Led Zeppelin did not succumb to their predicted fate.
Instead, they became rock music pioneers. Led Zeppelin was unlike anything of
its time, cultivating a blues-rock sound with a crisp heaviness. Perhaps it was
the combination of Page's swift blues guitar playing in conjunction with the unusual and bluesy falsetto of Robert Plant. (Interestingly, Page's style was the antithesis of
fellow Yardbird, Eric Clapton, who was nicknamed "Slow Hand.") The new sound,
the first real 70s band, was rounded out
with the insanely brilliant drumming of John Bonham and the stellar
musicianship of John Paul Jones.
50 years later, Led Zeppelin's debut withstands the
test of time. From the opening chords of "Good Times Bad Times" to the closing
notes of the blues saga "How Many More Times," there isn't a single dull moment
on the album. Song genres bounce from hard rock to deep blues to folky; three eclectic
styles the band would embrace throughout their career. Transitions like "Black
Mountain Side," a steel-string acoustic guitar ballad, into "Communication
Breakdown," a fast-paced rocker, showcase the band's extraordinary talent.
No discussion of Led Zeppelin is complete without a
mention of "Dazed and Confused." With its slow, descending bass-line, the song
lingers in the mysterious before punching its way into hard rock legend. Add in
a guitar solo played with a violin bow, and you have yourself an instant
classic.
Keep in mind, though, that Led Zeppelin is far from a 10
on the AM scale. The LP is a mixed bag, a bit too quirky at times and flawed on a myriad of levels – doesn't matter. With little exception, this is the LP that
transformed the 60s into the 70s. Rock 'n' roll transitioned into rock when Keith
Richards laid down the opening riff for "Satisfaction" in 1965. Led Zeppelin
was the next real turning point. There are better LPs from the era, dozens of them, but none
are more influential.
And no, by the way, it's not amnesia. There is little
doubt that the genre was more essentially created by Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce
and Ginger Baker with the power trio Cream. It was Cream who fused rock, blues
and jazz in a very heavy and unheard of way beginning in 1966 and made a host
of other contemporary musicians take notice. Cream fought with Atlantic Records
early on because their style was not yet bankable but gradually convinced the
bigwigs that a song like "Sunshine of Your Love" could win over the musical public. Cream was the seed, but
today remain sadly unnoticed and underrated. With that in mind, Led Zeppelin is
far more influential than Disraeli Gears (a far better LP).
The bottom line is, there was a tight knit
ensemble of friends and colleagues who created a sound that Led Zeppelin
brought to the forefront. Here's the recap: Eric Clapton was only 18 when he
joined the Yardbirds in 1963, just after the group took over for the
up-and-coming Rolling Stones as the house band at London's Crawdaddy Club. Like
many English musicians of his generation, Clapton was primarily interested in
American blues, and quit the Yardbirds when they
drifted from blues toward experimental pop with their 1965 hit "For
Your Love," an AM10). Clapton recommended as his replacement his friend Jimmy
Page, then an enormously successful session musician, but Page declined. That
led to the Yardbirds hiring Jeff Beck, who would serve as the group’s lead
guitarist during its most successful and influential period. In 1966, when Paul Samwell-Smith quit the band, Jimmy Page finally agreed to join the group, initially playing bass and then teaming with Beck in a twin-guitar attack before Beck left
later in the year. The transformation from Yardbirds to the New Yardbirds
would take place in its many iterations during the course of 1968 and in December of that year, Led
Zeppelin was born.
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