Wolves vise Vice President Robbie Plant – former frontman of legendary band Led Zeppelin – has ended his World Tour with project group Band Of Joy in Eastnor Castle Deer Park in Herefordshire to be able to watch Wolves football season in the Premier League.

His last concert on tour was full of talk about Wolves between the songs and it was obvious that he looked very much forward to the season and enjoyed the banter with the others in the band and the audience, showing his true black and old gold colours in full.

According to the E&S he said to band member Patty Griffin: “- It’s a bit cold so on behalf of the British weather system I present you with a Wolverhampton Wanderers hot water bottle.” and Patty answered: – “Who are ya?”

And that also became the final war call from Robert Plant to the audience at the end of the concert that, according to E&S, was very entertaining. Here’s a video from the Band Of Joy’s concert in Chicago. The reason I picked this one is of course the title and it is a nice country blues celebrating the Black Country women.

Who Are Ya, indeed. See you at the stands, Robbie! I’m a lifelong fan of you and Wolves!

Paddytheflea

The now Vice President of Wolverhampton Wanderers and former Led Zeppelin frontman talks about growing up in the Black Country and of course his long and successful musical career.

Here he talks about the Band and the recordings himself:

I’m especially very pleased with his singing. Despite the age-thing he sounds really good and fresh and I don’t believe it’s due to studio tricks at all.

Listen to this official first release single:

As he says in the interview it’s very ‘Plant-like’ and at least it brings something up my spine. And this music really makes you wanna dance.

Listen to this ‘Beatles-steal’ sone with tongue in cheek. Beautiful!

Central Two-O-Nine is a tune in the same mould as the songs on Led Zeppelin III. A mesh between acoustic and electric and folk and rock that Robert Plant seem to be specially fond of and has gone back to many times during the years. And I love him for it.

Listen to it played live in Dublin just a little bit more than a month ago.. Gives me goose-bumps:

And on that occasion they also played the old Led Zeppelin song Tangerine. More goose-bumps!

They also played my favorite Gallows Pole on the night. Holy Smoke, I should have been there!

Basically I just wanna sing, my hero says at the end of the interview and I’m very short of crying. What a legend!

Sing on Mr Plant! For many years to come. And I will for sure listen. And many with me.

He was very funny when talking about the Led Zep days and sang very well together with Band Of Joy. Just look at the clips from Swedish Television below.

Zeptheflea has checked out covers of Led Zeppelin songs on the net, and there are lots and lots of them, I can tell you! And some of the cover bands and individuals are very good. Some of the cover songs are very personal and differs a lot from the originals and some are just copying  the originals. I prefer the ones when the cover artist lets his or her personality into the songs.

I love to listen to Zeppelin covers and I think many of us do. So I want to invite you to tip me off about great covers of Led Zeppelin – or if you play yourself or know someone who does – publish yourselves on YouTube and send me the address of the cover and I will publish you at Zeptheflea’s.

But let your own personality into it!

Zeptheflea

P.S. You can watch the covers HERE

The producers of the major British Broadcasting Company were not at all convinced about the groups greatness forty years ago. That stands very clear as BBC opened their archives for public scrutiny.

One producer said that the group ‘were not for daytime radio – but for specialist listening only‘, another of them described them as ‘derivative” and unconvincing‘ and one of them – no names – said that they ‘had an old-fashioned sound‘.

But there were one producer who can hold his head high still today.  Jimmy Grant, today 89 years old, described Led Zeppelin as an ‘excellent progressive blues group‘ already in 1969 and tells the reporters today:

“The system was quite tight in those days. Bands had to audition to see if they were suitable to make personal appearances and the producers would decide.“

Guitarist Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin explains to the BBC 6 today why it was so important to appear on national radio for the group:

“It just gave us an opportunity to come in and do what we had on our albums. It gave an opportunity for anyone who hadn’t heard us to hear how we were moving the songs and making them take on a life of their own.“

At the end the BBC of course had to improve of Led Zeppelins music and the old stiffs had to go back on their own words and let the music through to the masses of youth who demanded to hear them throughout the country.

The BBC 6 reveals that it was not only Led Zeppelin that weren’t considered good enough to be broadcasted on their shows back then. David Bowie was ‘a singer devoid of personality‘ (!) already in 1965, and about Marc Bolan’s T-Rex they said ‘crap and pretentious crap at that‘. Even Rolling Stones was rejected by their pompous panels. No wonder that Pirate Stations flourished putting out the new music on the air.

But it must be said that there were producers like Grant and John Peel that understood what was happening and produced many of the best groups at the time for the BBC.

The radio show from BBC that revealed all this and played some good music as well was aired on Christmas Day but it can still for some time be listened to from BBCRadio 6 iPlayer HERE.

Paddy happens to be an an old Zeppelin fan – even before he knew that Robert Plant, our Vice Pres was one – that’s why I have included some of the best performances of Mr Plant and a Biography in this site for you to listen and watch.

I’ve made that even more public now by presenting my links on the site. Just scroll down after the 120 or so flags of my friends down the right sidebar and you will find a lot of links to Robert Plant And Led Zeppelin videos.

But I would love that you also read the biography with the links about Robert and Led Zeppelin to get a whiff of the 70′s. Enjoy- it’s free!

“I’ve just been talking to festival organizer Michael Eavis. There’s a place for me there, but I have no idea who with.“

Glastonbury is the largest greenfield music festival in the world with 150,000 people attending.

Vice-president Plant - He will Rock on!

P.S.Paddy has now published a Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin Biography with videos that can be found HERE and from the main page (right margin).D.S.