pm and they’d keep going and going. I remember seeing Van Winkle there. I used to come down to Toronto from Owen Sound to The Rock Pile to see acts like John Mayall and Alice Cooper. Incidentally, the only prop Alice Cooper had at that point was a window-frame, so you know that’s a long time ago now. The Rock Pile was a wonderful venue. One New Year’s Eve, Blood Sweat and Tears was there and it was great seeing David Clayton Thomas, a “Canadian guy made good”, playing back home in his native Toronto.
REDDON:
Yes, what a “musical hot-bed” in southern Ontario; the Toronto area. As you know, Led Zeppelin also played at The Rock Pile a couple of times in 1969, one of them being on the First U.S. and Canadian Tour of 1968-69.
HEWITT: That would have been quite something! I’m sorry I never saw those shows.
REDDON:
That makes two of us. If I’d known then what I know now, I would have gone…even though I was only eight years old at the time!
Okay…back to reality for me! What did you think about the Led Zeppelin LP when it came out in 1969?
HEWITT:
I loved it and so did my friends. Every song on it is incredible for different reasons. It’s acoustic, electric, light, dark…it covers so much musical territory. We all recognized it and that’s one reason that album is still popular today. I had this portable record player that ran on batteries. I used to take it to school and listen to records like Led Zeppelin at lunch. You could tell that album was an extension of the ideas Page had worked up during The Yardbirds. We set it up in the auditorium and my friend Dave, you’re acquainted with…
REDDON: Yes, I’m hoping to interview him one day soon…
HEWITT:
Yes, he’ll be a good source of information for you. He and others used to hang out and listen at lunch. It was a great time for all of us! There were approximately 16,000 people in Owen Sound at that time, around 1968-69. And probably only two people with long hair. I was one of them and got beaten up a few times over it!
In addition to taking my record player to school and playing Zeppelin and all the other stuff we liked at the time, we also started a school newspaper called Sweet Rag. It was an alternative student newspaper that was not only going around school but around town. Because it had “subculture overtones”, it was banned from our school. We’d distribute it out in the street off school property. My friend, Dave, was the editor and our teachers were interested it. They came out in the street off school property to get a copy!
We also petitioned the school to see if we could play our records over the PA system at school. They went for it and that’s what we did at lunch, eventually. Another student’s mother worked at an Owen Sound radio station and we had our own radio show for awhile. We were playing Jethro Tull, the Led Zeppelin LP, The Rolling Stones, The Who. That was great fun and we were on about 1:00 a.m. or 2:00 a.m. The program folded because we couldn’t get any funding but we did get people to hear the music that was inspiring us so much and that was satisfying. Although it didn’t last all that long, it was a good experience for us.
REDDON: What bands influenced you the most overall?
HEWITT:
I would have to say The Yardbirds were a big influence for me personally, as well as for our band, The Rembrandts. So were Led Zeppelin and the Led Zeppelin LP…we played songs off Led Zeppelin after it came out and we, and everybody else, were crazy about their material. We learned songs off Led Zeppelin, note for note and off The Yardbirds’ records. What a great way to learn, as well as enjoy the music from them and what we were trying to do with it.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience was extremely influential, too. They were the first three-piece band to come to my mind, that was completely “filled”. By that, I mean sound-wise. You would expect there to be musical holes because there’s only a guitar, bass and drums. Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell (drummer) and Noel Redding (bass) were so proficient at what they did and contributed, there were no musical holes to be filled, which is quite an accomplishment. Their sound was so full as a three-piece. When our band, The Rembrandts, changed from five to four pieces (guitar, bass, drums and vocals), we changed our name to The Straw. By the way, Bob, who played rhythm guitar in The Rembrandts, now plays keyboard for Shania Twin, a tribute act to Shania Twain.
Of course, when Led Zeppelin hit the scene, I remember thinking how “full” the Led Zeppelin record sounded, for a four-piece group. It was a fantastic album and is still popular today for good reason.
REDDON:
Wow, thanks so much for all of your invaluable insights and recollections, Ray. I’ve really enjoyed hearing about them and they’ve been extremely educational.
HEWITT:
Not at all, it was so much fun doing all of that back then, I hope it helps your work. Good luck with your book and I’d like to see it when you’re all finished. It sounds fascinating.
REDDON:
The material I’ve collected from people like you who actually lived it have made this an unbelievably fun journey in compiling the interviews. I’ll definitely keep you informed on the progress.
HEWITT: Great! I’ll look forward to it!
ANONYMOUS EILEEN
GROWS UP ON LED ZEPPELIN AT THE HEIGHT OF THE HAIGHT
Eileen was a fourteen year old teenager in San Francisco when the Led Zeppelin LP was released. She shares this cherished memory about what Led Zeppelin and its music meant to her then but wishes to remain anonymous.
EILEEN:
My greatest memories as a fourteen year old girl were listening to Dazed and Confused on the Led Zeppelin LP over and over again, after smoking a little weed with my best friend. It seemed like a rite of passage kind of thing. We just loved that song! Teenage angst, I guess. I then got ’way into Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. I really loved Zeppelin’s songs because of all the references to those books.
I used to hang out on Haight St. a lot. Just in their appearance alone, Zeppelin reminded me of all the cool people in the Haight. Contrary to popular belief, the locals did not wear tie dye but instead wore lots of velvet bell-bottoms and vintage clothes more like Led Zeppelin did. Their music was very sexy, too - the beautiful guitar work and amazing drumming and then Plant’s vocals. It was just over the top drama. Lots of fun for a teenage girl growing up in a bohemian culture.
As far as “real intense, in your face” experiences, my first one was at The Family Dog at the beach. I had the pleasure of standing right at Marc Boland’s feet during the first show that T Rex did in San Francisco. That was the first time I was really blown away! I was thirteen years old then and had been able to literally stand at his shoes while he sang all of his amazing songs. He had a big velvet blazer and that guitar. In my young years, he was a heart-stopper. I believe that look has influenced me even to this day.
All those British boys were so amazing. I loved The Yardbirds, too. The American band that influenced me then was Love and I still really dig the music they
