Advertisement

'Lost' Led Zeppelin session recovered, included in new compilation

By Yvette C. Hammet
Members of the rock band Led Zeppelin (L-R) Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page pose for photographers on the red carpet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on December 1, 2012. The band will release a new compilation of BBC sessions in September after discovering a lost session from 1969, along with several other rare treasures. File photo by Mike Theiler/UPI
1 of 3 | Members of the rock band Led Zeppelin (L-R) Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page pose for photographers on the red carpet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., on December 1, 2012. The band will release a new compilation of BBC sessions in September after discovering a lost session from 1969, along with several other rare treasures. File photo by Mike Theiler/UPI | License Photo

LONDON, July 20 (UPI) -- A session Led Zeppelin did for the BBC in 1969, thought to have been lost forever, has been recovered from a fan's recording.

The BBC World Service segment was restored with the help of guitarist Jimmy Page and will be included in a new compilation of the band's music.

Advertisement

Thought to have been lost when BBC archives were wiped, the session includes the band's only known recording of Sunshine Woman. The set originally went out on BBC World Service with Alexis Korner's Rhythm and Blues radio program. It was taped from an AM radio in Europe.

The new compilation of BBC recordings comes a year after Led Zeppelin's final reissues. It has since recovered not only the three-song session from 1969, but other rarities, as well, Rolling Stone reported.

The new treasures will be included in an expanded, remastered edition of the band's 1997 release called BBC Sessions, covering Zeppelin's music from 1969 to 1971. It will be renamed The Complete BBC Sessions and is scheduled for release Sept. 16.

The new compilation will include two versions of Communication Breakdown and What Is and What Should Never Be, along with Dazed and Confused.

Advertisement

In addition to Sunshine Woman, which Zeppelin never officially released, the lost 1969 session includes renditions of Willie Dixon's I Can't Quit You Baby and You Shook Me. That session happened the same month that the band's debut album, Led Zeppelin, came out in the U.K.

Led Zeppelin formed in 1968 and became one of the world's most popular rock bands. Each of its albums made the top 10 of the U.S. Billboard charts.

The band included Jimmy Page on guitar, Jon Bonham on drums, John Paul Jones on bass and front man Robert Plant.

The band officially split in 1980 after Bonham's death, but the remaining members, with Bonham's son Jason on drums, reformed for a concert in London in 2007.

The band was sued for allegedly plagiarizing a segment of its famous Stairway to Heaven. But a California jury last month found that the opening notes of the song were not substantially similar to a song by an American band of the era called Spirit.

Latest Headlines