T h e e s s e n T i a l G u i d e T o

4 - 5 Band History

6 - 7 Jimmy Page

8 - 9 Robert Plant

10 - 11 John Paul Jones

12 - 13 John Bonham

14 Led Zeppelin I

15 Led Zeppelin II

16 Led Zeppelin III

17 Led Zeppelin IV

18 Houses of the Holy

19 Physical Graffiti

20 The Song Remains The Same

21 Presence

22 In Through The Out Door

23 Coda

C o n T e n T s :

In 1966, London-based session guitarist Jimmy Page joined the blues-influenced rock band the Yardbirds to replace bassist Paul Samwell-Smith. Page soon switched from

bass to lead guitar, creating a dual lead guitar line-up with Jeff Beck. Following Beck’s de-parture in October 1966, the Yardbirds, tired from constant touring and recording, began to wind down. Page wanted to form a supergroup with him and Beck on guitars, and the Who’s Keith Moon and John Entwistle on drums and bass, respectively. Vocalists Steve Winwood and Steve Marriott were also considered for the project. The group never formed, although Page, Beck, and Moon did record a song together in 1966, “Beck’s Bolero”, in a session that also included bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones.

The Yardbirds played their final gig in July 1968 at Luton College of Technology in Bedford-shire. They were still committed to several concerts in Scandinavia, so drummer Jim McCa-rty and vocalist Keith Relf authorised Page and bassist Chris Dreja to use “the Yardbirds”

name to fulfill the band’s obligations. Page and Dreja began putting a new line-up together. Page’s first choice for the lead singer was Terry Reid, but Reid declined the offer and sug-gested Robert Plant, a singer for the Band of Joy and Hobbstweedle. Plant eventually ac-cepted the position, recommending former Band of Joy drummer John Bonham. John Paul Jones inquired about the vacant position of bass guitarist at the suggestion of his wife after Dreja dropped out of the project to become a photographer. Page had known Jones since they were both session musicians and agreed to let him join as the final member.

A black and white photograph of an airship near a mooring mast exploding at its stern. A 1937 photograph of the burning LZ 129 Hindenburg taken by news photographer Sam Shere, used on the cover of the band’s debut album and extensively on later merchandise The four played together for the first time in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London. Page suggested that they attempt “Train Kept A-Rollin’”, originally a jump blues

song popularised in a rockabilly version by Johnny Burnette, which had been covered by the Yardbirds. “As soon as I heard John Bonham play”, Jones recalled, “I knew this was going to be great ... We locked together as a team immediately”. Before leaving for Scan-dinavia, the group took part in a recording session for the P. J. Proby album, Three Week Hero. The album’s track “Jim’s Blues”, with Plant on harmonica, was the first studio track to feature all four future members of Led Zeppelin.

The band completed the Scandinavian tour as the New Yardbirds, playing together for the first time in front of a live audience at Gladsaxe Teen Clubs in Gladsaxe, Denmark, on 7 September 1968. Later that month, they began recording their first album, which was based on their live set. The album was recorded and mixed in nine days, and Page covered the costs. After the album’s completion, the band were forced to change their name after Dreja issued a cease and desist letter, stating that Page was allowed to use the New Yardbirds moniker for the Scandinavian dates only. One account of how the new band’s name was chosen held that Moon and Entwistle had suggested that a supergroup with Page and Beck would go down like a “lead balloon”, an idiom for disastrous results. The group dropped the ‘a’ in lead at the suggestion of their manager, Peter Grant, so that those unfamiliar with the term would not pronounce it “leed”. The word “balloon” was replaced by “zeppelin”, a word which, according to music journalist Keith Shadwick, brought “the perfect combination of heavy and light, combustibility and grace” to Page’s mind.

In November 1968, Grant secured a $143,000 advance contract from Atlantic Records, which was then the biggest deal of its kind for a new band. Atlantic were a label with a catalogue of mainly blues, soul, and jazz artists, but in the late 1960s they began to take an interest in British progressive rock acts. Record executives signed Led Zeppelin with-out having ever seen them. Under the terms of their contract, the band had autonomy in deciding when they would release albums and tour, and had the final say over the contents and design of each album. They would also decide how to promote each release and which tracks to release as singles.

H I S T O R YH O W T H E Z E P P E L I N T O O K F L I G H T

J I M M Y P A G E Unquestionably one of the all-time most influential, important,

and versatile guitarists and songwriters in rock history is Jimmy Page. Just about every rock guitarist from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s to the present day has been influenced by Page’s work with Led Zep-pelin -- his monolithic riffs served as a blueprint for what would even-tually become heavy metal, yet he refused to be pigeonholed to any single musical style (touching upon folk, country, funk, blues, and oth-er genres). Page also lent a hand in writing (or co-writing) Zeppelin’s vast array of classic songs and produced all their albums. Born on January 9, 1944, in Heston, Middlesex, England, Page picked up the guitar at age 13 after being inspired by the Elvis Presley tune “Baby Let’s Play House,” and while he took several lessons, was mostly self-taught. Instead of attending college right after high school, Page decided to join his first real rock band, Neil Christian & the Crusaders, whom he toured England with. But Page fell seriously ill (with glan-dular fever) and was forced to quit and recuperate. Dejected, Page pondered giving up music and focusing on another interest, painting, as he enrolled at an art college in Sutton, Surrey.

With the emergence of such bands as the Rolling Stones in the early ‘60s and their gritty blues-rock, Page’s interest in music perked up once again -- but instead of forming a band right away, he decided to hone his craft by becoming one of England’s top session guitarists and producers. Although the exact specifics of which sessions he was involved with have become hazy over time, it’s confirmed that he worked with many of the day’s top acts, including the Who, Them, Donovan, the Kinks, and the Rolling Stones, among others. By 1966, Page was looking to put his session work on hold and join a full-time band; he accepted an offer to play with the Yardbirds (initially as a bassist, then shortly thereafter as a guitarist), as he was paired up with another one of rock’s all-time guitar greats, Jeff Beck. Although the Yardbirds began as a straight-ahead blues-rock band, with the inclusion of Page in the lineup, the group began experimenting with psychedelic and hard rock styles. Despite it being obvious that the Yardbirds were on the downside of their

career (Beck left shortly after Page came onboard), Page appeared on the album Little Games and several tours before the band finally called it a day in 1968. With a string of tour dates still set up throughout Europe, Page decided to go through with the shows and put together a new band that was dubbed the New Yardbirds -- including longtime session bassist John Paul Jones, plus newcomers Robert Plant on vocals and John Bonham on drums. After the completion of their initial tour, the band changed its name to Led Zeppelin and explored the still largely uncharted territory of hard rock/heavy metal. The band immediately became one of rock’s most successful and enduring bands, issuing a string of classic albums from 1969 through 1975 -- Led Zeppelin I, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses of the Holy, and Physical Graffiti -- which spawned such classic rock radio standards as “Dazed and Confused,” “Whole Lotta

Love,” “Immigrant Song,” “Black Dog,” “Stairway to Heaven,” and “Kash-mir,” as the band also became a must-see live act in the process. Page also found the time to work with folk artist Roy Harper (most notably his 1971 release, Stormcock, under the alias S. Flavius Mercurius). Zeppelin was arguably the biggest rock band in the world by the mid-’70s (their influence on other rock bands following in their wake cannot be stressed enough) as they launched their own record company, Swan Song, but it was around this time that Page began dabbling with heroin and other substances, eventually leading to him becoming a full-blown addict by the late ‘70s/early ‘80s (as a result, his playing began to suffer). Also, Page’s interest in the occult became a concern to those around him (he went as far as purchasing a mansion on the Loch Ness in Scotland that was once owned by renowned Satanist Aleister Crowley).

T h e V i s i o n a r y a n d C r e a t o r o f L e d Z e p p e l i n

R O B E R T P L A N T

In 1968, guitarist Jimmy Page was in search of a lead singer for his new band and met Plant after being turned down by his first choice,

Terry Reid, who referred him to a show at a teacher training college in Birmingham (where Plant was singing in a band named Obs-Tweedle).[16] In front of Page, Plant sang Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love”, leading Page to the end of his search.

With a shared passion for music, Plant and Page immediately developed a strong relationship, and began their writing collaboration with reworkings of earlier blues songs. Plant received no songwriting credits on the band’s first album, allegedly because he was still under contract to CBS Records at the time.[citation needed] Plant brought along John Bonham as drum-mer, and they were joined by John Paul Jones, who had previously worked with Page as a studio musician.[citation needed] Jones called Page on the phone before they checked out Plant, and Page hired Jones immediately.[citation needed]

Initially dubbed the “New Yardbirds” in 1968, the band soon came to be known as Led Zeppelin. The band’s eponymous debut album hit the charts in 1969 and is widely credited as a catalyst for the heavy metal genre. Plant has commented that it is unfair for people to think of Zeppelin as heavy metal, as almost a third of their music was acoustic.

In 1969, Led Zeppelin I was released. This was the bands’ first album. Plant stated that “During Led Zeppelin I, as far as I was concerned I thought that I was going to [leave the band] anyway.... I was quite nervous and didn’t get into enjoying it until II.” Released only a few months later was the band’s second album, Led Zeppelin II, which many referred to as a

piece-together album. The group worked on this album while on the road, so many of the songs were recorded at separate times rather than in one sitting. This album sparked much controversy due to the fact that some songs on the album, “The Lemon Song” and “Whole Lotta Love”, showed similarities to songs previously written by other artists. This created legal trouble for the band over whether or not they plagiarized these songs.During Led Zeppelin III, which was released in 1970, Page and Plant’s relationship began to grow stronger. The two got to know each other on a more personal level through writing the songs on this album, forming a close connection. The songs for this album were mostly created in a Welsh cottage, and Welsh culture was reflected in many of the songs on this album. This album sold one of the lowest numbers of copies out of all the band’s albums. This was surprising to the band, but many critics argued that the songs on the album were too soft, too aggressive, or for “druggies”. Led Zeppelin IV, released in 1971, was similar to Led Zeppelin III in the mythic storytelling sense. This album included one of the band’s best known songs and greatest hit, “Stairway to Heaven”. Led Zeppelin IV

was a huge hit and sold 37 million copies throughout the world, making it the band’s best selling album. Led Zeppelin belonged to Atlantic Records and contributed to one-fourth of the profits for that record company.The band also created their own record label, Swan Song, in 1974-1975.

In 1975, Plant and his wife Maureen (now divorced) were seriously in-jured in a car crash in Rhodes, Greece. This significantly affected the pro-duction of Led Zeppelin’s seventh album Presence for a few months while he recovered, and forced the band to cancel the remaining tour dates for the year.

In July 1977, his son Karac died at the age of five while Plant was en-gaged on Led Zeppelin’s concert tour of the United States. It was a dev-astating loss for the family. Plant retreated to his home in the Midlands and for months afterwards he questioned his future. Karac’s death later inspired him to write several songs in tribute: “All My Love” featured on Led Zeppelin’s final studio album, 1979’s In Through the Out Door.

T h e G o l d e n V o i c e o f T h e G o l d e n G o d

J O H N P A U L J O N E S

One of the founding members of the legendary group Led Zeppelin, John Paul Jones started life on January 3, 1946, in London, En-

gland. In the turbulent years since then, he has left his mark on rock & roll music history as an innovative musician, arranger, and director.

In 1960, when Jones was only 14 years old, he became a member of his father’s dance band. This time under his father’s watchful eye gave him a chance to gain experience and confidence. A year later Jones formed his first band, and by the next year he began to travel and perform pro-fessionally, at an age when school alone can apply too much pressure on a teen. By the mid-’60s he had served for other groups as director and arranger, as well as bassist and keyboardist. His remarkable credits from that early period include artists like the Rolling Stones, the Outlaws, Jeff Beck, Mickey Most, the Yardbirds, the Mindbenders, the Everly Brothers, and the Supremes.

In 1968 Jones was chosen by Jimmy Page to help put together a new group that would be known as Led Zeppelin. In less than a dozen years, Jones, as a member of Zeppelin, made one movie, recorded nine full-length albums, that gave the world of rock & roll something to think over -- and completed close to 30 exhausting tours.

When Led Zeppelin ended in 1980, Jones continued his musical career. He began to produce and arrange albums for other artists; he also wrote songs, and then film scores for movies likes Scream for Help, Risk, and The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb. In 1996 Jones saw the construc-tion of his own studio completed. Two years later he finally recorded a solo debut album, Zooma.

During the 2000s he kept busy in both studio and live settings -- produc-ing many artists and appearing on tracks by Foo Fighters, as well as jam-ming at Bonnaroo with Ben Harper and the Roots’ drummer ?uestlove. He also participated in the 2007 Led Zeppelin reunion show at O2 Arena, and in 2009 began playing with Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) in the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. The band released its debut album later that year.

Z e p p e l i n ’ s S e c r e t W e a p o n

Drummer John Bonham, often referred to by his nickname “Bon-zo,” was one of the most important and influential drummers of the

1960s and ‘70s -- as a member Led Zeppelin, he was also a bona fide superstar for the last decade of his life and, along with Ringo Starr of the Beatles, Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, Keith Moon of the Who, and Ginger Baker, one of the most well-known drummers in rock. John Henry Bonham was born in Redditch, England, in 1948. He was a natural drum-mer, sensitive to rhythm from an early agew -- he beat pots and pans in his parents’ kitchen, and built his first drum kit out of leftover containers and coffee cans when he was five years old. By the age of ten he had moved up to a real drum, and then later a complete used drum kit that his father bought for him. Like a lot of aspiring drummers of his generation, Bonham’s musical awareness transcended rock & roll -- his idols included such percussion icons as Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich, whose careers dated from the 1930s.

Bonham found himself one of the most in-demand unsigned drummers in England, and after brief return to A Way of Life, he went back to work-ing with Plant, this time in a new group called Band of Joy, whose history included a series of demos that didn’t get them a contract, and a string of gigs opening for American folk/blues singer Tim Rose. The group split up, but when Rose returned to England for another tour a few months later, he invited Bonham to play in his band. At approximately the same time, guitarist Jimmy Page, a longtime sessionman who had been playing with the Yardbirds for almost two years, was in the process of assembling a new band out of the ashes of the latter group, which had split up in the

spring of 1968. Page and bassist Chris Dreja had the Yardbirds name and a series of gigs in Scandanavia which they were contracted to play -- Page intended to meet those obligations, but he had much more in mind for the new band he’d already decided to put together. He recognized that the Yardbirds and the sound they’d generated had gone as far as they could commercially, and he was determined to carry this new musical venture to the next level and beyond. He asked Chris Dreja into the new outfit, and wanted Terry Reid as lead singer, but Reid declined the offer, instead recommending Robert Plant, who accepted Page’s offer. At around this time, Dreja -- who’d been with the band since 1963 -- decided he didn’t want to continue as a working musician, preferring instead to pursue a career in photography; in his place, Page recruited veteran fellow session musician John Paul Jones. That left the drummer’s spot to be filled -- Page had thought of several well-known musicians as possible drummers for the band, including B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum, veteran sessionman Clem Cattini, and Aynsley Dunbar, but Plant urged him to look at Bonham. The guitarist, along with band manager Peter Grant, attended a Tim Rose performance at Hampstead, liked what they heard, and offered Bonham the spot. Bonham actually hesitated to accept at first -- Page and Grant

weren’t offering as much money to start with as a lot of other outfits inter-ested in his services, but he did finally come around and joined.

The musical and personal fulfillment that came from playing in front of arena-sized audiences and selling tens of millions of records, Bonham was -- as much as anyone in rock & roll -- burning the candle at both ends. In addition to such indulgences as collecting vintage sports cars and motorcycles in his spare time, he tended to push himself hard in oth-er areas of life. In the fall of 1980, Bonham had been a member of Led Zeppelin for a dozen years and was still only 33 years old. He was also known as a man who loved his alcohol. On September 24, he downed somewhere over three dozen straight shots of vodka in just a few hours. He died in his sleep later that night, apparently choking on his own vomit from a sandwich he’d eaten amid the drinking. Left to grieve his loss and ask why were his wife, two children, many friends, and tons of fans. Led Zeppelin -- perhaps looking at the travails of the Who, who had lost their drummer, Keith Moon, a couple of years earlier and, with him, their sound and their group identity and cohesion -- didn’t recover, and called it quits within three months. Officially, the band never worked again after 1980.

J O H N B O N H A M

T h e A l l - P o w e r f u l H e a r t b e a t o f L e d Z e p p e l i n

T h e a l b u m s :

T r a C k l i s T :

L E D Z E P P E L I N1 9 6 9

Led Zeppelin had a fully formed, distinctive sound from the outset, as their eponymous debut illustrates. Taking the heavy, distorted electric blues of Jimi

Hendrix, Jeff Beck, and Cream to an extreme, Zeppelin created a majestic, power-ful brand of guitar rock constructed around simple, memorable riffs and lumbering rhythms. But the key to the group’s attack was subtlety: it wasn’t just an onslaught of guitar noise, it was shaded and textured, filled with alternating dynamics and tem-pos. As Led Zeppelin proves, the group was capable of such multi-layered music from the start. Although the extended psychedelic blues of “Dazed and Confused,” “You Shook Me,” and “I Can’t Quit You Baby” often gather the most attention, the remainder of the album is a better indication of what would come later. “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” shifts from folky verses to pummeling choruses; “Good Times Bad Times” and “How Many More Times” have groovy, bluesy shuffles; “Your Time Is Gonna Come” is an anthemic hard rocker; “Black Mountain Side” is pure English folk; and “Communication Breakdown” is a frenzied rocker with a nearly punkish attack. Although the album isn’t as varied as some of their later efforts, it neverthe-less marked a significant turning point in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal.

1. Good Times Bad Times2. Babe I’m Gonna Leave You3. You Shook Me4. Dazed and Confused5. Your Time is Gonna Come6. Black Mountain Side7. Communication Breakdown8. I Can’t Quit You Baby9. How Many More Times

Recorded: September - October 1968, Olympic Studios, LondonReleased: 12 January 1969Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Atlantic

T r a C k l i s T :

L E D Z E P P E L I N I I1 9 6 9Recorded: April - August 1969,

Released: 22 October 1969Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Atlantic

Recorded quickly during Led Zeppelin’s first American tours, Led Zeppelin II provided the blueprint for all the heavy metal bands that followed it. Since the

group could only enter the studio for brief amounts of time, most of the songs that compose II are reworked blues and rock & roll standards that the band was performing on-stage at the time. Not only did the short amount of time result in a lack of original material, it made the sound more direct. Jimmy Page still provided layers of guitar overdubs, but the overall sound of the album is heavy and hard, brutal and direct. “Whole Lotta Love,” “The Lemon Song,” and “Bring It on Home” are all based on classic blues songs -- only, the riffs are simpler and louder and each song has an extended section for instrumental solos. Of the remaining six songs, two sport light acoustic touches (“Thank You,” “Ramble On”), but the oth-er four are straight-ahead heavy rock that follows the formula of the revamped blues songs. While Led Zeppelin II doesn’t have the eclecticism of the group’s debut, it’s arguably more influential. After all, nearly every one of the hundreds of Zeppelin imitators used this record, with its lack of dynamics and its pummeling riffs, as a blueprint.

1. Whole Lotta Love2. What Is And What Should Never Be3. The Lemon Song4. Thank You5. Heartbreaker6. Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman)7. Ramble On8. Moby Dick9. Bring It On Home

L E D Z E P P E L I N I I I1 9 7 0Recorded: September - November 1969 -

August 1970, Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, Headley Grange, Hampshire Island Studios, Olympic Studios, LondonReleased: 5 October 1970Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Atlantic

T r a C k l i s T :1. Immigrant Song2. Friends3. Celebration Day4. Since I’ve Been Loving You5. Out On The Tiles6. Gallows Pole7. Tangerine8. That’s The Way9. Bron-Y-Aur Stomp10. Hats Off To (Roy) Harper

On their first two albums, Led Zeppelin unleashed a relentless barrage of heavy blues and rockabilly riffs, but Led Zeppelin III provided the band with

the necessary room to grow musically. While there are still a handful of metallic rockers, III is built on a folky, acoustic foundation that gives the music extra depth. And even the rockers aren’t as straightforward as before: the galloping “Immigrant Song” is powered by Robert Plant’s banshee wail, “Celebration Day” turns blues-rock inside out with a warped slide guitar riff, and “Out on the Tiles” lumbers along with a tricky, multi-part riff. Nevertheless, the heart of the album lies on the second side, when the band delve deeply into English folk. “Gallows Pole” updates a tradi-tional tune with a menacing flair, and “Bron-Y-Aur Stomp” is an infectious acoustic romp, while “That’s the Way” and “Tangerine” are shimmering songs with graceful country flourishes. The band hasn’t left the blues behind, but the twisted bottleneck blues of “Hats off to (Roy) Harper” actually outstrips the epic “Since I’ve Been Lov-ing You,” which is the only time Zeppelin sound a bit set in their ways.

L E D Z E P P E L I N I V1 9 7 1Recorded: September - December 1970 – Feb-

ruary 1971 July 1971 (mixing) Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, Headley Grange, HampshireIsland Studios, LondonReleased: 8 November 1971Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Atlantic

T r a C k l i s T :1. Black Dog2. Rock And Roll3. Battle Of Evermore4. Stairway To Heaven5. Misty Mountain Hop6. Four Sticks7. Going To California8. When The Levee Breaks

Encompassing heavy metal, folk, pure rock & roll, and blues, Led Zeppelin’s un-titled fourth album is a monolithic record, defining not only Led Zeppelin but the

sound and style of ‘70s hard rock. Expanding on the breakthroughs of III, Zeppelin fuse their majestic hard rock with a mystical, rural English folk that gives the record an epic scope. Even at its most basic -- the muscular, traditionalist “Rock and Roll” -- the album has a grand sense of drama, which is only deepened by Robert Plant’s burgeoning obsession with mythology, religion, and the occult. Plant’s mysticism comes to a head on the eerie folk ballad “The Battle of Evermore,” a mandolin-driven song with haunting vocals from Sandy Denny, and on the epic “Stairway to Heav-en.” Of all of Zeppelin’s songs, “Stairway to Heaven” is the most famous, and not unjustly. Building from a simple fingerpicked acoustic guitar to a storming torrent of guitar riffs and solos, it encapsulates the entire album in one song. Which, of course, isn’t discounting the rest of the album. “Going to California” is the group’s best folk song, and the rockers are endlessly inventive, whether it’s the complex, multi-layered “Black Dog,” the pounding hippie satire “Misty Mountain Hop,” or the funky riffs of “Four Sticks.” But the closer, “When the Levee Breaks,” is the one song truly equal to “Stairway,” helping give IV the feeling of an epic. An apocalyptic slice of urban blues, “When the Levee Breaks” is as forceful and frightening as Zeppelin ever got, and its seismic rhythms and layered dynamics illustrate why none of their imitators could ever equal them.

H O U S E S O F T H EH O L Y

1 9 7 3Recorded: September - December 1971 - August 1972, Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, Stargroves and Headley Grange;Island Studios, LondonReleased: 28 March 1973Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Atlantic

T r a C k l i s T :1. The Song Remains The Same2. The Rain Song3. Over The Hills And Far Away4. The Crunge5. Dancing Days6. D’yer Mak’er7. No Quarter 8. The Ocean

Houses of the Holy follows the same basic pattern as Led Zeppelin IV, but the approach is looser and more relaxed. Jimmy Page’s riffs rely on ringing, folky

hooks as much as they do on thundering blues-rock, giving the album a lighter, more open atmosphere. While the pseudo-reggae of “D’Yer Mak’er” and the affec-tionate James Brown send-up “The Crunge” suggest that the band was searching for material, they actually contribute to the musical diversity of the album. “The Rain Song” is one of Zep’s finest moments, featuring a soaring string arrangement and a gentle, aching melody. “The Ocean” is just as good, starting with a heavy, funky guitar groove before slamming into an a cappella section and ending with a swinging, doo wop-flavored rave-up. With the exception of the rampaging opening number, “The Song Remains the Same,” the rest of Houses of the Holy is fairly straightforward, ranging from the foreboding “No Quarter” and the strutting hard rock of “Dancing Days” to the epic folk/metal fusion “Over the Hills and Far Away.” Throughout the record, the band’s playing is excellent, making the eclecticism of Page and Robert Plant’s songwriting sound coherent and natural.

P R E S E N C E1 9 7 6Recorded: November–December 1975

Musicland Studios, Munich, West GermanyReleased: 31 March 1976Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Swan Song

T r a C k l i s T :1. Achilles Last Stand2. For Your Life3. Royal Orleans4. Nobody’s Fault But Mine5. Candy Store Rock6. Hots On For Nowhere7. Tea For One

Created at a time of intense turmoil for Led Zeppelin -- they scrapped a planned international tour in the wake of Robert Plant’s car accident in Greece in August

1975 -- Presence is a strange, misshapen beast of a record that pulls upon its own ten-sion. With Plant somewhat on the sidelines -- he recorded many of the vocals while in a wheelchair -- Jimmy Page reasserted himself as the primary creative force in the band, helping steer Presence toward a guitar-heavy complexity, perched halfway between a return to roots and unfettered prog. This dichotomy means it feels like Presence sprawls as wildly as Physical Graffiti even though it’s half its length: the four epics tend to over-shadow the trio of lean rockers that really do hark back to the Chess boogie and rockabil-ly that informed Zeppelin’s earliest work. Each of these three -- “Royal Orleans,” “Candy Store Rock,” “Hots on for Nowhere” -- plays as snappily as the throwaways on the sec-ond half of Physical Graffiti, containing a sexy insouciance; the band almost seems to shrug off how catchy Page’s riffs and how thick the grooves of John Bonham and John Paul Jones actually are. No matter how much fun this triptych is, they’re lost underneath the shadow of “Achilles Last Stand,” a ten-minute exercise in self-styled moody majesty and the turgid blues crawl of closer “Tea for One.” In between, there are two unalloyed masterpieces that channel all of the pain of the period into cinematic drama: a molten blues called “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” and “For Your Life,” as sharp, cinematic, and pained as Zeppelin ever were. Added together, Presence winds up as something less than the sum of its parts but its imbalance also means that it’s a record worth revisiting; it seems different upon each revisit and is always compelling.

P H Y S I C A L G R A F F I T I

1 9 7 5Recorded: July and December 1970, January–March 1971, May 1972, January–February 1974 at multiple locationsReleased: 24 February 2975Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Swan Song

T r a C k l i s T :1. Custard Pie 2. The Rover 3. In My Time Of Dying 4. Houses Of The Holy 5. Trampled Underfoot 6. Kashmir7. In The Light 8. Bron -Y -Aur

9. Down By The Seaside10. Ten Years Gone11. Night Flight12. The Wanton Song13. Boogie With Stu14. Black Country Woman15. Sick Again

Led Zeppelin returned from a nearly two-year hiatus in 1975 with the double-album Physical Graffiti, their most sprawling and ambitious work. Where Led Zeppelin IV and Houses of the

Holy integrated influences on each song, the majority of the tracks on Physical Graffiti are individ-ual stylistic workouts. The highlights are when Zeppelin incorporate influences and stretch out into new stylistic territory, most notably on the tense, Eastern-influenced “Kashmir.” “Trampled Under-foot,” with John Paul Jones’ galloping keyboard, is their best funk-metal workout, while “Houses of the Holy” is their best attempt at pop, and “Down by the Seaside” is the closest they’ve come to country. Even the heavier blues -- the 11-minute “In My Time of Dying,” the tightly wound “Custard Pie,” and the monstrous epic “The Rover” -- are louder and more extended and textured than their previous work. Also, all of the heavy songs are on the first record, leaving the rest of the album to explore more adventurous territory, whether it’s acoustic tracks or grandiose but quiet epics like the affecting “Ten Years Gone.” The second half of Physical Graffiti feels like the group is cleaning the vaults out, issuing every little scrap of music they set to tape in the past few years. That means that the album is filled with songs that aren’t quite filler, but don’t quite match the peaks of the album, either. Still, even these songs have their merits -- “Sick Again” is the meanest, most deca-dent rocker they ever recorded, and the folky acoustic rock & roll of “Boogie with Stu” and “Black Country Woman” may be tossed off, but they have a relaxed, off-hand charm that Zeppelin never matched. It takes a while to sort out all of the music on the album, but Physical Graffiti captures the whole experience of Led Zeppelin at the top of their game better than any of their other albums.

T H E S O N G R E M A I N S T H E S A M E

1 9 7 6Recorded: 27–29 July 1973Madison Square Garden, New YorkReleased: 22 October 1976Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Swan Song

T r a C k l i s T :1. Rock And Roll2. Celebration Day3. The Song Remains The Same4. The Rain Song5. Dazed And Confused6. No Quarter7. Stairway to Heaven8. Moby Dick 9. Whole Lotta Love

Commonly dismissed as a disappointment upon its initial release, the soundtrack to Led Zeppelin’s concert movie The Song Remains the Same is one of those

‘70s records that has aged better than its reputation -- it’s the kind of thing that’s more valuable as the band recedes into history than it was at the time, as it documents its time so thoroughly. Of course, that time would be the mid-’70s, when the band was golden gods, selling out stadiums across America and indulging their wildest desires both on and off stage. It was the kind of excess that creates either myth or madness, and this 1976 live album -- comprised of highlights from their three shows at Madison Square Garden during July 1973 -- has its fair share of both, as Zeppelin sounds both magnificent and murky as they blow up songs from their first five albums to a ridiculously grand scale. This is not the vigorous, vicious band documented on the subsequently released live BBC Sessions or the majestic might of the 2003 live album How the West Was Won and its accompanying eponymous DVD, where the band still sounded tight even when they stretched out for 20 minutes. Here, on a show documented just about 18 months after those on How the West, the group is starting to let their status as stars go to their head ever so slightly. They no longer sound hungry; they sound settled, satisfied at their status

as rock overlord, and since a huge part of Zeppelin’s appeal is their sheer scale, hearing them at their most oversized on The Song Remains the Same is not without its charm. This, more than any of their studio albums, captures both the grandiosity and entitlement that earned the band scorn among certain quarters of rock critics and punk rockers in the mid-’70s, which makes it a valuable historical document in an odd way, as the studio re-cords are such magnificent constructions and the archival live albums so powerful. Plus, there is a certain sinister charm to the sheer spectacle chronicled on The Song Remains the Same, particularly in the greatly expanded 2007 reissue, which adds six previously unreleased tracks, helping pump up this already oversized album into something truly larger than life. At this stage, Zeppelin only seemed concerned with pleasing themselves, but they only did so because they could -- others tried to mimic them, but nobody could get the sheer size of their sound, which was different yet equally monstrous on-stage as it was on record. It wasn’t as consistent on-stage as it was on record -- a half-hour “Dazed and Confused” may be the stuff of legend, but it’s still a chore to get through -- but the very fact that Led Zeppelin could take things so far is part of their mystique, and nowhere is that penchant of excess better heard than on The Song Remains the Same.

I N T H R O U G H T H EO U T D O O R

C O D A

1 9 7 9

1 9 8 2Recorded: November - December 1978 Polar, Stockholm, SwedenReleased: 15 August 1979Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Swan Song

Recorded:9 January 1970 – 21 November 1978, overdubs 1982Released: 19 November 1982Producer: Jimmy PageLabel: Swan Song

T r a C k l i s T : T r a C k l i s T :1. In The Evening2. South Bend Suarez3. Fool In The Rain4. Hot Dog5. Carouselambra6. All Of My Love7. I’m Gonna Crawl

1. We’re Gonna Groove2. Poor Tom3. I Can’t Quit You Baby4. Walter’s Walk5. Ozone Baby6. Darlene7. Bonzo’s Montreux8. Wearing And

Marshalling their strength after the dark interlude of Presence -- a period that extended far after its 1976 release, with the band spending a year in tax exile and Robert Plant suffering another personal

tragedy when his son died -- Led Zeppelin decided to push into new sonic territory on their eighth album, In Through the Out Door. A good deal of this aural adventurism derived from internal tensions within the band. Jimmy Page and John Bonham were in the throes of their own addictions, leaving Plant and John Paul Jones alone in the studio to play with the bassist’s new keyboard during the day. Jones wound up with writing credits on all but one of the seven songs -- the exception is “Hot Dog,” a delightfully dirty rockabilly throwaway -- and he and Plant are wholly responsible for the cloistered, grooving “South Bound Saurez” and “All My Love,” a synth-slathered ballad unlike anything in Zeppelin’s catalog due not only to its keyboards but its vulnerability. What’s striking about In Through the Out Door is how the Plant-Jones union points the way toward their respective solo careers, especially that of the singer’s: his 1982 debut Pictures at Eleven follows through on the twilight majesty of “In the Evening” and particularly “Carouselambra,” which feels like Plant and Jones stitched together every synth-funk fantasy they had into a throttling ten-minute epic. With its carnivalesque rhythms, “Fool in the Rain” also suggests the adventurousness of Plant, but it’s also an effective showcase for Bonham -- it’s a monster groove -- and Page, whose multi-octave solo is among his best. Elsewhere, the guitarist colors with shade and light quite effectively, but only the slow, slumbering closer “I’m Gonna Crawl” feels like his, a throwback to Zeppelin’s past on an album that suggests a future that never materialized for the band.

Released two years after the 1980 death of John Bonham, Coda tied up most of the loose ends Led Zeppelin left hanging: it officially issued a bunch of tracks

circulating on bootleg and it fulfilled their obligation to Atlantic Records. Coda doesn’t contain every non-LP track Zeppelin released -- notably, the B-side “Hey Hey What Can I Do” and anything from the BBC sessions were left untouched (they’d be added to Coda on a 1993 CD revision of the compilation, and also appear on the major three-disc overhaul Jimmy Page masterminded in 2015) -- but it does gather much of what was floating around in the wake of their demise, including three blistering rockers that were rejected for In Through the Out Door. If “Ozone Baby,” “Darlene,” or “Wearing and Tearing” -- rockers that alternately cut loose, groove, and menace -- had made the cut for In Through the Out Door, that album wouldn’t have had its vague progressive edge and when they’re included alongside a revival of the band’s early raver “We’re Gonna Groove,” the big-boned funk of the Houses of the Holy outtake “Walter’s Walk,” and the folk stomp “Poor Tom” (naturally taken from the sessions for Led Zeppelin III), they wind up underscoring the band’s often underap-preciated lighter side. For heaviness, there’s a live version of “I Can’t Quit You Baby” and “Bonzo’s Montreux,” a solo showcase for the departed drummer, and when this pair is added to the six doses of hard-charging rock & roll, it amounts to a good snap-shot of much of what made Led Zeppelin a great band: when they were cooking, they really did groove.

C r e a t e d F o r E d u c a t i o n a l P u r p o s e s O n l yI m a g e S o u r c e s : F l i c k r . c o m , A l l m u s i c . c o m , T u m b l r . c o m

C o p y S o u r c e s : W i k i p e d i a . c o m , A l l m u s i c . c o m