Led Zeppelin – Whole Lotta Love, Building the Legend

1

Contents Chapter One

BUILDING THE LEGEND.................. 3 Chapter Two

THE BRON-YR-AUR DAYS............... 17 Chapter Three

THE MYTHOLOGY IS BORN.........31

2

- CHAPTER ONE -

BUILDING THE LEGEND

T

he fiery mix of characters and incredible musicianship that made up Led Zeppelin had been capturing the attention of the public since their official formation in 1968. By the year 1969 they were ready to break into the big leagues, with the release of their second album Led Zeppelin II, yet there were still obstacles to overcome. Legal battles, critical disdain and touring burnout all faced Led Zeppelin as they launched into the next phase of their extraordinary career.

In 1969 Led Zeppelin’s popularity had begun to take off like a rocket. The momentum was obvious to everyone, and Peter Grant was astute enough to realise that the band’s real destiny lay in the USA and that the best way to cement the band’s reputation was to tour this vital market as often and widely as possible, to the virtual exclusion of their own home territory, there being only the Bath festival appearance to satiate English audiences.

Everywhere on Earth it seemed the demand for Zeppelin’s music was exploding and it seemed too that the band was ready to appear anywhere at the drop of a hat. In the US in particular, demand was so high that the band decided to seize their moment and began touring harder than ever in bigger and bigger US venues. The band’s dissatisfaction with the sound recording on some early European TV appearances though, led to Zeppelin refusing to appear on television anywhere – even in the vital US market. Even this apparently suicidal stance failed to dent demand for concert tickets and may even have stimulated the public appetite for a band which, despite the continuing rumours, was clearly built on genuine talent and

was certainly not being over-hyped by record labels. In fact exactly the opposite was true.

After 1969, the only TV appearance sanctioned by the band was a brief clip shot by ABC in Australia in 1972.

None of this did Zeppelin any harm, and in fact the growing mystique surrounding the group seemed to actually work in their favour as the band worked relentlessly to establish a deserved reputation as the best live act on the planet.

The constant round of live work meant that in the first half of 1969 the band had no set time to write or rehearse.

In consequence they were forced to write the new album on the road at soundchecks and in snatched sessions in hotel rooms. The album was also recorded on the road, in seven separate countries, at a variety of studios in sessions that were squeezed into rest beaks along the way. Nonetheless a stunning album was somehow completed and released in October 1969. Despite its unorthodox creation Led Zeppelin II ( as it was inevitably labelled, despite the fact that it bore no formal title ) was a much faster seller than its predecessor.

Topping the US charts for seven weeks, it also creatively outstripped its glittering antecedent.

3

John Paul Jones later explained to writer Barney Hoskyns that the constant stream of live work provided the opportunity for a huge number of onstage jams, and it was one of these jams which was the catalyst to Led Zeppelin’s most famous riff. This was the driving force behind Whole Lotta Love, the masterpiece that opened their second album.

Whole Lotta Love is often cited as the archetypal piece of ‘cock rock’, defining Led Zeppelin’s appeal to an audience of male headbangers. In sonic terms, Led Zeppelin II lacks the crispness of its predecessor. As the master tapes went on the road with the band and overdubs were added as-and-when, the album over all acquired a slightly muddy distorted sound in some places. However, when you crank it up to sufficient volume, who cares if it’s not strictly hi-fi? Once again it was heavy blues to the fore, balanced by the beautiful Ramble On and Thank You, showing Robert Plant as an emerging lyricist.

Here we find the roots of what was to flourish fully within the fourth Led Zeppelin album.

Shortly after the completion of the album Page explained the convoluted recording process of Led Zeppelin II to John Ingham at Sounds: ‘It was recorded while the group was on the move, technological gypsies. No base, no home. All you could relate to was a new horizon and a suitcase. So there’s a lot of movement and aggression. A lot of bad feeling towards being put in that situation. The album took such a long time to make, it was all on and off. It was quite insane really. We had no time and we had to write numbers in hotel rooms. By the time the album came out, I was really fed up with it. I’d just heard it so many times in so many places. I really think I lost confidence in it. Even though people were saying it was great, I wasn’t convinced myself. We’re playing more as a band than before though. Everybody’s playing in such a way as to bring out everybody else. I’m really happy with it, and I’m not usually that optimistic about them, because I’ve lived every mistake over and over. There are so many things that have come out from those conditions of having to finish it in a certain time. I was amazed at the inventiveness, the fact that no overdubs were wasted… Just totally taking chances, experimentation, and they seemed to work. Everything seemed to be on our side, to flow out. There’s a blues that’s so 4

held back. Seven minutes long and at no point does anyone blow out. That’s one of the solos I thought I’d never get out. Everyone’s been doing blues since 1964. “It’s going to fall into clichés or it’s going to be too jazzy,” but everything worked OK. So things like that really encourage me. I do worry that the second album is turning out so different from the first. We may have overstepped the mark. But then again, I suppose there are enough Led Zeppelin trademarks in there. It’s very hard rock, no doubt about that. There aren’t many bands into hard rock these days and I think that might account for some of our success. All sorts of people are into folk, country and soft stuff. We just like to play it hard and bluesy.’

By now the group had established its own routine in the studio as Jimmy Page explained to Steve Rosen during the group’s 1977 US tour: ‘Most of the tracks just start off bass, drums, and guitar and once you’ve done the drums and bass, you just build everything up afterwards. It’s like a starting point, and you start constructing from square one.’

Amazingly, for someone who had spent so much time in the studio Page still got nervous when it came time to record his solos at which point he insisted that the studio should be cleared. ‘I don’t like anybody else in the studio when I’m putting on the guitar parts. I usually just limber up for a while and then maybe do three solos and take the best from the three.’

Robert Plant was equally happy with the album and was justifiably proud of the breadth of the musical offerings contained on the album: ‘With things like Ramble On and Thank You we are definitely deviating from the original Zeppelin intensity, but without losing any quality. I think we’ve probably gained quality, because my voice is being used in different ways instead of confining it to a good, safe formula. I think the open chord sort of thing, like Neil Young also uses, is beautiful. I’m obsessed with that kind of music, particularly when it has really good lyrics… intense lyrics. What I want to do is to sit down and write songs and say to the rest of the band: “Listen to this.”’

Led Zeppelin II was released on 22 October 1969 on Atlantic Records, with advance orders of 400,000 copies.

The promotional advertising campaign was built around the slogans ‘Led Zeppelin – The Only Way to Fly’ and ‘Led Zeppelin II Now Flying’. In the United States, some commercially duplicated reel-to-reel copies of Led Zeppelin II made by Ampex bore the title Led Zeppelin II – The Only Way to Fly on their spine.

These promotional slogans perfectly complemented the album sleeve, which derived from a poster by David Juniper.

Juniper had attended Sutton Art College in Sutton, like Page, and was simply asked by the band to come up with ‘an interesting idea’ for the cover.

Juniper’s idea was based on a photograph of the Jagdstaffel 11 Division of the German Air Force during the First World War, the Flying Circus led by the Red Baron. Juniper replaced four of the flyers’ heads with photos of the band members, added facial hair and sunglasses to some of the flyers’ faces or replaced some with the faces of other people.

The blonde-haired woman is French actress Delphine Seyrig in her role as MarieMagdalene in the film Mister Freedom, a leftist anti-war satire by William Klein. The cover also pictured the outline of a Zeppelin on a brown background, a nod to the cover of the band’s first album.

Juniper relayed the creation of the classic artwork to the Album Cover Hall of Fame in 2007: ‘In the late sixties in London, anything seemed possible! I was employed at the time in a boring Art Director’s job, so I got a lot of satisfaction out of moonlighting on speculative stuff.

‘The music of Led Zeppelin I had blown me away and so, on spec, I mocked up a fold-out design for the second album and took it to Peter Grant and Micky Most at Rak Records. I

had a few friends starting to get into the music industry and they helped to point me in their direction.

‘The combination of collage/photography and airbrush illustration was ground-breaking for me, because the traditional airbrush technique was very tricky, especially when compared to today’s digital equivalents. The cover imagery was completely experimental and I liked the combination of the abstract ghostly Zeppelin shape along with a faded sepia First World War photo of German Aviators.

‘All the faces were replaced or altered (sunglasses and beards on some of the pilots).

In amongst the four band members (airbrushed in from a publicity photograph) are Miles Davis (or was it Blind Willie Johnson?), a girlfriend/ muse of Andy Warhol (perhaps Mary Woronov) and the astronaut Neil Armstrong.

The original photo of the Jasta Division of the German Air Force came from an old book about the Sopwith Camel, which was a famous British biplane from the Great War. ‘I used bright inks to make the illustration parts really pop. I just presented it to the group and they went for it, with only a few changes to the inside spread. The outside cover went through as it was proposed.

‘The inside image is full-on psychedelia, in contrast to the original idea discussed, which had a Zeppelin flying past the Statue of Liberty. They did not want something on the inside with a similar feel to the outside, so I just went for a colourful painting as a complete contrast to the outside. I remembered a documentary film of 1920s and 1930s German architecture and thought this approach would give the image a heavy rock/blues feel.

‘By the time [Led Zeppelin II] came out, I was really fed up with it.

I’d just heard it so many times in so many places.

I really think I lost confidence in it.’

JIMMY PAGE

5

‘Anyway, from that point forward, the group’s management was all very friendly and used me on other covers for some of their other artists, including Donovan and Lulu. Another great treat was to be asked down to Olympic Studios in Barnes while they worked on the recording, but what pleased me the most was that cover was nominated at the 1968 Grammy Awards.’

Commercially, Led Zeppelin II was the band’s first album to hit No. 1 in the US, knocking The Beatles’ Abbey Road from the top spot, where it remained for seven weeks. By April 1970 it had registered three million American sales, whilst in Britain it enjoyed a 138-week residence on the LP chart, climbing to the top spot in February 1970.

Meanwhile, the album reached No. 1 in five other national albums charts (including Spain, Canada and Australia). In November Ritchie Yorke reported in Billboard that while the album had achieved ‘staggering sales’, considering that as a hard rock record it was determined unsuitable for North American Top 40 radio stations, who were ‘dreary and detached from the mainstream of contemporary rock music’.

Despite album’s phenomenal commercial success, the critical reception was unsurprisingly negative. Led Zeppelin’s old nemesis Rolling Stone published a review of the record in which John Mendelsohn mocked the group’s heavy sound and white blues. He further stated that ‘until you’ve listened to the album eight hundred times, as I have, it seems as if it’s just one especially heavy song extended over the space of two whole sides’.

Influential journalist Robert Christgau also accused the album of feeling repetitive, complaining that ‘all the songs sound alike’ and referring scathingly to Led Zeppelin as ‘the best of the wah-wah mannerist groups, so dirty they drool on demand’.

Ultimately Christgau did ultimately concede that Led Zeppelin II was a good album overall, and particularly praised ‘pitting Jimmy Page’s repeated low-register fuzz riffs against the untiring freak intensity of Robert Plant’s vocal. This trademark has only emerged clearly on the second album, and more and more I am coming to understand it as an artistic triumph.’

6

7

Fortunately for Led Zeppelin, the work clearly spoke for itself, and the cold response from critics did nothing to dampen the fan’s enthusiasm for the album, and less than a month after its release Led Zeppelin II was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

With the second album adding to the huge upsurge in fame and fortune for Led Zeppelin, accusations of hype continued to be thrown against the band, a situation which Page felt was both inexplicable and thoroughly annoying.

‘No one can tell just how a group like ours would be received,’ he said. ‘No one really expected for it to reach the proportions that it has. We were only prefabricated in as much as we deliberately set out to form a group. What happened after that was up to the public, and you cannot foist something on the Americans now because you happen to be English. The last thing to happen in America which was English was Joe Cocker, and that was last July. In many ways we took more risks than groups like Blind Faith and Humble Pie, who carefully prepared their music before making public appearances. Our album was cut within three weeks of the group’s formation and we began work almost at once, so it could hardly be accused of being contrived or pre-packed in that sense.’

Of the group’s unexpectedly strong US fanbase, Page told Altham, ‘We’ve not managed to establish ourselves so heavily in Britain, simply because most of our energies have been directed towards America. The mass media in this country is still not reflective of what the majority of young people want to listen to, but in the States it is. Audiences in Britain are more discerning than America – almost hyper-

critical – because they get so many good groups. But we have been able to hold our own on the major concerts that we have played here. Contrary to popular opinion, it is not the money that is so important to big groups in America – it is the venues and the number of people you can communicate to which is so pleasing. There are very few halls in England which can accommodate more than a few thousand people although we do have an incredible number of very talented musicians. In America now, they are veering towards a softer country and western approach, so any English group that steams in with heavy, earthy sounds is almost overwhelming to the audiences. There is a tendency to return to some of the early rock and roll songs now, almost as a reaction against the heavy, intellectual and analytical forms it has been taking.

It’s very understandable to me – we play it when the mood takes us. It’s the perfect balance – so simple. You can’t read anything but what there is into songs like I’ve Gotta Woman. Some music has just got a little too complicated for the public.’

The second album led to yet more claims of alleged plagiarism, with the representatives of Willie Dixon provoking a lawsuit against the band from Arc Music. Jimmy Page considered the controversy in his interview for Trouser Press in the summer of 1977, stating, ‘The thing is they were traditional lyrics and they went back far before a lot of people that one related them to. The riffs we did were totally different, also, from the ones that had come before, apart from something like You Shook Me and I Can’t Quit You, which were attributed to Willie Dixon. The thing with Bring It On Home, Christ, there’s only a tiny bit taken from Sonny Boy Williamson’s version and we

‘You can’t read anything but what there is into songs like I’ve Gotta Woman. Some music has just got a little too complicated for the public.’

JIMMY PAGE

8

threw that in as a tribute to him. People say, “Oh, Bring It On Home is stolen.” Well, there’s only a little bit in the song that relates to anything that had gone before it, just the end.’ Page has also been quoted as saying, ‘I’ve often thought that in the way the Stones tried to be the sons of Chuck Berry, we tried to be the sons of Howlin’ Wolf.’

In terms of reviews, former Led Zeppelin enemy number one John Mendelsohn described Led Zeppelin II as a ‘heavyweight’ of an album, adding that the niche the band had carved out for themselves through the long player was both ‘distinctive and enchanting’ ◊

A track-by-track review of

Led Zeppelin II Released 22 October 1969 Produced by Jimmy Page With a debut album that was as good as Led Zeppelin I, it was always going to be a difficult task to keep the standard up.

This was a classic occasion for the band to develop ‘difficult second album syndrome’, but Zeppelin rose to the challenge magnificently and other than the quality of the sound recording, this new offering surpassed the first album in every respect.

Sometimes called ‘The Brown Bomber’ (One wonders whether this was because of the often ‘muddy’ sound!) Led Zeppelin II’s greatest weakness is in the recording quality.

This was probably caused by several things: the album was recorded in a number of studios in different countries (seven in fact, and there were only nine songs), often while the band had heavy touring commitments. This gave the recordings a sonic inconsistency that had it been recorded today would probably not have posed such distinct differences because of digital recording techniques and facilities.

Secondly, time has usually proven that a better album usually results from consistent and often intense recording periods, i.e. not hopping from studio to studio. Led Zeppelin I was certainly proof of how effective this could be, recorded in a matter of days on a relatively (for the day) tight budget – the same results are rarely achieved when truck loads of money are poured into a project. Ironically, it’s the remastering of Led Zeppelin II that has really highlighted the studio inconsistencies. That aside, no one can deny what a classic rock album it (very quickly) became, or that it is indeed a great listen, even today.

Whole Lotta Love (Page/Plant/Jones/Bonham) This is certainly one of the classic rock songs of all time, and although live renditions really brought out the best in the song, the studio version was certainly not timid.

Great drumming and bass work from Bonham and Jones respectively really pin the song down, and the guitar work, especially Jimmy’s classic riff, is certainly something to behold. Robert Plant’s vocals were amongst the best he ever committed to tape.

Jimmy Page apparently came up with the guitar riff for Whole Lotta Love in the summer of 1968, whilst on his houseboat in Berkshire. John Paul Jones has contradicted this, stating that Page’s famous riff probably emerged from a stage improvisation during the band’s playing of Dazed and Confused. However, Page denied that the song originated onstage and that he had the riff and the rest took it from there.

Upon release of Led Zeppelin III, radio stations looked for a track that would fit their on-air formats and the pulsing 9

10

lead track Whole Lotta Love was the obvious contender.

However, as many radio stations saw the freeform middle section as unfit to air, they created their own edited versions.

Atlantic Records was quick to respond, and in addition to the release of the regular single in the US they released a radio friendly version of the track with the freeform section removed, and an earlier fade-out. The edited version was intended for radio station promotional release but some copies were apparently released commercially in the US and are now a valuable a collector’s item for fans.

In 1962, Muddy Waters recorded a blues vocal, You Need Love, for Chess Records. As he had done with You Shook Me, Waters overdubbed vocals on an instrumental track previously recorded by blues guitarist Earl Hooker and his band. Willie Dixon wrote the lyrics, which Dixon biographer Mitsutoshi Inaba describes as being “about the necessity of love”: In 1966, British band the Small Faces recorded the song as You Need Loving for their eponymous debut Decca album. According to Steve Marriott, the group’s vocalist and guitarist, Page and Plant attended several Small Faces gigs, where they expressed their interest in the song. Plant’s phrasing is particularly similar to that of Marriott’s, who claimed ‘he [Plant] sang it the same, phrased it the same, even the stops at the end were the same’.

Similarities with You Need Love led to a lawsuit against Led Zeppelin in 1985, settled out of court in favour of Dixon for an undisclosed amount. On subsequent releases, Dixon’s name is included on the credits for Whole Lotta Love. Plant explained in an interview with Musician: ‘Page’s riff was Page’s riff. It was there before anything else. I just thought, ‘Well, what am I going to sing?’ That was it, a nick. Now happily paid for. At the time, there was a lot of conversation about what to do. It was decided that it was so far away in time and influence that… well, you only get caught when you’re successful. That’s the game.’

What Is and What Should Never Be (Page/Plant) A vastly under-rated track, this one really displayed how effective Led Zeppelin were at creating light and shade in 11

their soundscapes. Page’s gentle slide guitar is a joy to hear, as are his ballsy riffs. Best of all however is Plant’s vocals, that give the song quite a futuristic feel. Classic use of early stereo phasing, and the dynamic use of panning in the coda, show that it’s often the old and simple studio tricks that work best.

What Is and What Should Never Be was actually one of the first songs on which Page used his soon-to-become trademark Gibson Les Paul for recording. The production made liberal use of stereo as the guitars pan back and forth between channels. Robert Plant’s vocals were phased during the verses. Record producer Rick Rubin has remarked, ‘The descending riff is amazing: It’s like a bow is being drawn back, and then it releases. The rhythm of the vocals is almost like a rap. It’s insane – one of their most psychedelic songs.’

This was also one of the first songs recorded by the band for which Robert Plant received writing credit. According to rock journalist Stephen Davis, the lyrics for this song reflect a romance Plant had with his wife’s younger sister.

The Lemon Song (Page/Plant/Jones/Bonham/Burnett) This was another song that provoked a legal battle for Led Zeppelin. The composition evolved from the song Killing Floor by Howlin’ Wolf (real name Chester Burnett) who was not credited upon the original release of the song. In fact during some early performances Robert Plant even introduced the song as Killing Floor, and an early UK pressing of Led Zeppelin II gave the track the same title and credited it to Chester Burnett. It was not until the second and third North American tours that the song evolved into The Lemon Song, with Plant often improvising lyrics onstage.

Arc Music, owner of the publishing rights, sued Led Zeppelin for copyright infringement and the parties settled out of court. Though the amount was not disclosed, Howlin’ Wolf received a check for $45,123 from Arc Music immediately following the suit, and subsequent releases included a co-songwriter credit for him.

The song is often noted, and rightly so, for a superb, funk-influenced and mostly improvised performance from John Paul Jones on bass. In fact, the whole band turn in 12

great performances, with Robert Plant growling away, even borrowing lyrics from his mentors – ‘squeeze me baby, ‘til the juice runs down my leg’ is from Robert Johnson’s Travelling Riverside Blues. The song also references Albert King’s CrossCut Saw. The Lemon Song was dropped from Led Zeppelin’s live set in late 1969. However, the ‘squeeze my lemon’ sequence continued to be inserted into the Whole Lotta Love medley and ad-libbed elsewhere.

Thank You (Page/Plant) Thank You was a significant track for Zeppelin, as it was the first for which Robert Plant wrote all the lyrics, signalling his transition into deeper involvement in songwriting.

Plant wrote the song as a tribute to his then-wife Maureen, and it is a balanced and mellow number. The track boasts beautiful keyboard playing from John Paul Jones, and some wonderfully gentle guitar playing from Page gives this song a particularly pleasant intro. The song also showcases another exceptional, and melodic, bass performance, although again it’s Plant’s vocals that give this a sound of its own. Although not complex in composition, it maintains a rather clever feel throughout. It was a lovely end to the original side one of the vinyl, something that was ever so important before the arrival of CDs. Record producer Rick Rubin remarked on the song’s structure: ‘The delicacy of the vocals is incredible; the acoustic guitar and the organ work together to create an otherworldly presence.’

The song was also a hit with critics and Mark Richardson of Pitchfork found Thank You to be ‘musically brilliant’, and that it ‘mixes folk with proto-metal’ via ‘chiming acoustic guitars’ that ‘provide the contrast to the crunch in a whole new way’.

Heartbreaker (Page/Plant/Jones/Bonham) To some this was the best song on the album. It certainly was the song with killer riff number two (or number one if you preferred it to Whole Lotta Love). As far as a classic rock song goes, it had everything. Great riffs throughout, fantastically

vibrant solos, strong romping rhythm section and very cool vocals. It also includes a spontaneous unaccompanied solo, using a pull-off technique, which has frequently been voted one of the greatest guitar solos of all time.

In a 1998 interview with Guitar World, Page commented that the guitar solo was recorded in a different studio, thereby giving a different sound than the rest of the song. He added that this was the first recorded instance of his Gibson Les Paul/Marshall Stack combination.

Rick Rubin has remarked that Heartbreaker contains, ‘One of the greatest riffs in rock. It starts, and it’s like they don’t really know where the “one” is. Magical in its awkwardness.’

Guitar legend Eddie Van Halen once claimed the Heartbreaker solo was the inspiration for his tapping technique, and in one review with Guitar World, he said: ‘I think I got the idea of tapping watching Jimmy Page do his Heartbreaker solo back in 1971. He was doing a pulloff to an open string, and I thought wait a minute, open string… pull off. I can do that, but what if I use my finger as the nut and move it around? I just kind of took it and ran with it.’

Steve Vai also commented about the song’s influence upon hit in September 1998: ‘This one had the biggest impact on me as a youth. It was defiant, bold, and edgier than hell. It really is the definitive rock guitar solo.’

Heartbreaker was a smashing song in 1969 and it’s a smashing song today. When performed live, it was absolutely dynamite, and was played every year that the band toured.

As this song immediately follows Heartbreaker, radio stations often played them together in succession, with the two flowing seamlessly together. This does not impress Jimmy Page however, as it is said to be his least favourite Led Zeppelin song and thus was never performed in concert.

Nonetheless, it is one of the few tracks where Page sang backing vocals, and is not a bad little number for a rock ’n’ roller.

Living Loving Maid was also released as the B-side to Whole Lotta Love. That was a sensible choice considering this one was always going to be pleasant album filler, but never the star of the show.

Ramble On (Page/Plant) Ramble On shows the gentle side of Zeppelin at the beginning, then progresses with a nice grungy riff before returning to a gentle section again, with rather wonderful guitar orchestra by Jimmy Page.

The lyrics are heavily influenced by Tolkien, with nods to Gollum and Mordor amongst the references.

Despite this, the lyrics are without pretension, and the dynamic arrangement and interlocking rhythm playing are simply superb.

Page explained that he achieved the smooth, sustaining violin-like tone on the solo by using the neck pickup on his Les Paul with the treble cut and utilising a sustain-producing effects unit built by audio engineer Roger Mayer.

Sadly until 2007, Ramble On was never performed live in its entirety, although Plant has performed the song regularly on solo tours, and it was part of Page and Plant’s live set in the mid-1990s. It was finally performed live for the first time

by Led Zeppelin at the Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert at London’s O2 Arena.

‘I’ve often thought that in the way the Stones tried to be the sons of Chuck Berry, we tried to be the sons of Howlin’ Wolf.’

JIMMY PAGE

Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman) (Page/Plant) Living Loving Maid was apparently written about a groupie who constantly bothered the band early in their career.

13

14

15

In a retrospective review of Led Zeppelin II, Michael Madden of Consequence of Sound praised Ramble On, describing the track as ‘mellow and well-balanced’ with ‘a boost from John Paul Jones’ garter snake bass playing.’

It is certainly a worthy track, and a prime example of classic early Zeppelin.

Moby Dick (Page/Jones/Bonham) Big riffs demand big themes, and there are few bigger than the great white whale – even if, as we suspect, Plant was at least partially talking in metaphor. Nonetheless, this track boasts another killer from Jimmy Page and the band are off on this intrepid John Bonham vehicle, which became a platform for the drummer to really show off his skills.

The tune emerged when Jimmy Page recorded parts of John Bonham’s solos when he was jamming or improvising in the studio. These illicit recordings were pieced together and formed the basis for the track.

The beginning and end of the song feature a power trio of Bonham, Page and bassist John Paul Jones performing a twelve bar blues riff, leaving the remainder of the song open for Bonham to really shine. Robert Plant didn’t sing on the track at all and in concert would simply introduce Bonham to the audience before the tune started.

The guitar riff on Moby Dick can be traced back to the BBC unused session track The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair, which was recorded in the summer of 1969. The riff is also noticeably similar to that of Bobby Parker’s 1961 single, Watch Your Step, although the progression is in a different key and tempo (so thankfully no lawsuit this time).

Live, this track became a mainstay, and no one can deny how classy Bonham was when he really set to it with this one in an arena.

Bonham’s drum solo was often played at Led Zeppelin concerts from the first North American tour in November 1968, being his solo performance showcase on concert tours through 1977. When played live, Bonham’s drum solo would sometimes last as little as six minutes or, more frequently, as long as half-an-hour, while the rest of the band left the stage after playing the introduction. The track truly is a monument 16

to his incredible talent, and the unique virtuosity that Bonham brought to the band.

Bring It On Home (Page/Plant) This is an absolutely stunning blues track from Jimmy and the boys. The track consists of an original composition sandwiched between two excerpts of the Sonny Boy Williamson song of the same name (written by Willie Dixon).

Unsurprisingly, another legal battle and payout ensued, when Arc Music brought a further claim against Led Zeppelin for using Bring It On Home without its permission.

The group maintained that they copied parts of the song as an intentional tribute to Williamson, but resolved the matter with an undisclosed cash settlement. For the 2003 live album How the West Was Won, the song was credited to Dixon alone, and on the 2014 Led Zeppelin II reissue, Dixon is listed as the sole songwriter.

With a simple wonderful intro, great harmonica and Plant’s haunting vocals the track rips into another one of Page’s magic riffs. Riffing like this is something Led Zeppelin were particularly good at and this tune is a perfect example of just how good they could be; it is a great way to finish the album.

Bring It On Home was performed in concert at different points during Led Zeppelin’s their career. There is a recording from a 1972 concert in Los Angeles included on How the West Was Won, and in 1973, a portion of the song was used to link performances of Celebration Day and Black Dog. The track was also memorably played at Jason Bonham’s wedding reception in May 1990, when the remaining Led Zeppelin members staged a reunion.

- CHAPTER TWO -

THE BRON-YR-AUR DAYS

T

he creation of Led Zeppelin III was certainly unusual, involving a remote cottage in the south of Snowdonia in Wales, a much-needed contrast to the grind of life on the road as after another year of touring, Zeppelin finally took a well-earned break. Keen to avoid the frustrations which had surrounded the second album the band decided to recharge the batteries and kindle the creative muse with a welcome spell away from the road in a, now world famous, cottage deep in the Welsh countryside.

That cottage was Bron-Yr-Aur (‘golden breast’ in Welsh, referring to the steep hillside on which it stands to this day), which had been a family holiday location for Plant and his parents in the 1950s. The singer suggested it as a bolt hole away from the big-band pressures which now plagued them.

Although the cottage had no power or running water at the time, it was the perfect location for the band to unwind and let their creative powers rejuvenate.

During a post-show interview in San Diego in the summer of 1977, Jimmy Page spoke of the decision to create the album in the cottage, stating, ‘We’d been working solidly and thought it was time to have a holiday, or at least to get some time away from the road. Robert suggested going to this cottage in South Wales that he’d once been to with his parents when he was much younger. He was going on about what a beautiful place it was and I became pretty keen to go there. I’d never spent any time at all in Wales, but I wanted to. So off we went, taking along our guitars of course. It wasn’t a question of, “Let’s go and knock off a few songs in the country”, it was just a case of wanting to get away for a bit and have a good time. We took along a couple of our roadies

and spent the evenings around log fires, with pokers being plunged into cider and that sort of thing. As the nights wore on, the guitars came out and numbers were being written. It wasn’t really planned as a working holiday, but some songs did come out of it. After the intense touring that had been taking place through the first two albums, working almost twenty-four hours a day basically, we managed to stop and have a proper break, a couple of months as opposed to a couple of weeks. We decided to go off and rent the cottage to provide a contrast to motel rooms. Obviously, it had quite an effect on the material that was written.’

Led Zeppelin became loved by legions of fans and almost universally loathed by critics as their success grew. Much of the carping – especially in connection with their third album – centred on their fondness for folk music. Why this fondness should come as a surprise to any half decent journalist is a mystery, as their eclectic future path is clearly signposted in that set of recordings made in October 1968 which constitute the first album. Sure, Zeppelin could play heavy blues, but the influence of Bert Jansch and Anne Briggs, Davy Graham and Joan Baez – and the way they 17

mixed these styles with harder rock sounds – is what marked them out as something unique and would reach its apogee on their fourth album.

To say Led Zeppelin III was savaged by the critics is hardly overstating the case. For those who wanted more of the heavyweight riffing of Led Zeppelin II, the folksy side of this 1970s follow-up was a let down and, just to prove that the band couldn’t win with the scribes, the few salvos of full-on rock were simply dismissed as more of the same.

However, the press backlash went further than the usual criticism of the band members and the music: the sort of sweeping generalization offered in regard to Zeppelin’s fans beggared belief. One predictable response was that if you liked this band, you were surely a ‘heavy dope fiend’, at least that was the case against as expressed by Rolling Stone magazine; the Los Angeles Times meanwhile couldn’t even bring itself to concede that fans might appreciate the music. According to this august organ, Led Zep’s popularity was thanks ‘at least in part to the accelerating popularity among the teenage rock and roll audience of barbiturates and amphetamines’.

There’s a dichotomy here. To attain the dominance of the world stage in the way they did, Led Zeppelin had to possess the attitude that the crown was rightly theirs, and yet it was probably their assured swagger and poise that got so many backs up in the music press. The wisdom of hindsight has highlighted the wider context of Zeppelin’s rich mix of influences. Now, Robert Plant’s vocal mastery, informed as much by Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum as it is by the blues greats, is widely celebrated. Robert is not only a great rock singer, even on a purely technical level his vocal control is exceptional, but back in 1970 these nuances were lost on Charlie Gillett who bizarrely dismissed the hippie leaning Plant in particular, and the band generally, as ‘a tool of authoritarian control’.

Inside the gatefold sleeve of Led Zeppelin III, with its revolving front cover insert, is the following dedication: ‘Credit must be given to BRON-Y-AUR a small derelict cottage in South Snowdonia for painting a somewhat forgotten picture of true completeness which acted as an incentive to some of these musical statements.’

18

19

After a year and a half which had included five American tours during a time when that country erupted with student riots and anti-Vietnam war protests, it was time to take a step back. Led Zeppelin were taking America by storm, but a rioting audience, police hassles, and a promoter who threatened Peter Grant with a gun were all signs that a break was needed from this round of madness.

The location for that escape, near the Welsh River Dyfi, was Robert’s idea. Here they set up home and created music inspired by nature; John Paul Jones brought a mandolin and, in keeping with the spirit of escape, they bypassed the madness of the London studio scene.

Led Zeppelin III was an ambitious, adventurous work.

The heavy rockers are there with Immigrant Song and Out on the Tiles; impassioned blues is represented by Since I’ve Been Loving You; Leadbelly’s Gallows Pole may be acoustic, but the drive is powerful and the folk influence of the Incredible String Band on the mellower songs and the crazy blues of Hats Off to (Roy) Harper make this an album of marvellous variety and colour… and yet, according to some critics, it was just an imitation of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. One has to wonder which particular album these people were actually listening to.

Against this tide of negative energy, Led Zeppelin withdrew further from talking to the press and when they returned, their next album saw them become an even bigger phenomenon. After all, this was the band who had already taught the music industry that you didn’t need to sell singles before you could sell albums and even if they were the great bete noir to journalists around the globe, millions of fans paid little heed to such judgments.

As Plant later recalled, ‘It’s that old cliché about a place in the country… but it was really great. The mikes coming in through the windows and a fire going in the hearth and people coming in with cups of tea and cakes and people tripping over leads, and the whole thing is utter chaos.

Bonzo’s drums are in the hall, in the entrance hall, with one mike hanging from the ceiling. And things like that… it was a good feeling, and we did it as easy as pie. So this album’s got a lot of feeling to it. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp was my influence, 20

really. I love folksy things, especially with a beat like that.

I don’t know if we’ll do these numbers on stage. I’m sure the audience wouldn’t mind – it depends if they let me play guitar. I didn’t play on the album and I’m not very good, but I’ve been playing the odd rhythm things. I mean, I could never compete with Page.’

Of the Bron-Yr-Aur experience, he added: ‘It was time to step back, take stock and not get lost in it all. Zeppelin was starting to get very big, and we wanted the rest of our journey to take a pretty level course, hence the trip into the mountains and the beginning of the ethereal Page and Plant.

I thought we’d be able to get a little peace and quiet and get your actual Californian, Marin County blues, which we managed to do in Wales rather than San Francisco. It was a great place. The cottage is in a little valley, and the sun always moves across it. There’s even a track on the new album (Bron-Y-Aur Stomp), a little acoustic thing, which Jimmy got together up there. It typifies the days when we used to chug around the countryside in Jeeps. It was a good idea to go there. We had written quite a bit of the second album on the road. It was a real road album, too. No matter what the critics said, the proof in the pudding was that it got a lot of people off. The reviewer for Rolling Stone, for instance, was just a frustrated musician. Maybe I’m just flying my own little ego ship, but sometimes people resent talent. I don’t even remember what the criticism was, but as far as I’m concerned, it was a good, maybe even great, road album. The third album was the album of albums. If anybody had labelled us a heavy metal group, that destroyed them.’

Released in October 1970, Led Zeppelin III was a more thoughtful record than either I or II. As Plant told Rick McGrath of The Georgia Straight in 1971, III was a real evolution: ‘To me, personally, that album was certainly a large step after the second one. Because you can’t keep turning out the same thing. If you do that, you can’t do anything for yourself. We know we can rely on things like Whole Lotta Love, and it is quite easy to work within the same framework all the time. But who does that? Just people who haven’t got anything going for them in the brains, that’s who. And I think the third album was an essential thing… I feel that the

new album is perhaps our most significant of all. We’re not changing our policy. It wouldn’t be fair if we just completely changed our sound and announced we were going to do all new things. On the new album we’ll be including some quieter acoustic numbers. But we’re still a heavy band. We can always infiltrate new material in with our older songs, without making everything from the past seem obsolete.’

Of course, once the acoustic vibes made themselves felt in Zep’s music, the press almost immediately started criticising the band for slipping back into self-indulgent hippie whimsy.

Angered, Plant said of one scathing review: ‘How can anybody be a “dated flower child”? The essence of the whole trip was the desire for peace and tranquility and an idyllic situation. That’s all anybody could ever want, so how could it be “dated flower-child gibberish”? If it is, then I’ll just carry on being a dated flower child. I put a lot of work into my lyrics. Not all my stuff is meant to be scrutinised, though.

Things like Black Dog are blatant, let’s-do-it-in-the-bathtype things, but they make their point just the same. People listen. Otherwise, you might as well sing the menu from the Continental Hyatt House.’ Rolling Stone’s Lester Bangs was arrogantly dismissive of the album, stating in a late 1970 review that it ‘doesn’t challenge anybody’s intelligence or sensibilities’, and that the acoustic sound is merely ‘standard Zep graded down decibel-wise.’

Of course, this negative media reaction didn’t pass the band by; as Jimmy Page himself stated: ‘Well, it got some bad press. But there was an incredible wave of Led Zeppelin mania, or whatever, and we had just finished a very successful tour, and then the album came out and nothing happened.’

He added, ‘I just thought they hadn’t understood it, hadn’t listened to it. For instance, Melody Maker said we’d decided to don our acoustic guitars because Crosby, Stills and Nash had just been over there. It wasn’t until the fourth LP that people began to understand that we weren’t just messing around.’

Over time however the album has gained a more positive reputation, and is now generally praised. In that interview with Robert Plant in 1971 by Rick McGrath in Vancouver, Canada, Plant explained the importance of ‘going acoustic’: 21

22

‘…that album was certainly a large step after the second one.

I don’t care if it sold any copies at all, because it showed there was a bit more attached to us and it than Shake Your Money Maker sort of stuff.’

As always Jimmy Page was deeply involved in the recording process and a number of tracks hinted at the continued experimentation which was to come on Led Zeppelin IV. The unusual recording effect on Out on the Tiles was one of the factors considered by Jimmy Page in a later interview with Steve Rosen: ‘It was about closemiking and distance-miking, that’s ambient sound. Getting the distance of the time lag from one end of the room to the other and putting that in as well. The whole idea, the way I see recording, is to try and capture the sound of the room live and the emotion of the whole moment and try to convey that across. That’s the very essence of it. And so, consequently you’ve got to capture as much of the room sound as possible.’

On Tangerine, Page was heard playing Pedal steel guitar, a sound which he had played for the first time during the recording of the first album. ‘On the first LP there’s a pedal steel. I had never played steel before, but I just picked it up.

There are a lot of things I do first time around that I haven’t done before. In fact, I hadn’t touched a pedal steel from the first album to the third. It’s a bit of a pinch really from the things that Chuck Berry did. But nevertheless it fits. I use pedal steel on Your Time Is Gonna Come. It sounds like a slide or something. It’s more out of tune on the first album because I hadn’t got a kit to put it together.’

In addition to the pedal steel Page played a surprising variety of other stringed instruments on the record. Gallows Pole was the first time for banjo and on The Battle of Evermore a mandolin was lying around. ‘It wasn’t mine, it was Jonesy’s. I just picked it up, got the chords, and it sort of started happening. I did it more or less straight off. But you see that’s finger-picking again, going on back to the studio days and developing a certain amount of technique.

At least enough to be adapted and used. My finger-picking is a sort of cross between Pete Seeger, Earl Scruggs and total incompetence.’

Hats Off to (Roy) Harper was another unusual sounding composition which developed after the band had moved to Headley Grange where the album was completed: ‘Me and Pagey just sat in the studio at Headley Grange and played through some distorted machines and said, Hats Off to (Roy) Harper along with all of the roadies up the back singing “Yeah” and banging tambourines. When we played it for Harper, he didn’t know what to say. But his time will come – I personally think Roy Harper is one of the best spokesmen this generation has. Despite the subsequent confusion of critics who somehow misconstrued the meaning and thought it was some kind of put-down, Hats Off to (Roy) Harper is just an acknowledgment of a friendship.

As well as the music, Led Zeppelin III was also noteworthy for its unique album cover. Featuring a wheel which, when rotated, displayed various images through cut-outs in the main jacket sleeve, it came as a perfect example of the band’s innovative and artistic nature, something that they held so dear, although Page himself wasn’t convinced that the sleeve was all it could be: ‘The sleeve was intended to something like one of those garden calendars or the zoo wheel things that tell you when to plant cauliflowers or how long whales are pregnant. But there was some misunderstanding with the artist – who in fact is very good, but had not been correctly briefed – and we ended up on top of a deadline with a teenyboppish cover which I think was a compromise.’

Zeppelin were increasingly loathe to do anything by the book at all, resisting television appearances, shunning many interviews, and vehemently opposed to releasing singles.

Jimmy Page explained this somewhat strange behaviour in an interview with Trouser Press’ Dave Schulps in the late 1970s, when talking of gigging Led Zeppelin III: ‘I felt a lot better once we started performing it, because it was proving to be working for the people who came around to see us. There was always a big smile there in front of us. That was always more important than any poxy review. That’s really how the following of the band has spread, by word of mouth. I mean, all this talk about hype, spending thousands on publicity campaigns, we didn’t do that at all. We didn’t do television.

Well we did a pilot TV show and a pilot radio show, but that’s 23

all. We weren’t hyping ourselves. It wasn’t as though we were thrashing about all over the media. It didn’t matter, though, the word got out on the street. Now we’ve done Zeppelin III, the sky is the limit. It shows we can change, shows we can do these things. It means there are endless possibilities and directions for us to go in. We’re not stale and this proves it.’ ◊

A track-by-track review of

Led Zeppelin III Released 5 October 1970 Produced by Jimmy Page This was the critical third album. Did it work? Well, yes and no is the answer. The album is a minor triumph, and certainly an improvement on the previous two efforts by the band, especially in recording terms. The sales, however, were not what some might call record breaking, especially when compared to Led Zeppelin II. The record has however become a favourite with fans over the years and certainly remains the easiest and most enjoyable of the early albums to listen to in one go.

Most of the writing took place in a small cottage in Wales, Bron-Yr-Aur, where Plant and his parents had often holidayed when Robert was a child. The recording was also 24

a lot more cohesive, organised and relaxed than the previous efforts for Led Zeppelin II. The band decamped to the now famous Headley Grange in Hampshire with the Rolling Stones’ Mobile in tow. A wealth of material was laid down, some even appearing later on the Physical Graffiti double set. Several numbers were recorded in Olympic Studios and Island Studios in London.

The album retains a far more balanced feel than Led Zeppelin II however and this is almost certainly due to it being recorded (and mostly mixed) in the UK during a period where the band had allowed themselves to unwind for a while.

Immigrant Song (Page/Plant) This is undoubtedly one of the most identifiable songs Led Zeppelin ever recorded. With Robert Plant’s ghostly vocal, driving guitar, bass and drums, this was a song that no one could ignore. With its Nordic/Celtic lyrics and concise arrangement it is a song that one wants to play over and over again.

The track was written during the summer of 1970, when Zeppelin played in Reykjavík, Iceland, which inspired Plant to write the lyrics. He explained in an interview: ‘We weren’t being pompous… We did come from the land of the ice and snow. We were guests of the Icelandic Government on a cultural mission. We were invited to play a concert in Reykjavik and the day before we arrived all the civil servants went on strike and the gig was going to be cancelled.

The university prepared a concert hall for us and it was phenomenal. The response from the kids was remarkable and we had a great time. Immigrant Song was about that trip and it was the opening track on the album that was intended to be incredibly different.’

Six days after Led Zeppelin’s appearance in Reykjavik, the band performed the song for the first time in concert during the Bath Festival. The lyrics did much to inspire the classic heavy metal myth, of Viking-esque figures on an adventure, themes that have been adopted in the look and music of bands such as Iron Maiden, Saxon, Manowar and Amon Amarth.

Immigrant Song is one of Led Zeppelin’s few releases on the 45rpm single format. It was issued in the United States on 5 November 1970 by Atlantic Records and reached No. 16 on the Billboard Hot 100. First pressings of the US single had a quote from Aleister Crowley inscribed in dead wax by the run-out groove: ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.’ Immigrant Song was backed with a non-LP track entitled Hey, Hey, What Can I Do?, and the single became extremely collectable.

Live, Immigrant Song was used to open Led Zeppelin concerts from 1970 to 1972. On the second half of their 1972 concert tour of the United States, it was introduced by a short piece of music known as LA Drone, designed to heighten the sense of anticipation and expectation amongst the concert audience. Despite being the perfect show-opener, by 1973, Immigrant Song was only occasionally being used as an encore, and was later removed entirely from their live set.

Day’, creating a very thoughtful and well conceived piece that stands up well today.

Unusually, Page used a C6 tuning on his guitar on Friends. He explained, ‘I played a Harmony acoustic tuned to C–A–C–G–C–E on Friends… It’s a C tuning, but not a [typical] C tuning. I made it up.’

The song was re-recorded as an experimental arrangement with the Bombay Orchestra in March 1972, along with Four Sticks from the following album. That arrangement also appeared on the 2015 reissue of Coda.

Friends, is an interesting track throughout, and ends by brilliantly seguing into Celebration Day via a Moog synthesiser drone.

‘Now we’ve done Zeppelin III, the sky is the limit.

It shows we can change, shows we can do these things... We’re not stale and this proves it.’

Friends (Page/Plant) With off key guitar and whining vocals, one might be forgiven for thinking this track might never work. But work it does, extremely well in fact, especially as a very clever connector piece of music between the thumping Immigrant Song and the catchy and clever Celebration Day. Plant is almost philosophically altruistic with lines like ‘Met a man on the roadside crying, without a friend, there’s no denying/You’re incomplete, there’ll be no finding, looking for what you knew’, representing a shift in message from the Zeppelin singer. The eastern-influenced string arrangement was entirely conceived by John Paul Jones, and further enhances the song’s eerie quality. The introduction of a Moog at the end cleverly links the song to ‘Celebration

Celebration Day (Page/Plant/Jones)

Before it was connected to Friends by the synthesiser drone, one of John Bonham’s drum tracks was to be used in the intro of Celebration Day, but sadly an engineer accidentally erased the recording.

This original studio version is an early Zeppelin miniclassic and one that became a favourite in the live shows.

With its clever pop hooks, jangling guitars and Plant’s vibrant vocals, this song really shines.

Renowned record producer Rick Rubin has commented that Celebration train ‘feels like a freight train, even though it’s not one of their heavier songs. There’s tremendous momentum in the way they play together. The bass playing is beyond incredible and the guitars interact really well – there’s a heavy-riffing guitar, which is answered by a funky guitar.’

Robert Plant’s lyrics for this track were inspired by his initial impressions of New York City. On Zeppelin’s 1971

JIMMY PAGE

25

concert tour of the United States, he would sometimes introduce it as The New York Song. Celebration Day was often played live in Led Zeppelin concerts from 1971 to 1973, and was returned to the band’s setlist at the Knebworth Festival in 1979, where Page performed the song using his Gibson EDS-1275 double-necked guitar.

Since I’ve Been Loving You (Page/Plant/Jones) This moving, atmospheric minor blues is certainly one of the best blues workouts ever penned and played by Led Zeppelin. The powerful playing is enhanced by an equally powerful production, with the expansive drum sound, squeaky bass pedal and all, presaging the direction in which the band would go on their next album. The official live versions are brilliant as well (the first making an appearance on the film version of The Song Remains the Same). Several versions that have been made available via bootlegs are nothing short of stunning. Since I’ve Been Loving You contains some of the best playing ever recorded by Jimmy Page. The track is a blues guitarist’s dream and has been lauded by legendary guitarists including Joe Satriani: ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You was a perfect example of taking a blues structure but striking out on your own. They were breaking ground, not copying. I love that Page would always just go for it. Some other guitarist might have better technique, but what Page did would always trump it because the spirit was so overwhelming. Whatever he did would turn into a technique.’ Audio engineer Terry Manning also called it ‘The best rock guitar solo of all time.’

Despite the eventual outcome, Since I’ve Been Loving You was reportedly one of the hardest songs to record for the album. It was one of the first tracks laid down, and was recorded live in the studio with very little overdubbing. John Bonham’s preferred drum pedal, the Ludwig Speed King model 201, squeaks during the recording, and has since been called the ‘Squeak King’. Meanwhile, John Paul Jones played Hammond organ on the song, using the bass pedals instead of a bass guitar. All these eccentricities combine to make an incredibly distinctive track that perfectly captures the unique qualities of Zeppelin as a group.

26

27

Out on the Tiles (Page/Plant/Bonham) This was the final song on the original side one of the vinyl, and what a way to end a side it was too. The track was written

by Bonham, and reportedly based on a rhyme that he used to sing when the band were on tour ‘I’ve had a pint of bitter and now I’m feeling better and I’m out on the tiles. We’re going down the rubbers and were going to pull some scrubbers because we’re out on the tiles’. This is a heavy, ballsy rocker that leaves you gagging for more.

The track’s unmistakeable introduction was used to open live versions of Black Dog and Bonham’s drum solo on the 1977 US tour.

Gallows Pole (Traditional, arr.. Page/Plant)

The instrumentation builds up to a crescendo, increasing in tempo as the song progresses.

Page has stated that it is one of his favourite songs from the album, and as such, Led Zeppelin performed the song a few times live during Led Zeppelin concerts in 1971. Plant sometimes also included the lyrics in live performances of the Led Zeppelin song Trampled Under Foot in 1975.

Tangerine (Page) This very cool semi-acoustic number, this time penned solely

by Jimmy Page, has its roots in a song that Page recorded for his old outfit the Yardbirds.

Although there is no question as to who composed the music for Tangerine, there is some disagreement over who wrote the lyrics. In addition to being credited as the songwriter on all Led Zeppelin releases, Page claims to be responsible for the lyrics: ‘I’d written it after an old emotional upheaval and I just changed a few of the lyrics for the new version’.

However, Case, Shadwick, and Williamson identify the Yardbirds’ song as a joint or co-composition by Page and the Yardbirds’ singer and primary lyricist Keith Relf. Yardbirds’ drummer Jim McCarty and bassist Chris Dreja both assert that Relf wrote the words for Knowing That I’m Losing You; they and Jane Relf (Keith’s sister and a singer who also performed with Relf) believe some of his original lines found their way into Tangerine.

Nonetheless, Tangerine and Dazed and Confused are the only Led Zeppelin songs with lyrics that credit Page as the sole songwriter.

The track itself is a country-tinged number on which Robert Plant’s sweet vocals perfectly ease through the verses,

‘We weren’t hyping ourselves. It wasn’t as though we were thrashing about all over the media.

It didn’t matter, though, the word got out on the street.’

The opening track on side two of the original vinyl, Gallows Pole wasn’t actually penned

by Led Zeppelin but was rather an interpretation of a traditional melody called The Maid Freed from the Gallows, which was made famous by Leadbelly.

Page has stated that, the song emerged spontaneously when he started experimenting with Jones’ banjo, an instrument he had never before played. ‘I just picked it up and started moving my fingers around until the chords sounded right, which is the same way I work on compositions when the guitar’s in different tunings.’

As well as the banjo, Page played a variety of acoustic and electric guitars, whilst Jones added a mandolin and the bass.

The result is an arrangement that is exciting, with dynamic playing and sublime textures.

Gallows Pole begins as a simple acoustic guitar rhythm; mandolin is added in, then electric bass guitar shortly afterwards, and then banjo and drums simultaneously join in.

JIMMY PAGE

28

whilst the instrumental middle section brings a wonderful contrast. Page performs a remarkable solo on a heavily sustained Gibson Les Paul Standard electric guitar, which is also double tracked. Led Zeppelin biographer Dave Lewis succinctly calls it ‘a smooth woman-tone solo’. After a second chorus, the song winds don with pedal steel fills and ends with an acoustic guitar figure. Williamson, of the Yardbirds, has noted that Tangerine ‘points the way to the future… the acoustic guitar intro can easily be seen as an early template for Stairway to Heaven’.

Live, the track was added to Led Zeppelin’s live acoustic set in 1971, then performed regularly into the following year and recordings appear on several bootleg albums. It was then revived as a four-part harmony arrangement in 1975.

That’s the Way (Page/Plant) Jimmy Page and Robert Plant wrote That’s the Way in 1970 during a stay at Bron-Yr-Aur cottage. Page noted that the two developed it and recorded a rough demo after a long walk before they returned to the cottage.

The original working title of the song was The Boy Next Door. On the surface, the lyrics are about one boy’s parents being against a friendship with another boy due to his long hair and coming from the wrong side of town. The theme also reflects the group’s early American tours, when they were often harassed for their appearance.

Facing the need to break off a relationship because ‘that’s just the way it is’, the singer delivers a heartbreaking farewell to someone with whom no future can be shared. With the band at their most sensitive, the song is a much underrated Zeppelin composition.

The instrumentation for the song is spare, consisting of a strummed twelve-string acoustic guitar, with overdubbed mandolin and steel guitar fills; percussion and bass are absent from much of the song until the instrumental outro.

According to Page, he played a dulcimer at the end of the track, and also plays the bass heard at the conclusion: ‘I was doing a bunch of overdubs and got excited. John Paul Jones went home, so I put the bass part on it as well! [laughs] That didn’t happen often, believe me.’

Bron-Y-Aur Stomp (Page/Plant/Jones) Named after the cottage where the album was written (and with its name, Bron-Yr-Aur, mis-spelled on the LP sleeve), Bron-Y-Aur Stomp revels in country sentimentality with lines like ‘When you’re old and your eyes are dim/There ain’t no Old Shep gonna happen again/We’ll still go walking down country lanes, I’ll sing the same old songs’.

Reflecting the rustic nature of their retreat, the song is largely acoustic. Guitarist Jimmy Page used a Martin D-28 guitar,drummer John Bonham played spoons and castanets,and bassist John Paul Jones played a double bass.

The song was heavily influenced by a number called Waggoner’s Lad by Bert Jansch, a Scottish folk musician and founding member of the band Pentangle. It is a country music-inflected hoedown, with lyrics about walking in the woods with Plant’s blue-eyed Merle dog named Strider. Plant reportedly named his dog after Aragorn (often called Strider) from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. However, there are no explicit references to Tolkien works in the track. The number was first recorded at Headley Grange in 1970, using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, before being completed at Island Studios in London, and Ardent Studios in Memphis, Tennessee.

Hats Off to (Roy) Harper (Traditional, arr.. Charles Obscure) Every album has to have a weird number and this is it! The track is sustained by some very cool guitar from Jimmy Page and a few of the weirdest vocals every sang by Robert Plant.

With old fashioned use of separate left and right channel use for vocals and guitar, this track was as near as filler that the band ever got to on this release. A stripped-down vocal and slide guitar track, the song is named after the Liverpool born singer-songwriter, most famous for his vocal on Have a Cigar from Pink Floyd’s 1975 masterpiece, Wish You Were Here. Plant’s vocals are given a tremolo effect on this number, which works well, but the song is perhaps the weakest on an otherwise superb album.

29

30

- CHAPTER THREE -

THE MYTHOLOGY IS BORN

T

he effect of all this success on the individual band-members was obvious to all. Plant in particular candidly revealed that the success of the band had become addictive and begun to overshadow his private life: ‘There’s constant conflict, really, within me. As much as I really enjoy what I do at home… I play on my own little soccer team and I’ve been taking part in the community and living the life of any ordinary guy, I always find myself wistful and enveloped in a feeling I can’t really get out of my system.’

Plant continued, ‘I miss this band when we aren’t playing.

I have to call Jimmy up or something to appease that restlessness. The other night when we played for the first time again after a long break, I found the biggest smile on my face.’

Soon however, even this massive level of success was to be dwarfed by a five-year period in the 1970s in which the band released their biggest-selling albums and took part in many of rock’s most infamous tales of excess and debauchery which now form the basis for the enduring mythology which surrounds the band. This was Led Zeppelin at their most musically successful, and their most theatrical and excessive.

As Rick McGrath, a Canadian interviewer, stated simply in 1971, Led Zeppelin were ‘the seminal heavy metal band of the early 70s’, with Robert Plant being ‘The archetypal front man’ and Jimmy Page ‘the definitive guitar hero of his age.’

Describing a concert in Vancouver in the same year, he talks of the ‘Zepheads’ who would travel the length and breadth of the country to see the band’s ‘zany’ show. Led Zeppelin were, figuratively, on top of the world.

This isn’t to say that everybody ‘got’ the band during this time. In a review of the group’s Maple Leaf Gardens Concert

from the summer of 1971, Jack Batten of the Globe & Mail attacked the band from all angles, describing Robert Plant’s stage posturing as narcissistic, Jimmy Page’s guitar-playing as ‘depressingly antiquated’, and the music itself as ‘good music to get stoned by’. The mixed critical reaction briefly created the impression that Zeppelin were a band in a creative turmoil. Confused rumours began to circulate that Page was about to record a solo album – which had arisen from a session he had put in with members of the Rolling Stones – the guitarist however was happy to set the record straight remarking: ‘I did what could possibly be the next Stones B-side. It was Rick Grech, Keith and me doing a number called Scarlet. I can’t remember the drummer. It sounded very similar in style and mood to those Blonde On Blonde tracks. It was great, really good. We stayed up all night and went down to Island Studios where Keith put some reggae guitars over one section. I just put some solos on it, but it was eight in the morning of the next day before I did that. He took the tapes to Switzerland and someone found out about them. Keith told people that it was a track from my album. I don’t need to do a solo album, and neither does anybody else 31

in the band. The chemistry is such that there’s nobody in the background who’s so frustrated that he has to bring out his own LPs. I don’t really like doing that Townshend number of telling everybody exactly what to play. I don’t like that too much. A group’s a group, after all, isn’t it?’

On the subject of the band’s continued evolution, Plant was still smarting in the aftermath of the critical assault on Led Zeppelin III: ‘Tomorrow is another day. It’s like with albums. People say “Do you follow in the same pattern as before?”… The third album, to me, was a disappointment in the way it was accepted, because it wasn’t given enough of a chance… After Heartbreaker and Bring It On Home. And thunder, which was what it was. So we say, try this for size, and I thought when we were doing it that I was able to get inside myself a little more and give a little more on the album. I thought the whole thing felt like that. I was pleased with it, and I’d play it now without hesitation, and dig it. And you can’t always do that to an album that you’ve played a million times.

But I really thought it stood up, and then everybody was saying, “well, no” and they’d leave it and then come back in a couple of weeks time and say, “Well, we can see… but nevertheless, we think it’s best.”

‘But that’s what people say, because the simple, heavy thunder is much easier to assimilate, much easier to react to in every way. But you can’t just do that, otherwise you become stagnant and you’re not really doing anything, you’re just pleasing everybody else.’

Plant in particular had evolved an obsession with British folklore and ancient mythology, taking the voguish interest of the day in Tolkien into new realms. Jimmy Page on the other hand had begun to explore the ‘dark arts’ and took his

investigation to a new level by professing an interest in the works of occult figures such as Aleister Crowley. Around the time of making Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, Jimmy Page actually bought Aleister Crowley’s former home, Boleskine House, on the shores of Loch Ness and he was a serious collector of the works and regalia of ‘The Great Beast’, as Crowley was known. Jimmy’s reputation as some sort of dark magus of rock has a lot to do with his fondness for Crowley, whose name often runs alongside the phrase ‘The Wickedest Man in the World’. Crowley was dubbed this by newspaper magnate Max Aitken, aka Lord Beaverbrook, whose position as one of the most powerful figures in Britain caused him to boast that he was able to make or break pretty much anyone.

It’s worth noting that Lord Beaverbrook’s private fondness for bondage never tarnished his public reputation as upholder of moral values. One wonders how much Jimmy Page’s attraction to Crowley was fuelled by the way he was demonised by the press.

Crowley certainly had talent, but was a very misguided figure. He might have a better reputation as, for example, a skilled mountaineer if he hadn’t supplied opiates to those who travelled with him to ward off the cold. If you want a balanced view on Aleister Crowley, for good and ill, useful further research lies in A Magick Life by Martin Booth.

Those who had taken a swing at Led Zeppelin, who had generalised about the supposed degeneracy of their fans, now had a focus for their invective: ‘evil’ and ‘magick’ (with a ‘k’ of course). Jimmy Page’s purchase of Boleskine House fuelled these notions, but the search for demonic minutiae in Led Zeppelin’s work became quite ridiculous. The painting of the old stick-carrying man on the front of their fourth album

‘I’m not afraid of death.

That is the greatest mystery of all... But it is all a race against time.

You never know what can happen.’

JIMMY PAGE

32

was reputedly found by Robert Plant in a Reading junk shop. Plant did not share Page’s interest in the occult, but conspiracy theorists have suggested that the painting shows an image of Rosicrucian sex magician George Pickingill, who numbered Crowley among his followers. Meanwhile, film critic Robert Ring believes that there’s a reference to Häxan: Witchcraft through the Ages, a 1920s Danish film.

Many less structured ideas flourished at the time, and the internet is awash with them to this day. They range from silly notions of backwards masking – references to the devil, only heard if your turntable spun anti-clockwise – to the utterly unconscionable slur that Jimmy Page’s occult interest cast some shadow over the death of Robert Plant’s son Karac.

Page himself has contributed little to the debate although he was more open in 1971 when he bought the Scottish house: ‘There were two or three owners before Crowley moved into it. It was also a church that was burned to the ground with the congregation in it. And that’s the site of the house. Strange things have happened in that house that had nothing to do with Crowley. The bad vibes were already there. A man was beheaded there, and sometimes you can hear his head rolling down. I haven’t actually heard it, but a friend of mine, who is extremely straight and doesn’t know anything about anything like that at all, heard it. He thought it was the cats bungling around. I wasn’t there at the time, but he told the help, “Why don’t you let the cats out at night?

They make a terrible racket, rolling about in the halls.” And they said, “The cats are locked in a room every night.” Then they told him the story of the house. So that sort of thing was there before Crowley got there.

‘Of course, after Crowley there have been suicides, people carted off to mental hospitals… all my houses are isolated.

Many is the time I just stay home alone. I spend a lot of time near water. Crowley’s house is in Loch Ness, Scotland. I have another house in Sussex, where I spend most of my time. It’s quite near London. It’s moated and [has] terraces off into lakes. I mean, I could tell you things, but it might give people ideas. A few things have happened that would freak some people out, but I was surprised actually at how composed I was. I don’t really want to go on about my personal beliefs or

my involvement in magic. I’m not trying to do a Harrison or a Townshend. I’m not interested in turning anybody on to anybody that I’m turned on to… if people want to find things, they find them themselves. I’m a firm believer in that.

‘For my own part I feel [Crowley is] a misunderstood genius of the Twentieth Century. Because his whole thing was liberation of the person, of the entity, and that restriction would foul you up, lead to frustration which leads to violence, crime, mental breakdown, depending on what sort of makeup you have underneath. The further this age we’re in now gets into technology and alienation, a lot of the points he made seem to manifest themselves all down the line… His thing was total liberation, and really getting down to what part you played. What you want to do, do it. Anyway, that’s a minor part, just one of the things they couldn’t come to terms with. Saying there would be equality of the sexes. In the Edwardian age that was just not on. He wasn’t necessarily waving a banner, but he knew it was going to happen. He was a visionary and he didn’t break them in gently.’

It’s interesting to note that Page, who has lived to a ripe old age, was uncertain how long he would be alive. As he once said: ‘I don’t know whether I’ll reach forty. I don’t know whether I’ll reach thirty-five. I can’t be sure about that. I am bloody serious. I am very, very serious. I didn’t think I’d make thirty. I just had this fear. Not fear of dying but just… wait a minute, let’s get this right. I just felt that… I wouldn’t reach thirty. That’s all there was to it. It was something in me, something inbred. I’m over thirty now, but I didn’t expect to be here. I wasn’t having nightmares about it, but… I’m not afraid of death. That is the greatest mystery of all. That’ll be it, that one. But it is all a race against time. You never know what can happen.’ This semi-occult approach, which generated controversy among the more gullible of the world’s chattering classes for its supposedly satanic nature, reached its peak on the truly majestic Led Zeppelin IV, a record that has gone down in rock history as one of the most important and influential LPs ever made.

After recording Led Zeppelin III, a sixth American tour took place; another draining experience for the band, signalling time for another break. For Robert Plant and 33

34

Jimmy Page, this meant a further sojourn to Wales. John Paul Jones and John Bonham retreated to their homes and only a small entourage went to Snowdonia. During that week in late October 1970, they worked on an idea of Jimmy’s which became one of the most enduring classics of the rock genre: Stairway to Heaven.

Back in London before Christmas 1970, Led Zeppelin started recording new material at Island Studios: the opening of Stairway to Heaven and a sketch of another track that later became Four Sticks. No one was particularly keen on the demands of studio sessions. To turn up on time, in tune and deliver the goods against the clock was a much less attractive proposition than the way Led Zeppelin III had been recorded.

The days of Jimmy paying for thirty hours of studio time and making an album were gone, but Mr Page still had an eye on the balance sheet, so much so that he’d garnered the nickname ‘Led Wallet’. They could’ve gone to Mick Jagger’s luxurious mansion, they could certainly have afforded it – even at £1,000 a week – but Jimmy was keen to steer a course back to Headley Grange. This time, the ghostly old mansion was in the grip of winter, but after all, that would only hasten the recording process!

Although Mick’s mansion was declined, the Rolling Stones mobile recording truck was hired and it came with an especially valuable asset: Ian Stewart, who was sent along as recording engineer, but was actually so much more. Born in the village of Pittenweem, Fife, on the eastern side of Scotland, Ian Stewart had been an original member of the Rolling Stones, pre-dating both Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. However, once Andrew Loog Oldham arrived as group manager, Stewart was banished from the stage for looking ‘too normal’ and relegated to other roles behind the scenes, where he remained with the Stones until he died in 1985.

Along with Jack Nitszche, Ian MacLagan, Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston, Ian Stewart provided many a memorable piano part to Rolling Stones tracks, but his name is less well known in connection with the band than the others, even though he was a constant in their existence for so long. Stu’s specialty lay in the boogie woogie and barrelhouse styles

and, in addition to his engineering role on Led Zeppelin’s recordings, he would end up playing piano with them too.

Akin to his Rolling Stones contributions, Stu didn’t get a mention on the inner sleeve of Led Zeppelin’s fourth album, but then again, scant few did! At least Zeppelin honoured him via Boogie With Stu, recorded at Headley Grange during those winter sessions, which turned up on 1975’s Physical Graffiti.

Now that the band were off the scene for a while, you might think the press would have found other candidates for their sport of set ’em up and knock ’em down, but no, while Led Zeppelin were holed up at Headley Grange honing their new material, rumours mushroomed that they were in hiding and splitting up. There was the story that Peter Grant was planning to manage Emerson, Lake and Palmer and the whole situation peaked when Melody Maker ran a notorious cartoon depicting Led Zeppelin and ELP swimming around on rafts on top of a massive whale’s stomach. The whale was a caricature of Peter Grant and spouting forth from the creature’s blowhole was a jet of money. Mr Grant was not the most sylph-like figure in reality but the caricature really struck a raw nerve and under either the threat of litigation or of broken legs all round Melody Maker soon printed an apology for that piece of artwork.

Unfortunately for the scathing press, Led Zeppelin were about to unleash their greatest masterpiece yet. The indomitable Led Zeppelin IV – a rock behemoth that sent them into the stratosphere of music fame, and contained potentially the greatest song ever written. Despite the glittering commercial success that was to come, Led Zeppelin had a long roller-coaster of a ride ahead of them as they faced forwards into the 1970s.

35

The fiery mix of characters and incredible musicianship that made up Led Zeppelin had been capturing the attention of the public since their official formation in 1968. By the year 1969 they were ready to break into the big leagues, with the release of their second album Led Zeppelin II, yet there were still obstacles to overcome. Legal battles, critical disdain and touring burnout all faced Led Zeppelin as they launched into the next phase of their extraordinary career. Here we examine the triumphs and pitfalls that befell the band during their meteoric rise to fame. Featuring extensive interviews with Jimmy Page and track-by-track analysis of Led Zeppelin II and III, this is the ultimate guide to Led Zeppelin in the late sixties.

36