Fact #67532
When:
Short story:
Belfast band Them, fronted by vocalist Van Morrison, enter the UK's NME singles chart with a cover of the old blues standard, Baby, Please Don't Go. Playing guitar on the recording is Jimmy Page, later to found Led Zeppelin.
Full article:
Billy Harrison (guitarist, Them) : By that time, the whole r'n'b thing in England was being hyped. So we'd have people (session men) coming in from record companies. The strange thing is that most of the records we made had nothing to do with what we were playing live. They were purely manufactured, produced items.
There were two session guys on that one (Baby, Please Don't Go). Bobby Graham on drums and Jimmy Page on guitar.
Jimmy Page : I was in on a lot of sessions for Decca artists at the start, and some were hits, although not because of the guitar playing … It had its embarassing moments, such as recording with Van Morrison and Them.
Billy Harrison : That riff on Baby, Please Don't Go was my riff. I created it. We'd been playing the song like that all over Northern Ireland for a year and a half before it went on record. People will believe what they want to believe, but those session guys weren't needed.
Jimmy Page : I'd been booked as a guitarist with a group and, often, there'd be a drummer, and bit by bit, as the evening went on, another session musician would appear, one sitting next to the bass player, another sitting next to the keyboards, so in the end, it was just Van Morrison, session players and the group, but the session players were just duplicating the group.
Eric Wrixon (pianist, Them) : Belfast is full of witnesses who can testify that Billy Harrison had been playing Baby Please Don't Go live, exactly the way it turned out on the record.
Jimmy Page : You can imagine the tension, and what these chaps from Ulster must have thought – it was so embarrassing that you just had to look at the floor and play, because they were glaring. It could have been the end of their musical career in one evening.
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There were two session guys on that one (Baby, Please Don't Go). Bobby Graham on drums and Jimmy Page on guitar.
Jimmy Page : I was in on a lot of sessions for Decca artists at the start, and some were hits, although not because of the guitar playing … It had its embarassing moments, such as recording with Van Morrison and Them.
Billy Harrison : That riff on Baby, Please Don't Go was my riff. I created it. We'd been playing the song like that all over Northern Ireland for a year and a half before it went on record. People will believe what they want to believe, but those session guys weren't needed.
Jimmy Page : I'd been booked as a guitarist with a group and, often, there'd be a drummer, and bit by bit, as the evening went on, another session musician would appear, one sitting next to the bass player, another sitting next to the keyboards, so in the end, it was just Van Morrison, session players and the group, but the session players were just duplicating the group.
Eric Wrixon (pianist, Them) : Belfast is full of witnesses who can testify that Billy Harrison had been playing Baby Please Don't Go live, exactly the way it turned out on the record.
Jimmy Page : You can imagine the tension, and what these chaps from Ulster must have thought – it was so embarrassing that you just had to look at the floor and play, because they were glaring. It could have been the end of their musical career in one evening.