Led Zeppelin, The #23 Artist of the Rock Era, Part One

"Legendary."

"One of the best bands ever."

"The Mighty sound of the Zeppelin will never...ever...be equaled."

"They changed Rock music forever."

"Legends pass away but legacies never die."

"The undisputed kings of Rock."

"Led Zeppelin:  The Greatest Rock Band That Ever Was And Ever Will Be".

"They are iconic."

"This group is so unique and so talented."

"I will always love Led Zeppelin".

"Their body of work is unbelievable."

"Zeppelin FOREVER!"

"Timeless and brilliant."

"Rock and roll legends."

"The best of the best from British rock."

"One of the all-time greatest band of musicians ever."

"Led Zeppelin rocks the house down."

In 1966, session guitarist Jimmy Page joined the group the Yardbirds, giving the group two of the Top Guitarists of the Rock Era (with Page and Jeff Beck).  Beck left later that year, and the remaining members were exhausted from a constant schedule of touring and recording.  The group played their final show in 1968, but were still committed to several Scandinavia dates, so drummer McCarty and vocalist Keith Relf gave Page and bassist Chris Dreja permission to use the Yardbirds' name to fulfill their obligations.

Page and Dreja started to assemble a new lineup.  Page first dreamed of a supergroup with Beck and drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle of the Who.  That dream fell apart, sending Page back to the drawing board.  Jimmy's first choice for lead singer was Terry Reid, but Reid declined and instead suggested Robert Plant of the Band of Joy.  Plant came aboard, and brought drummer John Bonham with him.  When Dreja dropped out of the group to become a photographer, John Paul Jones asked about the vacant position of bassist.  Page was already aware of Jones's ability when they were both session musicians, and the lineup was complete.

In August of 1968, the four musicians played together for the first time in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London.  Before leaving to perform in Scandinavia, the group recorded "Jim's Blues" with P.J. Proby for Proby's album Three Week Hero.  The band finished the tour billed as the New Yardbirds, making their live debut at Gladsaxe Teen Clubs in Denmark on September 7.

Based on their live sets, the group began recording their first album.  But they had to change their name prior to the album's release as Dreja issued a cease and desist letter stating that Page was to use the New Yardbirds name only for the Scandinavia dates.

Back when the reformation of the Yardbirds was in its initial stages, Moon and Entwistle suggested that a supergroup with Page and Beck would go down like a "lead balloon".  But that dismissal led to the name of one of the top groups in history.  Manager Peter Grant liked that idea for a name change, but suggested the group drop the 'a' in lead so that those unfamiliar with the term would not pronounce it "leed".  Further, the band replaced the word "balloon" with "zeppelin".

After changing their name, Led Zeppelin signed with Atlantic Records in a contract that gave them tremendous artistic freedom.  The group had complete autonomy in deciding when they would release albums and when they would tour, and had the final say on the songs and design for each album.  The contract also gave them an advance of $143,000 (over $1 million in today's dollars), the biggest deal ever for a new band.  Zeppelin made another wise decision when they formed their own company, Superhype, which would control their publishing rights.

 

The group played its first show as Led Zeppelin at the University of Surrey in Battersea, England on October 25, 1968.  Richard Cole organized their first tour of North America later in the year.  The band released their self-titled debut album in 1969; it peaked at #6 in the U.K. and #10 in the U.S.  The single "Good Times, Bad Times" received limited airplay and stalled at #80.  

Bonham, one of The Top 100 Drummers of the Rock Era*, came up with a technique called a "triplet" to achieve what sounds like he is playing two bass drums.  Bonham used the tip of his toe to hit the bass pedal back fast.  Page explained how the song was constructed in the BBC book Guitar Greats:

     "Good Times, Bad Times" came out of a riff with a

       great deal of John Paul Jones on bass, and it 

       really knocked everybody sideways when they 

      heard the bass drum pattern, because I think 

      everyone was laying bets that Bonzo (Bonham) was 

      using two bass drums, but he only had one.

 

The flip side, "Communication Breakdown", is another highlight.  It is one of the few times that Page sang backing vocals on a song.  Jimmy developed the guitar riff while the group was performing in Scandinavia and still billed as the New Yardbirds.  Page achieved the sound with a small, miked amplifier.  He explained it this way to Guitar Player magazine in 1977:

     I put it in a small room, a tiny vocal booth-type thing

     and miked it from a distance. You see, there's a 

    very old recording maxim which goes, '"Distance 

    makes depth." I've used that a hell of a lot on

     recording techniques with the band generally, not 

     just me. You're always used to them close-miking

     amps, just putting the microphone in front, but I'd

     have a mic right out the back, as well, and then

     balance the two, to get rid of all the phasing

     problems; because really, you shouldn't have to use 

     an EQ in the studio if the instruments sound right. It 

     should all be done with the microphones. But see,                   everyone has gotten so carried away with EQ pots

     that they have forgotten the whole science of microphone       placement.

Steve Erlewine of All Music Guide says that the album's memorable guitar riffs, lumbering rhythms, psychedelic blues, groovy, bluesy shuffles and hints of English folk music "made it a significant turning point in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal."

 

Though most of its sales have been in the last few decades, the group's debut is now over the eight-million mark.  Led Zeppelin's remake of the Willie Dixon tune "I Can't Quit You Baby" is a note-for-note copy, and the group performed it in concerts their first two years.

"Dazed And Confused" is a song that Jake Holmes used to perform and Page heard it at a venue that the New Yardbirds and Holmes shared.  Although Jimmy completely changed the lyrics and much of the music, Holmes later sued the band in 2010.  As a result of the settlement, the Led Zeppelin credit has to read "written by Jimmy Page.  Inspired by Jake Holmes.  Page talked about the album to Ray Padgett for the book Cover Me:  The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time:

     Led Zeppelin was created in a very crisp

     businesslike fashion,” Plant has said of the first

     album. “Nobody really knew each other. The

     record and the jamming was what it was, and it 

     was a very swift session.

"They were really well-rehearsed, engineer Glyn Johns said.  "They'd picked all the material and they knew exactly what they were doing," he continued.  "So half the job had already been done by them, and probably by Jimmy--who would certainly take the credit for it."

The band toured heavily to promote their album before recording much of their second album in North American studios, releasing Led Zeppelin II later in the year.  Like its predecessor, it was largely the result of extended jams of Blues standards.

 

The album went to #1 in both the U.S. and U.K.  Unlike many acts before and since, Led Zeppelin preferred not to re-edit existing tracks on their albums for single release.  An edited version of "Whole Lotta Love" was released as a single in the U.S., hitting #4 and selling over one million copies.  It would be the group's one and only Top 10 hit.

One of the most interesting sections of the song is when listeners can faintly make out Plant's whisper ("Way down...inside....woman...you need it.")  This is an example of what is called a "backward echo", and it is one of the first uses of such a process, though it happened by accident.  

While recording, a different take of Plant's vocal bled into the master vocal track, and when Page and engineer Eddie Kramer began to mix the song, they couldn't get rid of the background vocal.  So they did the next best thing--they added reverb to bring attention to the "mistake", making it sound as if it was intentional.

 

Two important instruments made their debut in "What Is And What Should Never Be":  Page's new Les Paul guitar, which can be heard jumping back and forth from one stereo channel to the other, and Bonham's Chinese gong, which can be heard in the middle section, which Bonham used as part of his drum kit in live shows.

The group also shied away from television appearances, preferring to perform for their fans in live concerts.  They completed several more U.S. tours after the release of Led Zeppelin II, playing in clubs and ballrooms at first.  Despite minimum material, the group still played many nights over four hours, featuring expanded versions of the songs in their repertoire.

 

Led Zeppelin II has been certified as a 12-million seller.  Two of the Top Tracks of the Rock Era* are often featured together--"Heartbreaker" and "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)".  The former, which Zeppelin often opened live shows with, features a solo from Page that it is in a slightly different pitch than the rest of the song.  It was recorded in a different studio after the rest of the song was completed, and was added as an afterthought!

"Living Loving Maid" is a song about a groupie which bothered the group in their early days.

Members of the group that became so well known for their Blues numbers were all influenced by the genre.  "Bring It On Home" is so similar to Willie Dixon's song of the same name that Led Zep now credits it as having been written by Dixon in a settlement over the song's royalties.

"Ramble On" is another Top Track* on the album.  This is an example of where Plant's love of literary classics translated to disc.  He wrote of his character going to "the darkest depths of Mordor" and encountering "Gollum and the evil one."  Fans of Lord of the Ring will recognize those lines.

In 1970, Page and Plant holed up in Bron-Yr-Aur, a secluded cottage in Wales, to work on the group's next album, a much more acoustic and folksy effort.  Although the building had no electricity nor running water, it was an inspiration for many of the songs. Led Zeppelin III also topped the Album charts in both the U.S. and U.K. and has now gone over six million in sales in the United States alone.

 

Plant's lyrics could be an entire subject of a course on songwriting.  The line "the land of ice and snow" refers to Iceland, where the band performed in June of 1970 as guests of the Icelandic Government.  The line "The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands" was adopted by fans of the band who referred to Led Zep's sound as the "hammer of the gods."

"Immigrant Song" was released as a single against the group's wishes, and stalled at #20.

Limiting their single releases, Led Zeppelin sold albums, though not close to the level you see today.  A vast majority of their career sales occurred towards the end of their run and afterwards.  Without those unusually strong sales after their breakup, they would not be ranked near this high, but their popularity grew as the years went by.  

 

This track was recorded for inclusion on the band's second album but lost out to "Whole Lotta' Love".  By the time the group recorded it, they had perfected it in live shows, though Page said it was still one of the hardest songs on the album to record.  Keen listeners can hear the squeak of Bonham's drum pedal on "Since I've Been Loving You".

Along with their reputation for influential, professional, groundbreaking music was their reputation for destruction and debauchery off the stage and at hotels they stayed at.   They traveled in a private jet, drank and used drugs all night, and such was the damage to one room at the Tokyo Hilton that the group was banned from that hotel for life.  

"Bron-Y-Aur Stomp", named after the place where the album was recorded but spelled differently, was written for Plant's dog Strider, who accompanied his owner to the cottage.  There's yet another homage to Lord of the Rings--Strider is an alias of Aragon, one of the heroes of the novel.

The group arguably reached their peak with the next album, which is next in Part Two!