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| Travelling Riverside Blues
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Image:Trbsingle1990.jpg
1990 US CD single
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| Appears on
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Led Zeppelin (box set)
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| Published by
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Flames of Albion Music
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| Registration
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ASCAP 500445772
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| Release date
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8 October 1990
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| Recorded
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24 June 1969
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| Genre
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Blues-rock, hard rock
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| Language
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English
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| Length
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5 min 12 sec
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| Composer
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Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Robert Johnson
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| Label
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Atlantic Records
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| Producer
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Jimmy Page
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| Engineer
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John Waters
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'Travelling Riverside Blues' is a blues-rock song written and recorded by English rock band Led Zeppelin. The title is inspired from 'Traveling Riverside Blues' by blues musician Robert Johnson. The Led Zeppelin song is registered with copyright association American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers|ASCAP, with the unique title code 500445772.[1]
Overview
The song was recorded at the BBC studios in Aeolian Hall on 24 June 1969, by engineer John Waters, which took place during the band's Led Zeppelin United Kingdom Tour Summer 1969|U.K. Tour of Summer 1969. Jimmy Page dubbed extra guitar tracks onto the track, and it was broadcast four days later on John Peel's Top Gear (radio show)|Top Gear show under the title 'Travelling Riverside Blues '69',[2] and repeated on 11 January 1970. It is quite different from 'Traveling Riverside Blues', and it is more a pastiche tribute to Robert Johnson than a straight cover. The song showcases a riff by Page (also in open G tuning), and in the lyrics Robert Plant quotes many Robert Johnson snippets, such as 'She studies evil all the time'. It is likely that Johnson borrowed this himself, from a song recorded earlier that year (1937) called 'She Squeezed My Lemon', by Roosevelt Sykes.
'Travelling Riverside Blues' can be found on the BBC Sessions (Led Zeppelin album)|BBC Sessions album, on disc 1 of the Led Zeppelin (box set)|Led Zeppelin box set, and on the expanded Coda (album)|Coda album from The Complete Studio Recordings (Led Zeppelin box set)|The Complete Studio Recordings box set. It was interest from US radio interviewers and fans during Page's Outrider tour that originally led him to negotiate with BBC Enterprises for the song's release.[3] A promotional video clip was also released in 1990, with outtake footage from the band's 1976 concert film, The Song Remains the Same inter-spliced with other footage from the band's archive. The clip also features a railroad montage, and underwater shots of the Mississippi River. The song reached number seven on the Billboard (magazine)|Billboard Top Rock Tracks Top 50 chart in November 1990, culled from national album rock radio airplay reports.[4]
| Personnel
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- Musicians:
- Jimmy Page – electric guitar, producer, remastering, digital remastering
- Robert Plant – vocals, harmonica
- John Paul Jones – piano, bass guitar
- John Bonham - drums, percussion
- Production:
- Peter Grant – executive producer
- John Waters - engineer, mixing
- Dick Carruthers – video director
- Joe Sidore - original CD mastering engineer (mid-1980s)
- George Marino - remastered CD engineer (1990)
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Chart positions
| Chart (1990)
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Peak position
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| US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart[5]
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7
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| Canadian RPM Top 100 Chart[6]
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57
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Notes
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