40 Year Itch : Kashmir

Jack Nicholson follows a guide in The Passenger, 1975

   The stand-out track from Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, released on this date in 1975,  "Kashmir" was inspired not by a visit to the South Asian region but by a drive Robert Plant took through North Africa.

"The whole inspiration came from the fact that the road went on and on and on. It was a single-track road which neatly cut through the desert. Two miles to the East and West were ridges of sandrock. It basically looked like you were driving down a channel, this dilapidated road, and there was seemingly no end to it. 'Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face, stars to fill my dreams...' It's one of my favourites...that, 'All My Love' and 'In the Light' and two or three others really were the finest moments. But 'Kashmir' in particular. It was so positive, lyrically."
Robert Plant to Cameron Crowe, 1975.

Musically, "Kashmir" is one of Led Zeppelin's most immediately identifiable tunes, a result of Jimmy page's interest in modal tunings and Eastern music. It is also one of the band's favorite tunes.

In a 1975 interview between William Burroughs and Jimmy Page, set up by Crawdaddy, the two talked more about the origins of "Kashmir"

WILLIAM BURROUGHS: I really, really enjoyed the concert. I think it has quite a lot, really, in common with Moroccan trance music.

 JIMMY PAGE: Yes, yes.

BURROUGHS: I wondered if you consciously were using any of that….

 PAGE: Well, yes, there is a little on that perticular track, “Kashmir”–a lead bass on that–even though none of us have been to Kashmir. It’s just that we’ve all been very involved in that sort of music. I’m very involved in ethnic music from all over the world. 




BURROUGHS:: Have you been to Morocco?

 PAGE: No. I haven’t, and it’s a very sad admission to make. I’ve only been to, you know, India and Bangkok and places like that through the Southeast.

 BURROUGHS: Well, I’ve never been east of Athens.

 PAGE: Because during the period when everybody was going through trips over to, you know, Morocco, going down, way down, making their own journeys too Istanbul, I was at art college during that period and then I eventually went straight into music. So I really missed out on all that sort of traveling. But I know musicians that have gone there and actually sat in with the Arabs and played with them.

 BURROUGHS: Yeah, well they think of music entirely in magical terms. 

PAGE: Yes.

 BURROUGHS: And their music is definitely used for magical purposes. For example, the Gnaoua music is to drive out evil spirits and Joujouka music is invoking the God Pan. Musicians there are all magicians, quite consciously

  According to Mojo Magazine, within two weeks of its release, Physical Graffiti topped the US album charts, selling at 500 copies an hour. All of the band's previous albums also sold well enough so that Led Zeppelin became the first ad ever to have six albums in the Top 200.

Need another example of long term resonance of "Kashmir"? See below.

40 Year Itch : Catching Up With Yardbirds Guitarists

On May 10, 1974 recovering heroin addict Eric Clapton recorded his cover version of Bob Marley's " I Shot the Sheriff", his first and only #1 hit. It appeared on his comeback album 461 Ocean Boulevard, which he recorded with J J Cale pals The Tulsa County Band.  

       Backing vocalist Yvonne Elliman says when the band wasn't recording in Miami, they were off sailing and not every journey was pleasant and mellow

"We were in the Bermuda Triangle. It freaked me out, because we had a terrible storm out there. We were all drunk, we were terrible. And the captain was quite straight. He was saying "We can't go any further!" And I was going "Sail on! Come on! Let's hit the storm! Let's get bounced around and have a good time!" And the guy said "I'm sorry, but we have to turn back, and as captain of this ship what I say goes".

    Also on May 10, Jimmy Page and friends attended a party to celebrate the launch of Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label at Los Angeles’ Bel Air Hotel ends with the guests tossing food and chinaware at one another. 

The next day Robert Plant and Jimmy Page met the King after Elvis’ L.A. Forum concert.By some accounts, Page and Presley sang "Love Me " together. In other stories, Presley grilled the boys about their sordid stories on the road. This account comes from an Australian Elvis fan blog:

   Elvis finally turned to them. 'Is it true', he said, 'these stories about you boys on the road?' Plant answered, 'Of course not. We're family men. I get the most pleasure out of walking the hotel corridors, singing your songs'. Plant offered his best Elvis impersonation. 'Treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruuuuel, but looooove me...'. For a moment Elvis Presley eyed them both very carefully. Then he burst out laughing. Then his bodyguards burst out laughing. For two hours he entertained them in his suite. He had never heard their records, he said, except for when his stepbrother played him 'Stairway to Heaven'. 'I liked it', said Presley. Later, walking down the hallway from the hotel room, Page and Plant congratulated themselves on a two-hour meeting with the King. 'Hey', came a voice from behind them. Presley had poked his head out the door. 'Treat me like fooool...'.

“When Led Zeppelin started doing huge concerts, I was just sitting in my garage listening to the radio. I was like, ‘What’s going on? I started this shit and look at me!’” - Jeff Beck

  Five months before sessions began for his Fusion masterpiece Blow By Blow, Jeff Beck was most likely producing and playing some guitar on the self titled debut album of the young British rock jazz fusion band Upp. I say "most likely' because there is no mention of Beck's involvement on Upp in the liner notes.

Six Degrees of Separation: Nick Drake to Donovan

1. In 1970, for his album Bryter Layter, Nick Drake records "Poor Boy" which features backing vocals by UK hitmaker P.P.Arnold.

2. P.P. Arnold also provides the backing vocals on the Small Faces 1967 hit "Tin Soldier", written and sung by Steve Marriott. (Marriott originally wrote it for P.P. Arnold to record but changed his mind.)





3.A 16 year old Steve Marriott--who played the Artful Dodger in the 1960 London stage production of "Oliver!"-- plays the drummer in the 1963 film "Live It Up!". The singer is Heinz Burt. The guitar player is David Hemmings.



4. In the 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film "Blow Up" Hemmings sees a Yardbirds gig. While Jeff Beck is having all kinds of problems with his guitar, Jimmy Page is chilling on stage. (There's a cleaner version of this scene here .)

5. In his session musician days Page plays guitar on this rockin 1967 cut by singer Dana Gillespie.The song is written by Donovan.

6. There is no evidence Dana Gillespie inspired Donovan's song "Superlungs (My Supergirl) " for his 1969 album, Barabajagal. But one can see how one might make the mistake

#30 Duster Bennett "I Chose To Sing The Blues" 1970

Could the entire pub rock scene (that eventually gave us Elvis Costello, Graham Parker and the many incarnations of Nick Lowe) have all come from a single Welsh man who could play harmonica, guitar and drums at the same time? Probably not. But Duster Bennett could do all three and write remarkably catchy tunes like this one from his 1970 album 12 Db's.

                           Duster Bennett, the original one man band


Bennett was a bluesman at first. He recorded his first solo album with members of Fleetwood Mac and toured the US in 1970 with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Had he not been a blues singer, who knows? As he suggests in this song, he could have been a gambler, a lover, doctor or maybe even president.

         Peter Green, Duster Bennett, B.B. King

Instead he chose to sing the blues. In 1975 Jimmy Page signed Bennett to Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label. On a March night in 1976, after performing with Memphis Slim, Bennett apparently fell asleep at the wheel of his van and dies in a collision with a truck. He was 29.

In 2007, Sony released the Complete Blue Horizon Sessions. Now, like so many artists before him, his legacy is there--ready to be discovered-- by future generations.