Twofer Tunesday: Dazed & Confused
A sample of some obscure – and maybe not obscure – tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.
Today’s double selection: Dazed & Confused: Jake Holmes, Yardbirds 1967
Most wouldn’t even think that this wasn’t a Led Zeppelin song but it was written by Jake Holmes as an acoustic piece in 1967. Holmes opened for the Yardbirds at a concert in New York. The Yardbirds drummer liked the song, bought the Holmes LP and played it for the rest of the band. Jimmy Page tweaked it a bit, added a bit of guitar work, and the Yardbirds started performing the song themselves although they never recorded it in a studio.
In 1968, Jimmy Page had formed a new group called Led Zeppelin and after additional tweaking, the song was released on the group’s first album – without credit to Jake Holmes – and was usually on the playlist at Led Zeppelin concerts.
Holmes filed copyright infringement lawsuits and the case was finally settled “with prejudice” in 2012. The song is now released as “By Page – Inspired by Jake Holmes”. The song is the most played of the Zeppelin song list.
Jake or John?
There’s quite a bit of difference in equipment.
Oops. Jake. Fixed it.
Earl Holliman
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September 11, 1928 – November 25, 2024
You know who Earl is. Everybody knows Earl. He has the distinction of being in the very first episode of The Twilight Zone, named, “Where Is Everybody?”, aired Oct 2, 1959, and he was the only person in the episode up to just a few minutes from the end.
You can watch this black n white episode here:
https://tinyurl.com/mtxrmk49
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While riding on a train to Marfa, Texas, to begin filming Giant (1956), Earl Holliman was sitting with the cast and crew in one of the passenger cars when it was announced by one of the conductors that Elizabeth Taylor’s club car was up front.
After hearing this, Earl went up to her cabin to introduce himself and when she answered she invited him in to sit and visit with her so she would be able to get to know him somewhat better before they were to begin work on the production.
Not long after he was sitting with her, he happened to look out the window into the desert the train was riding through and remarked ” Look at those flowers! Aren’t they pretty?”
When Elizabeth looked at the cactus flowers, Earl was speaking of she then looked at him and asked “Do you want one?”
Before Earl could answer Elizabeth’s question, she immediately stood up, pulled the emergency brake, after the train came to an immediate screeching halt, she then proceeded to run outside and pick the biggest cactus flower she could.
While the engineers ran around trying to calm the rest of the cast and crew aboard and find out what happened, Elizabeth had promptly returned to her cabin with Earl still sitting there in amazement to find Ms. Taylor approaching him with a smile on her face, and still looking beautiful as ever with no broken sweat whatsoever, handing him a cactus flower simply saying “Here”.