Robert Plant: A Life (30 page)

“You have to understand something about Egypt,” says Ramzy. “Every empire that has taken place on Earth has invaded our country. We Egyptians are mongrels of culture and the concept of world music has been with us since eternity.

“The first thing we tried out with Ed was ‘Kashmir.’ In attempting this big marriage between the two cultures and not watering one down with the other, to begin with it was like trying to give birth to an elephant from a sheep. Then I thought of going back to the pure Egyptian blues music, something called Baladi, which comes from the backstreets of Cairo, and putting it right next to the blues that Robert and Jimmy came from. That was the Eureka moment.”

This new version of “Kashmir” came together over several days, with Plant and Page both adding their input. Plant, however, was the more vocal of the pair, and among the other musicians it was he who was seen as having the casting vote.

“Robert knew a great deal about Egyptian and Arab music in general,” says Ramzy. “He asked me a lot about the Arab world. He wanted to make sure he understood it correctly. He’d come and practice his Arabic with me, because he had learned how to speak it.

“Robert is one of the sweetest people you could meet, but when it comes to making music there are no friends for him. He is very demanding and every note counts.”

The code cracked with “Kashmir,” work then continued apace, a balancing act being struck between Zeppelin’s hard blues and English folk influences, and the still more ancient North African musical traditions. The resulting sound was loose and pliable, full of heady swoops and dramatic plunges, spice on its breath and dirt beneath its fingernails.

Plant pushed on. He brought in Porl Thompson, the Cure’s original guitarist, and recalled Nigel Eaton from his
Fate of Nations
album sessions, adding the dense, droning sound of his hurdy gurdy to the rich mix. To help re-create “The Battle of Evermore” he tracked down an English-born Indian singer, Najma Akhtar, to be his counterpoint on the track, relocating it from misty mountains to scorched terrain.

“Robert was like a dark presence in that room at the King’s Head, enormous and vastly looming,” recalls Nigel Eaton. “He’s very aware of the power he’s got. Yet I found him more passionate than demanding. He was very enthusiastic, jumping about the place. I think he wants you to be good, so that he can look good as well.”

“Robert was very much in control of the whole enterprise and what he said went,” adds Najma Akhtar. “He’d originally sent me three songs to listen to and I remember Jimmy suggesting to him that I should sing on all of them. Robert said no, just ‘The Battle of Evermore.’ Jimmy tried to ask why not, but I only did the one.

“Generally, I think Robert is the key-holder in their relationship. Both of them are extremely intelligent and knowledgeable about different kinds of music, but they’re otherwise very different people. Robert interacted with me more. He was the taskmaster. Jimmy seemed shy and very reserved. There was a lot of tension between them, both artistically and also personally.”

Filming began in the second week of August in Marrakech, Plant and Page performing with the local Gnaoua master musicians. Scenes were shot in the courtyard of a house in the old city and also in Marrakech’s great public square, the Djemaa El-Fna, as dusk fell and smoke from the outdoor food stalls swirled around them. Plant appeared enraptured and lost in the moment.

“With the Gnaoua, it’s about pure music and expression on their part,” he told the writer Alvaro Costa. “It has nothing to do with commercial inferences. They don’t relate to that concept whatsoever. It’s a one-off thing. They expect nothing but they give a lot, and if they like you they give even more.”

The following week the operation moved on to Dolgoch in Snowdonia, filming taking place in the Corris slate quarry near Plant’s Welsh farm. The main
Unplugged
show was recorded over three consecutive nights at the end of that month at the London TV studios before a small, invited audience. It was a bold and exciting performance, Plant, Page and their core band embellished by the Egyptian ensemble and also the London Metropolitan Orchestra, the outpouring of sound having a thrilling abandon to it.

Three months later Plant’s label released a live recording of the show. Titled
No Quarter
and credited to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, it was an artistic and commercial success, boosting both men. This time there would be nothing fleeting about their reunion.

Plant and Page agreed to take the
No Quarter
concept on the road for a world tour that would last more than a year. The first confirmed shows were in the U.S., a total of forty-seven arena dates that ran from February to May 1995. The month before these began the two of them flew to New York to attend a ceremony inducting Led Zeppelin into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was an awkward occasion, since Jones was also present. During their acceptance speech, he expressed relief that his former colleagues had found his phone number.

Not that he was asked to join them in summoning up Zeppelin’s spirit on the ensuing tour, which started in Pensacola, Florida, on February 6. This undertaking was a logistical nightmare, union rules requiring them to use an orchestra local to each city to augment their seven-piece band and the Egyptian musicians. In order to rehearse the different orchestras Ed Shearmur had to travel to every venue a day in advance of the rest of the party.

It meant that everything was always on the verge of falling apart, but they pulled it off. Had they not, it is likely that none of those that flocked to see them would have been unduly bothered. The shows were powerful and emotionally charged, but one sell-out crowd after the next appeared ecstatic enough at just being witness to Plant and Page doing Led Zeppelin songs together again, even though “Stairway to Heaven” was never among them, Plant having put his foot down on that score.

Plant otherwise seemed to be enjoying himself, on stage and off. He played practical jokes on the backing musicians, once ordering up an aging prostitute who came into their dressing room and offered to service each of them. On days off he occupied himself playing tennis or with sightseeing trips. He had also started up a relationship with Najma Akhtar, who joined up with the tour for selected dates.

“The two of them had seemed very close at the King’s Head pub,” recalls Nigel Eaton, “but we hadn’t a clue they were dating, even after the TV recording. Robert’s very charming, though, and there were always lots of lovely ladies hanging around.”

“I once asked Robert how he went about choosing a girl when he was in Led Zeppelin,” adds Hossam Ramzy. “He told me, ‘It was very simple. There would be a thousand of them and I’d just go, “You, you and you—fuck off. The rest, come with me.’ ”

For all Plant’s effusiveness, Page remained as elusive as ever. He tended to remain secluded in his hotel room, venturing out for the show and retreating to it again afterward.

“It’s very hard to describe Jimmy,” says Nigel Eaton. “He’s a bit like me, one of those loner types at school that never went out. I don’t think he remembers what it’s like to be broke quite as clearly as Robert does.

“I could more or less ring Robert up in his hotel room and tell him we were all heading off, and often as not he’d come along. I remember that he came horse riding with us all in Arizona. I never felt able to do that with Jimmy. He was always very nice to me, but he was much more intense and I was warier of him.”

The longer the tour went on the more his and Page’s differences niggled Plant. He called up friends, bemoaning the fact that while he was now off playing tennis Page still wanted to stay up all night. There were also darker mutterings emanating from Plant’s camp that Page’s drinking was inhibiting his performances.

“I found that tour really unpleasant,” says the photographer Ross Halfin, who accompanied Page on it. “It was sort of Jimmy’s camp, which was his guitar tech and me, and then Robert and everyone else. You were made to feel as if you shouldn’t be there. Admittedly, Jimmy was drinking a lot by the end of it so he was hard work.

“The two of them did seem to get on for the most part, though. Robert used to call Jimmy ‘Jimbob’ all the time to try and annoy him but Jimmy would just ignore it. Jimmy had also wanted John Paul Jones to be there but Robert wouldn’t have it. Jimmy was as much to blame for that situation because he gave in to it.”

From the States the tour wound on through Europe. Plant and Page headlined the Glastonbury Festival in the U.K. that summer, and also two nights at London’s Wembley Arena. Peter Grant came to the second of these London shows. It was the first time Plant had seen his old manager since parting company with him back in 1982. Grant had lost weight and seemed at peace with himself. Four months later he was dead, a heart attack taking him on November 21, 1995.

Grant was buried at Hellingly Cemetery near his home in East Sussex the following month, Plant, Page and Jones all attending the service. By then Plant’s mood had already blackened. He was beginning to feel the same strain as he had been under during Zeppelin’s last days. He and Page had then completed a second American tour, and their current manager Bill Curbishley was pushing hard for them to carry on through the following year. Plant refused to commit, taking off instead for a short holiday, Najma Akhtar going with him to the Caribbean.

“Robert was always under this negative pressure,” she says. “He felt as though he was responsible for the incomes of all the people that toured with him and he carried that weight on his shoulders. When we were in the Caribbean, the stress of that manifested itself in a severe breathing problem.

“He continuously said to me, ‘Oh my God, I have to stop but Bill wants me to carry on.’ It was his most repeated phrase and a constant dilemma for him. I think he was just fed up of having to keep doing the Led Zeppelin thing. He was driven to tears by it.”

Dates had previously been booked in South America, Japan and Australia for the start of 1996, and Plant honored these. He held firm about not doing more, however, and the tour came to an end in Melbourne on March 1.

“The general feeling was that we’d all had enough by then,” says Nigel Eaton. “The next time I saw Robert was twelve years later. He came around to my house in London to have a guitar painted by my wife. We drank tea and ate pie.”

Plant took most of the rest of the year off, putting himself back together at home in the Midlands. He had his friend “Big” Dave Hodgetts to run things for him there, to keep the house in order and to soak it up when he needed to blow off steam. Hodgetts made the arrangements when he decided to pack up and go to China to travel the Silk Road to the Great Wall. Even at home Plant was never still.

“Every second is precious to Robert,” says Akhtar, who spent a lot of time with him during this period. “He didn’t want to waste life lying in bed, sleeping, or relaxing or watching TV. He’s always up and doing stuff. He loves to drive and to visit his place in Wales. I remember going up there with him to plant a tree.

“He’s very spontaneous and passionate. The simplest, most unexpected things make him laugh. I think his love of life is his biggest strength—that and also his ambition, although that can be his weakness, too. Being that ambitious, sometimes you trample on people, unwittingly or not.”

Plant settled Akhtar into the regular beat of his village life. They went to the local pub and around to the neighbors for dinner. He took her with him to see his football team, Wolverhampton Wanderers, and to watch a local Zeppelin covers band named Fred Zeppelin.

“He’s very patriotic about his little village,” she says. “He likes to visit people and to be in the pub, the Queen’s Head. No one thinks of him as a superstar there, he’s just lost in friendly faces. To see that side of him was nice. He hated having to go to London, which he referred to as ‘going to work.’ He became a different person at home. When he was away he’d always buy gifts for friends and loved ones back home. He’s not wasteful or extravagant, but nor is he spendthrift.

“In some respect, he’s meticulous. He makes endless lists, every day started with one. ‘Do this, do that and call so-and-so,’ with him ticking them off as he went. His garden is one of his passions. It becomes a mission for him. And once he’s on a mission he won’t deviate or stop until it’s been done properly. First of all he wanted a pond and later on he got a big lake made. He’s very lucky, too, because he has all these worker bees that buzz around, organising and getting stuff done for him.”

The reverie was broken by the death of Plant’s mother Annie. Losing another one of his anchors hit him hard.

“Even though he was surrounded by a loving family and friends it was a very sad and dark time for him,” says Akhtar. “His mum was adorable, and so full of energy and beans. After losing her he made an immense amount of time for his father. Maybe out of guilt that he hadn’t done so before. Robert’s persona is that of a strong he-man, but inside he’s as soft as a marshmallow.

“I remember there being a lot of big family get-togethers. I met Robert’s uncle and his sister, his children, and also Maureen and Shirley and their extended family. Both of them were lovely and very welcoming. They’re of Indian origin, but much more Anglicized than I am, Christian whereas I’m a Muslim. I’d never been around Asians like that. Robert would often say to me: ‘Maureen and Shirley can do this, why can’t you? They’re like this, why aren’t you?’As people he and I were very different.”

Plant’s relationship with Akhtar came to an end at the same time as his period of grace at home. She says they both became too busy and wrapped up in their own lives. When his thoughts turned to work and the road ahead he threw himself into it, not looking back.

He and Page had decided to make their first album of new material since Zeppelin’s
In Through the Out Door
in 1979. They began rehearsals for it in November 1996. Plant had come full circle from when they had first got back together, shedding the extra musicians, stripping things back to a basic four-piece band completed by Charlie Jones and Michael Lee. The songs they began knocking into shape were also more straightforward and shorn of extrinsic flourishes. Most of all they made one think of Zeppelin, albeit in an older, more careworn incarnation.