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Joe 

Jammer &

"Joe the Jammer"

 

"Here comes Joe the Jammer," is what Robert Plant and Jimmy Page used to say when they saw Page's guitar tech Joe Wright coming their way.

Wright got his start playing rock 'n' roll at the legendary Windy City concert haunt The Kinetic Playground on Clark Street near Lawrence.

Wright organized the venue's Tuesday night jam sessions and owner Aaron Russo would let him in to see the concerts for free.

That's how he met Led Zeppelin backstage, before they played their first Chicago concert on Feb. 7, 1969, when they were booked as the opening act for Vanilla Fudge.

"No one had really heard of Led Zeppelin yet, but it featured Jimmy Page from the Yardbirds, and I was a big fan of the Yardbirds," Wright said.

right eventually signed on with the rising British rock group as a roadie and later became Page's guitar tech.

As his friendship with Page grew, Wright would often jam with him in his dressing room before a gig. Sometimes he was invited on stage, introduced by his new moniker "Joe Jammer."

Eventually, he went to England by Zep's manager, Peter Grant, who hooked the young American axe man up with renown British producer Mickey Most.

After forming The Joe Jammer Band, songs were recorded and he opened for Zeppelin, including the prestigious Festival Of Bath in June 1970.

Jammer later went on to play guitar for European singer Maggie Bell, the opening act on Bad Company's 1975 world tour.

Albums were made, tours were done, and Jammer did some elbow rubbing with major rock stars of the day, including Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.

After spending most of the 1980s in Canada, Wright returned to Chicago in the late 1990s and has been active in area clubs and recording studios. A few years ago, Jammer wrote a tribute to his favorite sports team, "The White Sox Victory Song."

Though Joe Jammer never attained the fame and fortune of many his early European cohorts, the decades of blood, sweat, tears and hard work he invested are woven into the fabric of every note he plays in his live performances.

A typical show these days finds Jammer with his guitar in hand, ripping through a blend of classic cover songs (many with great stories attached) and his own original songs.

Joe Jammer never became a household name, but his name and reputation is renown and respected in the Chicagoland music community.

Jammer is talented, entertaining, and full of great rock 'n' roll war stories from the road.

For further references to Joe Jammer and Led Zeppelin, see Richard Cole's "Stairway to Heaven-Led Zeppelin Uncensored", and Barney Hoskyn's "Trampled Under Foot - The Power and Excess of Led Zeppelin"...

page book.jpg

An in-depth biography of Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page by the acclaimed biographer of Bob Marley and Joe Strummer, based upon the author's extensive research and interviews

The original enigmatic rock star, Jimmy Page is a mass of contradictions. A towering presence in the guitar world and one of the most revered rock guitarists of all time, in private he is reclusive and mysterious, retiring and given to esoteric interests. Over the decades he has exchanged few words to the press given the level of his fame, and an abiding interest in the demonic and supernatural has only made the myth more potent.

But in the midst of this maelstrom, who was Jimmy Page? Rock journalist Chris Salewicz has conducted numerous interviews with Page over the years and has created the first portrait of the guitarist that can be called definitive, penetrating the shadows that surround him to reveal the fascinating man who dwells within the rock legend.

Other references to Joe Jammer can be found in Chris Welch's " Close To The Edge - The Story Of Yes"... 

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