Jimmy Page/Black Crowes album takes flight on Internet

By Gary Graff


DETROIT (Reuters) - It's one of the hottest new rock albums of the year. But you won't find it in stores.

``Live at the Greek'' is the recorded document of former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes' joint concerts last fall in Los Angeles, part of a six-date mini-tour that included shows in New York City and Worcester, Mass.

The album is available exclusively via the Web site www.musicmaker.com, which is selling it in a pre-selected two-CD package or allowing fans to download customized versions of the album.

There are 19 songs to choose from, a collection of Led Zeppelin favorites and covers of blues chestnuts and rock oldies such as Fleetwood Mac's ``Oh Well'' and ``Shapes of Things'' from another of Page's old bands, the Yardbirds.

The unconventional sales method hasn't dampened fans' appetite for the music. In fact, so many people tried to buy copies when ``Live at the Greek'' went on sale Feb. 29 that it temporarily crashed the site -- which also is slated to carry a live album by the Who later this spring.

``It's really great to do it this way, because we don't have to compromise anything, which we'd have done through the regular channel of releases,'' says two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Page. Hooked up with the Crowes for the fall jaunt after asking them to perform with him at a charity gig in London the previous July.

Crowes frontman Chris Robinson says several labels were interested in releasing the album. But he feels the Internet method is more true to the nature of the collaboration.

``It wasn't a project that someone at a record company put together to make money,'' Robinson says. ``We were doing it for music's sake, doing it for people who love music. So I think it's best that we put it out in a new way, without any hassles and without (record company) guys telling us what to do and without trying to beat it over people's heads.''

For the musicians, ``Live at the Greek'' is a souvenir of an outing they enjoyed as much as the relatively few fans who were able to see it in person and the critics who generally heaped praise upon the shows.

The engagement gave Page an opportunity to work live again after his chief collaborator, former Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant, went on hiatus from their work together.

``I felt we had one good album at least left inside us, and we should have done that,'' Page, 56, says of his partnership with Plant. ``I can't keep trying to motivate somebody if they just definitely don't seem to want to know.''

Instead, he worked with the Crowes, who, he notes, ``really committed themselves to really learning these numbers and understanding all the subtleties of them.'' Some Crowes songs were performed, too, but American/Columbia Records, the group's former label, barred them from being included in the set.

Page points particularly to the song ``Ten Years Gone,'' which, like a number of other Led Zeppelin selections the assemblage performed, received its most faithful live presentation ever thanks to the presence of three guitarists -- Page and the Crowes' Rich Robinson and Audley Freed.

``When we played 'Ten Years Gone' with Led Zeppelin onstage, it was one guitar trying to do its best to sort of fill in for a guitar army that was on the record,'' Page explains. ``All of a sudden I was in the middle of this ambient thing, all these guitar harmonies. All this music was living. It was a fantastic experience.''

The Crowes certainly agree. ``There's always been a pretty healthy dose of Zeppelinesque qualities to all of our records,'' says Chris Robinson, 33. ``You're talking about these archetypal, rock 'n' roll culture songs, y'know? You don't want to (mess) 'em up, man.''

But younger brother Rich Robinson insists the Crowes were not intimidated by working with one of their heroes.

``I'm humble in the face of Jimmy and his work and all the amazing things he's done,'' the 30-year-old guitarist says. ''But I'm also proud and confident in what we do. I knew deep down that, of any band, we're really one of the only ones that could have pulled this off well. And when we started playing the stuff ourselves ... it just became more apparent.''

The question now is whether Page and the Crowes will do it again. There are strong rumors of summer tours, including one that would pair them with the Who, and of joint recording projects. But Page and the Robinsons are being discreet.

``There's discussions,'' Page says. ``There's many things that have been hinted at. We need the chance to sit down and have a good conversation about it. When the time comes, we'll let everybody know what we're doing.''

In the meantime, both parties are pursuing their own endeavors. Besides checking off on a new Led Zeppelin collection, ``Latter Days ... The Best of, Vol. 2,'' Page says he has quite a few songs written that were intended to be worked on with Plant; he's now ascertaining what he wants to do with that material.

The Crowes are working on a new recording contract as well as songs for their next album. The Robinsons say they have nearly 20 new songs written, and Chris describes them as ''definitely very moody and intense ... really honest, really emotional.

``And you can definitely hear Mr. Page's influence on us.''