Led Zeppelin's Master Guitarist Jimmy Page Is Writing New Songs - Updated

                                                                  

In an interview with the U.K.'s biggest music magazine Jimmy Page said this week that he's not just about remastering old Led Zeppelin material, as he did in a project just completed. He is also, he said, still moving forward musically. 

Page, set to turn 71 in January, said he's written new material and is nearly ready to present it. Or ready to get ready to be ready. "I'm playing guitar at the moment,” Page told the Classic Rock mag. “Because I'm getting ready. Starting to get ready." 

The guitar wizard appears to have given up ideas for a Led Zeppelin reunion, as much thanks to Robert Plant's absolute refusal to do so as his own need to move on. Perhaps more than any rock musician now so old, Page gets requests and plenty of attention and he's active always, but much of it seems to be connected to Led Zeppelin and the past. 

He just published an autobiography stuffed with 600 photographs, each one chosen by himself. Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page comes after a similar book he released in 2010, over 700 photos, most of Led Zeppelin. The 2010 book was published by Genesis Books, the same publisher for his latest, but it was a pricey, well-bound, limited edition that cost at the time about £450, a hefty $700 American. It sold out to collectors quickly. 

 

In August of 2011 Page put up a Jimmy Page website, a memory-inducing and varied site that features photos and interviews. It also features "on this day" recaps, telling us where Led Zeppelin was, and sometimes where rock n' roll and the world was, on the same date back in, primarily, the 60s and 70s. 

In the interview Page, awarded an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2005 for all the charity work he's done, didn't sound prepared to simply turf the past and replace it with a new venture. But he's not completely got a hold of it and more than once in the talk he said that often he does not know what he's doing until he's doing it. "Whatever I do, I don't want people to have made up their minds before I've done it," Page said. "They already have. On the internet, people are telling me, 'you're doing this, and you're doing that'. Am I? You just wait and see what I do. I've got new material that I’ve written, and it will be surprising." 

 

Despite those surprises the past won't entirely be abandoned, not at all. It just won't be the only focus. “I don’t want to go out there and bore people,” he said. “If I was doing a show or something, I’d like to show what I’ve done along the way but definitely have musical surprises for people so they wouldn’t start yawning.” 

This isn't the first time in 2014 that he's spoken about getting back to it. During a trip to the U.S. in the Spring, Page told the Boston Globe it was time. "It's definitely time," he said. "I won't say to start dusting down the guitar, it doesn't need dusting down, but time to get together with some musicians and be seen to be playing. 

That's the important thing." Around the same time he told Rolling Stone: "I've got lots of material I've written on acoustic guitar. Lots and lots. Right now I need to get myself up to speed, and that won't take too long. "I don't know what musicians I'd play with. I do have material and a passion for it; I need to work towards it, and now I can without all the other side issues going on. I play guitar at least once a week. 

Now the Zeppelin project is finished, I'll be playing daily for the foreseeable future." In the end though, nothing is set or much closer than in the Spring. Which is perhaps the reason we can't resist this: It's been a long time since he rock and rolled, been a long time, been a long time, been a long lonely, lonely....time. 

 

And it looks like it will be even longer. 

By Marcus Hondro

With thanks to Digital Journal

Picture credit and lots more information with many thanks to John Reiber

                                                              

This post is for Mario!

 Jimmy Page To Release Sound Tracks Album

Led Zeppelin guitar legend Jimmy Page will release a box set of his two film soundtracks expanded with never before released music.


‘Sound Tracks’ will feature music composed by Page for the two movies he worked on ‘Death Wish II’ (1982) and ‘Lucifer Rising’ (2012).
According to Page “The archive material and work included here serve as an illustration of the ongoing process at the time of these two projects.”
The collection will be available as a 4CD, 4 vinyl or signed deluxe edition.
‘Sound Tracks’ will be available in March.

By Paul Cashmere 

Preview, and thanks to Noise 11

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