25 Years Ago: Jimmy Page Joins Black Crowes at the Greek

Two heavyweights of rock came together when Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes joined for a series of dates that resulted in Live at the Greek: Excess All Areas, a live album released Feb. 29, 2000.

The history of the inspired and dynamic merger went back to 1995 when the Led Zeppelin legend joined the Black Crowes onstage during the Amorica or Bust tour at a show in France for covers of Elmore James’ “Shake Your Moneymaker” and Little Walter’s “Mellow Down Easy.”

Four years later, in June 1999, Page found himself as music director of a benefit at London’s Café De Paris nightclub for Supporting Children through Re-Education and Music and the Action for Brazil's Children Trust, two charities near and dear to his heart. His then-recent reunion with Robert Plant had come to an end earlier that year when Plant went back to his solo career, so Page needed a band for the evening. Luckily, the Black Crowes were going to be in town playing Wembley Stadium with Aerosmith and Lenny Kravitz the same week.

Renowned photographer – and Page friend – Ross Halfin rang up Crowes’ manager Pete Angelus to see if the group would be available for the gig, and he said yes without hesitation. "When the request came through our friend Ross, we were amazingly flattered, to say the least," the Black Crowes’ Rich Robinson told Guitar World. “All people ever see is the [Rolling] Stones influence in our music. But Zeppelin has been a huge influence on us for our whole career. They're definitely up there as one of the major reasons why we're in a band."

Among the songs they performed at the charity event were "Shake Your Moneymaker,” "Sloppy Drunk" (Jimmy Rodgers), "Woke Up This Morning" (B.B. King), "Oh Well" (Fleetwood Mac) and the Led Zeppelin classics "Whole Lotta Love" and "You Shook Me," the latter with Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Steven Tyler. The show had gone so well that Angelus approached Page’s manager to see if he would be interested in keeping it going via a handful of dates in the States. Page had so much fun in London with the Black Crowes that he jumped at the chance to bring it to a wider audience.

Listen to 'Nobody's Fault But Mine' From the Greek

How This Unique Combination Got Its Start

Page's five-year comeback with Plant resulted in the widely praised No Quarter album and MTV Unplugged special, and the less celebrated Walking into Clarksdale LP. Page desperately wanted to keep moving forward with the reunion, even bringing John Paul Jones into the fold, but Plant was becoming more and more disinterested in being a rock frontman and walked away.

The Black Crowes found themselves in an untenable situation, as well. Their back-to-basics By Your Side was released in January 1999 and had been pointedly ignored by their record label's promotion department. They did a popular episode of VH1’s Behind the Music that spring, but were otherwise quietly hoping Columbia Records would forget to pick up the option on their next album so they could seek out greener pastures as free agents. Hooking up with Jimmy Page was the perfect way to keep themselves in the public eye – and they had a blast doing it.

Six shows, billed as “Together on Stage: Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes,” were booked for the fall of 1999. Three were at New York City’s Roseland Ballroom, one at the Centrum in Worcester, Mass., just outside of Boston, and two at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles. There was also an appearance at anti-poverty benefit NetAid at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., where they played four songs before the proper run began.

The shows sold out immediately and were undeniably electric. Heavy on Led Zeppelin material, the setlist moved boldly away from the same 10 tracks spinning in perpetuity on classic rock radio stations around the country. Sure, there was “Heartbreaker” and “The Lemon Song,” but also bombastic takes on deep cuts like “Sick Again” and “In My Time of Dying.”

Blues covers the partnership had done from the beginning like “Sloppy Drunk” and “Woke Up This Morning” were ingrained into the set, and Page fanatics were in heaven when he dusted off the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds classic “Shapes of Things to Come.” Tracks by the Black Crowes weren’t left out either, with “No Speak No Slave,” “Wiser Time” and especially “Remedy” sounding particularly robust with the addition of Page on guitar. Chris Robinson brought his own inimitable flavor to the proceedings and there couldn't have been a better singer to compliment this rich catalog.

Watch Chris Robinson Discuss Working With Jimmy Page

It Took Two Nights to Get Things Right

Taping the shows for posterity and maybe for a future release was a no-brainer. The only problem, according to Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman's 2019 memoir Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes, was Page had zero interest in making a live LP and dealing with the pressure that came along with it. Angelus was able to convince him that it would all be out of sight, out of mind: The concerts would be recorded via a mobile truck on the exterior of the venue. Additionally, the Black Crowes covered all the costs, but Page would retain all the rights so they wouldn't be released if he didn't want the results out for public consumption.

They'd ultimately record both shows at the Greek Theatre, Oct. 18 and 19, 1999. Gorman says Page had a discernibly bad first night, becoming so rattled and down on himself that he didn’t even hang out after the concert. The second gig, however, found everyone on fire. The majority of the originally released recording comes from that performance.

"I wish I could have been in the audience," Page told Guitar World, "because I know how good it was up onstage."

Page obviously saw the benefit of releasing this concert for the fans, especially those who hadn’t been able to witness the historic six nights he shared onstage with the Black Crowes. Still to be decided, however, was how the LP would be released since neither act was tethered to a record contract. Columbia had indeed let their option to pick up a second Black Crowes record lapse and Page wasn’t signed as a solo artist, but there were a couple of issues to consider.

There was the rollout of the first-ever single-disc Led Zeppelin compilations coming in November 1999 with Early Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin Volume One followed in March by Latter Days: The Best of Led Zeppelin Volume Two and no one from that camp wanted record store shelves overcrowded with new, related material. The Black Crowes' old contract with Columbia also stipulated that they couldn’t release re-recorded versions of their songs for two years, meaning a live album with Page would have to leave out their material or stay shelved until sometime in 2001.

Listen to 'No Speak No Slave' From the Greek

Next Came an Inventive Approach to Packaging

The second choice wasn’t possible, as a summer tour with the two camps was planned for the summer of 2000 and the live album was an ideal way to promote it. Everyone wanted to put the concert recording into the hands and ears of fans in the fastest manner possible. They came up with a groundbreaking idea.

Digital retailer Musicmaker.com released the material in several customizable formats beginning Feb. 29, 2000. In all, 19 songs from the two-night stand at the Greek made available, with the Black Crowes material initially excited. All of them could be purchased for $17.90 or fans could buy five songs for $4.95 and pay a dollar for each additional song, building a single or two-disc set. Customers could arrange the setlist in any manner they chose. The customized music could be downloaded or express-mailed on compact disc. An 18-track double CD with a pre-selected running order and full-color booklet was made available as well.

The method was a win on multiple levels. Live at the Greek appealed to consumers in a way that had never happened before, with such high-profile artists allowing them to personalize a recording. And by taking it out of retail stores, there was no physical promotional overlap with the Led Zeppelin releases. Much of the advertising, in fact, was done by rock radio stations, who would play material from the recording and tell listeners the only way they could get it was to go to the station’s website, where they would be directed to Musicmaker.

Four months later, just as the Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes summer tour was getting underway, TVT Records released Live at the Greek in a more traditional manner, as a two-disc set for purchase in retail establishments. An expanded 2025 reissue finally restored the Black Crowes songs, after 2013 and 2019 reissues also left out their material.

Unfortunately, the trek fell apart in 2000 after just 11 of 55 planned dates, officially due to a back injury which Page had been battling. Gorman later claimed that Page was insulted when Rich Robinson snubbed his offer to work with the Black Crowes in the studio, though that was vigorously denied. Page later joined the band in 2011 at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire during an encore to perform the first song they ever played together, “Shake Your Moneymaker.”