50 years ago Led Zeppelin put the finishing touches to their legendary fourth album. With songs like "Stairway To Heaven", "Rock And Roll" and "The Battle Of Evermore" it not only became the best-selling record of Jimmy Page & Co. - the untitled album has long been considered a majestic monument of 70s rock. Countless fans and generations of musicians still revere it as an opus magnum and a never-ending source of inspiration. We examine how this album came to be and how it achieved its unique status.
"Being one of the guys was the best moment of my life," Jason Bonham, son of Led Zeppelin drummer John "Bonzo" Bonham, who passed away in 1980, still raves about being one of the guys at the O2 Arena Gig 2007 in London. The challenge to Jason and the "other guys" Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones was immense, because the New Yardbirds, renamed Led Zeppelin fifty years ago, have made a name for themselves in the twelve years of their existence as the most complete and biggest rock band of all time. Their reputation is not only based on their immortal studio classics. As a live band Led Zeppelin reinvented themselves and their songs every concert evening.
Primrose Hill between Camden and Regent's Park is a preferred London residential area, especially among actors and musicians. Robert Plant, as he reveals in his favourite pub Princess Of Wales, has had a "nice little house" here for years, but he only uses it occasionally when he visits the capital. Otherwise, he lives in the country, near the Welsh border. And until recently, in Austin, Texas. But since the separation from US singer-songwriter Patty Griffin at the end of last year, he has turned his back on the states once and for all. Which is one of the main themes on Carry Fire. Just like his personal view of the USA under Trump and the world in 2017, he has little sympathy and even less understanding. Although he expresses this clearly in his texts, Plant does not want to discuss his views further. Which makes him an exhausting, sometimes stubborn conversational partner. Someone who in principle does not want to talk about the past, but also not about the present.
LED ZEPPELIN - The Last Remaster?
"That's it," my ass! Jimmy Page has charmingly told us about the new editions of "Presence", "In Through The Out Door" and "Coda". With "The Complete BBC Sessions" the 72-year-old Englishman once again enters the Remasters-Ring and adds eight songs to the live recordings from the late 60s and early 70s as well as a lot of discussion needs. We report what awaits the fan and discuss with Jimmy Page the new extended and revised re-release - possibly the last remaster.
THE BEATLES - Always on the move
New compositions and ambitious band projects, as he has announced them to eclipsed in recent years, have so far proved to be castles in the air. But 2016 is also such an eventful year for Jimmy Page. His 26-year-old girlfriend is making headlines in the British gossip press and polishing up his rock star image, his lawsuit with neighbor Robbie Williams, whose remodeling work threatened to damage Pages' Victorian villa in Kensington, has been stopped in court, and the spectacular "Taurus vs. Stairway To Heaven" trial, which took place in Los Angeles in mid-June and was to convict Led Zeppelin of plagiarism, is miserably clever. On the one hand, because no adequate consistency with the Spirit song was determined, but also because star attorney Francis Malofiy relied on an argument so absurd that Page on the witness stand played air guitar, drumming drum parts by John Bonham and firing one disarming verbal after another.
LED ZEPPELIN - The last flight of the Zeppelin: the history of "Physical Graffiti" in the
mid-seventies Led Zeppelin had reached its second artistic zenith and documented this in a unique way with "Physical Graffiti", the band's only double album. Until today it is Robert Plant's favourite record with the group, probably also because the formation before and after has never been more expressive and multi-faceted. Released on February 24, 1975, "Physical Graffiti" was the first record in rock history to achieve platinum status through pre-orders alone.
The 71-year-old Brit receives in the legendary Olympic Studios, which today are a mixture of cinema, café and private club. And he turns out to be a talkative, but certain interlocutor who pursues only one goal: to polish up the Zeppelin's reputation in the long term. Critical questions do not fit into the concept. But these are quite appropriate for the work of the years 1976 to 1979.
eclipsed: Jimmy, is it hard for you to talk about these albums, which stand for the end of the band or the way there?
Jimmy Page: I like to talk about it, even though a lot of crap happened back then. As much bad luck as we couldn't actually have a band. This started with Robert having this car accident on Rhodes, where he suffered a complicated fracture of his foot.
eclipsed: Who was supposedly so heavy that there was a danger that he would never be able to walk properly again?
![LED ZEPPELIN - The last flight of the Zeppelin: the history of "Physical Graffiti](https://www.eclipsed.de/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/Led%20Zeppelin%20Neal%20Preston%20web.jpg?itok=TNoqg9H- "LED ZEPPELIN - The last flight of the Zeppelin: the history of "Physical Graffiti")
In the mid-seventies Led Zeppelin had reached their second artistic zenith and documented this in a unique way with "Physical Graffiti", the band's only double album. Until today it is Robert Plant's favourite record with the group, probably also because the formation before and after has never been more expressive and multi-faceted. Released on February 24, 1975, "Physical Graffiti" was the first record in rock history to achieve platinum status through pre-orders alone.
PINK FLOYD - Let there be more Wright
The announcement of a new Pinkloyd album - the first in twenty years - resembled a bang. The decision of Messrs. Gilmour and Mason to do little or no promotion at all for their tribute to their deceased band colleague Rick Wright, though. This approach raises many questions. Don't the old masters believe in themselves and their output? Do you think the whole thing might already be a mistake? Or did they just hire the wrong PR agency? eclipsed about the trials and tribulations surrounding "The Endless River".
