Old Man River",
and both groups covered "You Shook Me", a Willie Dixon tune that is so 
overdone that even Zep didn't dare to claim they had written it!  Don't know
if I'd call them "twins", though...

Speaking of "recycling", you could say that "Dazed and Confused" was
recycled Jake Holmes (who had performed a very similar song called "I'm
Confused" as the opening act for the latter-day Yardbirds), or that
"How Many More Times" is a recycling of God-knows-who's "How Many More
Years" and Albert King's "The Hunter", plus a snatch of "Beck's Bolero".

Of course, Willie Dixon sued LZ for allegedly Page-iarizing a tune of his
for "Whole Lotta Love"... and wasn't it nice of P,P,J,&B to give Memphis
Minnie 1/5 of the writing credit for a tune she came up with before any
of them were born?  I'm told that "Boogie With Stu" is a note-for-note
copy of some 50's tune (I don't recall which).  "Bring It On Home" is
"borrowed" from Sonny Boy Williamson...

Andrew W. Rogers


PS: Not to brag or anything, but I heard Zep on their second or third US
date (Aerodrome, Schenectady NY)!