The contents of the reel of two-inch video tape start with a group of colourfully dressed men standing amongst coconut palms, miming to a song as beachgoers enjoy the sunshine behind them.
The band is Three Dog Night, the location Miami. The camera zooms in and out, keen to show both the members of the band in their vivid 1960s clothes but also the tropical setting behind them.
The video ends, another film starts. We see the tail number of a small Learjet plane. Suddenly, James Brown is there dressed all in black, dancing in front of his private jet to one of his biggest hits. Planes taxi behind him.
As the song continues and Brown’s footwork and twirls progress, he strips off his jacket and nonchalantly tosses it into the open door of his plane.
Brown’s performance ends with a perfectly timed flourish. The film cuts to Led Zeppelin in Miami in February 1969.
This was Led Zeppelin near the start of the band’s career. Having only formed the previous summer, the band were on stage in Miami as they ended their first US tour.
The members of the band look self-conscious as they mime themselves performing to “Good Times, Bad Times”. Perhaps Atlantic Records had convinced them to film this. The members of the band seem to avoid making eye contact with the camera. John Bonham bounces a drum stick off his kit, catching it in his hand.
After 10 minutes and 30 seconds, the contents of the video tape end. There is no indication that anyone watched any of this footage between 1969 and earlier this week.
The discovery of colour footage from February 1969 of Led Zeppelin miming to “Good Times, Bad Times” has been heralded by fans as a significant discovery, one of the most important pieces of footage of the band to emerge in years.
While much of the history of the film has been unclear, we do know where it came from and where it ended up. The footage was filmed at Thee Image Club in Miami, Florida on either February 14 or February 15 1969.
And we know that the footage was found by Led Zeppelin Official Forum member Zep Head in the collection of the Atlanta television show “The Now Explosion” held at the Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia.
The promotional film can be seen at 7:40 in the video linked here.
Remarkably, it seems this rare early colour footage of Led Zeppelin survived thanks to a single reel of two-inch video tape that dates back to 1969. By researching the contents of the tape itself, the company that filmed Led Zeppelin and the history of “The Now Explosion”, LedZepNews has been able to follow the tape through history up to its emergence online earlier this week.
December 1968: A new film business in Miami
The story of the tape’s discovery begins in Miami, Florida in 1968, when three men started a film production business named Media Research and Productions.
“The firm has a good deal of top flight new equipment and in Francis Flynn, Donald Faso and Dr. John Gaul three veterans of the business”, The Miami Herald reported on December 2, 1968.
Within weeks, the fledgling company seems to have found one of its first clients. Three Dog Night travelled to Miami to perform at the Miami Pop Festival on December 30, 1968. The band likely hired Media Research and Productions to film them miming to their song “Try a Little Tenderness”.
Keen to promote the single ahead of its release as a single the following month, the band members stood in Miami’s Coconut Grove and mimed themselves performing to the track.
Three Dog Night’s mimed performance of the song is the first footage seen on the reel of video tape where Led Zeppelin’s film was also recorded.
By comparing outfits worn by Three Dog Night in the mimed video with photographs of the band’s performance at the festival in Miami, we were able to conclude the footage was likely shot in Miami at that time.
The film production company seemed to specialise in cheap filming on-location, perfect for musical artists seeking to shoot low-budget promotional films.
“Media Research and Productions of Coral Gables came out this weekend with a mini-mobile unit for TV production work”, The Miami News reported on January 27, 1969. “Cost reductions for on-location production are cited as key benefit of the new video-tape units. Savings are claimed as a result of the van’s small size, which cuts transportation costs and permits operation with smaller crews.”
February 1969: Led Zeppelin are filmed miming to two songs
Led Zeppelin arrived in Miami in February 1969, where the band performed at Thee Image Club on February 14 and February 15.
While the band had the use of its club, the members of Led Zeppelin were filmed miming to both “Communication Breakdown” and “Good Times, Bad Times”.
Photographer David Levine attended the band’s February 15 show, shooting the gig as well as the members of the band in the club. One of his photographs of Bonham has what appears to be television lights in the background.
“It was Saturday, February 15, 1969, second night of a two night gig and last stop of Led Zeppelin’s 1st U.S. Tour. I had no idea who they were and had never heard their music,” Levine wrote on his website. “Can you imagine my shock when I heard them play? I heard them live before ever hearing their record. I was blown away.”
“I got some great shots. The stage was small, at ground level with decent lighting,” he continued. “After the set, Zeppelin wandered over to the concession and I shot some pictures there, mostly John Bonham. He had come up to me and said he had the same camera, a Minolta, and was building a darkroom in his house, in England.”
The exact cause of the filming of the promotional videos is unclear. Perhaps they were commissioned by Atlantic Records to promote Led Zeppelin’s music.
Footage of the band miming to “Communication Breakdown” from that day was later used in a Japanese video made by Atlantic Records which has circulated online for years in relatively poor black and white quality, thanks to a surviving copy of the film that emerged on a VHS tape.
If the filming was commissioned by Atlantic Records, it’s possible that it was organised by singer turned television presenter and actor Steve Alaimo. Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler had signed Alaimo to the label in 1967 before also signing Led Zeppelin to the label in 1968.
“I liked the way Atlantic promoted records and I wanted to go to Atlantic. Jerry Wexler signed me,” Alaimo said according to a 1996 article by Ben McLane.
As his music career faltered, Alaimo increasingly turned to film work. An undated press clipping published on Led Zeppelin’s website shows that Alaimo joined the Miami film company Media Research and Productions to work on its music filming.
That newspaper article listed a number of musical artists who had recently recorded promotional films with Media Research and Productions, including “Atlantic’s Led Zepplin” [sic].
An alternative explanation for the filming of Led Zeppelin in February 1969 was that the filming took place at the request of Rick Shaw, a local Florida radio host and video DJ.
“It is now understood that this was mimed late afternoon on February 15,” Led Zeppelin author Luis Rey wrote in his 2023 book “The Led Zeppelin Tape Documentary”. “Originally commissioned for ‘The Rick Shaw Show’ for WLBW-TV Channel 10 to be broadcast at a 7am slot,” he added.
Shaw commissioning the filming certainly makes sense, especially given the fact that he also worked at Media Research and Productions, according to a February 22, 1969 article in The Miami Herald.
Rey also claimed in his book that the footage of Led Zeppelin miming to “Communication Breakdown” was broadcast in colour in Mexico in 1970.
A colour broadcast of the footage in Mexico in 1970 is certainly possible. Months after filming Led Zeppelin in February 1969, Media Research and Productions signed a deal to expand into offering Spanish-language content, The Miami Herald reported on July 7, 1969.
By 1970, the company had expanded further into that market. It hired Errol Falcon as its head of Latin-American programming, The Miami Herald reported on January 24, 1970.
March 1969: James Brown flies into Miami
Given the fact that two of the three mimed music performances on the two-inch video tape originate from Miami, it’s possible that the third video also comes from the same company and location.
The second of three films on the tape shows Brown dancing to his song “I Got You (I Feel Good)” in front of his private jet, showcasing his dance moves on rainy airport tarmac.
It’s possible that this footage was also shot in Miami in 1969. Brown’s outfit of a black jumper underneath a black jacket appears similar to clothes he wore for a performance at Florida A&M University on March 1, 1969.
If the filming of Brown did take place in Miami, a possible link to Media Research and Productions and the tape of films it shot came in Alaimo. Alaimo had appeared alongside Brown on television earlier in the 1960s. And in 1969, Alaimo began working closely with producer Henry Stone, who had previously played a key role in Brown’s early career.
1970: ‘The Now Explosion’ takes to the airwaves
We can be reasonably confident that the video tape with “Good Times, Bad Times” on it contained footage shot in Miami in late 1968 and early 1969. But how did it end up in the collection of the Atlanta music show “The Now Explosion”?
The launch of “The Now Explosion” on March 14, 1970 was major news in the television and music industry. “Vast sums of money have been invested in the project for programming and promotion”, Billboard reported in a front page article on March 7, 1970.
“There will be sweeps of music”, the article continued. “Clips of artists performing their hits, such as those circulated by record companies to bandstand-type TV shows to expose new singles, will be used. In addition, Whitney’s production firm has created visual sequences to broadcast in conjunction with records.”
A possible journey for the tape was via Shaw, the Miami radio DJ and employee of Media Research and Productions. Shaw worked as both operations manager and an on-air host of “The Now Explosion”.
Could Shaw have brought with him a collection of taped musical performances including Led Zeppelin, Three Dog Night and Brown? It’s certainly possible, but it remains unclear whether any of the footage was broadcast on “The Now Explosion”.
Partial music logs for the show published online don’t provide signs that any of the three music films on the tape were played on “The Now Explosion”. Instead, the music logs show that in 1970 “The Now Explosion” broadcast footage of one of its dancers performing as “Good Times, Bad Times” played.
Months after it began broadcasting from Atlanta, production of “The Now Explosion” moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Florida resident Shaw then took over as one of the show’s hosts.
By early 1971, the high production costs and dropping commercial revenues meant the show couldn’t afford to stay on the air. The show’s producers cancelled the show and ended its broadcasts.
1971 was also a difficult year for Media Research and Productions. The business had been closed down by June 28, 1971, Florida business records show.
2002: The archives of ‘The Now Explosion’ are found
It was thought for years that the archives of “The Now Explosion” had been destroyed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on August 3, 2000 that the show’s tapes “wound up in a garage in Coral Gables, Fla, where they were reportedly destroyed in a flood around 1972”.
Following the publication of that article, however, the show’s former producer Genii Leary donated significant portions of the show’s archives in 2002 to the Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, according to its director Ruta M Abolins.
That donation was followed in 2016 by a further donation of around 400 reels of two-inch video tape. It was this second donation of around 400 video tapes that included a tape numbered 852.
The archives logged the tape in its database, copying the handwritten description on the box that listed its contents: “Try Tenderness”, “I Got You” and “Good Times, Bad Times”.
What the archives didn’t realise, however, is that this tape contained possibly the only surviving copy of the footage of Led Zeppelin miming to “Good Times, Bad Times” in Thee Image Club in February 1969.
2026: Researching the ‘Now Explosion’ archives
In 2026, members of Led Zeppelin’s official forum began investigating online archives relating to “The Now Explosion” since the show had broadcast videos relating to the band.
One user, Zep Head, found footage that the show had made of dancers performing to Led Zeppelin’s music.
Curious about the contents of the show’s archives, Zep Head contacted the University of Georgia and asked for it to digitise items in the collection that had mentions of Led Zeppelin song names.
“Then there was this. I was floored,” Zep Head posted on the forum on April 9. “Surely we’ve all seen the black and white ‘Communication Breakdown’ promo video that was shot in Miami in Feb 69. That grainy video.”
“Turns out they mimed TWO songs that day. And ‘Good Times, Bad Times’ was shot in color! Evidently Now Explosion acquired this footage way back when.”
For the team at the Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection at the University of Georgia, the discovery of the rare footage proves the value of its mission.
“Our job is to preserve audiovisual history, in particular television history and provide access to it. By doing that, this discovery was possible,” Abolins tells LedZepNews. “We are beyond thrilled to find out we have this unique footage of rock and roll history. We also preserve the history of Georgia music and the footage of James Brown on [the] same reel with Led Zeppelin is another treasure we are happy to preserve.”
The emergence of the Led Zeppelin footage after more than 50 years was a significant find. It’s the most important Led Zeppelin material to emerge since footage of the band performing “Dazed and Confused” in Amsterdam on October 5, 1969 was found and broadcast on Dutch television in December.
Dave Lewis, the editor of the Tight But Loose magazine and website, praised the discovery of the “Good Times, Bad Times” film, writing on Facebook: “As is well known, my Zep appreciation levels are constantly sky high but every now and again something surfaces that sends it into the stratosphere – the ‘Good Times, Bad Times’ promo clip is one such occasion.”
This is an amazing find! Hope that either Jimmy or someone will release it without all the logos on it. Would love it if there was another DVD/Blu Ray release of some of the new material that has surfaced along with more of the Earl’s Court and Knebworth material.
For some, the timer and logos add to the nostalgic experience.
I don’t know which term I despise the most, miming or lip-syncing. 9 times out of ten artists didn’t perform live for shows on television anyway. But this tape will be revered by Led Zeppelin fans, and The Guess Who fans like me enjoy both bands.