Led Zeppelin – Travelling Riverside Blues

“Travelling Riverside Blues” – Single by Led Zeppelin from the album Led Zeppelin Boxed Set
Released: October 8, 1990
Recorded: June 24, 1969

“Travelling Riverside Blues” is a blues song written by the bluesman Robert Johnson. He recorded it on June 20, 1937, in Dallas, Texas, during his last recording session. The song was unreleased until its inclusion on the 1961 Johnson compilation album King of the Delta Blues Singers.

Led Zeppelin’s version of this song was produced by John Walters at the BBC studios in Aeolian Hall on June 23-24, 1969 during the band’s UK Tour of Summer 1969. Jimmy Page dubbed extra guitar tracks onto the track (the main track being played on a 12-string electric guitar) and it was broadcast four days later on John Peel’s Top Gear show under the title “Travelling Riverside Blues ’69” and repeated on January 11, 1970. Page used an acoustic slide guitar for the entire song, while Bonham played triplets on the bass drum.

In the third verse, it sounds like Robert Plant mistakenly sings “My baby geen bone” instead of ‘My baby been gone.”

The lyric, “I’ve had no lovin’ since my baby been gone” came from B.B. King’s “Woke Up This Morning (My Baby Was Gone).”

A promotional video clip was also released in 1990, with out-take 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 Top Rock Tracks Top 50 chart in November 1990, culled from national album rock radio airplay reports. In Canada, it reached number 57 on the RPM Top 100 Chart.

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Led Zeppelin - Travelling Riverside Blues (Official Music Video)04:11

“Travelling Riverside Blues” is one of three previously unreleased tracks featured on “Led Zeppelin”, a four-CD, four-cassette, 54-song boxed set due for release on October 23, 1990. The first Led Zeppelin compilation ever, the boxed set comprises nearly five hours of music – 54 tracks selected by Jimmy Page and newly digitally remastered by him and Sterling Sound’s George Marino.

Although widely bootlegged, the composition has never appeared on any Led Zeppelin album or single.

Led Zeppelin:

• John Bonham – drums, percussion
• John Paul Jones – bass guitar, piano, keyboards
• Jimmy Page – acoustic and electric guitars, electronic treatments
• Robert Plant – lead vocals, harmonica

“Travelling Riverside Blues” is one of three previously unreleased tracks featured on “Led Zeppelin”, a four-CD, four-cassette, 54-song boxed set due for release on October 23, 1990. The first Led Zeppelin compilation ever, the boxed set comprises nearly five hours of music – 54 tracks selected by Jimmy Page and newly digitally remastered by him and Sterling Sound’s George Marino.

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