One of the more puzzling live albums of all time came out in 2000. It featured songs from a two-night stand with The Black Crowes and Led Zeppelin icon Jimmy Page. But fans hoping to hear “Hard to Handle” or “She Talks to Angels” were out of luck. Bizarrely, not a single Black Crowes song was on it.
Twenty-six years later, that misstep has been fixed. The 36-track “Jimmy Page & The Black Crowes: Live at the Greek,” restores 16 previously unreleased songs and offers a better window into a unique trans-Atlantic rock combination.
“The whole project was special, very electric for us, very something very alive,” says singer-songwriter Chris Robinson. “I think we were all — for lack of a better word — just abuzz with what we were doing as a band, as an outfit together.”
The live tracks were recorded at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles over two nights in October 1999. It captured musicians who were cooking after previous stops at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom; the Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts; and The Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan.
“I think we really felt like it wasn’t the Black Crowes with Jimmy Page. It was one thing, it was one group,” says Chris Robinson. “We really felt connected and tied. I just think we just had a really high energy level, and we knew we were onto something that was powerful.”
The album that came out had Zeppelin tunes like “Celebration Day,” “In My Time of Dying” and “Whole Lotta Love,” as well as old blues and R&B standards like “Woke Up This Morning,” “Sloppy Drunk,” “Mellow Down Easy” and “Shake Your Money Maker,” plus the Yardbirds′ “Shape of Things to Come” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well.”
But no Black Crowes songs were included due to contractual reasons: The band had just left their label and weren’t allowed to use anything from their catalog.
“We were happy with what came out. We were bummed that we weren’t able legally to put our songs on the record,” says songwriter and guitarist Rich Robinson. Adds his brother Chris: “I wasn’t surprised by how inept that decision was.”
“I felt really bad about that because they extended this hand of friendship that I could come and join the band,” says Page. “I felt really sad because I knew the versions that we did were really good of their songs.”
The anniversary edition of “Live at the Greek” includes the once-dropped Black Crowes’ tunes “No Speak No Slave,” ”Hard to Handle,” “Wiser Time,” “Remedy” and a version of “She Talks to Angels,” which Rich Robinson says Page took “to a totally different direction and a new level.” Zeppelin tunes like “Misty Mountain Hop” and “Bring It on Home” are also included.
In addition to Page and the brothers, the band on stage included Sven Pipien on bass, Eddie Harsch on keyboards, Audley Freed on guitar and Steve Gorman on drums. Page says he felt loose and connected with the guys.
“In the past, whenever I knew it was going to be recorded, say in the Zeppelin days, I’d always get really nervous,” he says. “But with this, I didn’t have any of that anxiety or anything. We were on a wave.”
Fans will delight in the restored songs but also in some outtakes, including five songs at soundcheck and the never-before-released song Rich Robinson and Page wrote while jamming, called simply “Jams.”
“I think the surprises are the things that really excite us as well,” says Chris Robinson. “We didn’t even know that we had this extra material or the other things that we hadn’t really thought about until this project came around.”
The concerts at The Greek capture a partnership that would endure. Page and the Crowes would go on a full-length American tour in the summer of 2000 and are friends today.
“We were all then joined in the hip when we were playing, and it was just such a joyful event to for me to be playing with these guys, and I guess them to be playing with me, too,” says Page.
The album re-release comes as The Black Crowes are enjoying a creative patch, earning their second career Grammy nod last year for “Happiness Bastards,” nominated for best rock album alongside the Rolling Stones.
Chris Robinson is philosophical about the timing of the anniversary release. Despite the songs sitting in a vault for a quarter of a century, he’s just happy they can now be heard.
“I do have a firm belief that things happen when they’re supposed to happen because they’re supposed to happen,” he says. “And if you play around with that too much, it might not have the same resonance, you know?”
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