March

Plant’s Manic Nirvana

Picking up from where Now & Zen left off, Plant’s fifth solo album, Manic Nirvana, was an even more stripped-back rocker. Not only had Plant been getting further back to his roots, this time he was losing all of the Led Zeppelin-like frills and flourishes, making this album the most straightforward of his solo releases.

April

Jason Bonham’s Wedding

Jason Bonham had been touring with his own band, supporting The Cult and opening their shows each night with a series of Led Zeppelin covers. On 4 April 1990, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones attended his wedding celebrations (Bonham Jr. was marrying Jan Charteris) in Stone, Kidderminster, and Jason sat in on a Led Zeppelin set that included ‘Custard Pie’, ‘It’ll Be Me’, ‘Rock & Roll’, ‘Sick Again’ and ‘Bring It On Home’.

July

Dread Zeppelin

A Led Zeppelin tribute band of sorts, Dread Zeppelin’s debut album, Un-Led-Ded, was a selection of Led Zeppelin covers from their first three albums, re-imagined in a reggae style and sung by their front man, Elvis Presley impersonator Tortelvis. The reworking of Led Zeppelin songs with a distinctly different cultural feel predated Page and Plant’s own Unledded by four years and was given the blessing of Led Zeppelin fans, thanks to its spot-on mixture of humour, inventiveness and reverence for the original music. A number of Dread Zeppelin albums followed in a similar vein, but none had quite the impact of their debut.

September

Profiled/Remasters

Released as a promotional CD to tie in with the release of the Led Zeppelin box set the following month, Profiled was a collection of Led Zeppelin interviews designed to fill out the band’s background in their own words. Among the compilation of various Led Zeppelin-era interview snippets, there were also new interviews from Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones. The CD was later included in the Led Zeppelin Remasters compilation CD released in January 1992.

October

Led Zeppelin Box Set

The notion of a four-CD Led Zeppelin box set seems a little strange for a band unhappy about having singles out under their name, and who viewed each album as an entire body of work on its own. The box set saw Jimmy Page remaster the songs he chose for inclusion, deliberately sequencing them out of sync with any chronological form, so as to bring new perspective to old tunes. The biggest selling points were the inclusion of the solo Page acoustic ‘White Summer/Black Mountain Side’, the rare ‘Immigrant Song’ B-side ‘Hey Hey What Can I Do’, and an unreleased cover of Robert Johnson’s ‘Travelling Riverside Blues’. A second Led Zeppelin box set would be released in March 1993, taking in songs left out from the first set, and adding what was claimed to the be last unreleased rarity, ‘Baby Come On Home’.

Personalities | Introducing Led Zeppelin
Personalities | Led Zeppelin | After The Break Up (1993) | Key Events