Led Zeppelin

Description

Formed at the end of August 1968, the band of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham had no other name than The New Yardbirds when their manager Peter Grant sent them on a Scandinavian tour. One evening, in Denmark, Plant's microphone fails. He still manages to be heard amidst the instruments! At the end of these concerts, the musicians appreciate each other despite their differences (Page and Jones are two old hands, studio sharks, while Plant and Bonham appear as less educated and experienced but talented provincials). They also find a name: Led Zeppelin. Reunited in London for three weeks, they occupy the Olympic Studios rented at Jimmy Page's expense and tackle a cover of Muddy Waters composed by Willie Dixon, "You Shook Me," which they copy the arrangement from the Jeff Beck Group (leading Page to fall out with the guitarist). Plant's voice is so high-pitched that it blends with the sound of the guitar. It is accompanied by another song by Dixon (properly credited) covered from Otis Rush, "I Can't Quit You Baby," which still makes a big impact on stage. Then Plant and Page tackle the folk ballad "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You," discovered on a Joan Baez record, rearranged by the guitarist who years later would credit Anne Briggs. Trying to sing it with a screechy voice, Plant realizes it's better to whisper it (in the headphones, between two verses, you can hear him catch his breath and open his mouth, a rare and privileged moment). The alternation of softness and violence in this same song is one of the originalities that Led Zeppelin brings, with John Paul Jones's bouncing bass and Bonham's drumming patterns transcending this material. Lovers of The Band's first album, they consider covering "Chest Fever," but prefer to compose a song in the spirit of it, "Your Time Is Gonna Come" (a bit of a precursor to "Thank You") where John Paul Jones excels again on the organ and where Plant sings very harsh lyrics towards the female gender - for contractual reasons, he is not credited on the record for his contributions, although they are not negligible. Rather than recording the Yardbirds' stage battle horse, "Train Kept-a-Rollin'," they choose "I'm Confused" borrowed by Jimmy Page from folk singer Jake Holmes, to which he returns its original title, "Dazed and Confused," and makes it an anthology piece where Jones's frightening bass line, Plant's banshee voice, and Bonham's thunderous drumming mix in a high-class sonic orgy. Eager to showcase his solo talents, Page then copies note for note "Back Water Side," a piece by guitarist Bert Jansch (The Pentangle), and makes it, modeled after the "White Summer" he had written during the Yardbirds era, an Indian-inspired fantasy named "Black Mountain Side," where tabla player Viram Jasani appears as a guest. It directly precedes the formidable "Communication Breakdown," two minutes and twenty-seven seconds of pure rage that slightly drifts from Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown" and has since been nicknamed the "My Generation" of the seventies, even though the song was composed in 1968. It later becomes the subject of a single release as the B-side of "Good Times, Bad Times," the most pop composition of the album (with Bonham's astonishing triplets), which does not shake up the charts and will never be played in full during concerts, only the intro being reused. Finally, the other medley of Led Zeppelin on stage, the fantastic "How Many More Times" (built on a single chord) is placed at the end, once again a brilliant idea since no other piece can be imagined to close the album. On the cover, Page is careful not to mention the true authors of the piece, namely Howlin' Wolf, whose "How Many More Years" has been cheerfully plundered, as well as the composition by Booker T. Jones "The Hunter," already covered by Free on "Tons of Sobs." During the bridge, always eager to experiment, he rubs a violin bow on the strings of his guitar, an idea borrowed from Eddie Phillips of The Creation and which he had already applied within the Yardbirds. He even slips in a bolero rhythm reminiscent of a passage from Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix, which will become a sort of staple for all hard rock bands. During the final sessions, Page learns that the Rolling Stones are looking for a new band to present during the television show Rock'n'Roll Circus, which they want to film in December. He then sends a demo to Mick Jagger who, ever perceptive, rejects Led Zeppelin ("too many guitars!") and instead chooses Jethro Tull... Page and Peter Grant do not care and, once the multi-track master tape of the album is completed, they go to New York and present the fruit of their work to Ahmet Ertegün, head of Atlantic Records. Enthusiastic, Ertegün immediately pulls out his checkbook and has a contract drawn up that his two visitors eagerly sign. The rest, as they say, is history. Remastered, Led Zeppelin I is reissued in June 2014 in a double volume including the concert of October 10, 1969, at the Olympia in Paris. Frédéric Régent - Copyright 2017 Music Story