The Mirror reports that Jimmy Page is to take part in an eight-minute spectacle produced by the United Kingdom for the Olympics' closing ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 24. Details about the event are limited, but the article says the guitarist is to play a duet with singer Leona Lewis.
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Jimmy Page gets Olympic fever for star-studded close
By Steve Sauer, www.LedZeppelinNews.com
Thursday, August 14, 2008
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Three positions on Leona Lewis:
CFM: I understand that Jimmy doing the Olympic closing ceremony thing is a true honor for him. It must be in anyone's mind. But we all know that Jimmy usually has ulterior motives, those tending to be doing what it takes to get the band together. So is it too far a stretch to think Jimmy is doing this in part to try to convince Robert that he understands what Robert gets out of this Alison collaboration, and thereby trying to open a door, so to speak with Robert, by doing a similar kind of collaboration? Just a thought.
Steve Sauer: The Summer Olympics is the biggest gig in the world. The closing ceremony happens once every four years and lasts only eight minutes long. I'm sure Jimmy didn't raise his hand and volunteer his services and say, "I've selected the greatest voice in the U.K. to accompany me -- no, it's not Robert Plant, it's the chick from last year's talent show!" I'm absolutely certain that with a gig like this, the organizers had all the say about who was participating, and their selection of pairing Jimmy Page with Leona Lewis had much more to do with "something old, something new" than it did with anything Robert Plant may or may not be doing at the time.
It's completely absurd, in my opinion, to suggest this act has anything to do with Jimmy coaxing Robert back into a Zep act. "Look, we're both capable of duets, therefore we should reunite our band." What a bunch of faulty logic.
YB: I doubt very much whether Leona Lewis was Jimmy's selection.
I still think his ultimate motive is pride in being asked. We don't know who was asked before him... the Stones, all of Zeppelin, Radiohead, et cetera - or how they whittled it down to one representative from the long and storied British music history paired with a rising star.
The not-so-ulterior motive is probably the same for Jimmy as it was when he worked with Puffy or Fred Durst... or even when he played onstage with abominations like Poison, and that is to bring Led Zeppelin's music to people who may not have been exposed to it previously, and to expand and enforce the legacy of his life's work, which is and remains Led Zeppelin.
I don't think a one-off pairing with Leona Lewis is really comparable to Plant/Krauss, nor do I believe it's comparable to Jimmy working with Coverdale with the result (intended or not) of making Plant jealous.
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