In The Studio with Redbeard

Search results for: “Led Zeppelin”

  • Led Zeppelin IV- Jimmy Page, Robert Plant

    Led Zeppelin IV- Jimmy Page, Robert Plant

    It is one of rock history’s most popular, as well as most important, releases from Led Zeppelin. Officially untitled (Jimmy Page explains why here), what became known as Led Zeppelin IV forged the molten metal template for all hard rock that followed in the Seventies. Yet Page’s superb acoustic guitar, mandolin, plus the voice of Robert Plant that all weave and soar like eagles on “Battle of Evermore” (with the late Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention guesting), “Going to California”, and “Stairway to Heaven” provided the contrast Led Zeppelin mastermind Jimmy Page calls “light and shade”, emulated by pop, rock, and country musicians ever since.

    Anyone assuming that Led Zeppelin‘s allure was limited to the decade of the Seventies, or even the 20th century, simply has not been paying attention: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction 1995; Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award 2005; a single performance in November 2007 at London’s O2 Arena had six MILLION ticket requests; recipients for its lifetime contribution to American culture at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012, awarded by US President Barack Obama; and winners of the Grammy Award in 2014 for the recording of that O2 concert. In 2014 the first three Led Zeppelin albums were re-issued as deluxe expanded editions, with all three debuting in the Top Ten on Billboard‘s album sales chart! The impressive reissue campaign continued with deluxe expanded remastered editions of one of the biggest sellers in rock history, Led Zeppelin IV (23 million sold just in the US; that’s third best all time), with single, deluxe two disc, and super deluxe boxed set versions on compact disc, vinyl record, and digital download available of each.In this classic rock interview Jimmy Page and Robert Plant reveal the details of making “Rock and Roll”,”Misty Mountain Hop”, “Going to California”,”When the Levee Breaks”, “Black Dog”, and “Stairway to Heaven”. Page and Plant are my guests here In the Studio. –Redbeard

  • Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Robert Plant Recall Rehearsal

    Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Robert Plant Recall Rehearsal

    “I controlled the level of the PA from an amplifier that sat in front of the bass drum,” Robert Plant mused to me about Led Zeppelin’s first public performance November 9, 1968 at The Roundhouse at Chalk Farm. On  Rolling Stone‘s  Top 500 Albums of All Time list, magazine writers, contributors, and hundreds of recording artists ranked Led Zeppelin‘s January 1969 debut at #29. The UK magazine Uncut‘s list of the “100 Greatest Debut Albums placed it at no less than #7, but when the Q glossy compiled “The 21 Albums That Changed Music”, Led Zeppelin 1    clocked in at a breathtaking #6 on that uber-elite accounting. “Heavy metal still lives in its shadow”,  Rolling Stone reminds us. Not bad for a fifty-plus  old pensioner.
    This remarkable first effort from young but experienced in-demand London session players Jimmy Page of the Yardbirds and John Paul Jones, plus unknowns Robert Plant and John Bonham, redefined the limits of rock music while magnifying its visceral power, its reckless abandon, and yes, some of its faults. Case in point: Led Zeppelin 1 received a surprising number of negative critical reviews from leading rock writers at Melody Maker, the Village Voice, and the aforementioned upstart Rolling Stone, whose heavy metal harangue blathered on whether white Anglo boys could play black American blues without exploiting  the originators, a specious argument since the white music critics didn’t see the hypocrisy in them writing about African-American blues musicians for money while co-opting every lyric phrase and song title ( “Rolling Stone” is a Muddy Waters song, for Pete’s sake). The manufactured debate eventually was squashed by Led Zeppelin’s sheer worldwide popularity.

    John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant were  awarded America’s highest cultural award by President Barack Obama before the 2013 Kennedy Center Honors gala for , among others, the songs on the January 1969 debut such as “Good Times, Bad Times”,”Babe I’m Gonna Leave You”,”Dazed and Confused”,”Communication Breakdown”, and Willie Dixon‘s “I Can’t Quit You”, while Page has released  deluxe editions of the first three Led Zeppelin albums with alternate mixes, previously unreleased live performances, and remastered sound. Page and Plant are my guests In the Studio for this  classic rock interview.- Redbeard

    LED-Barack_Obama_speaks_to_Led_Zeppelin

  • Bad Company- Run with the Pack 50th- Paul Rodgers, Mick Ralphs, Simon Kirke

    Bad Company- Run with the Pack 50th- Paul Rodgers, Mick Ralphs, Simon Kirke


    Fifty years ago, England’s Bad Company completed a top-selling album trifecta with Run with the Pack containing “Honey Child”, “Silver, Blue, and Gold”, and the circular refrain of the title song “Runnin’ with the Pack”. In a previous episode we learned that Bad Company lead singer/songwriter Paul Rodgers, guitarist/songwriter Mick Ralphs, and drummer Simon Kirke all agreed that being the first band signed to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label, as well as sharing management with them, was advantageous in the immediate popularity of their 1974 debut as well as the 1975 follow up, Straight Shooter. However, the expectations for this “supergroup”, containing Rodgers and Kirke from English bluesrockers Free and Ralphs from Mott the Hoople, were exceedingly high for Run With the Pack  in February 1976.

    Bad Company’s  Burning Sky  in 1977, and the hit album Desolation Angels  two years later, are included here as well. Also in my classic rock interview is Paul Rodgers’ fascinating disclosure about the time during a Bad Company extended hiatus where Rodgers actually helped Queen reunite early in the 21st Century as Queen + Paul Rodgers , re-energizing BOTH Queen and Bad Company, as it turned out; plus a funny, touching tribute to original Bad Company bass player Boz Burrell. Bad Company lead singer/lyricist Paul Rodgers is joined here In the Studio by drummer Simon Kirke and the late songwriter/guitarist Mick Ralphs for the golden anniversary of the silver-clad Run with the Pack. – Redbeard

  • Robert Plant- Shaken ‘n’ Stirred

    Robert Plant- Shaken ‘n’ Stirred

    In 1985, Robert Plant had just raised eyebrows (and skirts) with his retro-rockin’ big band one-off The Honeydrippers, only to follow it up with the adventurous modern rock-influenced Shaken ‘N’ Stirred. His third solo album bearing his name, Shaken ‘N’ Stirred  contained the infectious song “Little by Little” which helped to drive the album sales to #19 in Robert Plant’s UK homeland, as well as #20 Billboard charting in the US.

    It was 1983’s The Principle of Moments, Robert Plant‘s second solo album, which  convinced us that Plant could sustain a viable solo career outside of the legendary Led Zeppelin which he fronted for twelve fabled years. But for me personally it was Shaken ‘n’ Stirred,  served up pre-release on a little Walkman cassette player onboard a Boeing 747  at 40,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, that began my professional relationship with the complicated singer.

    Angular extended songs “In the Mood” and the cryptic “Big Log” from The Principle of Moments  became rock radio staples in the States, followed by the earworm “Little by Little” from Shaken ‘n’ Stirred  in 1985. However, not until 1988’s Now and Zen ( his fourth solo sortie if you don’t count the one-off Honeydrippers  EP) did Plant shed the self-conscious shadow of Led Zeppelin by exorcising his ghosts with the song ” Tall Cool One”, brilliantly sampling the “thunder of the gods” iconic licks and employing Zeppelin mastermind Jimmy Page on guitar.“Heaven Knows” and “Ship of Fools” made Now and Zen a blockbuster, with “Hurting Kind” in 1990 from Manic Nirvana  and the tender heartfelt “29 Palms” on Fate of Nations completing our visit with Robert Plant In the Studio for this classic rock interview.- Redbeard

  • Robert Plant- Rockin’ at Midnight- Birmingham UK 9-85

    Robert Plant- Rockin’ at Midnight- Birmingham UK 9-85

    When Robert Plant performed this toe-tappin’, finger snappin’ “Rockin’ at Midnight” in concert in Birmingham England in September 1985, he had already successfully lifted the curtain on Act Two of his lengthy post-Led Zeppelin career. Midway through the Eighties Robert Plant was trying to outrun the long global shadow cast by serving at the front of the incomparable Led Zeppelin for a decade. That shadow turned out to be the size and speed like some rock solar eclipse, from which Plant would struggle to escape for the rest of the Eighties. Robert seemed positively liberated by the 1984 one-off EP project The Honeydrippers precisely because there could be no comparison of their big band horn-driven swing to Zeppelin’s Hammer of the Gods. -Redbeard

  • Pete Townshend- Face the Face Deep End 40th Anniversary

    Pete Townshend- Face the Face Deep End 40th Anniversary

    The mid-Eighties was a most difficult time for the titans of rock’s Second Generation, hence the need for this tasty project from Pete Townshend, Face the Face: Deep End Live. It was the only time in the last half century when every one of the British superstar bands which had dominated the Seventies, e.g. the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Who were no longer recording, touring, and in some cases even SPEAKING to one another. Rock’n’roll was officially in full-blown midlife crisis and no respecter of persons, as even the biggest names such as Pete Townshend and David Gilmour were cast adrift from the structure of their respective former bands  to deal with it individually for the first time.

    What has been made available from this mid-Eighties transitional period is Pete Townshend’s live performance with an all-star band he dubbed the “Deep End”, which included Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and terrific timekeeper Simon Phillips on drums, performing live at Cannes France in January 1986 and broadcast on German television. The Who had supposedly broken up three years earlier with a lengthy farewell tour following the death of Keith Moon, leaving Pete Townshend searching to find his artistic footing alone. The arrangements range from the intimate, on “Pinball Wizard” and “Behind Blue Eyes”, to the big band assault of the mature marital confessional “Slit Skirts”, and “Give Blood” featuring David Gilmour‘s distinctive echoplex guitar. –Redbeard

  • Deep Purple- Fireball 55th- Ian Gillan, Roger Glover

    Deep Purple- Fireball 55th- Ian Gillan, Roger Glover

    “Who do we think we are?” Good question, and if we’re talking the importance of seminal British band Deep Purple, the rock history books consider the question asked and answered. The first time I heard Deep Purple, with their cover of Joe South’s “Hush” exploding out of a car dashboard speaker in Summer 1968, I had no way of knowing that I was hearing the primordial hard rock bellow of what soon would evolve into Heavy Metal.

    Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Deep Purple widely has been  credited as the third jewel in the British hard rock triple crown. Without Deep Purple’s 1970 proto-metal album  Deep Purple In Rock  or the benchmark Machine Head  two years later, would Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Def Leppard have sold tens of millions of albums worldwide in the 1980s? Doubtful, and unlike Black Sabbath, Deep Purple made this impact musically, without the macabre death-obsessed lyrical themes that later mutated much of Heavy Metal into caricature.

    My guests lead singer Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, along with drummer Ian Paice, still lead Deep Purple to this day, and along with lead guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and the late organist Jon Lord they comprised the Mark II lineup which placed such classics into the hard rock lexicon as “Speed King” and”Child in Time”from In Rock; “Strange Kind of Woman” from the under-appreciated transitional album Fireball  in 1971; the international hit for the ages Machine Head  yielding “Smoke on the Water”,”Highway Star”, and “Space Truckin’ “; the benchmark hard rock live album of its time, Made in Japan; plus “Woman from Tokyo” and the riff rocker “Rat Bat Blue” from Who Do We Think We Are? , the top-selling January 1973 followup to Machine Head   and the final iteration of the classic Mark II lineup until the surprisingly popular in 1985 reunion Perfect Strangers  eleven years later.  Congratulations to the current and former members of Deep Purple for long-overdue recognition as inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And be sure to listen to Splat!  the new Deep Purple album in stores and online now! –Redbeard

  • KISS- Destroyer 50th Anniversary- Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons

    KISS- Destroyer 50th Anniversary- Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons


    The fourth KISS studio album Destroyer, and their first to sell over a million copies, is turning fifty. Destroyer was teed up perfectly by the success of the preceding KISS Alive!, and the band wisely sought out the services of the hottest producer of hard rock then, Alice Cooper collaborator Bob Ezrin, to get the most out of “Detroit Rock City”, “Shout It Out Loud”, and the improbable hit written and sung by KISS drummer Peter Criss, “Beth”. Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons co-host In the Studio.

    To this day I still recall receiving in early 1974 the debut album from a largely unknown New York City band called KISS, and my ambivalence on whether to take it seriously or not. It started right there with the startling high-resolution cover, before hearing even the first note. “Alice Cooper was the biggest thing in music in 1973,” Cooper himself once told me here In the Studio, “so a band with four Alices? Couldn’t miss.” Kiss lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Paul Stanley told me about the band fraternity of groups with whom they shared the stage some fifty years ago, “The love fest ended when we hit the stage, because we were there to destroy them.” Gene Simmons agrees. “Putting on the make up was like putting on warpaint.”

    Everyone remembers their first Kiss concert. I sure do, in the Ohio Northern University gym, with that new Canadian band Rush opening. Interviewing lead singer/guitarist Paul Stanley sans makeup about forty-five minutes before KISS took the stage, while guitarist Ace Frehley crashed beside us in the little Winnebago which served as a dressing room, I was not fully prepared for what was about to happen next. Few things from the mid-Seventies  can totally freeze time the way that listening to Kiss Alive! does. While the world was weary of the Viet Nam War and Nixon’s Watergate scandal, the puckered foursome had cranked out three studio albums in eighteen months, somehow managing to play every college gym and theater between their New York City base and the Rockies. Now they could perform the strongest of that material while making the leap to select arenas, such as in rock-and-roll-mad Detroit and Cleveland, and record their amalgam of testosterone-fueled comic book fantasy, horror movies, and good old teenage lust. How could it not work? Yet, with the KISS legacy secured, would they even be allowed to develop over three studio albums in only eighteen months to get that shot at a “best of, live” album in the 21st century music business? “I think the record climate is very, very tough on bands,” notes Paul Stanley. “What makes or breaks a band is their own heart and desire to rise to the top. Certainly the thing that made KISS in the beginning, which has kept KISS alive, is that nobody will ever decide when we come, when we go, what we do or don’t. It’s the inflexibility within a band, and their desire to stick to their own set of rules, that will make them…It’s totally within a band’s ability, if they have the goods, to succeed,” assures Paul Stanley. “It’s very easy to blame the record company, apathy, the climate, trends in music. There’s ALWAYS room for something great.”

    Gene Simmons adds, “We had an advantage, I think. It was a little like the Wild West…We could play on bills with Dr. John and the Raspberries. I remember as a kid going to see The Chambers Brothers, a soul rock thing; Albert King; and Poco…You could see Led Zeppelin and the Woody Herman Orchestra on the same bill!” KISS kollaborators Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons join me In the Studio for a remarkably frank, insightful look at the golden anniversary of Kiss Destroyer, –Redbeard 

  • YES Album 55th- Jon Anderson, Tony Kaye, Steve Howe, Bill Bruford

    YES Album 55th- Jon Anderson, Tony Kaye, Steve Howe, Bill Bruford

    The third effort by London’s YES in February 1971, simply titled The YES Album, remains a progressive rock touchstone over a half century later. If the British Invasion bands, led by The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, The Animals, Kinks, and Rolling Stones, wanted to be rock’n’roll’s second verse after “Be Bop a Lula” and “Maybe Baby”, then London’s King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, and YES were determined to be rock’s “C” section, the musical bridge which takes the listener somewhere unexpectedly before returning to the familiar refrain. “I was very lucky, because when I first started working with Chris Squire, Tony Kaye, Peter Banks, and Bill Bruford, there  definitely was a feeling that we were all experimenting,” YES lead singer/lyricist Jon Anderson recalled to me. “It was a very great time in London for experimenting around 1968-69. The five major bands that came out of that time were King Crimson, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and YES. These were groups of people, unbeknownst to each other, that were doing very similar activity. Nobody really knew what each other’s groups were doing.”

    In Fall 1987, YES was still surfing the crest of a wave of resurgent popularity which had begun four years earlier with the comeback album of the decade, 90125. At the time they were touring Texas, playing arenas in support of the follow-up album Big Generator. YES prodigal keyboard player Tony Kaye had returned after a long dozen year layoff, so we took advantage of that fact backstage in Dallas in discussing the group’s third album on which Kaye played way back in 1971 , The YES Album. We then traveled to Houston to  interview lead singer Jon Anderson and bass player/singer Chris Squire on a night off. Anderson was marvelous, animated and eager, while Squire had too much wine at dinner and ended up sounding like Dudley Moore in the movie Arthur.  Drummer extraordinaire Bill Bruford and then-new guitarist Steve Howe also shared delightful memoirs of the period in my classic rock interviews of the progressive rock cornerstone The YES Album on its fifty-fifth anniversary. –Redbeard

  • Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir Passes at 78

    Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir Passes at 78

    We are sad to share the news that “the other one” of the legendary Grateful Dead, Bob Weir, has died from cancer at age 78.

    Words fail and comparisons pale when attempting to describe the 20th century musical phenomenon of the Grateful Dead. From their inception in  San Francisico’s Haight/Ashbury district, the Grateful Dead were highly prolific writers and released many albums through 1980, even releasing two classics in one year, Workingman’s Dead   and American Beauty  in 1970 containing “Casey Jones”,”Sugar Magnolia”,”Friend of the Devil”,”Box of Rain”, and”Truckin’ “. In effect the Dead had made their “White Album“, their Electric Ladyland,  except disc one preceded disc two by six months.If you really want to have fun with a self-proclaimed Deadhead, first have him/her set down their phone and then ask them to name the Grateful Dead’s highest-charting Billboard  album prior to the band’s 1987 best-seller, In the Dark. You’ll get a lot Workingman’s Dead  and American Beauty  guesses, and after that I’d have picked Terrapin Station based on the amount of FM radio airplay we gave to multiple tracks on that one. The correct answer turns out to be the tasty mid-decade effort by the Grateful Dead, Blues for Allah.

    In the early Seventies a few of the best-selling bands  at contract renewal time realized that they had enough leverage to incorporate themselves as their own record companies, building a buffer between them and the corporate record distributor. The Beatles had pioneered it with the Apple label followed by Rolling Stones Records in 1971 and Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song by 1974, so the Grateful Dead were the first major American band to follow suit. But my guests Bob Weir (d. January 2026), the late Phil Lesh, and Dead drummer Mickey Hart reveal  in this classic rock interview that the band came perilously close to breaking up for good before that decade was half over.

    In the second half of the Seventies the circle remained unbroken for the Grateful Dead with some tasty albums including Blues for Allah  and Terrapin Station  yielding “The Music Never Stopped” and “Estimated Prophet”, the latter a clever pun on the word “profit” alluding to their disastrous attempts to be businessmen.  “We were just trying to make it from note to note,” declares Grateful Dead singer/ songwriter/guitarist Bob Weir when I asked if there was any way he and the others in The Warlocks in 1965 could have imagined the 50th anniversary mania surrounding the Fare Thee Well  final concerts  in 2015. “Nope, not in 1965,” agreed Grateful Dead bass player Phil Lesh, gone now at age 84. Now cue up “Unbroken Chain” and sing it one more time for me. -Redbeard 

More posts