Led Zeppelin reunion story: "No Quarter" and "Walking into Clarksdale"

Journalists and fans, pushy managers and producers - each pestered Page and Plante at length with requests for a reunification of their legendary band, Led Zeppelin. But the dawn of the '90s eloquently showed that the dazzling march of the genius duo was left behind behind.

Nevertheless, in 1993, the public received a small lumen hopes. Plant was invited to perform in the popular MTV Unplugged concert series, where international artists such as Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan performed their immortal hits in acoustic versions.

A joint appearance on MTV

MTV insisted that the former Zeppelin vocalist performed Plant couldn't do it without the help of Jimmy Page. The period proved to be very opportune, and, transcending the old misunderstandings that had arisen between the members in the last weeks of Led Zeppelin's existence, Plant and Page gave the audience a stunning joint number.

Paige later shared:

"At the time I had a tour scheduled in Japan and I was on my way to Los Angeles to rehearse a programme with David Coverdale. And then Robert's manager called me and asked me to stop off on my way to Boston, Rob wanted to see me. Later Plant told me that he had been invited to MTV Unplugged and he wanted to do a number with me. I said yes, because I really liked the idea: it could be a great experience not only in my career, but in my life, because it would give me a new perspective on some of our old songs and maybe put my relationship with Plant into a different perspective.

There was always a sense of creativity between them chemistryand it would be foolish to argue with that. Page and Plant did amazing things as solo artists in the '80s, though far from the brilliance of their Led Zeppelin tandem. Once they joined forces, their musical vision would come together increases by a factor of ten, if not hundreds.

While most of the artists invited to MTV Unplugged saw the concert as an opportunity to present Page and Plant, in a very distinctive style, decided to take a much bolder approach to the performance. Their reunion was hardly a blissful, nostalgic evening - it was a genuine show. Former colleagues have assembled an entire virtual battalion of the finest musicians and multi-instrumentalists from all corners of the world.

So they sought to reimagine the legacy of Led Zeppelin in a way that was completely beneath the new angle. The idea in general terms was to dilute the catalogue of the band's older work with interesting chords of Celtic, Middle Eastern, North African and African American styles. In addition, there was added a seven-piece folk band, an eleven-piece Egyptian quartet and some thirty musicians from the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

As a final sign extravaganza was filmed fragments live performances in Marrakesh and Snowdonia, where Page and Plant once composed the acclaimed acoustic tracks included on "Led Zeppelin III".

After MTV Unplugged. 

For Page, the whole thing became an extraordinarily inspiring process. Especially Moroccan In the streets of Marrakech, he and Plant performed a couple of pieces together, accompanied by local gnawa musicians. Local passers-by watched in amazement, but not without admiration, as the two icons of their time performed the North African flavoured tracks "City Don't Cry", "Yallah" and "Wha Wha Wha".

Jimmy Page told me:

"The experience with gnawa musicians was very inspiring for Robert and me. They play at all sorts of festivals and weddings, and once they enter a house, all evil forces are expelled. In fact, their role is very important not only in terms of culture, but also in terms of the spiritual side of life. These people are completely unfamiliar with the music we play, but they did not care at all. Our goal was to recreate a creative unity, and we did it pretty damn well. There were no confrontations or anything like that in our work together. We've always remembered playing with the gnawa guys. And they, in turn, played with rockers from England. I think it was great and interesting."

Within a couple of weeks, Page and Plant, accompanied by more than forty musicians, had already moved to TV Studios to resume to work on what would later become No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded.

A couple of months before recording, keyboardist Ed Shirmour and percussionist Hossam Ramsay were faced with the task of task: they had to work on the orchestration and arrangement, bringing together opposing styles of music. Hossam Ramsay said in an interview:

"We spent an inordinate amount of time fusing together a lot of different ideas, sounds, rhythms, grooves. After testing the result, we presented it to Robert and Jimmy. If they liked something, we used the Egyptian artists and in the rehearsal process we watched it come out".

During the rehearsals it was decided not to superimpose the different styles on each other, but to harmonise them harmoniously unite by arranging them side by side. To realise this idea, we had to find the most optimal points of contact between all these chords. The greatest effect without loss of power in any of the interpretations was achieved achieve on tracks like "Four Sticks," "Kashmir" and "Friends."

The result of their hard work was the brilliant one and a half hour show "No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded", which aired on American MTV in the autumn of 1994.

Almost immediately, the work became the most talked about sensationnot only in terms of criticism, but also in terms of ratings. The show made such a splash in the States furorethat everyone has forgotten the hype surrounding his comeback concert. Eric Clapton.

Continued: collaborative album

Such a triumphant march of the duo required continuationswhich followed. In 1998, a new collaborative album between Page and Plant entitled "Walking into Clarksdale" was released.

In this work, touching on the Zeppelin era with its famous "In Through the Out Door", only new compositions have been collected. Surely, every Led Zeppelin fan knows how much the band proud for being able to produce some very unexpected and extravagant things. And Paige couldn't to bypass these traditions.

To record the album that surprised the rock world. invited unapologetic punk rock producer Steve Albini.

Albini made a name for himself in the music business as a producer of simple but relevant bands like Nirvana, Pixies, Jesus Lizard. And, although at first glance he might have seemed an unusual choice for such rock classics as Jimmy and Robert, the thinking of all three of them had evolved in the same way. direction.

Very reminiscent of Page at the dawn of the '70s, Albini didn't like to spend a lot of time and money on a record. For much, if not all of it, the producer relied on the undisputed talent the performer. He believed that everything What's required for a great album is for the band to perform the material perfectly and for the sound engineer to know how to set up the microphones.

Steve Albini explained in his interview with Guitar World:

"In general, my style of working is very similar to what Page and Plant did throughout their careers. In the past, when so much depended on the quality and uniqueness of record production technology, of course many people emphasised the personal contribution to each recorded thing. I was obliged to adopt that style, that approach to work... It became very relevant among underground rock bands who couldn't take out a wallet full of notes and throw it on the desk of a record executive. And that style was exactly what Jimmy and Robert had been looking for".

Jimmy Page later commented:

"Walking into Clarksdale" has always been in my eyes a collection of tracks and moods that, I would like to believe, created a unified musical landscape... The composition "Shining in the Light" is a kind of portal to a world with high mountain peaks and foggy meadows. In general, this album is very atmospheric, large-scale... And this is despite the fact that we tried to create something very minimalistic. Minimalism is the direction we expected to go after "No Quarter". There was a huge amount of musicians in that project! All this fusion of styles, genres, mannerisms... It was very difficult to feel the subtleties that I used to put into my work.

Jimmy's always had a more rectilinear approach, which can be noticed by comparing the two works: "Outrider" and "Clarksdale". On the first record, as well as on the joint project with Coverdale, guitarist plunged in search of the limitless possibilities of multitrack recording and modern digital technology.

As for "Clarksdale", Page chose to return to the source of his strength. Even the name of the record itself vividly refers to the roots. Clarksdale is a small town in Mississippi, where many famous artists like Robert Johnson, Son House and Muddy Waters found their creative vocation.

Because of this, for many people, Clarksdale is. epicentre rootsy black blues, music that became a branch of inspiration for a generation of British rock musicians.

In many ways, Jimmy wanted his new work "Clarksdale" to be literally "live". Each note had to have its own place and have a special significance. With that said, any embellishments would be unnecessary.

Regarding his relationship with Robert while working on this record, Jimmy expressed with genuine sincerity tenderness to an old colleague:

"We are some of each other's inspiration... To be honest, I've always missed his signature vocals and those time-consuming creative relationships and advice. And Robert obviously missed my riffs too. We're very lucky, because we can still recreate that atmosphere of matey warmth even after all these years! I guess we've just got older and wiser... There's instant chemistry between us".

The chemistry between Page and Plante was indeed instantaneous, though short-lived. In many ways, their history recalls the development of events of "Firm". Having released a couple of very interesting and unusual works to the joy of their devoted fans, having organised several tours, they disappeared without a trace, and in the same manner suddenlyas they materialised.