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On this day in 2010, I appeared on a 3D cover for Guitar World magazine.

Brad Tolinski, editor-in-chief, had told me about this upcoming issue during the interview some weeks earlier. It was a first for them and they really pulled it off with all of the artists they featured.

On this day in 1988, I played the Hummingbird on the Outrider tour in Birmingham - a local gig for Jason Bonham. The Leon Russell / BB King song 'Hummingbird' was on the Outrider album.

SETLIST

Who's to Blame
Prelude
Over the Hills and Far Away
Wanna Make Love
Writes of Winter
Tear Down the Walls
Midnight Moonlight
Emerald Eyes
In My Time of Dying
City Sirens
Someone to Love
Prison Blues
The Chase
Wasting My Time
Blues Anthem
Custard Pie
Train Kept a Rollin'
Stairway to Heaven

On this day in 1978, I was producing In Through the Out Door at Polar Studios in Stockholm.

Polar Studios had been set up by ABBA's Bjorn and Benny in 1977. They were keen to have an international group record there and I was personally contacted by a representative of the studios who offered three weeks free recording time.

This seemed a sound idea to go there to produce what was to become our eighth studio album - In Through the Out Door. We’d been playing around with some ideas at Clearwell Castle in Gloucestershire, UK but then went into Easy Hire, a rehearsal studio in North London, where most of the material that would surface on the album was routined.

When we arrived in Stockholm, it was well into their winter, there was heavy snow in the streets and very, very cold. Polar was a state of the art studio for its time, but not particularly ambient. It took a couple of days to get used to this. We worked on the first track that was to become Ozone Baby and on this day South Bound Saurez was recorded.

Juices were flowing and the recording process was now fully underway.

On this day in 1994, I appeared with Robert Plant on Asahi TV in Japan 🇯🇵

In line with the Unledded project, an elaborate press junket was set up for Japan, Australia, Argentina and Brazil with a whistle-stop journey for promotion.

The first city we visited was Tokyo and, after a number of magazine, radio and TV interviews, we appeared live on Asahi TV and ended up having to play. We chose Babe I'm Gonna Leave You on acoustic, ending the song with the spontaneous opening guitar part of Stairway… and we just kept on going.

https://youtu.be/POAlJN37ZbQ

On this day in 1964, Baby Please Don't Go / Gloria by Them was released.

The producer Bert Berns of Atlantic Records visited England to work on a number of projects - he was one of the first American producers to do this at Decca. He produced the band ‘Them’ featuring the great Van Morrison (Official).

I was working with Bert Berns during this period and was contracted to overdub on ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’.

I was asked to induct Link Wray into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame ; a guitarist, instrumentalist and songwriter that I’d admired from the very first taste of the Rumble.

I first heard it when I was 14, roaring from a jukebox in my hometown of Epsom. As a guitar instrumental the attitude of it was totally unique in its mystery, imagination and ex*****on — it had a profound effect on me.

Link Wray and Rumble stand alone at the pinnacle in the world of instrumentals and I was thrilled to stand on stage in New York with drummer Anton Fig and bassist Tim Givens at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame last night to induct one of my heroes.

📸 ©️ Getty Images

On this day in 1963, Kathy Kirby released Secret Love. ⁣
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This was one of the early sessions that I did where I was allowed to introduce my own riffs on top of a Charles Blackwell arrangement.

This was an evening session at Decca Studio Number Two, West Hampstead, and she looked gorgeous and probably inspired my playing!

She also lived with a famous orchestra leader Ambrose and I am told that she became a recluse and lived in West London. In her will, she requested her ashes be scattered over Bert Ambrose's grave.

On this day in 1985, I jammed in a band with Elmer Gantry at a charity event called the 'Blues 'n' Booze' benefit, at Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire. Curiously enough, in the first Led Zeppelin set in 1968 we covered ‘Flames’ by Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera. It was really great to play with him. More recently Elmer's been in the bands Stretch and Rocky Recovery.

Well lo and behold, never having had a Grammy nomination from anything before, 'Writes Of Winter' from the Outrider album was mysteriously nominated in the instrumental category on this day in 1988.

I wasn't going to hold my breath and it's just as well I didn't because I still wouldn't have a Grammy but hey - I got a nomination.

On this day in 1987, I recorded 'Blues Anthem' (If I Cannot Have Your Love, I'll Sing The Blues) with Chris Farlowe‚ which appeared on the Outrider album.

Chris was somebody who I first saw in about 1957, in the heats of the British Skiffle Championship, where he sang 'All By Myself' - a Johnny Burnette number that was rockabilly and not skiffle and he was extraordinary.

I had seen him play with his band 'The Thunderbirds' at the Ebbisham Hall in Epsom and he was truly one of the shining lights of the Southern music scene in the late '50s and very early '60s. He went on to build a substantial solo career and I had a great respect for his cavalier vocals. I played acoustic guitar on the hit single 'Out Of Time'‚ so it wasn't a surprise when I asked him to help me with his vocal talents on the Death Wish II album.

I asked him again on the Outrider album. He sang on 'Prison Blues' and 'Blues Anthem' and both songs were written pretty much on the spot within two takes of each other. As an overdub to 'Blues Anthem', I incorporated the guitar-synth to emulate a string overdub.

On this day in 1966, I played The Fillmore Auditorium with The Yardbirds.

The Yardbirds played in the afternoon at the Fillmore, San Francisco and it was an amazing show. Jeff Beck and I got a lift from the venue with some guys and one of them had recorded it.

It was a pleasant surprise to hear it played back en route from the gig. The recording quality was poor from the small dictaphone-type recorder, but the playing of the band was great. I guess this tape just disappeared into the ether.

On this day in 1969, Led Zeppelin II was released.

It began with rehearsals at my home in Pangbourne and 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'What Is and What Should Never Be' were later recorded at London's Olympic Studio Number 1 with George Chkiantz, who engineered the basic tracks and some guitar overdubs.

This provided the foundation for the rest of the tracks to be recorded and overdubbed at various studios in America during our forthcoming tour. We recorded and overdubbed our way from West Coast to East Coast with tour-fuelled energy. I did the final mixes with Eddie Kramer at A&R studios in New York. The hedonistic mix of 'Whole Lotta Love' was to pioneer the radio success of the album.

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On this day in 1966, The Yardbirds played at The Comic Strip in Worcester, Massachusetts; the same day that the single Happenings Ten Years Time Ago was released.

Happenings Ten Years Time Ago featured Jeff Beck and me on electric guitars. In fact, this is the only single that featured this arrangement and I had something to do with writing this. It's an intriguing interplay of the guitars; Jeff is in fantastic form on this one. The Yardbirds had had a run of hits but, as cool as this single was, it didn't continue the run of chart success for the band.

On this day in 1969, I played Carnegie Hall with Led Zeppelin 🇺🇸
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Traveling en masse, Led Zeppelin managed to miss our plane out of Heathrow, so we caught the next available flight which got us into New York just a few hours before we were due to play this prestigious venue. Nevertheless, we played a blinding concert but this was the one and only time we ever got to play Carnegie Hall. ⁣
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Originally I had been led to believe that Carnegie Hall was owned by Dale Carnegie of 'How To Win Friends and Influence People' fame, it turns out that this was not the case but he did once rent it for one of his lectures!

On this day in 1999, I played NetAid with Diddy.

I had been invited to appear at NetAid with Sean Combs - P Diddy - and to perform a short solo set of my own later in the programme at the historic Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

NetAid was an ambitious project way in advance of its time with its concept. The charity was an anti-poverty initiative and funds would be generated by the concert via the internet.

I was told later the site was so overloaded it apparently crashed. We could see from Diddy's performance just what an amazing concert this certainly was.

On this day in 1966, Time Drags By by Cliff Richard was released.

I had been booked to play harmonica on a session at EMI Records Studio Number Two and discovered that it was for Cliff Richard. The song had been written by The Shadows guitarists Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch, who were there with drummer Brian Bennett and Cliff. They were super gracious and encouraging and it was a pleasure to have worked with some of the UK music aristocracy.

This song was later to feature in the film Finders Keepers. In 1959 I played one support spot whilst in Neil Christian and the Crusaders for Cliff and the Shadows at Edmonton Odeon. I was still at school and I couldn't really talk to the other kids about this so I kept it to myself.

In 1981, in the same studio on the same day, I was overdubbing the orchestra on the Death Wish II project.

On this day in 1999, I played at the soundcheck for NetAid at the Giants Stadium, in preparation for the show the next day.

With Michael Lee on drums and Guy Pratt on bass, we were joined as an instrumental trio by The Black Crowes heavyweights Chris Robinson on vocals and Rich Robinson on guitar.

On this day in 1984, Sea of Love by The Honeydrippers was released, which was Robert Plant's project at the time.

I was asked to guest with some guitar solos which I did in the spirit of good camaraderie, as I was then working with Paul Rodgers and The Firm. I overdubbed and soloed over a series of tracks in the UK that Robert had recorded in New York under the musical directorship of Paul Shaffer, who was also house band leader and keyboard player on the David Letterman show.

On this day in 1971, it was the end of the Led Zeppelin tour of Japan. ⁣
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This was another recorded concert in Japan at Osaka and the last of a series of successful concerts in this country.⁣
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During the acoustic set of 'That's the Way', 'Going to California' and 'Tangerine', John Bonham nipped off stage and hadn't returned for the electric 'What Is and What Should Never Be'. So we continued the acoustic set with a quick re-tune for 'Friends' - the first and only time we were to play this song live.⁣

On this day in 2006, Jerry Lee Lewis's album 'Last Man Standing' was released.

I had been asked to appear on the Jerry Lee Lewis album, 'The Last Man Standing'. Steve Bing was financing, Jimmy Rip was producing and they wanted me to overdub guitar parts and solo on a re-recording of Led Zeppelin's 'Rock and Roll'.

When I had just hit my teens, it was from Rock and Roll pioneers of the '50s like Lewis and the likes of Roland Janes (the guitarist who played on the early Sun sessions with Lewis) that I learned to play - for these were the guys that really kicked things off. I was really determined to throw in my best performance for Jerry Lee, I owed him that.

During this period, I had been rehearsing with some musicians when Jimmy Rip arrived to engineer my contribution. I had thought my performance might be recorded in this ambient setting, but instead I had to plug into the computer to record my bits. I could hear Jerry Lee in my headphones belting out a hot version of 'Rock and Roll', somehow I just didn't pull it off the way I'd hoped. The experience left me thinking that I'd have liked to have been in the studio on the original session with The Killer!

On this day in 1971, I played the second night at the Budokan with Led Zeppelin 🇯🇵

The Japanese audience were so respectful, quiet and attentive during the songs. This was interesting, because we could hear each other perfectly and we could explore the music in greater depth, giving us a chance of a serious musical work out.

Immigrant Song
Heartbreaker
Since I've Been Loving You
Black Dog
Dazed and Confused
Stairway to Heaven
Celebration Day
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (excerpt)
That's the Way
Going to California
What Is and What Should Never Be
Moby Dick
Whole Lotta Love (medley)
Communication Breakdown

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On this day in 1965, John Mayall released the single Witch Doctor / Telephone Blues on Immediate Records, where I was a producer.⁣
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It was recorded at Pye Studios with jazzer Hughie Flint on drums, John McVie on bass (middle), John Mayall (left) on keyboards and vocals and Eric Clapton (right) on guitar. It was recorded in June of 1965. When 'Witch Doctor' came to be overdubbed, Eric had this idea to put this feedback wail over the top. I was with him in the studio as he set this up, then I got back into the control room and told the engineer to record the overdub.⁣
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About two-thirds of the way through, he pulled the faders down and said: "This guitarist is impossible to record". I guess his technical ethics were compromised by the signal that was putting the meters into the red. I suggested that he got on with his job and leave that decision to me!⁣
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Eric's solo on 'Telephone Blues' was just superb. I would like to have seen Ainsley Dunbar on drums in the studio for 'Witch Doctor'. I also produced 'Sitting On Top of the World', showing John Mayall's blues to Top 20 ambitions, and 'Double Crossing Time', an ironic title as the next time I heard of them they were in the very capable hands of Mike Vernon - famed blues producer. It was a good move: Eric left The Yardbirds because they had Top 20 aspirations!