Stairway To Heaven (29 page)

Without much coaxing, the trio of groupies who were with us that day took off their clothes and Jimmy, Robert, and Bonzo squeezed their way into them, tearing the seams on the dresses and creating runs in the nylons as they did.

“All you guys need now is some makeup,” Lori said, helping Jimmy and the others apply lipstick and a little rouge. Interestingly, the boys didn't feel at all awkward or embarrassed as the transformation occurred; in fact, they
seemed to enjoy their new look. If only the drag queens in New Orleans could have seen them.

We had become so preoccupied with this impromptu photo session that we almost forgot we were supposed to meet George Harrison for a dinner date. “Let's give George a cheap thrill and let him see how we look,” Robert said. When Harrison arrived at the hotel, he had Stevie Wonder with him. George took one look at Bonzo, Robert, and Pagey in drag, and he fell on the floor laughing. The hysterics were contagious, and before long everyone was shrieking—everyone, that is, except Stevie.

“What's so funny?” Stevie kept saying, with a slight grin on his face, knowing something was going on but unsure exactly what it was.

“Shit,” I thought. “I hope Stevie doesn't think the joke is on him.” Everyone else must have had the same idea, too. The laughter stopped, and we just wanted to crawl into a hole, dresses and all.

 

There were other uncomfortable moments in Los Angeles, at least for me. Robert and I seemed to be at each other's throats during much of the trip, for no apparent reason. We fought over petty things, like what time the limousines would be arriving. Or who was going to make the calls to room service. Or which girls to bring back with us from the Rainbow. At one point, I asked myself if it was finally time to throw in the towel. I figured I'd be better off doing just about anything other than battling Robert.

Upon reflection, I was upset at more than just Plant. With Swan Song up and running, I thought I might be given a shot at a top position within the new company or perhaps a small percentage of the band's record royalties. After all, I had been exceptionally loyal to them from the beginning. Other than Peter and the band members themselves, no one had given so much of himself to ensure that the organization ran smoothly. But no such offers were ever forthcoming. It just didn't seem fair.

During our last few days in L.A., I was fuming. I just wanted to lash out, to explode. On one of our final nights there, we were having dinner at an elegant Indian restaurant in Westwood Village, just south of UCLA. The members of Bad Company were eating at the adjacent table. There were some good-natured verbal exchanges between the two bands—“When you guys learn how to play, then maybe we can talk about music on the same level,” Bonham joked.

About midway through dinner, Bonzo spontaneously heaved a dish of cooked vegetables in the direction of Bad Company. It landed harmlessly on the floor, but it gave me a chance to cut loose. I hurled my entire entrée halfway across the restaurant, where it dive-bombed onto Bad Company's
table. That instantly triggered an all-out food fight that lasted for ten minutes.

Curry soared through the air, splattering patrons at other tables. Tandoori chicken coated the carpeting. Rice was smeared on the walls. Both bands thought it was quite hilarious, but I was getting out some of my frustration. The restaurant's staff, however, reacted as though the world were coming to an end. The manager finally stepped into the line of fire and shouted, “I'm calling the police!”

At that moment, two off-duty cops who were part of our entourage stood up at an adjoining table, flashed their badges, and announced, “We're the police!” When the donnybrook finally quieted down, we paid for the damage—$450 in cash—and went on our way.

I knew that I had some thinking to do about whether I could feel good again about continuing to work with Led Zeppelin. But more immediately, there was at least one more event on our L.A. agenda that I was looking forward to—a chance to see Elvis in concert.

H
ow would you guys like some front-row tickets to see Elvis at the Forum?”

Jerry Weintraub, a promoter for both Elvis and Led Zeppelin, had made us an offer we couldn't refuse. We had seen Elvis perform in Las Vegas years earlier, and it was an extraordinary evening. We weren't going to pass up another night with the King.

Unfortunately, none of us were really in any shape to thoroughly enjoy the concert. We had been partying throughout much of the previous night; in fact, Bonzo and I had been up the entire night drinking and snorting coke. So during the Elvis concert, Bonzo and I were struggling to stay awake. He even dozed off now and then. Fortunately, he didn't snore.

Early in the concert, after Elvis had sung “Love Me Tender,” he paused for a moment and told the sellout crowd, “I want to let everyone know that my favorite band, Led Zeppelin, is here tonight. I'd like to have the spotlight put on them, and I hope you'll join me in welcoming them.”

As the lights shone down on us, we turned and waved at the cheering audience. All of us, that is, except Bonzo, who slept soundly through the entire introduction. I poked my elbow into his ribs, and he woke up with a start, instinctively shielding his eyes from the bright lights. “You've never made a better first impression,” I told him as he fought to stay awake.

Elvis was staying at a suite in a hotel across the street from the Forum, and when the concert ended one of his roadies approached us. “Elvis wants you guys to join him at his hotel,” he said. We instantly agreed. When we had
seen Elvis perform in Las Vegas, we had left that show out the rear exits with the other fans. Meeting him was going to be a real thrill.

Even though Zeppelin was drawing bigger crowds and selling more records than Elvis, all of us were nervous as we rode the elevator to the top floor of the hotel. Two strapping security guards escorted us down the hall to Elvis's suite. “He's the King,” Robert said softly to me. “I don't know what we're going to talk with him about. I hope you can think quickly on your feet.”

As we walked in, Elvis came forward to greet us. After shaking hands, all of us felt awkward. Elvis himself seemed unusually cool for the first few minutes. I wondered if we should have stayed home.

Then a smile gradually crept over his face. “Hey,” he asked, “are these stories I hear about Led Zeppelin true?”

“What stories?” John Paul said.

“Well, those stories about the things you guys do out on the road. They sound pretty wild!”

If we were quiet before, we were suddenly totally speechless. Finally, Robert nervously said, “Well, a lot of rumors have spread around. We all have families, you know. We're just out there to play music. That's mostly what we do.”

Elvis thought for a moment. “Then what do you do for fun?”

“We listen to your music a lot,” Robert said. Suddenly, he broke into “Treat me like a fool…,” which prompted an ear-to-ear grin from Elvis.

“Good choice of music!” Elvis beamed. “Maybe I'll record that myself someday!”

As the evening progressed, Bonham probably got along better with Elvis than any of us. They talked together about hot rods and Peter Sellers movies (“I've seen those Clouseau gags a thousand times and never get tired of 'em!” Elvis exclaimed).

The conversation rarely weaved its way back to music. Jimmy told me later that he felt uncomfortable talking about Zeppelin's own records with the King. “I didn't know whether he'd be sensitive about it since we're out-selling him,” Pagey said. “But the guy's a legend!” So the night was filled mostly with small talk. At one point, Elvis said, “You know, I've never listened to much of your music. My stepbrother once played me ‘Stairway to Heaven,' and it was pretty good. But I don't get a chance to listen very much.”

Elvis became more relaxed as the night wore on. He offered us drinks. He invited us to visit him if we ever got to Memphis. Before we left, he said, “Let me sign some autographs that you can give to your wives or your kids. And I want you to sign some for me, too.”

As Bonzo was scribbling his name on a slip of paper, he whispered to me, “Can you believe it? Elvis wants
my
autograph!”

No, I couldn't believe it, either.

A
fter we returned to England, Led Zeppelin retreated to Headley Grange to record what would eventually become the double-record
Physical Graffiti
. I didn't spend much time at those sessions, either at the Grange or later when the band moved to Olympic Studios. There wasn't much for me to do there, and I was in the midst of my own soul-searching, trying to figure out the direction that was best for me. But during those days that I did visit the Grange, what I did see and hear showed that Zeppelin hadn't lost any momentum.

One of the most engaging cuts created during those sessions was “Kashmir,” a song that years later the band would consider one of their classics. Jimmy initially called the song “Driving to Kashmir,” and it was inspired by a lengthy, deserted stretch of road connecting Goulimine and Tantan in the Moroccan Sahara, a road Jimmy had driven several times, always with the feeling that it would never end. There was no scenery other than an occasional camel and its rider to break the monotony. Jimmy had written the lyrics to the song, complete with its mystical references, while making that drive alone a few months earlier. The sometimes otherworldly, often dissonant quality to the music merged perfectly with Pagey's words.

Jimmy turned to his Danelectro guitar for the recording of “Kashmir.” He had worked and reworked the song's now famous riff, drawing upon a guitar cycle that he had created years before. He was so fascinated and intrigued by
its structure that he felt driven to repeatedly fine-tune it. Later, Jonesy added an ascending bass riff and scored a truly magnificent string arrangement.

As always, the band was very conscious of keeping its creativity level at a peak. Jimmy knew that double albums were more vulnerable to criticism, with assaults that basically asked, “Why didn't you cut out the repetition and just put out a single album?” Most critics had never been kind to Zeppelin anyway, and Pagey didn't want to give their wicked pens any extra ammunition.

The band continued to amaze me with its ability to grow. Bonzo's drum playing on “In My Time of Dying” was more gutsy and forceful than I had ever heard it. Robert's vocals on “Down by the Seaside” were painfully sensitive.

As for Jimmy, he was constantly experimenting, spending many hours by himself in the studio, shaping his own guitar solos, laboring to the point of complete fatigue. He claimed that when others were there in the studio with him, he'd sometimes become self-conscious and insecure on those solos, and he preferred to do them in seclusion. When I used to see Jimmy onstage, keeping 30,000, 40,000, or 50,000 fans thoroughly entranced as he nurtured every note, caressed each chord, and somehow exhibited both gentleness and violence with subtle or sudden turns of the wrists or fingers, I found his supposed self-consciousness a tough story to buy. No one ever played the guitar with such finesse. On songs like “Ten Years Gone,” he worked endlessly, overdubbing more than a dozen guitar tracks, each harmonizing perfectly with the others.

When I'd hear cuts like that, I didn't know how I could ever seriously consider leaving Zeppelin. “Nobody's any better than they are,” I told Marilyn. Those were sentiments I had felt for years.

“Follow your heart,” she told me. “But if you have the opportunity to expand your own horizons, don't dismiss it without giving it some thought.”

 

In May, with Zeppelin still at work on
Physical Graffiti
, that opportunity finally materialized. I was talking to Jack Calmes, a friend from Showco. As I described my personal conflict—the sense that I might benefit from getting away from Zeppelin for a while—he said, “Robert Stigwood [Eric Clapton's manager] is looking for a U.S. tour manager for Eric. Robert and Atlantic think that Eric's going to hit the comeback trail with a bang. You'd be perfect for the job.”

Jack helped get the word back to Stigwood that I was available. Stigwood was a bit wary about hiring me, concerned about my reputation for creating chaos and worried that he might anger Zeppelin if he “stole” me away. But he invited me to a party at his house, apparently to size me up. Near the end of
the evening, he finally approached me and began discussing his need for a tour manager for Clapton.

“Well, if we can work out the numbers, let's give it a try,” he said. There was a bit of trepidation in his voice.

The next day, we talked by phone. We agreed on a salary of $15,000 plus bonuses for six weeks of work. When I told Peter and Led Zeppelin about my new gig, none of them had much of a reaction at all.

I had been a fan of Eric's for a long time, so it was a thrill to be invited to work with him. It felt like a new beginning, and I was eager to get started. My first assignment: Arrange the details for the upcoming tour, from making flight and hotel plans to selecting the venues themselves. Upon arriving for work each morning, I'd pour myself a brandy and ginger ale—and then another, and still another. Somehow, the job got done, despite my chronic state of drunkenness. As with Zeppelin, it seemed as though I could somehow override the intoxication and get the work finished without any major mistakes. Looking back, I don't know quite how I managed.

Eric worked on a guarantee against a percentage, so once we were out on the tour itself, I would do the calculations at each venue, making sure the local promoters' math agreed with my own. Repeatedly, I found mistakes in the way they had computed the bottom line.

Eric and his entourage traveled in a customized, twenty-seat private jet and included his five-man band, backup singers, and his girlfriend (and later wife) Patti Harrison. Mick Turner (who had worked with Eric during the Cream days) provided security, although I brought in Bill Dautrich for some advance planning, arranging for police escorts as well as on-site protection at each concert.

Throughout the tour, Eric's guitar work was consistently brilliant, expressing all the joy, all the despair, all the achievements, and all the trials that had been part of his life in recent years. Having watched Pagey for so many years, I was used to guitarists using “super-slinky” strings on their instruments that easily bend. But Eric used ordinary gauge strings that had been traditional with the black blues guitarists. They're murder on the fingers, but Eric had built up incredible strength in those fingers over the years. He had also developed calluses that showed just how long he had been in the business.

His musicianship was particularly astonishing because he was suffering from a bad case of conjunctivitis throughout most of that '74 tour. He simply couldn't see where his fingers were moving. He would stumble around the stage, probably looking as though he were inebriated. Near the end of the tour, the antibiotics finally began to work, and he got back his 20/20 vision and his equilibrium.

The medication, however, did not inhibit Eric from indulging in large
amounts of alcohol during the tour. Jack Daniels is sweet and powerful, and Eric would sometimes drink to excess, although it never seemed to affect his ability to perform.

I found touring with Eric to be refreshing, even exhilarating at times. I rarely felt the pressures I had experienced with Led Zeppelin. Maybe that was because I didn't know Eric as well as the boys of Zeppelin, and I knew that any mistakes wouldn't be like letting down my best friend. A lot of responsibility was put on my lap with Clapton, yet I didn't really feel the strain—except for the very first show we did at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

Because it was my first concert of the tour, I was feeling tense, and those anxieties intensified when it began raining the afternoon of the show. “We may have to cancel this gig,” I told Eric a couple of hours beforehand, although I promised to do everything possible to get it underway. We had set up large tents in which a preconcert party was held for record company executives and the press, and I just couldn't see going through the stress of the day all over again.

As the rain continued, I also tried to calm down two city officials who were throwing tantrums backstage, claiming that our equipment trucks had caused $10,000 worth of damage to the grounds when they drove on the rain-soaked grass.

“We're gonna sue!” one of them roared. “You've made a damn shambles of this place!”

“So now it fits in with the rest of New Haven!” I muttered under my breath.

Despite the threat of lawsuits and the continuing intermittent rains, the show went on as scheduled.

 

When I was in Memphis with Eric, I called Jerry Schilling, one of Elvis's assistants whom I had met in Los Angeles earlier in the year. “Eric would love to meet Elvis,” I told Jerry. “Is there any chance we could come by Graceland and see him?”

Jerry said he would check with Elvis, and later that day he called back: “Elvis said, ‘Yeah, come and visit.' But he's going to the movies tonight at the Orpheum Theatre. He wants you guys to stop by and join him at the theater.”

Then Jerry began to laugh. “Oh, one other thing. Elvis said to me, ‘I know who Richard Cole is, but who the hell is Eric Clapton?'”

That night, Eric and I, along with Patti and my wife, Marilyn, arrived at the Orpheum at about 10
P.M
. From the front row to the popcorn machine, Elvis had rented the entire theater. When we walked in, the King hadn't yet arrived. The theater manager told us, “Elvis rents the theater a couple nights a month. It's the only way he can get out to see a movie without being mobbed. Oh, once he arrives, no smoking will be permitted.”

About ten minutes later, Elvis showed up. He strutted down the aisle of the dimly lit theater surrounded by a retinue of aides and security men. He nodded to us and sat down two rows in front of us. During the evening, we didn't exchange more than a dozen words with one another. Even so, with Elvis there, the screening of the movie—
Murder on the Orient Express
—had the feeling of a command performance.

 

I finished working for Clapton in August and decided to take a couple of months off. When I had been in New Orleans with Eric and had dinner with Ahmet Ertegun and Earl McGrath of Atlantic Records, Ahmet told me that he hoped I'd be returning to Led Zeppelin for the band's next tour. “You've got to go back and sort out whatever's been left hanging,” he said. “You're the only guy who can work with them.”

More than anything, however, I was just interested in some time off, although that may have been a big mistake. Marilyn and I had more time to spend with one another, and our marriage began hitting hard times. Some friends gave me some heroin, and I started snorting it about once a week, sometimes less frequently. It was relatively inexpensive in those days, perhaps one-third the price of cocaine, and Marilyn didn't seem to mind that I was using it.

But then I began using heroin more regularly, even daily, and it started driving a wedge between us. Marilyn was much more enamored of alcohol; I was becoming hooked on heroin. We stopped communicating as we once had. And we began to drift apart.

As I sunk deeper into my use of drugs, the gradual deterioration of our relationship didn't disturb me as much as it should have. I had found a new lover of sorts, a new drug that could get me high in seconds.