![]() Jones recalls his immediate rhythm-section bond with Bonham (“I was very much in love with John’s right foot”), and soon Page installed them in his Pangbourne boathouse for proper rehearsals. Meanwhile, Plant was making more conventional attempts at stardom, taking whatever singing gig he could get and honing the chops that would eventually attract Page’s interest: When the Yardbirds disbanded and Page was tasked with assembling a new version, he really wanted the “ballsy blues voice” of Terry Reid second-choice Plant would have to do.īy all their accounts, the four men had immediate chemistry when Page got them in a room together and suggested they play “Train Kept A-Rollin’,” a number the Yardbirds had covered. The filmmakers unearth adorable glimpses of teenage rocker Page, while Jones recounts the kind of always-say-yes work ethic that seemingly ensured success: At 14, he taught himself to play organ for a church gig later, he lied when producer Andrew Loog Oldham asked if he knew how to write orchestral arrangements. ![]() With boyish enthusiasm, the old men echo one another when they speak of these early encounters: Page was “infected” for Plant, after a concert whose staggering lineup ranged from Bo Diddley to the Stones, “the syringe was in the arm, forever.” We hear about their formative musical crushes, including non-household names like Johnny Burnette - seen here in a TV clip where the sanitized setting and photography contrast sharply with the singer’s raw delivery - and skiffle pioneer Lonnie Donegan, “a force of nature,” according to Page. (Get a sax and you’ll always work, he told the boy.) Both boys had families who happily supported their early musical tendencies - even if Jones’ father, a vaudevillian, warned his son that the bass guitar was “a novelty instrument” soon to be forgotten. But more enjoyable are stories of the musicians’ sometimes Gump-like early careers, which intersect with everything from bubblegum pop to Muzak to blues great Sonny Boy Williamson (at a urinal, where he understandably told fanboy Robert Plant to fuck off).įor those who don’t know, guitar god Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones (born John Richard Baldwin) were workaholic session musicians from their teens onward, playing on classics like Petula Clark’s “Downtown” and Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger” (the only Bond song that matters, no matter what Duran Duran or Wings fans may tell you). Their pleasure is evident, and gratifying. The bandmates encounter some of this with us, largely for the first time: We watch their faces (each was interviewed separately) as they see material shot in the studio, for instance, or listen to Bonham describe them fondly. Hardie’s success with the album cover would later lead him to design many the prominent rock album covers of the 1970s as part of the Pink Floyd’s go-to design studio Hipgnosis.Screenwriters: Bernard MacMahon, Allison McGourty Not looking to raise the ire of local authorities, Led Zeppelin temporarily changed their name to The Nobs while touring the country.ĭespite Eva’s continued denouncements of the group as “shrieking monkeys”, authorities ultimately decided there was nothing legally objectionable to the band’s use of the Zeppelin name. In 1970 Frau Eva von Zeppelin, a descendant of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, objected to the image and mounted a public campaign to prevent the band from touring Denmark. Led Zeppelin’s choice of cover was not without controversy. Use of the image was initially suggested by Led Zeppelin mastermind Jimmy Page, after rejecting a handful of Hardie’s earlier designs. The spectacular crash of the German airship killed 35 and was covered extensively in newsreels around the world. The image was based on photojournalist Sam Shere’s famous image of zeppelin The Hindenburg crashing in an attempt to “dock” in the US state of New Jersey in 1937. (In doing so Hardie would also circumvent any copyright legalities.) In constructing the image in small dots, the artist evoked the feel of the low-resolution newspaper photo. Inspired by the work of pop artists like Andy Warhol, Hardie used a technique known as ‘stipple’ to trace the image. He only recently recovered the item while clearing out his studio. Hardie was paid only a small fee of £60 for the artwork in 1969.įortunately, he held on to the original, placing it aside with a note reading “George’s Pension Fund”. Those witnessing the Christies auction report ferocious competition, with bids reportedly only escalating past the $100,000 mark in the last hour. ![]() The cover art for Led Zeppelin I has passed under the hammer for $325,000.Īrtist George Hardie‘s design fetched well in excess of the $20,000 to $30,000 expected from the June 18 auction. ![]()
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