Stairway To Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

seemed to be more out of curiosity than anything else, and never to excess. He was almost always level-headed and in control. He was also reclusive, even on the road, often content to be by himself, away from the chaos and the excesses that he may have seen bringing Led Zeppelin down. He avoided much of the band’s craziness, and his marriage survived intact after all the years of touring; his wife and children seemed to be enough for him.
    â€œRichard,” he would sometimes say on the road, “here’s the phone number where I’ll be for the next forty-eight hours; unless there’s an absolute emergency, don’t tell anyone—and I do mean anyone —how to reach me.”
    Peter would become outraged when John Paul would disappear. But perhaps Jonesy was smarter than any of us, keeping his distance while the rest of us were gradually sinking in the quicksand.
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    Until Bonham’s death, I had always felt that Robert Plant had borne most of the brunt of any negative energy that may have surrounded Led Zeppelin. From the beginning, through his soulful singing, I knew there was a sensitive side to Robert. So I wasn’t surprised to see him emotionally devastated in 1975 when his wife, Maureen, nearly died from internal injuries and multiple fractures in an automobile accident on the Greek island of Rhodes or two years later, when his son, Karac, died of a serious respiratory infection. At Karac’s funeral, Robert was stoic and composed through the services. But later that afternoon, Bonham and I sat with him on a grassy field on Jennings Farm, Robert’s home near Birmingham. As each of us drank from a bottle of whiskey, Robert opened up, bewildered by the tragedies in his life and where Led Zeppelin was headed.
    Clearly, Robert was hurt that Jimmy, John Paul, and Peter hadn’t been by his side during his son’s burial. “Maybe they don’t have as much respect for me as I do for them,” he said in a pained, monotone voice. “Maybe they’re not the friends I thought they were.”
    A few minutes later, Robert pondered all of our pasts and futures. “We couldn’t ask for any more success than we’ve had,” he said. “Professionally, we couldn’t ask for more. But where the hell has it gotten us? Why do these terrible things keep happening? What the hell is going on?”
    They were questions without answers.
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    And then Bonham died. In my prison cell, I found myself reflecting upon the talk of a Zeppelin “jinx” that had haunted the band for years. It was something that disc jockeys and fans discussed much more than any of us did. When the subject did come up, we mostly just scoffed at it.
    â€œIt’s bullshit,” Jimmy once said angrily. “People take my interest in the occult and give it a life of its own.”
    Because the band rarely made efforts to court the press and discuss the intimate details of their lives with reporters, there was a mystique that surrounded the band that tended to fuel the rumors of a curse. “Let them think whatever they want,” Jimmy said. “If the fans want to believe all the rumors, let them. A little mystery can’t hurt.”
    The most ominous rumor was elevated to mythological status. It proclaimed that in their earliest days, the band members—except for John Paul, who refused to participate—had made a secret pact among themselves, selling their souls to the devil in exchange for the band’s enormous success. It was a blood ritual, so the story went, that placed a demonic curse upon the band that would ultimately lead to the deflating of the Zeppelin. And perhaps to the death of the band members themselves.
    To my knowledge, no such pact ever existed. Jimmy was a great one for spinning yarns, especially with young ladies who were fascinated with the “dark” side of the band, so maybe that’s how the story got started. But