Recently, I've been replacing a few of my old Led
Zeppelin LPs with CDs. In fact, I did this to a point years ago. In the early
90s they released the "Remasters" double CD which, for a few years,
acted as a sort of Best Of compilation and it did help replace quite a few
tracks - particularly from their early albums where my vinyl had seen better
days. This worked, to a point, but I found that there were a significant number
of tracks that I really likes that were missed:
How Many More Times
from Led Zeppelin I,
Bring it on Home from II,
When the Levee
Breaks from IV and
The Ocean from Houses of the Holy. Then there
were huge swaths such as the whole second side of III and nothing at all from
sides one, three and four of Physical Graffiti. What was on Remasters, however,
was a revelation. Remastering is often a cheap trick by established rock groups
to make their fans buy their back catalogue... again. However the Led Zeppelin
remasters fixed many of the original production errors - for example, listen to
the original vinyl of
No Quarter and there is a shocking error
where a cymbal appears from nowhere: on Remasters this was resolved.
Nevertheless, for a band that I liked in bucket loads, I felt that I would
really appreciate the original albums in digital form - as CDs have come down
in price this has become more affordable.
I originally became interested in Led Zeppelin when I was learning
the guitar in my teens. With a combination of guitar tabs from magazines and
closely listening to the original albums I manage to replicate the guitar parts
quite well. Some of the songs have almost become a right of passage for budding
guitarists and this is not without good reason. Stairway To Heaven may be
stereotypical for the aspiring axe-man but it does teach lots of very useful
techniques in terms of picking, strumming, fretwork and so on. In fact I get rather
bored when I hear it now - which is probably my own fault. It is quite well
known that the opening descending base line was inspired by the Spirit song
Taurus but the chords are not exactly the same. Unfortunately, the guitar
magazine I was using had published the chords from Taurus and it took me ages
to work out the real thing (one of my friends showed them to me - well, it’s
easy when you know how). Needless to say, I was very much a Jimmy Page fan and
I enjoyed much of his solo work - including the much derided collaborations
with Paul Rogers and David Coverdale. However, on listening to the original
albums on CD it has really brought it home to me what an astonishing presence
Robert Plant is - and it has also shown up quite a few holes in my own music
collection.
Led Zeppelin were formed out of the ashes of The
Yardbirds in 1968. Jimmy Page was left with tour commitments and needed to
piece together a band to fulfil these. With former session keyboard man John
Paul Jones on board for vocal duties he was recommended a young Robert Plant who had been playing with Midlands outfit Band Of Joy who
also provided drummer John Bonham. Thus, The New Yardbirds were formed - after
just a few months they had changed name to Led Zeppelin (after a Keith Moon
joke) and recorded their first album. Led Zeppelin I was effectively a studio
recording of the bands live show at the time and consists of a few cover
versions, a couple of songs from The Yardbirds later shows (and a couple of
tracks that could easily have been Yardbirds singles) and some tracks that
marked the eclectic and yet exhilarating sound that would define Led Zeppelin.
The music draws upon three big musical influences - British Heavy Rock, Blues
and acoustic Folk-Rock. In fact it is this third influence that provides the
first indications of Plants vocal abilities with
Babe, I'm Going To Leave You.
I learned the guitar part for this and still play it on a nylon strung guitar:
the chords feel incredible comfortable and intuitive. However, it is Plant's
vocals which really stand out here. I have a version of this by Joan Baez and
she just sounds pained rather than impassioned. The blues covers also show how
powerful his voice was - bleeding through the microphones and somehow managing
to compete with Page and Bonham's thunderous backing. It's clearly a work in
progress but a magnificent one none-the-less and very much haunted by the ghost
of bluesmen past.
Led Zeppelin II was recorded whilst touring in 1969 and
opens with one of the most familiar tunes in heavy rock in the form of
Whole
Lotta Love. In fact, given it's familiarity, it's worth considering what a
peculiar tune it is. Kicking off with the familiar Heavy Metal riff (Top of the
Pops theme to the uninitiated) Plant sings an old Muddy Waters lyrics over the
top whilst Bonham batters away in the background - so far so good. It then
breaks into a free Jazz style section where all Hell breaks lose and Page plays
a Theremin solo; a quick guitar break and then the original riff returns until
Plant goes all a capella - then repeat to fade. Somehow it works and the rest
of the album follows this up just as well. There is quiet a bit of variety in
this album with the bluesy
Lemon Song (effectively a reworking of Howlin' Wolf's
Killing
Floor) and the gentle
Thank You but the amps are definitely turned up high. Led
Zeppelin are often cited as a major influence on Heavy Metal music and, of all
their albums, this is the one that most closely approaches that.
Led Zeppelin III has a reputation for being a bit of a
curate's egg. I think that's rather unfair. In fact, side one is a typical
Zeppelin mix with Immigrant Song being a rock standard (although no guitar
solos) and containing Robert Plants famous battle cry. Since I've Been Loving
You is a brilliant slow blues number and Friends has an interestingly Middle
Eastern feel about it. The other two songs are standard Zep rockers but it is side two
that gives the album the reputation as something else. The band wrote and
rehearsed the album whilst staying at the semi-derelict Bron yr Aur cottage in
Snowdonia (I looked this up and it isn’t where I thought - there is a similarly
named place near Llanrwst which I have occasionally driven past). The lack of
electricity and the general peaceful ambience of the place led to the second
side of the record being dominated by the bands folk-rock side. They really
come into their own here and show that you don't have to bludgeon your audience
with Marshall stacks to make your point. There is real power here and they also
sound like they are having a fun time of it - particularly on Bron yr Aur Stomp
which is about Plant's walks through Snowdonia with his dog. His lyrics here
had developed far beyond simple innuendo and I feel that the band had really
gelled as a creative unit. It remains a personal favourite of mine.
Led Zeppelin IV is regarded as their masterpiece and was
the first album of theirs that I heard.
I can recall that I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it at the time. It
didn't feel like the heavy rock group I had imagined but rather some mystic
riddlers creating a soundscape whilst cloaked in monks robes - or something
like that anyway. In a way, some of the mysticism is down to the rather odd
song titles: Black Dog was named because a black dog was present at recording
(and not because the song was meant to be about depression as I had assumed)
and Four Sticks was named because John Bonham used two sets of drum sticks
simultaneously to produce the exotic oriental rhythms. The bulk of this album
was included in the Remasters release but it actually missed off three of my
favourite tracks: the aforementioned Four Sticks, the gentle acoustic Going To
California and their take on Memphis Minnie's When The Levee Breaks. This
latter track's drum intro has been sampled-to-death but familiarity doesn’t
breed contempt: it's magnificent and the remastered CD just brings out the best
from the original recording - Plant's harmonica playing has never sounded
better. Oddly, the other track that really seems to improve is the Battle Of
Evermore which was a duet with Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention. I've
always loved how her voice becomes intertwined with Plant's and when digitally
remastered it becomes crystal clear (yes, my old vinyl was a bit tatty).
If IV was all mysterious, then I think they were having a
bit of a laugh on Houses Of The Holy. All the previous albums had drawn from an
eclectic group of influences but on Houses I think they might have pushed
things a little too far. It's not a bad album but a couple of the experiments
proved to be dead ends: D'yer Mak'er is a reggae song (it's meant to be
pronounced Jamaica - try it in a West Midlands accent) which would leave Bob
Marley with little to worry about and The Crunge is a James Brown style
funk workout - it's impossible to tell
whether it is a spoof or a tribute. Even the closing The Ocean, an out and out hard
rocker, is somewhat offbeat. However,
when this album works, it works well and contains John Paul Jones's finest
moment in No Quarter - a heavily keyboard and electronic based song which
allows Plant to demonstrate the gentler side of his vocal range. Overall, not a bad effort which
laid the groundwork for their next album.
Physical Graffiti is a double album: although the songs
for it had been recorded over a five year period. After they had produced too
many tracks for a single album the decision was made to use out-takes from
previous albums and make this a two disk set. This doesn't affect the quality
and I find it questionable as to why some of the tracks were ever left off the
earlier albums. Maybe they didn't fit the style of those releases? Of all of
Led Zeppelin's output Physical Graffiti is the most diverse: heavy rock (e.g.
The Rover), blues (In My Time Of Dying - originally killed on Dylan's first
album) and folk (Bron-Yr-Aur) are all in place but alongside there is rock
and roll (Boogie with Stu), funk (Trampled Under Foot), a love ballad (the
beautiful Ten Years Gone) and, as a centrepiece of the album, two strongly North African flavoured epics in Kashmir and In the Light. Kashmir is the better
known of these having been used as a theme for various sporting events (e.g.
the BBC's World Cup coverage in 2002). It even reached the top of the charts
when Puff Daddy adapted it for the Godzilla theme tune. The song was inspired
by a road trip Plant made on a family holiday through Morocco - something that
he would often return to. The only odd thing is why he called the song Kashmir
(which is in Northern India / Pakistan) - I suppose it must have scanned more
easily than Marrakech. This was a real high point for the band but possibly the
last time they were really functioning as a creative unit: a series of
tragedies would follow that would take their toll on the band - and Plant in
particular.
On 5 August 1975 Plant and his family were involved in a
road accident in Rhodes which left him seriously injured and, at that point,
uncertain whether he would be able to walk again. With touring out of the
question the band recorded Presence which was released the following year. When
I first bought this on vinyl I found it a rather dense recording to listen to -
not that I didn't enjoy it but I found it rather heavy going listening
end-to-end. In fact it has three tracks that must rate amongst their best:
Nobody's Fault but Mine, an electric reworking of a traditional blues song; Tea
For One, a slow blues rock number which describes a moment slowed to last an
eternity; and Achilles Last Stand - this is one of the most intense rock
workouts the band performed and includes some astonishing machine-gun drum
rolls from Bonham. I never quite understood the lyrics until recently: they
describe Plant's trips through North Africa through to the Atlas mountains. The
Ancient Greek references and the title refer to Plants predicament: trapped in
a wheelchair with a smashed ankle. The other tracks on the album are pretty
decent so it makes me wonder what the album is lacking. I think the answer is
actually precisely what it is lacking: little musical variety, no keyboards, no
acoustic guitars or folk influences, little song writing input from Jones or
Bonham. Seen as a Page and Plant side-project it possibly makes more sense.
Plant was to recover from his injuries but worse was to come for both him and
the band.
Whilst on tour in the US in 1977 Plant's 5 year old son,
Karac, died, suddenly, from a viral infection. The tour was cancelled and a
devastated Plant returned home with the future of Led Zeppelin in the balance.
This is one loss that I doubt Plant has ever fully recovered from and he has
written lyrics about it and even featured a picture of him with Karac in the
liner notes of his 2003 retrospective album. In truth it should have been the
end of Led Zeppelin but his close friend, John Bonham, encouraged him to sing
and record again. The resulting album was In Through The Out Door. By contrast
to Presence this was very heavily keyboard based - in fact a couple of tracks
featured no writing credit for Jimmy Page. The album starts with In The Evening
which almost encompasses every influence which they have demonstrated over the
previous 10 years. It starts with an electronic drone and hints of Marrakech at
sunset until, like an Imam calling the faithful to prayer, Plant yells out
"In the evening!" and a typically Zeppelinesque riff breaks out over
crashing drums and wailing vocals, add to that a crunching guitar solo and John
Paul Jones's intricate keyboard backing and this is about as good as Zeppelin
ever got - unfortunately, it is about as good as this album ever got. Actually,
that is not entirely fair and much of this is well worth a listen, but it is a
more considered and mature selection of songs. I think on re-listening I can
appreciate some of the gentler songs: All Of My Love, Plant's song of love for
his wife, is actually quite touching and the synth solo, in place of the usual
guitar, makes for a refreshing change. I also love the drunken blues of the
last track I'm Gonna Crawl. Overall, this was the more mature output of men who
were now in their 30s. Jimmy Page had said that they wanted their next album to
be a much heavier affair but, as it turned out, we will never find out. On 25
September 1980 John Bonham was found dead in his bed after inhaling vomit
following a post-rehearsal, heavy-drinking session. This was the final straw for
the band and they announced that the group would split shortly afterwards.
This was not quite the last new material to emerge from
Led Zeppelin. In 1982 an album of previously unreleased material was published
on a short album called Coda. This comes across as a much unloved contractual
obligation affair and may as well have been called "The Taxman Came A
'Calling". I think they could have put out a decent collection if they had
put their minds to it but as Physical Graffiti had hoovered up most of their
early outtakes this consisted of mostly unfinished later material and other oddities.
Only the last track, Wearing and Tearing, is anywhere near their usual quality
and it isn't an album I will be bothering to buy on CD (I may go for the odd
track on MP3 if I can put up with the poor sound quality). In fact they
released a double CD of their BBC Sessions (mainly special recordings for John
Peel's show) in 1997 and it is much more fitting collection with several songs
that had never been previously released on an official album.
So that's the mighty Zep. All three members of the band
went on to release a plethora of solo projects and I have seen Page and Plant perform
live: both on their own and together. In fact, it was scanning through their
solo releases that I realised what huge gaps I have in my collection. I bought
all of Plant's solo albums on vinyl through to Manic Nirvana - which I bought
on cassette for some reason (I think my turntable was broken at the time) .
However, there are a few big releases which I have never ended up buying such
as Dreamland and Fate Of Nations. In fact I nearly bought the latter - I loved
the single, "29 Palms" and I can recall heading for the sales desk
only to decide than DM35 (about £14 at the time) was a tad steep when I had
some seriously more important things to be spending money on at that time. Having
looked through Amazon I can see that most of his back catalogue is available
very reasonably, in fact there are used sellers who have some
albums for pennies plus postage (which still works out at well under £2 per
album). I actually have most of Jimmy Page's stuff although I never bought any
of John Paul Jones's solo work - arguably the most idiosyncratic of the three.
Anyway, I've received another Amazon voucher so I'll see what the postman
brings...
