Robert Plant has a famously tricky courting with Led Zeppelin’s 1971 masterpiece Stairway To Heaven, however maximum musicians would draw a line at thankfully contributing to a marketing campaign to forestall their most famed track being aired. Plant? He did not hesitate.
“I used to be in Portland, Oregon,” Plant instructed NPR in 2002. “I used to be using alongside in my automobile, heading for Lincoln Town, which is out at the coast. I sought after to pressure right down to Eureka. And simply sooner than the black-and-white [the highway patrol] stuck me doing 90mph, [I was listening to] KBOO. It had this superb track – it was once more or less a mix of unhappy outtakes of doo-wop and an overly droll DJ, who gave the impression of anyone from Marin County in 1967.”
“The man got here on announcing they have been in search of sponsorships. You realize, ‘Please ship in $10’ or $15 or no matter, and if folks within the space did that, KBOO would promise by no means to play Stairway to Heaven. So I referred to as him up and pledged my cash. I used to be one of the vital KBOO sponsors.”
If the present listing of KBOO sponsors is to be believed, Plant is not donating cash to the motive.
Having put his cash the place his mouth was once, Plant similar the tale to Atlantic Data president Ahmet Ertegun, declaring the irony of a radio station receiving unfastened product from Atlantic however no longer enjoying a work of track from one of the vital label’s acts as a result of its singer paid them to not. Ertegun, Plant thankfully printed, was once maximum amused.
KBOO, which announces itself to be a “volunteer-powered, non-commercial, listener-sponsored, full-strength group radio for Portland, Oregon, the Pacific Northwest and the International,” seems to have saved to its facet of the cut price, even though it has performed Center’s Kennedy Middle model of Stairway To Heaven a number of instances within the years since, in addition to covers by means of guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriella and Italian saxophonist Ada Rovatti.
Ultimate 12 months Plant sang the track in public for the primary time since Led Zeppelin’s efficiency on the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Live performance at London’s O2 Enviornment in 2007. Plant carried out it at a gig in Oxfordshire organised by means of former Duran Duran/The Energy Station guitarist Andy Taylor to lift cash for The Most cancers Platform charity.
“I simply blurted it out,” Plant instructed Rolling Stone. “‘Motive it’s such the most important track to me for the place I used to be on the time and the place I used to be with Jimmy and with John and Bonzo. So on that evening, it was once what it was once. It was once an ordeal by means of hearth, however I felt higher on the finish than originally.”
