Page, Black Crowes Releasing Compilation On Musicmaker.Com

That Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes have chosen to release a recording of their celebrated dates together at Los Angeles’ Greek Theater last year should come as no surprise, given the critical praise the shows received. How they are choosing to release it might.

The digital music compilation “Jimmy Page And The Black Crowes Live At The Greek” was made available for sale exclusively online through Musicmaker.com - “our record label on the project,” according to Page’s manager - onFeb. 29.

A new live Who album recorded recently at shows in Chicago and London will also be made available exclusively through Musicmaker “in the next few months,” according to Bill Curbishley, the worldwide manager for Page - the co-founder of the seminal Led Zeppelin - and the Who, which recently reunited.

While a preselected, 18-track double Page/ Crowes disc will be one of the purchase options available, more visitors are expected to take advantage of the chance to custom-compile their own single- or double-album from the 19 available songs, which are a mix of newly recorded classic Led Zeppelin songs and vintage blues numbers that were recorded at shows on Oct. 18-19, 1999.

Tracks also will be available for purchase as individual downloads.

“There are many reasons we chose to do this deal this way,” says Curbishley. “One of the key ones is the ability to involve the customer and let them feel part of the creativity of making up the album.”

Customers also will be able to create their own inner sleeves by choosing from a selection of artwork available, he adds.

“Giving the fans the ability to select songs makes them part of the creative process,” says Page. “Musicmaker is pointing the way to the future for the rest of the music industry.”

“Playing with Jimmy Page at the Greek Theater was an incredible experience,” adds Chris Robinson, lead singer for the Black Crowes. “And to be able to get that music to all our fans by releasing the compilation on Musicmaker.com is a really exciting opportunity.”

While other albums have been available before as online exclusives, the Page/Crowes project adds a few new twists, participants say.

“The big story here is the marriage of prime content to technology,” says Danny Socolof, president of Las Vegas-based Mega Inc., who has a longstanding relationship with Curbishley and orchestrated the deal. “A lot of people are talking about it, the majors have been very tentative about it, but this is the first real, solid major step with superstar product that will show how well the marriage of music content and technology can work.

“The customizable-album idea is also really exciting and probably differentiates Musicmaker from everyone else in this space,” adds Socolof. “It creates a whole new paradigm for accessing and selling music.”

Custom-CD specialist Musicmaker, a publicly traded company whose shareholders include EMI Recorded Music, is taking on some of the roles of the old paradigm, however, in signing on for the Page/Crowes project.

Like more traditional record labels, the company is working a single to radio stations, for instance, and planning other marketing vehicles, including print ad campaigns.

The campaign behind the single, the classic Led Zeppelin song “What Is And What Should Never Be,” kicked off Feb. 23 when Microsoft Corp.’s WindowsMedia.com and Musicmaker offered a 24-hour-only free download of the song. The track then went to radio.