I know JP and Plant have both asserted it is Plant on the lead vocal, but I don’t hear it. Nevertheless, it doesn’t really matter because I will probably never play it again.
I came across this short but interesting interview with Jimmy Page's former managers Peter Mensch and Cliff Burnstein: Mensch says that the DVD, along with the Led Zep archive box sets which arrived between 2014 and 2015, were only approved after he’d taken a supervising role. He tells Billboard: “The backstory on Celebration Day is that it wasn’t coming out because they were fighting internally. “Jimmy called me up and asked me to come back to solve the problems. It had been five years since I was last on the case. “Celebration Day was all us, and those box sets were mostly Cliff’s and my idea. They’re structured the way I wanted them structured.” Led Zeppelin remasters were going nowhere without me says ex Jimmy Page manager Maybe we're all barking up the wrong tree when solely blaming Jimmy for the companion discs not being essential
Thanks, The Rain Song and Going to California are absolute favourites for me. I love their melodic work but some of my favourite live tapes are those "nasty" (as described by Luis Rey) ones from 1969. I like the bonus discs and the Super deluxe boxes with the hi res download codes are real nice even though they take up a lot of room! Still lots to learn from the bonus material as although a fan I am no Zep expert. I still hope for official live material one day.
I can believe that a manager or a similar type of role could be valuable in bringing mediation and/or dispassionate communication skills to a situation where the members are disagreeing and talking past each other. However, managers also can be notorious for self-promotion and self-aggrandizing, exaggerated accounts of their role in these things. I can't comment on Celebration Day (except to say that In My Time of Dying, For Your Life, and Kashmir are truly excellent performances IMHO), but as far as the companion discs go, all the available interview material from the band members, along with some info from someone I know at Rhino, indicates that Page put together the companion material and needed no help from a manager in getting that done. I could be wrong of course. Just my sense of things.
I played the cds from the ITTOD super deluxe set last night. Both were fine to my wooden ears but the at the time mixes on the bonus disc were not that much different - ot at least did not leap out to me as very different. Re In The Evening and All My Love - in the book with the super deluxe the tape box sheets for these 2 are blank - anyone know why? I always enjoy looking at the documentation at the time although the handwriting of most engineers is like that of doctors. No wonder going through old tapes takes a lot of expertise.
Ya, as Sonny Boy once said (referring to the Yardbirds/Clapton) ..."these boys want to play the Blues so bad. And they do"...
I still go back & listen to the Led Zeppelin III & HOTH companion discs fairly regularly. And the two that came with Coda too. Some of the other ones I can take or leave but I'm glad I have them.
I don't consider the companion discs useless by any stretch...I just find them to have limited long term value. The only track I listen to regularly is Jennings Farm Blues. Almost everything else (except the live stuff) provides an interesting listen once or twice but not much more than that for me. If anything it just makes me want to hear the original version. Some of this comes from the fact that I prefer the original CDs so my only real interest in the remasters are the companion discs. I only bought one remaster, LZ III, and while the companion disc is interesting, I rarely ever play it (unless I'm in the mood to subject my wife to a truly wretched karaoke experience of me singing/shrieking along to Bathroom Sound). I've heard all the companion disc material on YouTube so I'm familiar with all of it but none of it, IMO, compares to the great, fully formed songs that were extras, like Hey, Hey, What Can I Do, Traveling Riverside Blues, and even Baby Come On Home. If you enjoy them (and listen to them still), that's great. For me, while I'm grateful to have heard them and have continued access to them, I don't find them compelling enough to even casually listen to more than once or twice. Now if there had been more live stuff, well, that's another story
At least there was the option of buying companion discs with "new" material. The Jethro Tull vinyl reissues did not give this option. It seems that there was extra material released on cd by Jethro Tull but not on vinyl. If the Jethro Tull vinyl reissues had come with an extra disc of previously unissued material I would have bought them. I know that A Passion Play had a lot of extra material on cd but not on vinyl which I think is a shame.
I did that after reading your post and indeed it is a great listen. I'll add the main albums tracks from Coda soon, Great!
Yes bit the Zeppelin reissues featured so much less bonus material overall, it was easy to slap it onto a fast digitally mastered vinyl LP. With Tull I think there is so much more material - it would quickly get more difficult and expensive to do vinyl of everything including extras. You might pass on much of it at the prices they would need to charge.
I made the list more than two years ago so I don't remember what I was thinking exactly - but I did include the version of that song that closes the Coda bonus discs. I probably decided (for whatever reason, defensible or not) not to include both versions in my list, and I happen to prefer the one on Coda to the one on the PG bonus disc. But I certainly do not disagree with you.
Yes, it's a later version that's sort of a hybrid between the PG companion disc version and the officially released version from the original PG album. It's the final track on the 2nd Coda companion disc.
Sorry fellas, I just don't feel the love for the two bonus versions of 'In the Light'. And, it's easily one of my favorite Zep songs. The basic track (drums, guitar, keyboards) is the same take as on PG. The lyrics and vocals on the other two seem haphazard, temporary, and not quite fleshed out. The PG version flows better and is a fully completed masterpiece. The two other versions only serve to accentuate this point. For me, the standout CODA bonus tracks are 'If It Keeps On Raining' and 'St. Tristan's Sword'.
Is there a post or thread that shows the order that the companion discs' songs were recorded? See, I want to put all songs that were recorded for the same album together, chronologically. Like some things on PG were actually recorded during Houses or whatever, so I'd put them on the Houses disc.
I don't think there is. But here's a rough guide. First, with the exception of a single track, all the companion tracks from all the albums except Coda were recorded and mixed at the same time as the main albums. So those already are in order. The only companion tracks that need to be "extracted" and re-sorted are the Coda tracks and one PG track, as follows. Please note that if you want to sort all the companion tracks based on the exact recording dates - not just the overall recording period - then you have to consult the liner notes on all the companion-disc releases. But even then it's difficult because many tracks on both the main albums and companion discs were mixed days or weeks (or in some cases months or years) after they were recorded, and some tracks that were recorded earlier in a session didn't get mixed until after tracks that had been recorded later in the session. With that caveat, here you go: Physical Graffiti companion tracks: All companion tracks date from the PG sessions, except Boogie with Stu (Sunset Sound Mix), which dates from the Zep IV sessions Coda companion tracks: We're Gonna Groove (Alt Mix of Jan 9 1970 Royal Albert Hall performance) - between Zep II and III based on recording date; but with Coda based on mixing date If It Keeps On Rainin' (early version of Levee) - at the beginning of the Zep IV sessions Bonzo's Montreux (mix in progress) - after Presence and before ITTOD Baby Come on Home - Zep I sessions Sugar Mama - Zep I sessions Poor Tom - Zep III sessions Travelling Riverside Blues - Live at BBC, during the time period of the Zep II sessions Hey, Hey, What Can I Do - Zep III sessions Four Hands (Four Sticks in Bombay) - March '72, so after Zep IV and before the Houses of the Holy sessions began Friends (in Bombay) - same deal as Four Hands St. Tristan's Sword - Zep III sessions Desire (Wanton Song) - PG sessions Bring It On Home (alt version) - Zep II sessions Walter's Walk (rough mix) - Houses sessions Everybody Makes It Through (In the Light) - PG sessions Finally, if you want to know when the main album tracks for PG and Coda were recorded, you can consult the Wikipedia entries for those albums, which list recording dates.
An argument could also be made to keep the Coda alternates last and give this new comp of yours more of an artistic album feel instead of a chrono anthology one.
