Sounds Four Part The Complete Led Zep –  41 years Gone – DL Reflections

In Part 1 of the DL Reflections, I explained how by 1978, I had built up an amount of written work on Zeppelin ready to unleash my Led Zeppelin fanzine  project Tight But Loose – of which a prototype first issue was already under construction.

In early 1978 I replied to a query in the Wax Factor column in Sounds –one of the weekly music papers of the time. This column was run by the late Barry Lazell and basically offered information to queries sent in by readers. One such letter requested how to obtain Hey Hey What Can I Do. Under the guise Dave Lewis ‘’Ace Zep Fan’’ (yes it was pretentious but hey I was young!), I replied giving the correct info. I made similar correspondence with Barry over a query about the Blueberry Hill bootleg– both of these were published.

In late May (around the time of my leap of faith with The Who at Shepperton), I received a call from Geoff Barton one of the main writers at Sounds. He had evidently seen the Wax Factor replies and wanted to enlist my assistance on an upcoming Led Zeppelin feature. This was to be an ambitious three week series celebrating the band’s tenth anniversary.

The brief was for me to supply a timeline history of the band for Geoff to work with plus a full discography – I suggested to Geoff that we include a bootleg listing and other pre and post session details. I’d only ever seen the basic Zep discography and I saw this as a major opportunity to present an extensive showcase of the band’s recording history to that period.

On June 8th I met with Geoff Barton at the Sounds office in Long Acre Covent Garden, to discuss all this at length.. I took in a whole load of memorabilia for them to photograph to illustrate the feature – programmes, photos and a fair few vinyl bootlegs (no jpeg scanning in those far off days!). Looking back I was a bit naive entrusting them with all this and one or two items did go missing.

Back in the Dents Road bedroom during the summer of ’78, I set to work on collating all the info required – all hand written I might add. It was a real thrill to be finally finding an outlet for the masses of info I had collected and logged –and knowing that it would be seen by fans across the country.  I was also in touch with Swan Song and told them of my involvement. I have to say there did seem some tetchiness between Sounds and Swan Song – not that it was any of my business – this uneasiness would later result in Sounds being banned from having press passes for Knebworth – which is another story altogether.

So, by early August all my info was at the Sounds office ready to be incorporated into this lavish series. Boy was I excited.

On Thursday September 14, the first part appeared- with a cover photo of the now much seen group posing by the car shot taken by Dick Barnatt (see TBL 35 for the full story). The series was dubbed ‘The Complete Led Zep’

Week one kicked off with a re appraisal of the Zep albums to that point by Geoff Barton. As the ordinal blurb put it, ‘ Geoff gives the albums a going over….he did that alright and for someone who was pretty defensive of any criticism of Zep – I was a little surprised at his often negative comments.

Zep 4 he summarised as as ”overrated” (two and a half stars out of five,)

Song Remains soundtrack got 2 stars Physical Graffiti 3 stars and Presence 2 and a half. Geoff’s alliegence was clearly for early Zep where Zep I was four and a half stars, , Zep II five and Zep III five.

It’s worth noting, that Sounds was one of the music weeklies facing an identity crisis in the wake of the punk/new wave explosion. Zep of course were seen as the dinosaurs of the old wave and there were some agendas at play in how they were being covered. Sounds would later develop a platform for the so called ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’  pioneered by Geoff Barton himself.

Oh well..  the series was up and running.

Week 2 was the timeline chronology. Geoff had incorporated my facts and info into the piece pretty well to unfold the Zep story but the whole feature suffered by some seriously odd lay out being spread over several pages – one page being dwarfed by an advert for a Godley And Crème album.

There was good news and bad news about week 3. The bad news first: I had taken the rare Robert Plant 1967 solo single Long Time Coming for them to photograph. For whatever reason, when it came to being re- produced the whole of the CBS label was illegible –looking like a blank label and nothing else …the caption the Robert Plant rare single almost looked a bit of a tongues in cheek – ie so rare you can’t actually see it! Note also the sticker on the label which states min bid £15 which is what I paid for it around a year earlier -it’s now worth minimum  £250!

The good news was all the other bootleg covers came out fine and surrounded what was then the first ever comprehensive bootleg listing drawn from my research and info and own collection. It was literally everything I knew up to that point and I was also well pleased with the overall presentation of the pre Zep information and the outtakes references etc. Again this type of information had never been collated as extensively.

When I visited the Sounds office around that time, I did point out to Geoff about the uneven lay out and the record sleeve problem. Frankly he was not that receptive with such criticism.I was learning fast that these guys were under pressure to produce a weekly music paper and time was not of the essence.( Geoff and I have since laughed about this since when I’ve seen him at the Classic Rock Awards).

When I was in the office, then Editor Alan Lewis suggested we run another week with all the TV and radio info I had supplied –so the three week series became four and again presented the known Zep TV and radio spots – this was a little limited in accuracy back then –  I would get to know a whole lot more on the subject of the BBC sessions etc over the next few years. Another quick aside -there was a bit of confusion of names going on at Sounds as they already had a writer named Dave Lewis (no relation) working for them at that time – he went on to be a press officer at RCA Records. Many is the time down the years I’ve been asked if I worked at RCA!

Following the running of the series two things happened. Firstly, I began to get letters and correspondence via Sounds from fans requesting further info and discussing the info I’d presented.

It’s worth mentioning here that being a Zep fan back then was quite an insular thing. There was no social media to share this enthusiasm – I myself was in touch with a few fans notably Howard Mylett and Brian Knapp in the US. The Sounds piece did much to galvanise a lot of interest and though the feedback I was receiving , I quickly realised there were many fans out there as keen as I was on the band..

Secondly, I got a paid for the feature and hatched a plan to use that money to fund the printing of the first issue of Tight But Loose. That autumn I scribed away on the contents of the hand written first issue incorporating features on Earls Court, latest bootlegs , A complete Swan Song discography with commentary and the speculative feature on a live chronological live album set./

There was also a report of the very inspiring conversations I had with Robert Plant at the Goaldiggers football tournament he took part in at the Empire Pool Wembley which I attended on November 5th, 1978.

The first adverts to notify the soon to be published Tight But Loose ran in Sounds and NME late in the year – there was a slight delay to getting the first issue out when the UK suffered a bout of very snowy weather over Christmas and the new year.

I printed  200 of that first hand written issue – and they sold out within a 6 weeks. Tight But Loose was up and running and the rest, as they say is history…

Incidentally, I do have a plan to re publish a special edition of that first issue at some point –it’s a key part of the TBL story that needs to be back out there.

Looking back now some 41 years later, there’s no doubt that my involvement in the Sounds Ten Years of Led Zeppelin feature was the absolute catalyst for me to bring to fruition the idea to produce a regular Led Zep magazine,  which I’d had kicking around for over a year.

It was more than evident that fans across the globe were in need of regular Zep info and reading matter. Tight But Loose began to fulfil that role.

As for the Sounds piece, I’m still very proud of it. I can recall at a UK record fair in the early 80s seeing fans with that bootleg centre page listing in the hands wading thought the LP racks using it as a guide.  Eventually it would be superseded by the likes of excellent Robert Godwin’s Illustrated Collectors Guide and my own listings in the A Celebration book in 1991.

Looking over it today, it’s very evident that presenting this outpouring of Zep info in Sounds back in September 1978 was clearly the moment I broke out of my bedroom as it were, and found a true connection for my thoughts, passion and enthusiasm for Led Zeppelin.

A connection that 41 years on, thrives ever onward…

Dave Lewis

September 11, 2019

(Extracts from Music Is Life To My Ears –The Dave Lewis Memoirs (TBL Publishing – work in progress for future publication)

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TBL Archive 2:

The Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Reunion Concert at the 02 Arena  – press announcement 12 years gone…

Twelve years ago this week on September 12 2007, I was in attendance at the official press conference to announce the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Led Zeppelin reunion concert. It was the beginning of what would be an incredible few months. Here is the TBL posting that appeared on the evening of September 12, 2007 – one of the most important announcements in the history of this website…

Led Zeppelin to reform for Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert:

Just back from an incredibly exciting afternoon at the official press conference to announce the reunion of Led Zeppelin.

Staged at the O2 View Cinema at just after 4pm, promoter Harvey Goldsmith unfolded the events that has

made this momentous announcement possible. Central to that of course is the late Ahmet Ertegun. This concert is a tribute to the lasting legacy of the much loved music mogul. ‘’For us’’ commented Robert Plant in the press release ‘’He WAS Atlantic -this performance stands alone as our tribute to the work and the life of our long standing friend’’

By way of introduction a few clips on the giant screen from the newly released DVD of Ahmet’s life

were screened. As the interview clips segued into Jimmy ’s White Summer solo from the Albert Hall through How Many More Times from the Danish TV and onto Achilles at Knebworth, I had shivers down the spine. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

This is what it was all about and it’s going to happen again.

Harvey went on to explain how he approached Jimmy, Robert and John earlier in the year to do this show. At first it was going to be a thirty minute slot but as Harvey explained ” They came back to me after the first rehearsals and said we don’t want to do thirty minutes…I thought ‘Oh no it’ll be one song’ – no they said… we want to do a full set…’’

Asked if this was the beginning of further reunion activity Harvey would not be drawn other that to say if they were happy within themselves then he would love to see it.

Other questions from the floor revealed that there were no plans as yet for the show to be filmed for a DVD release and that a ballot was felt to be the best way to give all fans a fair at obtaining tickets.

Throughout the proceedings, Harvey talked passionately and proudly of his past association with Zeppelin -and how honoured he was to be staging what he described as an unprecedented event.

I was able to remind Harvey Goldsmith the story of how he once asked me to take a pic with his camera of himself with Ahmet at the side of the stage before the Zep Frankfurt show in Europe 1980. He couldn’t recall if it came out (ah the curse of the Olympus Trip camera!) but hey it was a long time ago!.

Coming back across a sweltering London on the tube I could see the headline on one of the evening papers – It read ‘’Led Zep back with a whole lotta love‘’.

This is a day I and millions of others never thought possible.

Dave Lewis – September 12, 2007

So there it was – all of twelve years gone – the excitement was already mounting…and the end result on that night of nights would be magnificent..

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