Friday, July 29, 2011

LZ-'75: The Lost Chronicles of Led Zeppelin's 1975 American Tour, by Stephen Davis


(hb; 2010: rock 'n' roll memoir)

From the inside flap:

"As a young music journalist in 1975, Stephen Davis got the opportunity of a lifetime: an invitation to cover for a national magazine the sold-out 1975 North American tour of Led Zeppelin, the biggest and most secretive rock band in the world. He received a backstage pass, was granted interviews with band members, and even got a prized seat on the band's luxurious tour jet, the Starship. While on duty, he chronicled the Zeppelin tour in three notebooks, but after writing his article in 1975, he misplaced them. After three decades of searching, in 2005 he finally found the notebooks, on the covers of which he had scribbled the words LZ-'75, and unearthed loads of new information from the tour.

"In LZ-'75, Davis offers an unseen look at a pivotal year in the life of the band that includes lost interviews with canny vocalist Robert Plant and the brilliant guitarist Jimmy Page; information on the rock icon who moonlighted as a heroin dealer; revelations about the identity of the lover Robert Plant sings about in 'What Is and What Should Never Be' and 'Black Country Woman'; a detailed chronicle of each performance from a musical perspective and a vivid account of the band members' extravagant, and often troubled, lives on tour."

Review:

Excellent, near-impossible-to-set-down memoir of life on the road with one of the more hedonistic bands of the Seventies - LZ-'75 is an indispensible companion book to Davis' Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga.

Worth owning, this, if you're a fan of Led Zeppelin or bands of their ilk.

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