The case of Jimmy Page and Black Crowes’ live recordings

In the 90s, Jimmy Page he is Black Crowes they joined for a series of concerts, during which they revisited the repertoire of LED Zeppelin. Despite the possibility of registering these shows for a live publication, Jimmy Page He did not show interest in the idea. However, the Crowes manager, Pete Angelus, he felt the importance of documenting these events. Kevin Shirleyan experienced manufacturer with bands like Iron Maiden and Journey, went on to record the shows, despite the reluctance of Page.

“Pete Angelus said to me:” Jimmy is not interested at all. ” In reality, perhaps we could do something, but it must be underground “, so recalls Kevin Shirley, in a podcast on the UCR website. For the occasion the manufacturer hired a truck for registration on The Greek of Los Angeles without the Page he was aware of it, he captured the live performance, mixing the sound directly on CD (which then became “Jimmy Page & Black Crowes Live at the Greek: Excess all over the areaS ”published in 1999).

“At that point I rented the pickup truck – continues Shirley in his memories – because then it was not easy to record live as today. We received in the” mobile studio “hidden outside the club, a signal from the counter and mixed it live in the truck. After the first evening I went to the backstage and said:” I recorded the show. Here are the tapes if you want to do something. Otherwise we will throw them away completely. “I gave them the CD and we left things as they are”.

The recordings were then shared with the manager of Page, Bill Curbishley, and the material found a way for publication through a new company, Musicmaker.com. “They got a good advance. I don’t know the figure, but at that point I was able to present the invoice for the truck and for my time. I think it was about 75,000 dollars, which was not a big budget for something similar ”

Shirley, who found herself working with a limited budget, took care of the definitive missages during the weekend (in the free time from her work with the Iron Maiden), but managed to complete the project successfully, receiving only a minimum feedback, mainly from Page regarding the volume of the guitar. “Jimmy asked me to raise the volume of his guitar a little and I raised him from a db.”

Recently, a new edition of “Live at the Greek,” has been published, which includes 16 unpublished songs and material recorded during the soundchecks. Shirley worked to find the material of the concerts (“I have not found everything”) and remix the original recordings.

His experience with these recordings had a significant impact on his career, leading Kevin Shirley to collaborate with Page in other projects, such as the audio restoration for the Led Zeppelin DVD and the retrospective “How the West Was Won“.

Shirley (always fan of Led Zeppelin) expresses gratitude for the opportunity to work with Page and underlines what the magic of that concert is “The live recording contains all the splendid Jimmy guitar orchestration with the energy of the live. And Chris Robinson – he adds – is one of the few people able to try to sing the pieces of the “Golden God” Robert Plant “.