The music that shook the world

It's three o'clock in the morning in Venezuela, in Kensington, south London, it's eight o'clock. I had to get up early because it is the only time that an old acquaintance can attend me, it is Jimmy Page, the legendary guitarist of the band Led Zeppelin, Jimmy has gently set aside a time in his busy schedule and has given me a few minutes of telephone conversation from his luxurious mansion in Holland Park.

Irvin:Hello Jimmy, how are you, thank you for your kindness, I know you must be very busy.

Jimmy Page:Don’t think that, when one is over seventy years old, things are different, you have to slow down, it's not the same anymore. Now I do not do tours, I distract myself by playing some music down in my studio; from time to time some people come and we make a little jam, you know, you play until you die.

IC:Yes, once the music has gotten into the body it only leaves when the end comes.

JP:That's right my friend. Tell me, how are things going?

IC: Well, I bothered you because I am participating in some kind of challenge and I decided to write something so that young people do not forget everything you contributed to the history of popular music, although it may seem strange to you there are a lot of millennials who do not know who you were, especially those who were born with the new century.

JP: I imagine, we are not as popular as when you were a boy, do you remember when you heard about us?

IC: Sure, how could I not remember? I was about 16 years old, I lived in a neighborhood on the edges of Caracas. At that time they had founded a radio station specializing in rock, Radio Capital. On it there were two programs where they presented the last thing of the world of the disc, it was The hour 13, directed by Iván Loscher ─ it was called thus because it was to the one of the afternoon ─ and to the midnight was the program of Alfredo Escalante, The music that shook the world. You know, these two of you are already in the other world.

JP: Right! They were younger than me.

IC: Yes, maybe a little.

JP: How powerful was the radio. Thanks to the radio, everyone knew us and we became famous.

IC: The radio was pure magic. Imagine, we were meeting on a staircase, with the cold that existed in Caracas to wait for Alfredo's program at midnight. What a fever we had, we did not mind getting up half sleepwalkers the next day, the important thing was to enjoy the program. There I listened to the second album of yours, the first one did not have that much diffusion in Venezuela, but the second album did hit a lot. We arrived in the year 70, Alfredo opened and closed the program with Whole Lotta Love, that piece was a tremendous bump, in all of Caracas it was practically a hymn, it was an electrifying music, the one that did not shake with that had to be dead .

JP: Yes, It was our first big success. With that we entered the top ten of Bilboard in the seventies, we stayed for 15 weeks, tremendous hit, with that album our path to immortality began.IC: Even tho it had a bunch of weird noises but that gave flavor to the music.

JP: Yes, hehe. Those were Robert's tricks, we were in the studio and he suddenly told me to start rubbing the strings with the straw and he started making echoes and stuff. The experiment was great, hehe.

IC: With the album three you did not have much success in the United States, you rather came out with the boards over your heads, everyone said you had plagiarized the blues greats, that you had nothing to offer. But here we enjoyed a lot of "Immigrant Song" and the unforgettable "Since I've Been Loving You". Ivan Loscher said ─and I agree with him─ that it was the best blues of all time.

JP: Those accusations of plagiarism affected us a lot. In music, talking about plagiarism is bullshit, what everyone does is combine the same notes, it is impossible that in a piece there is no phrase or some rest of any melody, the music can never be completely original. They talked so much about us, but we took our revenge and showed them who we really were.

IC: Yes, with disk four you made history. You put three songs at the top of the charts, "Rock And Roll", "Black Dog", and the legendary "Stairway To Heaven". That was a glorious record. I bought it a lot of times because it kept getting scratched because I played it too much. Stairway to heaven I must have heard a thousand times in the last 45 years. What a theme!

JP: It is amazing what we achieved in just two years, from 69 to 71 we went from being strangers who played in pubs to being a band that filled stadiums. Album 4 has sold more than thirty million copies to this day.

Unfortunately we couldn’t handle fame, the discord between us began, with great difficulty we held for a few years, but coexistence became impossible, at the end of the seventies we decided to split. We never stopped visiting and when we needed money we would meet and throw several concerts with the old group, you know the business.

IC: Hehe, but the fans always appreciated those reunions.

JP: Well Irvin, I have to go out, it's been a pleasure to remember the old days.

IC: Thanks to you. A hug. Take care.

I know many of my readers will be doubting the truth of this conversation, I do not blame them. Some will think that I've never seen Jimmy Page, it's true. Others will say that I do not know how to speak English, they are right. I must confess that I never telephoned Holland Park, but the conversation did indeed happen. Jimmy Page and I have had a psychic connection for the past forty-five years.

Thanks for your time.