August 20 - Today In Rock Music History

Happy Birthday Robert Plant!



Musicians Born On August 20

1924 Jim Reeves (He'll Have to Go)
1941 Tom Coster (Santana)
1947 James Pankow (Chicago)
1948 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
1951 Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy)
1952 Doug Fieger (The Knack)



Deaths On August 20

1988 Leon McAuliffe (pioneer steel guitarist)



Number 1 In The Charts On August 20

1977 Brotherhood of Man: 'Angelo' UK 45
1977 Emotions: 'Best of My Love' US 45
1983 Jackson 5: '18 Greatest Hits' UK LP
1988 Steve Winwood: 'Roll With It' US 45
1988 Steve Winwood: 'Roll With It' US LP



Various Music Events On August 20

1955 Apollo Theatre in Harlem presents Big Joe Turner, Bo Diddley, Five Keys, Heart and Spaniels

1960 Connie Francis begins work on her first movie, 'Where the Boys Are'

1965 Rolling Stones release 'Satisfaction' in UK

1965 Andrew Loog Oldham launches Immediate label, home of Small Faces,
Chris Farlowe and Nice

1966 Beatles are pelted with rubbish and rotten fruit in Memphis as the row regarding John Lennon's 'Jesus' comments goes on

1981 Bruce Springsteen begins a special series of concerts for Vietnam veterans at Los Angeles Arena

1996 Carlos Santana receives a star on Hollywood's Walk Of Fame.

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- Retro Rebirth



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May 31 - Today In Rock Music History

We Miss You John!



Musician's Born On May 31

1938 Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul and Mary)
1939 Charles Miller (War)
1941 Johnny Paycheck
1944 Mick Ralphs (Mott the Hoople)
1947 Junior Campbell (Marmalade)
1948 John Bonham (Led Zeppelin)
1962 Corey Hart
1963 Wendy Smith (Prefab Sprout)
1964 Darryl McDaniel (Run-D.M.C.)

Number 1 In The Charts On May 31

1975 Freddie Fender: Before the Next Teardrop Falls US 45
1980 Mash: Theme from Mash UK 45
1980 Paul McCartney: McCartney II UK LP
1980 Lips Incorporated: Funky Town US 45
1986 Peter Gabriel: So UK LP

Various Music Events On May 31

1961 Chuck Berry opens Berry Park, an outdoor amusement park in Wentzville (near St. Louis)

1969 John and Yoko record Give Peace a Chance at Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal

1976 The Who perform loudest concert ever at Charlton Athletic football ground, using 76,000-watt PA system

1977 The biggest and most expensive rock tour in history begins as Emerson, Lake and Palmer embark on a worldwide tour, following the release of Works Vol. 1. 125 people begin the tour, including a 70-piece orchestra.

1980 Alabama top US country chart with Tennessee River, beginning a run of 21 consecutive chart toppers.

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- Retro Rebirth



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The Top 100 Classic Rock Songs

The Top 100 Classic Rock Songs According to KZOK 102.5

Beatles has 51 songs, Led Zeppelin 38 and Rolling Stones 36. No one
else even comes close. The Who is at 4th with 24 songs.

Rank Song Artist

1 Stairway to Heaven Led Zeppelin
2 Hey Jude Beatles
3 All Along the Watchtower Hendrix, Jimi
4 Satisfaction Rolling Stones
5 Like A Rolling Stone Dylan, Bob
6 Another Brick In The Wall Pink Floyd
7 Won't Get Fooled Again Who
8 Hotel California Eagles
9 Layla Derek And The Dominos
10 Sweet Home Alabama Lynyrd Skynyrd
11 Bohemian Rhapsody Queen
12 Riders on the Storm Doors
13 Rock and Roll Led Zeppelin
14 Barracuda Heart
15 La Grange ZZ Top
16 Dream On Aerosmith
17 You Really Got Me Van Halen
18 More Than a Feeling Boston
19 Sultans of Swing Dire Straits
20 You Shook Me All Night Long AC/DC
21 Kashmir Led Zeppelin
22 Lola Kinks
23 Carry on Wayward Son Kansas
24 Tiny Dancer John, Elton
25 Locomotive Breath Jethro Tull
26 I Still Haven't Found U2
27 Magic Carpet Ride Steppenwolf
28 Free Bird Lynyrd Skynyrd
29 Purple Haze Hendrix, Jimi
30 Tom Sawyer Rush
31 Let It Be Beatles
32 Baba O'Riley Who
33 The Joker Miller, Steve
34 Roxanne Police
35 Time Pink Floyd
36 It's A Long Way to the Top AC/DC
37 Whole Lotta Love Led Zeppelin
38 The Chain Fleetwood Mac
39 I've Seen All Good People Yes
40 For What It's Worth Buffalo Springfield
41 Black Magic Woman Santana
42 Nights in White Satin Moody Blues
43 While My Guitar Gently Weeps Beatles
44 Gimme Shelter Rolling Stones
45 Gold Dust Woman Fleetwood Mac
46 Fortunate Son CCR
47 American Pie McLean, Don
48 Bad Company Bad Company
49 Waitin' For The Bus/Jesus Just Left ZZ Top
50 Over the Hills and Far Away Led Zeppelin
51 Owner of a Lonely Heart Yes
52 The Logical Song Supertramp
53 A Day in the Life Beatles
54 Sweet Emotion Aerosmith
55 Down On The Corner CCR
56 My Sweet Lord Harrison, George
57 Knockin' on Heaven's Door Dylan, Bob
58 Just What I Needed Cars
59 Don't Fear the Reaper Blue Oyster Cult
60 Behind Blue Eyes Who
61 Do It Again Steely Dan
62 Who Do You Love Thorogood, George
63 From the Beginning ELP
64 Already Gone Eagles
65 Here Comes The Sun Beatles
66 With Or Without You U2
67 Life's Been Good Walsh, Joe
68 Breakdown (Live Version) Petty, Tom
69 Comfortably Numb Pink Floyd
70 Ramble On Led Zeppelin
71 I'd Love to Change the World Ten Years After
72 Foreplay Longtime Boston
73 Brown Eyed Girl Morrison, Van
74 Back In Black AC/DC
75 You Can't Always Get What You Rolling Stones
76 Take It Easy Eagles
77 Sgt. Pepper/With A Little Help Beatles
78 We Will Rock You/We Are the Queen
79 Dancing Days Led Zeppelin
80 Turn the Page Seger, Bob
81 All Right Now Free
82 Black Water Doobie Brothers
83 Oh Well Fleetwood Mac
84 Me and Bobby McGee Joplin, Janis
85 Rocket Man John, Elton
86 Ohio CSN&Y
87 You Really Got Me Kinks
88 Bloody Well Right Supertramp
89 Dirty Deeds AC/DC
90 Aqualung Jethro Tull
91 The Wind Cries Mary Hendrix, Jimi
92 Burnin' for You Blue Oyster Cult
93 Moving in Stereo/All Mixed Up Cars
94 House of the Rising Sun Animals
95 Bargain Who
96 Maybe I'm Amazed McCartney, Paul
97 Bennie & The Jets John, Elton
98 Dust in the Wind Kansas
99 Rock 'n Roll Hootchie Koo Derringer, Rick
100 Crazy On You Heart

Rock On Music Lovers!!

-Stereo

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Led Zeppelin - Feature

The Yardbirds - Dazed And Confused - Live Video (1968)



Jimmy Page - White Summer - Live Video (1970)



Led Zeppelin - Dazed and Confused Royal Albert Hall 1970 Live



Led Zeppelin - Immigrant Song - Live Video 1972




It wasn't just Led Zeppelin's thunderous volume, sledgehammer beat, and edge-of-mayhem arrangements that made it the most influential and successful heavy-metal pioneer, it was the band's finesse. Like its ancestors the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin used a guitar style that drew heavily on the blues; its early repertoire included remakes of songs by Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Willie Dixon (who later won a sizable settlement from the band in a suit in which he alleged copyright infringement). But Jimmy Page blessed the group with a unique understanding of the guitar and the recording studio as electronic instruments, and of rock as sculptured sound; like Jimi Hendrix, Page had a reason for every bit of distortion, feedback, reverberation, and out-and-out noise that he incorporated. Few of the many acts that try to imitate Led Zeppelin can make the same claim.

Page and Robert Plant were grounded also in British folk music and fascinated by mythology, Middle Earth fantasy, and the occult, as became increasingly evident from the band's later albums (the fourth LP's title is comprised of four runic characters). A song that builds from a folk-baroque acoustic setting to screaming heavy metal, "Stairway to Heaven," fittingly became the best-known Led Zeppelin song and a staple of FM airplay, although like most of the group's "hits," it was never released as a single. Though critically derided more often than not, Led Zeppelin was unquestionably one of the most enduring bands in rock history, with U.S. sales of more than 100 million records.

When the Yardbirds fell apart in the summer of 1968, Page was left with rights to the group's name and a string of concert obligations. He enlisted John Paul Jones, who had done session work with the Rolling Stones, Herman's Hermits, Lulu, Dusty Springfield, and Shirley Bassey. Page and Jones had first met, jammed together, and discussed forming a group when both were hired to back Donovan on his Hurdy Gurdy Man LP. Page had hoped to complete the group with drummer B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum and singer Terry Reid. Neither was available, but Reid recommended Plant, who in turn suggested Bonham, drummer for his old Birmingham group, Band of Joy. The four first played together as the session group behind P.J. Proby on his Three Week Hero. In October 1968 they embarked on a tour of Scandinavia under the name the New Yardbirds. Upon their return to England they recorded their debut album in 30 hours.

Adopting the name Led Zeppelin (allegedly coined by Keith Moon), they toured the U.S. in early 1969, opening for Vanilla Fudge. Their first album was released in February; within two months it had reached Billboard's Top 10. Led Zeppelin II reached Number One two months after its release, and since then every album of new material has gone platinum; five of the group's LPs have reached Number One. After touring almost incessantly during its first two years together, Zeppelin began limiting its appearances to alternating years. The band's 1973 U.S. tour broke box-office records throughout the country (many of which had been set by the Beatles), and by 1975 its immense ticket and album sales had made Led Zeppelin the most popular rock & roll group in the world. In 1974 the quartet established its own label, Swan Song. The label's first release was Physical Graffiti (Number One, 1975), the band's first double-album set, which sold 4 million copies.

On August 4, 1975, Plant and his family were seriously injured in a car crash while vacationing on the Greek island of Rhodes. As a result, the group toured even less frequently. That and speculation among fans that supernatural forces may have come into play also heightened the Zeppelin mystique. (Plant believed in psychic phenomena, and Page, whose interest in the occult was well known, once resided in Boleskine House, the former home of infamous satanist Aleister Crowley.)

In 1976 Led Zeppelin released Presence, a 4-million seller. The group had just embarked on its U.S. tour when Plant's six-year-old son, Karac, died suddenly of a viral infection. The remainder of the tour was canceled, and the group took off the next year and a half. In late 1978 Plant, Page, Jones, and Bonham began work on In Through the Out Door, their last group effort. They had completed a brief European tour and were beginning to rehearse for a U.S. tour when, on September 25, 1980, Bonham died at Page's home of what was described as asphyxiation; he had inhaled his own vomit after having consumed alcohol and fallen asleep. On December 4, 1980, Page, Plant, and Jones released a cryptic statement to the effect that they could no longer continue as they were. Soon thereafter it was rumored that Plant and Page were going to form a band called XYZ (ex-Yes and Zeppelin) with Alan White and Chris Squire of Yes; the group never materialized. In 1982 Zeppelin released Coda (Number Six, 1982), a collection of early recordings and outtakes.

Plant and Page each pursued solo careers [see entries]. Jones released a soundtrack album, Scream for Help, in 1986, and has worked in production. The remaining members of Zeppelin have reunited three times. They played in 1985 at Live Aid (with Phil Collins and Tony Thompson on drums), and in May 1988 (with John Bonham's son, Jason, on drums) at the Atlantic Records 40th-anniversary celebration at New York's Madison Square Garden. They also performed at Jason Bonham's wedding. Zeppelin's concert movie, The Song Remains the Same (originally released in 1976), is still a staple of midnight shows around the country, and Zeppelin tunes like "Stairway to Heaven," "Kashmir," "Communication Breakdown," "Whole Lotta Love," and "No Quarter" are still in heavy rotation on classic-rock radio playlists. In 1990 a St. Petersburg, Florida, station kicked off its all-Zeppelin format by playing "Stairway to Heaven" for 24 hours straight. (Less than two weeks later, the station had expanded its playlist to include Pink Floyd.)

In fall 1994 Page and Plant participated in the No Quarter album, which they followed up with a new 1998 studio effort, Walking Into Clarksdale. Jones, who was not invited to join them, was by then working and touring with Diamanda Galás, with whom he recorded 1994's The Sporting Life. In 1997 a live-in-the-studio collection of Zeppelin's BBC radio sessions peaked at Number 12 and went platinum. In 1999 the recording industry announced that the band was only the third act in music history to achieve four or more diamond-certified albums, signifying sales of 10 million copies.

In recent years, Page has become the group's unofficial archivist, and in 2003 he oversaw the release of two best-selling live-show collections: The three-disc album How The West Was Won (Number One) and the DVD set Led Zeppelin. He then turned his attention to The Song Remains the Same, expanding both the film and its soundtrack for a November 2007 re-release, which was accompanied by yet another best-of collection, Mothership (Number Seven).

The slew of vintage-Zeppelin material was merely a prelude for a long-rumored reunion, which finally occurred on December 10th, 2007, at a London concert in honor of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegün. With Jason Bonham on drums, the band performed 16 songs, including "Good Times Bad Times," "Kashmir" and "No Quarter." Both Page and Plant have hinted that more reunion shows—and possibly even a worldwide tour—may be in the works.

Updated from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)


Rock On Music Lovers!!

-Stereo

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