Читать книгу Sonic Boom: The Impact of Led Zeppelin. Volume 1 - Break & Enter - Frank Reddon - Страница 20

Danish rock photographer, Jørgen Angel’s limited edition The First Performance lithograph captures the raw energy and passion of Led Zeppelin’s first-ever public appearance:

September 7, 1968 at Gladsaxe Teen Club, Copenhagen.

Lithograph reproduced with the permission of Jørgen Angel (www.angel.dk). Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc.

Jørgen Angel has been a rock photographer since the late 1960s. He has photographed so many groups and people who made the music happen, including: Alice Cooper, Ten Years After, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix and a host of others. He has taken photos extensively in Scandinavia, Great Britain and the United States. Angel’s professional accomplishments are considerable.

On one of his most memorable and noteworthy excursions, he took pictures of a rock band from England that was performing at the Gladsaxe Teen Club in Copenhagen on Saturday, September 7, 1968. Much to Angel’s chagrin, he learned that The Yardbirds – which he had seen twice before in Denmark – had become The New Yardbirds, according to a sign outside the venue that evening. Little did he know then that he was about to freeze forever in time the first-ever public performance of the fledgling Led Zeppelin, the brainchild band of guitarist, Jimmy Page.

REDDON:

Hi Jørgen, it’s great to finally talk to you after all the emailing back and forth. Thank you very much for doing the interview. I’ve really been looking forward to it.

ANGEL:

Hi Frank, it’s nice to “meet” you. I’m very happy to offer whatever I’m able to your research project. I’ve scribbled some answers to the questions you sent to me.

REDDON:

Thank you very much. I got a bit carried away and sent a raft of them, I know. Whatever ones you’d like to answer, please do.

ANGEL:

I answered most of them, so we could start at the beginning and work our way through?

REDDON:

That’s fine. We’ll take it from the top, as they say. How did you become interested in music of any type in the first place? Did you play a musical instrument as a child?

ANGEL:

The first kind of music I liked as a boy was…we called it “march music”. What would that be to you?

REDDON:

Military marches? I played trombone in a military band for ages and we used to do all kinds of marches. Mainly American, English and German ones.

ANGEL:

Yes, that’s the type of music I mean. It was partly because the march music had a nice, firm rhythm. It had an enjoyable “boom, boom, boom” to it. I was a Boy Scout and I was in the marching band as a drummer, too. We also played Greensleeves! Later on, I found rock music. That was when I heard my sister’s record Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and The Comets. I think Rock Around the Clock was pretty big in the ’50s when it came out. I was eleven or twelve then, when I heard it. I’m sure you know that.

REDDON: Yes, I do. It’s a very grabby tune.

ANGEL:

When I heard that song, I was so in love with it. And it belonged to my sister! I placed that record on top of the hot radiator and ruined it. That was the end of that. My sister was not very happy!

REDDON:

Sounds like something I’d have done to my sister! So I guess you could say you were instantly overtaken by rock music?

ANGEL:

Yes, that was it. Now it was rock music for me. No more march music! Later we formed a rock band where we played songs by a group called The Pretty Things, The Animals and others. I played the drums in that band, as well.

REDDON:

How old were you then, when you were in the rock band?

ANGEL:

I was thirteen, fourteen…something like that. Pretty young. And then I didn’t touch a drum kit for like ten years or something when I stopped with that rock band. Do you want to hear about the time when I touched the drum kit for the last time?

REDDON: Sure!

ANGEL: Do you know of Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep?

REDDON: I’m familiar with Uriah Heep.

ANGEL:

Ken is the guy playing the keyboards. He wrote most of the songs for Uriah Heep. He and I became friends around ’74. I went to his home a couple of times in England. One time, my girlfriend and I went to stay at his place. Ken had a demo studio connected with his huge house. There were guitars in the studio and also a drum kit. It was ten times bigger than anything I had ever touched so I asked him if I could have a go at it. He said, “Sure, go ahead.” I said, “Okay fine, I will if you go and join the others for coffee.” I wasn’t going to play in front of him, or anyone else! He agreed and left.

Then I was sort of banging away for about five minutes and I thought it was great fun. I could hear it wasn’t very good! Awful, in fact. And then, oh boy, what I didn’t realize, was the demo studio was right next to the living room. It was connected and I didn’t realize they could hear everything! So they could sit, drinking their coffee and listen to me banging away. So when I came in, they were trying to restrain themselves. But they were really laughing and smiling, you know? So I said, “All right, that’s the last time I will ever touch a drum kit!” That was so embarrassing. That really was the last time!

REDDON: A memorable end to a much abbreviated musical career!

ANGEL:

Ken and his wife were very nice people and we all had a laugh over that one. I’m still in touch with him from time to time.

REDDON:

That’s a great story. Lots of people really like Uriah Heep. In fact, they’ve come up in other interviews I’ve conducted. I’ve never gotten around to their music. I’ll put it on my listening list, which is growing every day.

ANGEL:

Over here in Denmark, and Europe in general, Uriah Heep was among the top five bands. Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, were all very big in Europe. What I liked about Uriah Heep is that they were a bit symphonic. Anyway, I hope that answers your question about my musical background.

REDDON:

Yes, it does. And it was also humorous, which is always a bonus. What is your first recollection of The Yardbirds?

ANGEL:

Well, I saw The Yardbirds at a place called KB Hallen, in Copenhagen. This was around 1965 before I started taking photos. And I actually made a review in those days of The Yardbirds concert I saw there. You know, for our school magazine. It was more like a class magazine with a circulation of about thirty!

I remember writing something like, “Keith Relf was running around the stage like a kid at a children’s birthday party!”

REDDON:

That’s a riot. Great visual there, no photo required. Seriously though, you’ve been at the popular music game for awhile now, from a very young age. It really strikes me that you were so deeply attracted to rock music as a kid.

ANGEL:

Yes, I was pretty young but I loved what I was hearing. Led Zeppelin played KB Hallen a couple of times, too. So did everybody else. It was a popular place to play.

REDDON: Were you interested in the The Yardbirds albums?

ANGEL:

I had four or five Yardbirds albums. My favourite song was The Nazz Are Blue. I sold all my vinyl so I don’t have them anymore. I bought one or two Yardbirds albums on CD just to get The Nazz Are Blue. And it sounded better back then! But anyway, I liked them, yes.

REDDON: Did you have a favourite band from those early days?

ANGEL:

The Pretty Things. They did songs called Big City, Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut and Roadrunner, which were among the ones of theirs I enjoyed. The Pretty Things’ first album was very raw. Today, they are considered a musician’s band. Back then, they never got the recognition. If you think of the music scene back then, you had The Beatles – the nice, clean-cut guys on one side and, on the other, you had The Rolling Stones. They were the boys the girls’ fathers didn’t want them to go out with. If you draw a line with The Beatles at one end and The Rolling Stones at the other, then you extend the line farther past the Stones? You’ll find The Pretty Things!

REDDON: Really?

ANGEL:

They were the first sort of “punk” band…not that they played punk rock music. It was more the way they performed and behaved. The Pretty Things released four singles with the same photo on the cover, except they changed the colour plate on it. It was taken at a dump or junkyard. But they were very, very nice, kind people.

If not the first, The Pretty Things were among the first bands that Peter Grant signed to Led Zeppelin’s new label, Swan Song. I think that’s further proof that the group was a musician’s band. I recall talking to The Pretty Things’ vocalist, Phil May, in London. He told me they had just signed to a new label owned by a big band but he couldn’t tell me more at the time.

I also enjoyed The Animals; their first couple of albums were super. I even liked one album by The Rolling Stones, the first one. It had great songs on it. After that, I didn’t care much for The Rolling Stones. But that’s another story. And another band I really liked was The Kinks. They were a super band…great songs.

REDDON: Were you aware of the blues that originated in America?

ANGEL:

I wasn’t initially aware of the blues of America. We’re not talking about blues-inspired, like The Pretty Things and Led Zeppelin, but actual blues music?

REDDON:

Right, the original American blues singers and players like Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Bessie Smith, Willie Dixon.

ANGEL: I didn’t catch onto that until the ’70s.

REDDON:

How about groups from the West Coast of the United States, like San Francisco in the 1960s? For example, where all the hippie stuff started happening in the mid to late 1960s?

ANGEL: Yes, I was into some of that.

REDDON:

If you would, I’d appreciate it if you could provide me with a comprehensive overview of the Gladsaxe Teen Club. From your emails, I find the whole premise and concept of such a club to be fascinating.

ANGEL:

I’d be happy to do that.

The Gladsaxe Teen Club was located in the Egegård School, in Gladsaxe. It is a suburb of Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s located on the street called Gladsaxe Møllevej. When English bands asked where the hell they were, we would give them the direct translation: “Happy Scissors Mill Street”. We’d laugh and the Englishmen didn’t have a clue! The building was quite modern in the late ’60s and very special when it was built in the late ’50s.

REDDON: Whose idea was it to start the Gladsaxe Teen Club?

ANGEL:

It’s a long and complicated story. Basically, Gladsaxe Teen Club was started by factions of young people in a number of political parties. It was composed of both the “left” and “right” parts of the political spectrum. As well, there were various sports organizations in the suburb of Gladsaxe, with this “young people’s association” of sorts…I guess you could call it that. Young people of nineteen or twenty joined forces to create the Teen Club – a place where kids of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and upwards could go to have fun and feel safe. It first opened in 1966.

When some people in Brøndby saw the success of the activities of Gladsaxe Teen Club, they wanted to make a similar club using Gladsaxe as their model. So the people of Gladsaxe Teen Club helped the Brøndby club get started.

To take part in the Gladsaxe events, you had to have a membership. The cost for a one year membership was raised to the equivalent of 75 cents in August 1968. And the price of the ticket for one club night was the equivalent of one U.S. dollar. That ticket price increase was also made effective in August 1968.

As I said before, the Teen Club was located in a school gymnasium because it was cheap to rent from the local municipality. In return, the profits were allocated to youth organizations for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, whatever. So none of the various people who created and ran the Gladsaxe Teen Club would profit themselves. All the profits went to the local organizations for youth activities that were associated with the Gladsaxe Teen Club, such as the ones I just mentioned.

The Teen Club served a very valuable function in bettering the lives of youth in the local Gladsaxe community. The fact Brøndby wanted to follow our example also proves this; it was an excellent concept and ran extremely smoothly.

REDDON: Innovative concept and premise, the Teen Club.

ANGEL:

Gladsaxe was a “social-democratic” town. It might not have happened in a more right-winged town.

The photo I sent you of Egegård School, I recently came across at the Gladsaxe Byarkiv. Anyway, the window at the top of the building is the skylight for the gymnasium, where the concerts took place.

REDDON:

I know, it’s beautiful and it does have an ultra modern look for back then. I didn’t envisage the first place where The Yardbirds or The New Yardbirds played, at that time, to be so modern looking. I imagined it to be a rickety old wooden building for some reason. How interesting to actually see the structure.

ANGEL: I remember when I gave one of my first interviews for the magazine Goldmine.

REDDON: Great magazine, I know it well.

ANGEL:

Cathy, who did the interview, had first thought that the school was similar to a high school. She was impressed that it was a “regular” school where you start out very young. You start your very first year of school there and attend for nine or ten years. Then you go to high school. Egegård School was really a regular grade school. But it was a very modern one for the time, as you can see from the photo.

Getting back to the Teen Club…it had about 6,000 members. They came not only from the municipality surrounding Gladsaxe but from neighbouring towns farther away.

I said a moment ago, you had to be a member of the Teen Club to come here and enjoy the events. And so, if someone had a cousin or someone visiting with them from far away, the person would have to become a member to gain entry to the Teen Club.

REDDON: No guest policy, eh?

ANGEL:

No, no, no, it was strictly “members only”. The mayor or whoever wanted to make sure it wasn’t merely open to anyone from the general public. But, to be flexible with it, you could sign up at the door on the evening of an event and get a membership card. Normally, you would sign up in advance of the show but they were very flexible about that.

Out of these 6,000 members, there would be around 1,000 to 1,500 people a night. One of the guys told me when John Mayall was playing at the Teen Club, there were about 1,500 people. The hall was really packed. In order to make room for some more people, they were allowed to make a discothèque in the basement.

That picture of me that I sent you was taken at that discothèque, in the basement of the Egegård School. It wasn’t a “club night” when that photo was taken but at a party we had. I was only 17!

REDDON:

Yeah, I was wondering if you dressed that well when you took your photographs at the Teen Club, on club nights! You looked pretty sharp in that sports coat, Jørgen!

ANGEL:

Thanks. I think it was mainly on the occasion of that party… Anyway, there were between sixty and seventy volunteers for the Teen Club. Not everybody showed up every time we had something going on. But between thirty and forty people did, when needed. Some came in the afternoon to set up the tables and chairs. They were placed along the side, not in the middle of the gymnasium because that’s where the kids liked to dance.

They had special marquees and signs made, the coloured light bulbs or whatever used for decorating the gymnasium. Volunteers were needed to type up and sell the membership cards; some had to take care of cleaning everything from the floors to the toilets. All kinds of tasks. My job was to take photos for the Teen Club magazine. I’ll tell you more about that later.

REDDON:

When you took photos at the Teen Club, did they want to have any of them for the purpose of putting them in an archive?

ANGEL:

Yes, that was one of the main reasons for having me as “the house photographer”. The photographs for the Teen Club Nyt were the whole deal really. For example, they wanted the photos so they could use them to announce coming attractions. This magazine had a circulation of about 6,000. To make the Teen Club Nyt more interesting, they wanted the photos. Because I took the photos, I had access to all areas. It was a wonderful job to have. That’s how I could get so many different unusual angles and perspectives.

REDDON:

As you said, there were all kinds of tasks that volunteers had to do to make the Teen Club a success. Which it obviously was, in a big way. I’m so amazed with the specific divisions of labour to make this whole endeavour work. It strikes me as “beehive-like”! In your case, taking the photographs sure beat having to clean the toilets, right?

ANGEL:

I should think so, yes! However, no one complained. Whatever had to be done, we just did it. We all worked together and it was so enjoyable to have a common goal like that. But I did have to pay for my own film and materials. They said I could come and wander around as I liked. For my part, however, I was to give them some photos in return. So that was a fair trade, especially afterwards!

The Executive Committee and its head, the chairman, would call around and ask, “Are you coming this Saturday?” You didn’t have to go. But in order to make sure they had enough people, the chairman would call around. And people would show up. It worked perfectly. Everyone cooperated and thoroughly enjoyed what the Teen Club represented and did.

When the shows ended, often at midnight, there was all the work about cleaning up. All the folding chairs had to be put away; the marquees and decorations had to be taken down. By Monday morning, it had to look like a school hall again. That took some time. After that, the reward came.

REDDON: What was the reward? The suspense is killing me.

ANGEL: People got a couple of sandwiches.

REDDON:

That’s great- not much beats food! But seeing The Yardbirds, the band that would soon become Led Zeppelin in a matter of weeks, give its first-ever public performance…well, what a reward that would be!

ANGEL:

Yes, it was. However, the sandwiches were considered the reward or payment. And, of course, there was the fact you got in free to see the show. When you were working there as a volunteer, you didn’t work straight like from six to midnight, for example. You had things to do when you were scheduled to work, of course. Maybe you’d be in the snack bar, selling soft drinks and chocolate bars for two hours. But you had done your job. And you could enjoy the rest of the evening. It was so much fun. What fantastic music and performances you got to see by being a volunteer!

REDDON:

Obviously, the Teen Club was very orderly and ran like clockwork. In North America in the late 1960s, as you know, the “Hippie Movement” started in San Francisco and spread across the United States and Canada. A drug culture also sprang up. Did you have any problems with drugs or alcohol at events at the Teen Club?

ANGEL:

Officially, the Teen Club was a drug and alcohol-free place. That was a condition for renting the hall. Of course, some would try and smuggle in the bottle. Or maybe empty a whole bottle of something before they came. So some would get sick, because they’d had alcohol before entering. But there were some professional security personnel; they were much more “soft” than other types of security. They were wearing a cap and you could see they were grown-ups. They were not tough. They were just there so people could see there were some grown-ups around and in control. Sometimes they would frisk someone if they could see that his pocket or coat was very thick, like there was a bottle in there.

In later years, the alcohol and drug problem escalated. Pot, cannabis or hash, as we called it over here, started creeping in. Things began changing. When people came to the Teen Club and smoked the hash, it changed the atmosphere of the club. Some people sat down on the floor in their Afghan coats and were very introverted and intellectual. They weren’t dancing or doing anything but just sitting there, being really cool and getting stoned.

That was one of the reasons the Teen Club stopped. The other reason was there were serious problems with what you could call “Hell’s Angels wannabes”. They were sixteen, seventeen year old kids, dressed in leather jackets, trying to look cool like James Dean. They didn’t have motor bikes but mopeds.

REDDON: I had one of those, too.

ANGEL:

Young kids were allowed to drive them. The maximum speed was twenty miles per hour. You could do something to them to make them go faster. But they were really cool, these kids; well, they thought so at least. They would often drive around looking for a fight. From time to time, they came to the Teen Club.

When Led Zeppelin played there for the second time, about sixty of these kids came on their mopeds. That was March 15, 1969. There were some big fights. In the end, they had to call the police to come and keep the troublemakers out.

After that, the people who ran the Teen Club didn’t want to do the “Club Nights” anymore. They could no longer guarantee the safety of the kids. It was very important that parents not be worried about a club function. The Teen Club always had a policy of inviting the parents to come in for free and have a look at what was going on. And they could see there was just cola and Mars bars…kids dancing, cheek-to-cheek. And then they weren’t so upset about their kids going there on a Saturday night.

But because of this stuff with the hash and these troublemakers, they decided they couldn’t guarantee the safety of the Teen Club Members. The last two or three concerts for that season were cancelled and that was basically it. After, they tried having a few nights here and there again. But the actual Gladsaxe Teen Club, as we knew it, was finished. When Led Zeppelin played at the Teen Club in March ’69, it was the club’s last day.

REDDON: What a shame to have to end such a great club.

ANGEL:

Yes, it was. Then some other people made a club, also in Gladsaxe. That was also the time the music changed.

It was an era inspired by the West Coast of the United States. The music they played just went on for hours. You weren’t really sure what song they were playing. So people were sitting on the floor of this new club, in their Afghan coats again! At this new club, Gladsaxe Beatforum, people were smoking hash or what have you, in pipes. For me, it became rather boring…I only went to that place a few times. I recall seeing MC5 there. This club had a couple of concerts but I was indifferent to them. I didn’t feel I belonged there because I’d been a part of that other community at the Gladsaxe Teen Club, which was much more fun.

REDDON:

Thanks very much for that historical perspective of the Gladsaxe Teen Club, Jørgen. Your absorbing, great account sets the stage for the next question.

It’s obvious that the Teen Club was a rock music hotbed for various English groups. You mentioned bands like Deep Purple and Ten Years After. Those were great bands. Why did they come to Denmark? How did the Gladsaxe Teen Club and Denmark in general, become such a popular place for English groups in particular to tour in the late 1960s?

ANGEL:

It was only an overnight boat trip from the UK to the west coast of Denmark. At that time in the late ’60s, it probably took about six hours to drive from the west coast to Copenhagen.

Also, having “English bands” was good for ticket sales in Denmark. If a promoter could put “England” under a band’s name, the audience would think, “They must be special, they’re coming from England!” So there was a great market for English bands. As for the Teen Club, it was really open to let new bands play. We had more than thirty club nights a year or per season. About one hundred bands were needed because we had three or more bands playing every night.

Some of the bands who played here at the Teen Club included John Mayall and Ten Years After. I think it was actually the Teen Club where Ten Years After played for the first time, outside England. One of the guys from Gladsaxe Teen Club saw Ten Years After at the Marquee Club in London. When he came back here, he phoned up the promoter and said, “I saw Ten Years After in England. We should hire them for the Teen Club.” That was about 1968, back when the band’s guitarist, Alvin Lee, had curly hair!

And of course, we had Deep Purple, Mk I and Spooky Tooth at the Teen Club. They weren’t world famous bands at the time but they were excellent. As well, the promoters found it easier to sell a band to another venue if they could say they had already been booked by the Gladsaxe Teen Club. It really was the place to play here.

The audiences were very much into the Brit bands and their music, there’s no question. The promoters were keen to get the British bands because they did so well in Denmark. When Led Zeppelin came here in September 1968, as The New Yardbirds, they already had a following here. The promoter knew they would do well, so it was worth the effort. You spoke to Jerry Ritz, who was the tour manager for that first New Yardbirds tour that was supposed to be the original line-up, before the band broke up in the summer of 1968, didn’t you?

REDDON:

Yes I did, Jørgen, thanks to you. He was an unbelievably great source of information about that. He said he and another kid ran The Yardbirds Fan Club.

ANGEL:

I’m glad you were able to interview him. As I said, if a band played Gladsaxe Teen Club, it also opened doors for them at other venues. That’s a key point to remember in all of this. So the groups and managers were glad to play at the Teen Club. They also enjoyed the other Danish venues because their music was thoroughly enjoyed by the Danish people. When we talk about The Yardbirds and The New Yardbirds specifically later in our interview, I’ll tell you about another advantage that playing here in Denmark provided for groups, as well.

REDDON:

Okay, that will be great to hear. So how exactly, did Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham, billed as The Yardbirds, come to play at the Gladsaxe Teen Club, for what amounted to the group’s “first ever” public performance, being called “The New Yardbirds”, on Saturday, September 7, 1968? Jerry Ritz told me that he introduced them as The New Yardbirds on most of the dates they played on that September 1968 Scandinavian Tour.

ANGEL:

All right then. The Yardbirds – Chris Dreja, Jimmy Page, Jim McCarty and Keith Relf – had some Scandinavian dates they were originally going to play. But when The Yardbirds broke up in July 1968, Jimmy Page and Peter Grant decided to carry on with a new band, keeping The Yardbirds name. No one here knew that then. Page kept The Yardbirds name and found some new musicians, so the short Scandinavian Tour they’d committed to could be played in September 1968. That’s why I thought when I heard The Yardbirds were coming to Gladsaxe, it was The Yardbirds I had seen here before…the “real” ones! Not a new band with an old name.

Page and Grant decided to use these gigs in Scandinavia as a testing ground with this new line-up of people, but with the old name of The Yardbirds. I read somewhere, maybe the outstanding biography of Peter Grant by Chris Welch, The Man Who Led Zeppelin that Grant was standing in the wings in Gladsaxe, seeing the band for the first time the night I photographed them on Saturday, September 7, 1968. Apparently, Grant hadn’t even seen them play, not even in rehearsals. They had been rehearsing for awhile before going on tour but this was the first time Peter Grant saw them playing. And he said, “I’ve got a winner here.”

REDDON: That’s a really cool account.

ANGEL:

Here’s my explanation about all this “name change” business. There were no programmes as such. The Teen Club had a monthly magazine and I was the photographer. The magazine told about upcoming events and for September ’68, announced The Yardbirds as we knew them. You know…“the old Yardbirds”. So the change was made, very close to that performance. The September edition of Gladsaxe’s Teen Club Nyt magazine had already been written and printed by August 25, 1968. It included a photo of The Yardbirds: Keith Relf, Chris Dreja, Jimmy Page and Jim McCarty. But the band’s personnel had since changed to Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham.

On the night of the performance, I believe I saw a handwritten sign outside the Teen Club, announcing these four musicians as “The New Yardbirds”. I hope that clears it up for you.

REDDON: Does it ever. Thanks.

ANGEL: Rather fascinating, all the confusion surrounding that issue then.

REDDON:

And it’s persisted for all these years. This is the first time I’ve ever heard it thoroughly and completely explained - backed up with hardcore proof and your eyewitness account. So it’s nice to see, at least on Saturday, September 7, 1968 for the first-ever performance, it was correct to call the band composed of John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant either The Yardbirds or The New Yardbirds. What they were NOT called, was Led Zeppelin! (At least, not publicly). Nice to finally have that all sorted out.

ANGEL:

I’m glad we were able to clear that up. Also on the subject of that hand-written sign that announced “The New Yardbirds” outside Gladsaxe Teen Club on that night, here’s a bit more detail on that.

There was a soft drink company called Jolly Cola that had sponsored various things for the Gladsaxe Teen Club. One of the things they sponsored was this stand where you could put posters or messages. That company’s advertisement can be seen on the cover of the September 1968 edition of Teen Club Nyt.

REDDON:

Yes, I see that. Thanks so much for providing that programme to be reproduced here.

ANGEL:

No problem, glad to do it. The heading of the poster was “Gladsaxe Teen Club” with the Jolly Cola promotion at the bottom about their soft drink. And then there was this space to write something in by hand. That’s where “The New Yardbirds” was written. So you had this poster, about 20 x 16”, and it was on one of those stands that could feature a poster on each side. They would put these signs up on the night of the performances at the Teen Club. Other acts that night included Olsens Damptog and Fourways.

I knew something was fishy when I saw the sign that said, “The New Yardbirds”. When you change something like a group name often, it might mean only one group member would be left or maybe half of them. I knew it wasn’t the “real thing”. It wasn’t The Yardbirds (Dreja/Page/McCarty/Relf) I knew from before. That’s why I was disappointed before they even hit the stage. Because the sign said “The New Yardbirds”, I knew this wasn't going to be right.

REDDON:

All right. Thanks to you and tour manager, Jerry Ritz, the confusion that has always surrounded exactly what these four musicians – Bonham, Jones, Page and Plant – were actually called has finally been cleared up! I’m sure that many others who have been wondering what that scoop is will thank you, too!

From now on in this interview, I’ll refer to the band as The New Yardbirds. Before we talk about their performance on Saturday, September 7, 1968, I’d like to ask you if Page and his new band rehearsed at the Teen Club that Saturday afternoon?

ANGEL:

Yes! That afternoon, the Teen Club volunteers were putting out chairs, tables, some specially made marquees...all this stuff. It took some hours. And there was a knock at the door. It was Jimmy Page wanting to rehearse with his band. So, while the volunteers were setting up the place, they were treated to The New Yardbirds playing for that afternoon. They apparently rehearsed for hours. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there in the afternoon. It would have been great, as much for taking photos as anything else! But, regrettably, I wasn’t. I knew someone who was there and he told me about it. I tried to track him down for you to interview, but I had no luck.

REDDON:

Thanks for trying. That would have been something to learn about. You were there that night, though, when it counted the very most. With your trusty camera in hand!

ANGEL: Yes, I was.

REDDON:

You already mentioned the warm-up bands. Can you please remind me who shared the bill with The New Yardbirds at Gladsaxe Teen Club on Saturday, September 7, 1968?

ANGEL:

Olsens Damptog…that means “Olsen’s Steam Engine”. The photo I sent you is of the group’s guitarist, Erik Westphal Stephensen. He led the local band that was one of the supporting acts that night. Later, Erik became a television celebrity. The other band on the bill that night was called Fourways.

REDDON:

Before I ask you about the performance that night at the Teen Club, do you recall if there was a ticket or a programme made, that had either The Yardbirds or The New Yardbirds printed on it?

ANGEL:

Well, yes and no. No programmes as such. Just the Teen Club Nyt monthly magazine we’ve already discussed that told of the month’s coming attractions to the Teen Club. The tickets were generic for the Teen Club events; unfortunately, there was nothing printed on them about any group at all.

REDDON:

Okay, the collector in me had to ask that question! So what did you think once The New Yardbirds started to play that evening? As it turns out, it was the first-ever public performance of Jimmy Page’s new band that would become Led Zeppelin just a few short weeks afterward.

ANGEL:

The audience loved The New Yardbirds! They were blown away, like I was, once they started to play. Their stage presence was apparent from the very beginning. I can prove it, not only by the photos I took, but film was expensive for a schoolboy. Often I would shoot two or three bands on the same roll of film. I shot more than one roll of film with this special band, The New Yardbirds. It wasn’t like I said to myself, “This band is going to be big, so I’ll shoot more film of them.” Something captivated me. I shot more photos than I usually ever would.

REDDON:

How uncanny you felt that way. What’s special about The New Yardbirds is captured beautifully in your photos. Do you remember where you were when you took those photos of The New Yardbirds that night? Please tell me anything you would care to about taking those pictures.

ANGEL:

I had clearance as the Teen Club photographer to go just about anywhere I wanted when taking photos. From the audience, from the side of the stage, often even on the stage. So I did. I only had my mother’s holiday camera; it didn’t have a zoom lens. So I had to use the manual zoom, which meant going closer! To get some good shots of John Bonham, I had to walk right in front of John Paul Jones to get closer to Bonham.

All the restrictions, conditions and limitations that were placed on photographers later on were among the main reasons I became disenchanted with rock photography. It had changed so much from the night I took those shots we’re talking about now. Back then, it was no problem to just walk in front of the bass player to take photos of the drummer. That was a long time ago now. When I took those shots of John Bonham, I was right in the midst of them, which is hard to believe when I think of it today.

REDDON:

I know. Bonham is also using mallets when he’s playing in one of the photos. You don’t see that very often in photographs of him. The shots you took of Bonham are the best I’ve seen from the early days when he had that “sparkle drum kit”. All his percussion instruments are shown in those few photos.

You can also see the brand name “Selmer” on the electronics the band used on stage. It’s so interesting to see the exact percussion set-up, in the earliest part of Zeppelin’s career. Great going! Page is sitting down, playing his black and white Danelectro guitar. That’s in one of those Bonham shots too. How incredible to see those.

Did you speak to The New Yardbirds the first time they played the Teen Club, on September 7, 1968?

ANGEL:

Not that I recall. They were in a big hurry to leave for their second gig of the evening, at the Brøndby Pop-Club. Brøndby is another suburb of Copenhagen, a ten-mile drive from Gladsaxe.

On Sunday, September 8, 1968, The Yardbirds had another gig at Fjordvilla, in the town of Roskilde, twenty-five miles from Copenhagen. Here’s a funny story about another group, The Ladybirds. They were on the same bill as The Yardbirds at Fjordvilla and it’s amusing because both groups had “bird” in their names. The local concert promoter had had the obvious and very appropriate idea of also booking another “bird-band”. Fjordvilla had very popular go-go girls who danced topless. The Ladybirds also performed topless. A tough act for The New Yardbirds to follow!

REDDON:

That’s the only time I’ve ever heard of an act like that opening for The Yardbirds, The New Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin or The Nobs [yet another “name change” on Danish soil, in March of 1969 from Led Zeppelin this time!] What you don’t learn doing research!

ANGEL:

Well, yes… and the promoter didn’t take details too seriously, either. As you can see in the local advertisement I sent you, they forgot the “s”, in both “Yardbirds” and The “Lady Birds”. It becomes rather funny with the passage of time, given how famous Led Zeppelin became. The entrance fee was one dollar and fifty for that performance with The Ladybirds, in the same gig.

REDDON:

How fascinating! Thanks for the detailed account. I appreciate you furnishing that advertisement for The Ladybirds, where The New Yardbirds played at Fjordvilla in Roskilde that Sunday.

When I spoke to you the other day, you mentioned that a copy of the contract with Bendix Music had surfaced for that Saturday, September 7, 1968 performance of what was supposed to have been The Yardbirds. Impossibly, you were able to help me get it in this book! It’s absolutely incredible to see this, after all these years. And ironically, this contract illustrates the end of the “old” Yardbirds making way for The Yardbirds, The New Yardbirds and, eventually, Led Zeppelin. Could you please tell me something about this priceless, historic contract?

ANGEL:

Bendix Music was the company responsible for bringing The Yardbirds to Denmark. This contract is signed by representatives of both Bendix Music and Gladsaxe Teen Club. For example, the photo of the contract in your book, from that first-ever public performance of The New Yardbirds at Gladsaxe Teen Club, on Saturday, September 7, 1968 is a great historical document showing that.

REDDON:

I know. It blows my mind…the very beginning of music history on one page. I’d like to thank you, Jerry Ritz and everyone else at the Teen Club, for permitting me to reproduce that contract in my book.

ANGEL:

It’s my pleasure because it’s certainly suited to your research and book. As you can see from this amazing document, the contract between Bendix Music and The Yardbirds has the following information. As of three weeks before, The Yardbirds had been signed to play the Gladsaxe Teen Club on Saturday, September 7, 1968. The fee of 7,000 Danish kroner was pretty steep - more than ten times what a very popular Danish band would get. And the ticket for that evening was 7 kroner. So the evening must have been calculated to result in a deficit as the hall could take about 1,200 to 1,500 people. And the other bands had to be paid, as well as other costs.

REDDON:

It's incredible how you’ve come up with this revealing information after almost forty years. I’m astounded at all of this! That was pretty good money for that time, wasn’t it - 7,000 kroner? Do you think it’s because they were billed as The Yardbirds and it was a signed contract? So the new version of the band that Jimmy Page brought over to Denmark in fulfillment of his tour obligation was for that amount because “a deal is a deal”, with reference to a contract, right?

ANGEL: Yes, that would make sense because The Yardbirds were big here.

REDDON:

Next, I’d like to find out about your lithograph, The First Performance. It’s a work of art on many levels and consists of a collage of photographs you took of The New Yardbirds’ first-ever public performance, on Saturday, September 7, 1968 at the Gladsaxe Teen Club. Where did you get the idea to create such an historical, artistic work?

ANGEL:

I think it may have been a meeting I had with Robert Plant that inspired me to do the lithograph. Another factor was a photo of Robert I had experimented with, years earlier. From those thoughts at different times, the idea and inspiration for The First Performance lithograph arose. I gave a lot of thought to how to present the photos. The subject of photos came up in a conversation I was having with Robert Plant and it went on from there I suppose…that was the “idea spark” for the lithograph. Those photos I took at the Teen Club on September 7, 1968 are not great photos. But they are great historical documents! I wanted to give people as much of this historical concert as possible.

Instead of just putting out one photo, I went with the “proof print” look on the lithograph. I think it conveys that historical sense of time and place. I believe my intention was for you to put on the first Led Zeppelin record, take a look at the lithograph and feel you’re almost there!

REDDON:

Well, I’ve done that and that’s just the way it is! An amazing experience to see those photos and hear the music they were touring with at the same time.

ANGEL:

Maybe The First Performance lithograph wasn’t such a good idea because you have to be a huge Zeppelin fan to have that hanging on your wall. It’s just a lot of pictures otherwise. I might have done better with just doing one photo or whatever. My intention was to give people the essence of that first performance. That’s also why I cropped the four faces of Robert Plant so much because his facial expressions were great!

REDDON:

Yes, Plant’s facial expressions certainly are excellent. You can almost hear his voice, just looking at the writhing, contorting facial expressions visually frozen in those photographs. You really captured the intensity of that performance, by all four musicians - individually and collectively. To me and many others I’m sure, The First Performance lithograph is one of the most important photographic endeavours in the history of popular music. Congratulations for being the one to do it.

I notice just looking at The First Performance lithograph, The New Yardbirds were visually striking. Plant, in particular, stands out. How did they compare visually to other bands you saw and took photos of? What criteria did you use to select the photos for your limited-edition lithos?

ANGEL:

Before I answer that, your question caused me to think of something we should mention in our discussion here. “The Golden God”… Do you know who I’m referring to?

REDDON: Robert Plant, right?

ANGEL:

Yes, that’s right. He was called the “Golden God” because I hear that, at some point, he was standing on a roof top, stretching his arms up and shouting, “I am the Golden God.” Have you heard the story?

REDDON:

It sounds familiar. It was in one of the books or magazines I've read and it happened in LA. But please elaborate.

ANGEL:

So yes, Plant, being the “Golden God”, served as the focal point initially with The New Yardbirds and later with Led Zeppelin. Eventually, Jimmy Page became more extroverted; he wasn’t at the start of the band. He was quite introverted in the beginning, playing away with his head down. So that gave them another dimension of visual interest with Page getting more “visual” in his movements on stage. But don’t forget Bonham. The way he went berserk behind the drums…I mean that was also a powerful visual thing and point of interest for watching Zeppelin perform. John Paul Jones stood there like a pillar of salt.

REDDON: Great description of John Paul Jones…probably the best I’ve ever heard!

ANGEL:

It’s true! Very similar to the way John Entwistle, The Who’s bass player, stood there as he played. From a visual perspective, that guy “parked” in the background provides an important contrast to the movements of singer and guitarist.

REDDON: Oh, I see. That’s an interesting observation that’s not very obvious.

ANGEL:

Now back to your question about The First Performance lithograph. What criteria did I use for creating it and did I use all the photos I took from that September 7, 1968 performance?

A visual arts professional named Flemming Brantbjerg worked with me on this lithograph project. He was excellent, always challenging me in a positive way so we could make the lithograph the best it could be. I wanted shots that would most accurately capture, as I said earlier, the intensity and essence of that “first ever” appearance of The New Yardbirds, from that September 7, 1968 performance. The lithograph sequence of Robert Plant demonstrates the tremendous visual impact he has on stage when performing. It was quite an involved process.

REDDON:

It was worth the effort, because I find that really intensifies things, right in the middle of The First Performance lithograph. It’s sensational the way those are interpolated into the grand scheme of the whole work.

ANGEL:

Without getting too involved, we had to place such images by working with them on the computer. It was a great deal of exacting work. It turned out well but was it was painstaking, as you may imagine. It all had to be done in phases, because it was so exacting. The collaboration between Flemming Brantbjerg and me was excellent on this project.

As I said a moment ago, in addition to speaking to Robert Plant about those Teen Club photos, the idea for creating The First Performance lithograph also came from an experimental 20 x 30” photo of him from that performance. I’d never done anything in such a large format before and I had to customize some of the apparatus in my darkroom to do it. It was an involved process because of the large size of the photographic paper I had to work with to do it.

The reason I mention this attempt at the large print of Plant is because I picked that 1968 photo of him from the Gladsaxe Teen Club performance I had taken. It was my first attempt to make such a big print of anybody. Plant and The New Yardbirds must have really made an impression for me to give that a try. Thinking of that again was what prompted me to do The First Performance lithograph.

REDDON:

Do you recall the day you came across The New Yardbirds photographs of the first performance that eventually became the First Performance of Led Zeppelin lithograph?

ANGEL:

I didn’t come across the negatives. I knew I had them! I just didn’t know it was their first show ever in public. I’d had people email me and tell me that “you photographed Led Zeppelin’s first performance ever!” You know, it wasn’t until around 2001 that I realized I had photos from the very first time The New Yardbirds had played before an audience.

From time to time, I would get an email saying so but I thought, “Ah, they probably played a couple of gigs in England first; why would they go to Denmark for the first gig?” It didn’t really seem logical. I found out why, of course, though.

REDDON:

That must have been quite a realization for you when you found out that you actually had documented “the first-ever public performance” of Jimmy Page’s new band, The New Yardbirds.

ANGEL:

Yes, that’s true. I knew I had photographed them very early on but I had no idea it was their very first performance! When I saw them at Gladsaxe Teen Club that first time in September 1968 and photographed them, though, there was a “special energy” from their show.

REDDON:

Do you still have unpublished photos from that Saturday, September 7, 1968, performance of The New Yardbirds?

ANGEL:

I recently scanned a few more frames. I had previously skipped these for various reasons…it was like, four, five, six or something additional ones, to put on my website. I skipped them only because they were totally impossible to make in the darkroom.

When they’re treated in the computer program, Adobe® Photoshop®, it’s possible to get something out of them. I don’t think I’ve got them on my site yet, but I will soon. So in the very near future, everything from that first night will be on my website.

REDDON: How many years did you take photos at the Gladsaxe Teen Club?

ANGEL: From 1966 until 1969, when it stopped.

REDDON: There must be a great deal of photos!

ANGEL:

Yes and no. Maybe not as many photos as you would think. It was about saving film that was expensive. That’s another reason I knew Led Zeppelin was special.

REDDON:

Still on the topic of The First Performance lithograph, you told me you had an exhibition in May 2006 at the annual Polar Music Prize awards ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. Led Zeppelin was one of the recipients of the award that year, for 2006. From what I understand, the Polar Music Prize is awarded to musicians in recognition of outstanding achievements in the creation and furtherance of music.

You mentioned Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant were there. They saw your exhibition and your lithograph,The First Performance. What was their reaction to your work? Did you talk about that performance The New Yardbirds put on, thirty-eight years earlier at theTeen Club?

ANGEL:

Yes, they shared a lot of funny memories and details. They came at two different times and they stayed for an hour or more on both occasions. We went over each individual photo on the walls. We went back and forth, talking about all kinds of things. They were sharing these funny details in one of the shots of them from ’68…and others I took from that first performance, you can clearly see the clothes that John Paul Jones is wearing.

REDDON: He was wearing clothes that looked like something a medieval king would wear!

ANGEL:

There’s actually an interesting little story behind that one. I’ll get to that in a moment about John Paul Jones’ clothes from that evening in ’68. Also, they reminisced about the instruments and gear they saw in those ’68 photos. It was great. It was like a high school reunion! You know, old boys talking about when they were young. So it was not a question of stars coming in to talk then. That’s why it was a very pleasant conversation. It went here, there and everywhere. Just chatting along as we went from photo to photo. More questions arose as our conversation continued.

Anyway, John Paul Jones told me about the clothing that he was wearing for that ’68 performance. I pointed out Bonham was just wearing a T-shirt, while Page was wearing a white silk-like shirt. And Plant was wearing a flower-patterned blouse or whatever.

But John Paul Jones was wearing something out of about the 17^th century. When you look at the lithograph, you can see what I mean. This strange suit with these “fluffy things” in the sleeves, and all that. And I said to John Paul, “What was that all about?”

He replied that when he found out The Yardbirds were going to go on tour in September of 1968 in Scandinavia, he and his wife, Mo, went down to this old theatre company that was going out of business in London. Costumes from their wardrobe collection were being sold off. That’s where he got that outfit. When I asked John Paul if he recalled that 1968 Gladsaxe show, he said, “Yes, it was bloody hot!”

Yardbird Jimmy Page, garbed in an ornately patterned gold coat, deftly plays an equally psychedelically decorated guitar.

Courtesy: Howard Mylett Collection, used with permission. Enzepplopedia Publishing, Inc.

REDDON:

That would be fun to reminisce like that. As you say, you were all young at the same time. So it must have been as enjoyable for you, as it was for Jones, Page and Plant to talk about your youth and the time you spent that night at the Teen Club.

ANGEL:

Yes, it was. Jimmy Page told me the story about his “Dragon Guitar” [referring to the psychedelically-painted, 1958 Telecaster Page used in The Yardbirds and the early career of The New Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin: 1968-69]. It’s supposed to be a dragon and it’s hand-painted by Page. He used a very special light-reflecting paint. And Page was very happy with that design he’d painted on. But he was going away for awhile on this one occasion. So he left the guitar with a friend of his who was an artist. When Page came back, the friend said he had a gift for him. He had painted something really nice on the guitar, the friend told Jimmy.

REDDON: Oh man, I would have flipped!

ANGEL:

And it didn’t seem to me that Jimmy was over that yet!

REDDON:

No kidding…I don’t blame him. That was such a fine looking design on that Telecaster. Ah, that’s a superb story.

ANGEL:

And I said to Jimmy, “Couldn’t you have someone restore it to its former design?” But he said that wasn’t possible because his friend had done a thorough job and had totally removed Jimmy’s hand-painted pattern, and then re-painted it with the new design.

REDDON:

Wow, a priceless piece of music history inadvertently erased like that. Me? I’d be looking for a new friend!

ANGEL:

Poor guy, I felt very sorry for him! Well, those are some of the recollections we talked about. We also looked at details in the photos hanging in the gallery. “What is that in the photos?” we said. “What kind of amplifier is that?” Going forth and back, all the different gear and knobs on the equipment. They enjoyed looking at the photos because it reminded them of different kinds of things. They all looked not only at the photos from ’68, but also from ’69, when they came on their Second Scandinavian Tour in March of that year.

Another interesting recollection from John Paul Jones was made when he noticed that, in the September 1968 Gladsaxe photos, there was a metal apparatus over the strings near the bridge area of the bass guitar. You could rest your hand on that metal piece when you play the bass guitar, with the right pick hand.

So John Paul noticed the second time Zeppelin came to Copenhagen (in March ’69), he had taken the piece off his bass. And I asked John Paul, “Why did you take that piece off your bass?” And he said, “It was in the way!” It was funny because many people were wondering sort of, “Why would he take that off?” So he had the simple and logical response of it being in the way. The Led Zeppelin guys were all really, really pleasant and we all had a good time going over those photos and the fond memories they brought back for us all.

REDDON:

After having The New Yardbirds negatives stashed for so long, how do you feel about bringing them to light? Did you ever think your work would be making such a major difference to the members of Led Zeppelin, or a Led Zeppelin researcher such as me?

ANGEL:

It was great, great fun taking The New Yardbirds photos and, later, the Led Zeppelin shots… and all the other Gladsaxe Teen Club photos from 1966 to 1969. I enjoy it when some editor contacts me and wants to use a certain photo for an article. It makes me very happy. Our current affiliation with your publishing project is another excellent example. It’s extremely satisfying when what you’ve done is appreciated and of value to others; for whatever reason that may be.

It’s interesting. In the first three months I had my website up and running, I had more compliments by people signing the guest book than in the fifteen years I've taken pictures! It’s nice when people enjoy the work you’ve done. Many of my photos have been presented in different formats around the world.

REDDON:

As well, you told me about something interesting that Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple had in common as bands about their respective, professional debuts. Could you tell me about that?

ANGEL:

When I met Jon Lord, the keyboardist for Deep Purple, in Stockholm in 2006, he had been out with John Paul Jones the night before. People from the Polar Music Prize had told them about my exhibition of photographs. So that got Jon and John Paul talking about the old days. And they found out that both their bands – Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple - had had their world premieres in Denmark, only three months apart.

I asked Jon why they chose Denmark to be the first place to play with the new band. He said he had suggested Denmark because the Danes were so nice! Jon had previously played for a longer period of time – three months, I think – with The Artwoods. If I’m not mistaken, it was at a small place called Soho, in the Bakken amusement park, ten miles outside Copenhagen.

Jon also told me that Deep Purple was called “The Roundabouts” for that first tour. They wanted to save the name “Deep Purple” just in case they didn’t go over very well!

REDDON:

That’s a remarkable coincidence both of those huge bands debuted in Denmark. I have a few other sort of “miscellaneous questions” if you still have time.

ANGEL: I’m happy to do it. You’ve had some interesting, out-of-the-ordinary questions.

REDDON:

Thanks a lot. All right then. What recollections immediately come to mind when you hear the album, Led Zeppelin?

ANGEL:

Do you remember when we first corresponded some time ago, that I told you one of the answers to your questions would be “spring rolls?”

REDDON: Oh yeah! It made me wonder. Is it time now to find out?

ANGEL:

Yeah, I suppose it is! My immediate memory when I hear Led Zeppelin is, I think of spring rolls! In 1969, my parents bought a place in the country. It’s now my wife’s and mine. I was seventeen years old and not keen on spending the weekends in the country. I wanted to stay in town and have fun with my friends.

We would go to Bakken amusement park. It had several places where there was live music. When Bakken closed at midnight, it had become a tradition to go to my place while my parents were away. The deep fryer was the latest thing. So people would say, “Let’s go to Jørgen’s house for spring rolls and Led Zeppelin!” My friends would say, “In with the spring rolls, up with the volume of Led Zeppelin!”

REDDON: What songs were your favourite when Led Zeppelin first came out?

ANGEL:

Good Times, Bad Times and Communication Breakdown. A criticism of these songs? They were both too short! Today, I would have to say my favourite is How Many More Times. I didn’t notice it before you asked me to listen to Led Zeppelin before the interview but I found How Many More Times really pointed to Zeppelin’s future, while the blues-based songs pointed to the past. That really became clear as I listened this latest time.

REDDON:

You’ve heard a lot of “first albums” over the years. What is it about Led Zeppelin that makes it so enduring?

ANGEL:

To me, it’s because the album broke new ground. And it was raw; almost like a live recording. I think they did that first album almost “live”, when they were recording it. They didn’t spend that much time.

REDDON: Reportedly about thirty hours to record Led Zeppelin.

ANGEL:

Yeah, there you go, that’s almost a live recording, compared to time spent on later recordings. But they had done some pretty good rehearsing because they had played this material on the Scandinavian Tour. I don’t remember if they played all the songs from it when they performed here as The New Yardbirds in September 1968.

I assume they were very familiar with what they were going to do when it came time to record the Led Zeppelin album. I think that’s one of the strong things about the Led Zeppelin record - it’s the rawness, the purity. Like earlier in the ’60s, just to show an example, you may have had four hours to do a side of a single, including the mixing. And it was all recorded on four tracks in the early ’60s or something similar. Maybe Led Zeppelin was recorded on more tracks…I’m not familiar with the details.

REDDON: Do you think Led Zeppelin invented “heavy metal” and influenced other musicians?

ANGEL:

I think so. I read somewhere that after hearing Zeppelin, Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist for Deep Purple, said something like, “That’s the way we should go.” But Jon Lord, the keyboardist for Deep Purple, told me an interesting story.

REDDON:

I love Deep Purple. It’s one of my “top five” favourite bands. Blackmore’s style is something else and I find close parallels to Page’s. Please continue!

ANGEL:

Last year in Stockholm [2006], the British Ambassador to Sweden gave a reception in the residence for Led Zeppelin and others. Again, this is the same occasion I mentioned earlier. It was the Polar Music Prize awards. Anyway, Jon Lord was also at this afternoon reception before the next evening’s awards ceremony where he was to read the tribute to Led Zeppelin.

So, at this reception, Jon Lord and I had a chat. I told him what I had read about Blackmore saying Deep Purple should go the same direction as Led Zeppelin. Lord said he didn’t share that viewpoint. We had just started discussing it when the conversation took another turn and we didn’t get into details. That’s a shame, because I probably could have given you an insightful answer, if Jon Lord had elaborated on that. As I recall it, Deep Purple in Rock came out a year or so after Led Zeppelin, didn’t it?

REDDON:

Yeah, that’s the album, Deep Purple in Rock with the members’ faces carved into Mount Rushmore in the U.S. It was officially released in 1970, I think.

ANGEL:

Yeah, do you know why it was called Deep Purple in Rock? This ties in with your “heavy metal” question and Led Zeppelin’s possible influence on other artists.

REDDON: No, why was that?

ANGEL:

I had never heard that story before Jon Lord told it to me. He said because the albums before Deep Purple in Rock were more symphonic and the album right before Deep Purple in Rock was called Deep Purple in Concert the appropriate name for the new album would be “in Rock” as they were changing in that direction. Then someone came up with the clever idea of carving the faces of the members of Deep Purple into Mount Rushmore, where the faces of several U.S. presidents actually are carved.

I guess you could say Led Zeppelin developed a “heavy metal” aspect to their music that did, at least partially, influence bands like Deep Purple and others that went on to do great things in rock music as well.

REDDON:

Those are great recollections. Through your remembrances of Ritchie Blackmore, it appears that Led Zeppelin has influenced bands like Deep Purple in the connotation of at least some of the traits of heavy metal. I find Ritchie Blackmore’s playing in many respects, eclipses Page’s style quite strikingly at times. I know Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin always hated being called a heavy metal band because there’s so much more to their music. And that’s true. But there are elements of the heavy metal genre in Zeppelin’s music, too.

I’ve heard people make a lot of diverse connections, time and time again, in the more than forty interviews I’ve conducted for this book. That’s a fascinating story Jon Lord told you about how Deep Purple in Rock received its name. It was too bad the conversation between you and Lord changed direction at that reception. It would have been great to get his take on whether or not Deep Purple took the heavy metal cue from Led Zeppelin or elsewhere in his opinion. Very interesting ideas here you’ve put forth.

Here’s an unrelated question. With all this great rock music in Denmark, was there an underground radio station, as in North America, to play all this new music at the time in the late 1960s?

ANGEL:

You see, there was really only one radio station. It was the official Danish Radio and it did play music for young people. They had one DJ who loved Cliff Richard and that sort of music. And the others played more serious artists, like The Grateful Dead. As I recall, Zeppelin was too heavy for the Cliff-Richard guy and Zeppelin wasn’t “serious” enough to be played by the other DJs. You know, the good music wasn’t really played that much! It’s a shame because you’ve got so many great classic rock stations in America. Of course, from time to time, you can hear rock music here in Denmark but it’s very rare. And when they do play Led Zeppelin, it’s usually not the heavy numbers.

REDDON:

Did you find Led Zeppelin to be any louder than the other rock groups that played at the Gladsaxe Teen Club around the same time?

ANGEL:

Not that I recall because we had bands like Ten Years After and Deep Purple. I’m sure they were pretty loud, too

REDDON:

Of all the people I’ve interviewed for my Led Zeppelin research, you’re one of three people who had the privilege of seeing The New Yardbirds on Saturday, September 7, 1968. The other two people were the manager of The Yardbirds’, 1968 Scandinavian Tour, Jerry Ritz, and his wife Annie. You also saw Led Zeppelin in the 1970s. Would you say the group underwent significant musical evolution from the first time you saw them in September 1968, until you saw them again, touring with Country Joe and The Fish in March of 1969? How about into the 1970s? Did you notice Zeppelin kept its musical evolution going as the years advanced?

ANGEL:

Led Zeppelin was touring with their first album, Led Zeppelin, in March 1969. I don’t think much musical evolution had happened. I can’t say for sure. Of course, they had much more confidence the second time they came to Scandinavia.

There was much change later. I was not too keen on the experimental stuff. When Zeppelin was here in May 1971, it was, in my opinion, a strange show. They seemed self-absorbed, the lighting was strange. Not the Zeppelin I knew. The advanced songs on the Led Zeppelin II album came off rather poorly on stage. The use of the Theremin in 1971 wasn’t very good.

REDDON: That stuff was just a bit too far out for your liking, I guess?

ANGEL:

I just didn’t think it was what the Zeppelin I had seen before was all about musically. I remember Jimmy Page trying to recreate that sound from Whole Lotta Love. He was moving his hand back and forth in the path of the Theremin. He couldn't get it to work properly.

REDDON:

You have had so many professional accomplishments as a rock photographer…50,000 photographs later. Wow! How does The First Performance lithograph rank among your personal and professional accomplishments?

ANGEL:

The First Performance lithograph is near the top of my professional accomplishments. The pictures aren’t the greatest but the design worked out very well. It turns out to be a real piece of music history as well, so that makes it very special.

REDDON: I’ll say! You have such an intense personal and professional connection to that artistic work.

ANGEL:

Led Zeppelin was out of the ordinary. Again, the large number of photos I took of them in September 1968 at the Gladsaxe Teen Club shows this, because they were so different. I liked them very much and could tell as they performed that this wasn’t The Yardbirds of old I had already seen. As I told you, I was disappointed at first that it wasn’t the “real” Yardbirds I had seen before. But when The New Yardbirds began to play at the Teen Club, I loved them.

REDDON:

How do you feel about the body of other work you’ve compiled in the field of professional photography, with reference to rock photos, over your years as a rock photo journalist? What other artists have you photographed?

ANGEL:

I’ve photographed a great many of them. I am delighted that so many people around the world have great affections for the “old music”. Especially when it comes to the next generation. And the next generation! A family came to my 2006 exhibition in Stockholm. One of them was a young girl of fifteen years. I asked if her parents had dragged her along? “Oh no!” she said, “I love Led Zeppelin!”

And you know? Only yesterday I found out that my neighbour’s daughter, at age eighteen, is a huge Zeppelin fan. So there is every hope that the interest will last. I think it’s incredible. Her mother was barely born when Zeppelin started!

Through the eye of my camera lens, many other artists also stand out. Queen, The Who, David Bowie, to only name a few. But one of my personal favourite shots is hanging now in our house in the country. It’s a shot of Jimmy Page. And Jimmy likes it too - he wanted a big print. He saw it at the exhibition and it’s also been used for a number of magazine covers. It never ceases to amaze me that people all over the world have such an interest in what I did, when I was a schoolboy and later!

REDDON:

Well, that’s about it, Jørgen. I can’t thank you enough for enlightening me on what amounts to being the most important part of Led Zeppelin’s career…the very beginning! Thank you so much for providing this unprecedented, exhaustive account of The Yardbirds, The New Yardbirds and, ultimately, Led Zeppelin and how they all fit together in a huge piece of popular music history.

ANGEL:

You’re very welcome, Frank. It has been my pleasure and it’s brought back a great deal of good memories. I wish you the best of luck with your books. They sound fascinating and I look forward to seeing them in print.