The British news paper The Telegraph publishes
an interesting read on Elvis and Led Zeppelin in
yesterday's edition. Here's the full article,
about the only meeting between Elvis and Led
Zeppelin, 35 years ago.
It's hard to believe
that they were ever in the same room, but in
1972 the two diametrically opposed corners of
the music world came together. Led Zeppelin met
Elvis Presley. The matchmaker was their mutual
promoter, Jerry Weintraub (later to produce the
Ocean's 11 series with George Clooney and Brad
Pitt), who took Jimmy Page and Robert Plant up
to Presley's Las Vegas hotel suite.
Zeppelin's music then permeated the airwaves.
They were enormously popular, an enigmatic force
of hard rock. Presley had already reinvented
himself as the jump-suited King of Vegas, and an
"honorary drug-enforcement" pal of Richard
Nixon's.
For the first few minutes of the summit meeting,
Elvis ignored Led Zeppelin. The room was filled
with an awkward silence. Bodyguards monitored
the temperature. Jimmy Page - who had first
picked up a guitar after hearing Elvis singing
Baby Let's Play House on overseas American radio
- began to fidget. What was going on? Did Elvis
really want to meet them? Was this a big
misunderstanding?
Finally Elvis turned to his guests. His first
question had nothing to do with Zeppelin's
music. It was their roguish reputation that
interested him. "Tell me," asked Elvis, "is it
true, these stories about you boys on the road?"
For a surreal moment, they found themselves
staring at the three-dimensional embodiment of
their own youthful rebellion. Plant spoke first,
without cracking a smile. "Of course not," he
said. "We're family men. In fact, I get the most
pleasure out of walking the hotel corridors,
singing your songs." Plant leaned forward, and
offered his own best Elvis Presley
impersonation. "Treat me like a foooool, treat
me mean and cruuuel, but loooooove me�"
Presley eyed Plant very carefully. Presley's
"Memphis Mafia" studied the moment with growing
intensity. And then Presley burst out laughing.
The bodyguards burst out laughing. Suddenly, the
atmosphere was dorm-room friendly.
For the next two hours, Presley entertained them
with his own road stories, and tales from his
movie-making days. He confessed that he had
never heard Led Zeppelin's music, except for the
one song his stepbrother played him - Stairway
to Heaven. "I liked it," said Presley.
Later, walking down the hallway from the hotel
room, Page and Plant congratulated themselves on
their meeting with the King. Had it really gone
as well as it seemed? The answer arrived a
moment later.
"Hey," came a voice from down the hall. Elvis
had poked his head out the door. They would
never meet again, but this last image was one
for the memoirs. It was Presley, serenading his
new hard-rock friends with a perfect imitation
of Robert Plant doing him. "Treat me like
foooool�"
Source: The Telegraph
Posted: 4th. December 2007
