The definitive post-Zeppelin chronologies and liaisons of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, following John Bonham's death on Sept. 25, 1980:
Dec. 1980: Led Zeppelin announces it has disbanded: "The loss of our dear friend (has) led us to decide that we could not continue as we were."
Nov. 1981: The band releases one last album of new material, Coda -- tweaked album-session leftovers. (No. 6 on U.S. chart)
May 1982: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant join Foreigner on stage in Munich to play Lucille.
June 1982: Plant releases his first solo album, Pictures at Eleven (No. 3, U.S.)
July 1983: Plant releases second solo album, The Principle of Moments (No. 8, U.S.) He tours but doesn't play a single Zep song. Uh, he never does this again.
Early 1984: Page and Plant record together for the first time since Zep, as members of The Honeydrippers.
March 1985: Page teams with singer Paul Rodgers (Free, Bad Company) to form The Firm, also the title of the group's first album (No. 17, U.S.)
May 1985: Plant releases his third solo album, Shaken 'n' Stirred (No. 20, U.S.).
July 1985: Page, Plant and John Paul Jones reunite in Philadelphia to play LiveAid with Tony Thompson and Phil Collins on drums. The fivesome plays Rock and Roll, Whole Lotta Love and Stairway to Heaven -- all poorly. Page later calls the gig "shambolic."
January 1986: Page, Plant, Jones and Thompson convene to rehearse for a possible Led Zep reunion. Things fall apart after one day when Thompson gets into a traffic accident and is hospitalized.
April 1986: The Firm releases second, and final, album, Mean Business (No. 22, U.S.)
February 1988: Plant releases his fourth solo album, Now and Zen (No. 6, U.S.) -- his first to embrace his Zep past. Page helps in studio. The song Tall Cool One includes overlapping samples of several Zep riffs, while the hit Heaven Knows conjures Kashmir.
May 1988: REUNION PERFORMANCE #2. Zeppelin reunites again for Atlantic Records' 40th Anniversary show at Madison Square Garden. John Bonham's son, Jason, sits in on drums. They play Kashmir, Heartbreaker, Whole Lotta Love, Misty Mountain Hop and Stairway to Heaven.
June 1988: Page releases his first and only solo album, Outrider, to little acclaim (No. 26, U.S.). Plant guests on one track, The Only One.
March 1990: Plant releases his fifth solo album, Manic Nirvana (No. 13, U.S..).
June 1990: Page joins Plant onstage at the Knebworth Silver Clef concert, playing three Zep songs: Rock and Roll, Misty Mountain Hop and Wearing & Tearing off the Coda album.
July 1990: The threesome jams with Jason Bonham at the latter's wedding.
Oct. 1990: Zep finally releases remastered (by Page) versions of most of their songs on a massive boxed set (four CDs/cassettes/albums). The set includes two never-before-released songs, Travelling Riverside Blues and White Summer/Black Mountain Side.
March 1993: Page teams with former Whitesnake lead singer and shameless Plant imitator David Coverdale on an album of new material, Coverdale Page. It is interpreted as a calculated dig by Page toward Plant.
May 1993: Plant releases his sixth solo album, Fate of Nations (No. 34, U.S..).
Sept. 1993: The "rest of the best" of Zeppelin's studio tracks are released on Boxed Set 2, including the never-before-released song Baby Come on Home from their first October 1968 recording session.
Feb. 1994: Page and Plant get together in a cold London studio. "We were just getting together with these tape loops to see what would happen -- if anything," Page later told the Toronto Sun. "And suddenly we had five songs in two days ... The momentum started to move so fast, we hadn't given one iota of thought to John Paul Jones."
Aug. 1994: Page and Plant reunite to record drastically different treatments of Led Zeppelin songs in Morocco, Wales and at two London concerts -- with two backing orchestras and a large band -- for an 'unplugged' MTV special, Unledded. Jones was producing the band Heart at the time and finds out about the Page-Plant project through the media. "They didn't even call him to tell him," Heart's Ann Wilson told the Toronto Sun. "One night he kind of opened up, you know, in his way, which is very polite ... But he did allow as to how it was a hurtful deal that they didn't even call."
Fall 1994: Jones tours with avant-garde performance artist Diamanda Galas in support of an album of original music, while Page and Plant announce plans for a tour.
Jan. 1995: REUNION PERFORMANCE #3: Led Zeppelin is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. At the podium, Jones thanks Page and Plant for "finally remembering my phone number." The threesome reunite with Jason Bonham on drums, and Aerosmith's Steve Tyler on vocals and Joe Perry on guitar, to jam. They play a few old rock standards but only two Zep songs, Bring it on Home and When the Levee Breaks.
Spring 1995: Page and Plant tour, playing mainly reworked Zep classics. Some 30,000 jam half of Toronto's SkyDome in March.
Spring/Summer 1998: The Page-Plant collaboration continues with an album of new material, Walking into Clarksdale, followed by a summer tour with far fewer backing musicians. Many Zep songs sound strikingly similar to the way Zep played them. Is Plant enjoying himself? No further Page-Plant plans are in the works after the tour ends.
Sept. 1999: Jones releases his first solo album, the vocal-less Zooma (did not chart).
Oct. 1999: An antsy Page tours with the Black Crowes, playing mainly Zep classics (a live album later is released). The following summer he cancels another tour, citing an injured back.
March 2000: Atlantic releases a pair of best-of Zep CDs, Early Days (1968-73) and Latter Days (1975-79)
March 2000: Page expresses his great frustration with the way Plant ended their '90s partnership: "It was great. It was fantastic. Maybe he misses having a solo career. I just don't know and I don't understand ... If you feel that, for 14 months, you've been wasting your time trying to motivate somebody who can't be motivated ... I've got other things to do."
Spring 2000: Jones tours behind Zooma, playing everything from variously strung basses, to mandolin, to keyboards, to slide guitar -- with only a backing drummer and chapman-stick player.
Sept. 2000: Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous is the first Hollywood film allowed to include Zep songs (including That's the Way).
Dec 2001: Jones tours as opening act for King Crimson behind the release of his second solo album, The Thunderthief (did not chart). Jones says he has no desire to reunite with Page or Plant. "I'm enjoying being my own boss. It's a good time. And those things always just get hundreds of personnel and it all just gets too big and complicated ... I don't think I ever want to do stadiums again ... Decision-making with the two of them is just hell on earth ... Everything is, like, always undecided. Well, life is too short to go through that all the time."
Summer 2002: Plant tours with his new backing band, The Strange Sensation, in support of their new album, Dreamland (No. 40, U.S.) -- mainly a collection of reworked psychedelic songs.
Jan. 2002: Years and even decades after their contemporaries, holdout Zeppelin finally allows one of its songs to be used in a TV commercial, as Cadillac 'hips up' its image with Rock And Roll.
May 2003: The first definitive collection of live performance footage of Zeppelin finally hits DVD. "The three of us have got together a lot to discuss the new DVD -- to decide cover art and things like that," Jones says. "Everybody's sort of eyeing each other, waiting for someone to say, 'Bring an instrument the next time we see each other.'"
Feb. 2005: Only Page and Jones attend the Grammy Awards ceremony, as Led Zeppelin wins its first (!) Grammy, a Lifetime Achievement Award.
April 2005: Plant and The Strange Sensation release their second album, Mighty ReArranger, to great critical acclaim (No. 22, U.S.).
Nov. 2007: Atlantic releases the first double best-of Zep CD Motherlode, plus bolstered CD and DVD re-releases of 1976 concert film The Song Remains the Same. Also, Zep songs and ringtones are now offered for legal download.
-- PRIMARY SOURCES: Interviews with the principals by Sun writers John Sakamoto, Jane Stevenson and John Kryk, and the book Led Zeppelin by Chris Welch.
