Count On Some Surprises For Led Zeppelin’s 50th Anniversary
Next year is Led Zeppelin‘s 50th anniversary, and it won’t pass unnoticed.
In a new video for the Academy of Achievement, Zep founder and guitarist Jimmy Page promises that, “There’ll be Led Zeppelin product coming out, for sure, that people haven’t heard, because I’m working on that. next year will be the 50th year, so there’s all manner of surprises coming out.”
Page didn’t get specific, of course, but whatever happens will follow an extensive catalog reissue campaign during 2014/15 that added scores of bonus tracks to the group’s nine official studio albums. During that campaign Page told us that there is indeed even more where all that came from:
“Well, there is, and I can’t tell you too much. But let’s put it this way…Those records were so good in the first place, and they’ve got such strong character to them, the mixes that were done at the time, alternate versions or whatever, have got a power to them because of that, and an honesty. Because, of course, all this stuff, Led Zeppelin, it’s all performance. It’s not put together how things are done today, just digitally. In this world of analog together, you had to really deliver…performance, whether it was a guitarist or a singer or whatever it was, or collectively. When the red light went on, you just had to perform.”
Page formed Led Zeppelin during 1968 as the New Yardbirds, changing the name shortly thereafter.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
