Jimmy Page Digitized

England's National Portrait Gallery began digitalizing it's collection in 1996, and began making it's portraits available online a year later.

By 2009 the Gallery had digitized 70,000 images. Today, the figure stands at over 100,000 images.

The 100,000th portrait digitized by The National Gallery was a picture of Jimmy Page, taken by acclaimed rock photographer Ross Halfin.

The photograph was taken in 2009 and was donated to the gallery by Dave Brolen. Both Page and Halfin have signed the limited edition print, and it is part of a collection of five photographs of Page signed by photographer and artist. The other pictures in the portfolio are by Jorgen Angel in Copenhagen in 1970, Dick Barnatt at Earls Court Arena in 1975, Neal Preston at Chicago Stadium in 1977, Baron Wolman at Oakland Coliseum in 1977.

Page appears in six pictures in total at the portrait gallery, including one of him with the Yardbirds in 1966.  The gallery also has single  Robert Plant picture, as well as a Sandy Denny portrait.

Heart Zeppish

Heart is releasing a box set of demos and live versions of their materials over the course of their career. Included in the box set, Strange Euphoria, will be a 5 song bonus disc of Led Zeppelin material.

Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson have been very upfront about the Zeppelin influence in their music, and have covered a number of Zeppelin songs during their live sets through the years.



The "Zeppish" disc will include Going to California, Battle Of Evermore, What Is And What Should Never Be, Immigrant Song, Misty Mountain Hop.

Heart's Strange Euphoria will be available June 5th.

Led Zeppelin Guitar Method

I wish I had this when I was learning to play guitar.

For eons, beginning guitar students have sat in front of books plinking away to the civil war standard Aura Lee (Love Me Tender is based on Aura Lee), Jingle Bells and the big closer, Guitar Boogie. Starting on the 1st and 2nd strings and advancing to all six strings within mere weeks. Chords get introduced around the time sharps and flats do, and soon you are playing with friends to learn the songs you really want to play.

Fun! Wow!

Now, beginning students have the Led Zeppelin Guitar Method: Immerse Yourself in the Music and Mythology of Led Zeppelin as You Learn to Play Guitar, Book & Enhanced CD from Alfred Music to immerse themselves in:

The highly anticipated Led Zeppelin Guitar Method teaches the essentials required to play guitar right away, applied to 26 time-honored songs from the iconic band, written in standard notation and TAB. Beginning with the vocal melodies, the method book quickly moves on to teach authentic-sounding guitar parts of such classics as “Stairway to Heaven,” ”Immigrant Song,” “Whole Lotta Love,” “Misty Mountain Hop,” “Over the Hills and Far Away,” “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,” and many more. Zeppelin songs are used to illustrate and teach concepts such as popular chord forms, major and minor scales, power chords, hammer-ons and pull-offs, and much more. Carefully arranged to capture the essence of their original recordings, some song arrangements have been simplified to facilitate a faster, more enjoyable learning process.

The book includes much of the traditional method - including Aura Lee and something called Rock'n Rhythm. It is supplemented, however, by Led Zeppelin music throughout, and by the end is entirely Led Zeppelin music. By page 13, after such complex subjects as holding the guitar, notes on the first string, notes on the second string the Led Zeppelin Guitar Method has you playing "Stairway to Heaven (melody)" on the first two strings.

By the end, you have played the Heartbreaker riff, Stairway to Heaven (intro), Good Times, Bad Times (lick), Over The Hills and Far Away and fingerpicked Babe I'm Gonna Leave You and Bach's Bourée in Em (which Jimmy Page often played during live renditions of his Heartbreaker solo).




A review copy has been sent and I will do a more in depth review once I've seen the actual product. As a guitar player, and former teacher, I'll know if this is a decent product or not, but I'd love to see it in action with a real student.

Led Zeppelin Guitar Method comes with a CD that plays in a regular CD player and can be played in a computer, where you can slow down the tracks to play along.

Led Zeppelin Guitar Methodcan be purchased at most music stores, or online retailing for $24.99



Page previews:

Title Page
Speed Drill
The F Chord and Communication Breakdown
Triplets and You Shook Me
The Em chord and When the Levee Breaks

Robert Plant to Unveil the Sensational Space Shifters

Looks like Robert Plant is going back to the Black Country, as he's announced his new band, The Sensational Space Shifters, will play the Guildhall in Gloucester on May 8th. This is the earliest of the announced concerts for the Sensational Space Shifters. They are also scheduled to play Womad Festival in Malmesbury, Wiltshire on
July 29th and the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival in Clarksdale, MS in August.

The Sensational Space Shifters feature Plant and his "wife" Patty Griffin, Justin Adams, who played with Plant with Strange Sensation Days from 2001 - 2007, Adams collaborator Juldeh Camara, and bassist Billy Fuller, also formerly of Strange Sensation.

Tickets for the Guildhall shops go on sale this Friday, April 20th (maximum of 4).

Ramble On Radio Episode #14

Jimmy Page is releasing Lucifer Rising and Other Sound Tracks, Robert Plant's Sensational Space Shifter's is coming together, John Paul Jones plays avant-garde and I discuss it all in this St. Patrick's Podcast.

Also, I review Glenn Hughes book "Glenn Hughes: An Autobiography From Deep Purple to Black Country Communion."

Get Episode #14 here, or subscribe via iTunes, and never miss another episode.

Led Kittens

The Kitten Covers is one of my favourite websites, and a daily check. The Clash's London Calling and Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town are two of my personal favs

I've been wondering when the website that "re-imagines" classic album covers with cats would get around to Led Zeppelin, and today it did with Led Kittens, Houses of the Meowy.

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The Kitten Covers does it again.

Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography - from Deep Purple to Black Country Communion.

Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography, penned with the help of Joel McIver, covers his career, and life from The late 1960's through to the present day. The fact there is a present day Glenn Hughes is nothing short of a small miracle, a point which is not a minor piece of subtext running through the book.

For Led Zeppelin fans, Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography is of interest mostly because Hughes plays with Jason Bonham in Black Country Communion, but also because Hughes has a couple of run ins with Led Zeppelin, and John Bonham in particular.

In 1971, Bonham turned up at a Trapeze show, Hughes first band. He inserted himself into the drummers chair mid-song and a 15-minute version of Medusa ensued, a song Hughes would later record with Bonham's son in Black Country Communion. Post-show Hughes went back to Bonham's house where they listened to an acetate of Led Zeppelin IV "a good four months before it's global release. We must have heard the album five times. By the time the sun came up, 'When The Levee Breaks' was tattooed on my brain."

A few hours later Robert Plant showed up to take Bonham away on a European tour.

In 1975 Bonham showed up side-stage at Deep Purple show to confront Hughes about an alleged affair with Bonham's wife, which Hughes denies (then and now), and subsequently on to a party at Ron Wood's New York apartment. Later Bonham would punch Hughes and have him kicked out of a Song Remains the Same release party for the same offense.

Then there's this:

You may not believe this, but it's true. In September 1980, I was having a nap in the middle of the day, and I remember Karen coming in and saying, "You'll never guess who's dead." And I said this, out of my sleep: "I know who's dead, it's John Bonham." He'd come to me and whispered in my ear that he'd gone to heaven and told God that he was leaving Led Zeppelin and going to form a new band with Glenn Hughes. And then he said to me, "She's a rich girl now," and that's exactly the dream I had. It came to me while I was sleeping.

It may seem strange that Bonham was in heaven and planning to join a band with the still alive Hughes, but Hughes was by that time mired in addiction problems of his own, mostly cocaine. Who knows what message from beyond John Bonham was trying to tell him.

Hughes addiction problem, coming to grips with it, 20-years wasted, unable to keep a gig, unable to do much of anything but find/take cocaine. Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography is a cathartic process for Hughes, who makes no apologies and holds nothing back, pointing out secrets are deadly to addicts.
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi says of Hughes in the book:

he'd burned so many bridges over the years that he had to rebuild every one.

That's what this book is, another strut in Glenn Hughes bridge, being rebuilt one strut, one truss at a time. The focus throughout is his addiction, and the consequences thereof.

Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography is an enjoyable, if sometimes uncomfortable read. Telling the tale of great success and great waste of talent, sometimes all at once. Glenn Hughes has lived one hell of a life, is probably very lucky to be alive (and as anyone who follows Hughes on Facebook or Twitter can tell you, Hughes is very aware of the fact).

Or, to paraphrase, Hughes is the messenger, and this book is his prophesy.