#101 Led Zeppelin, 'Led Zeppelin' (1969)
Previously #29
The debut album by the mighty Led Zeppelin; a record that was the start of so much. Astoundingly, this collection of songs was recorded in just 36 hours and cost £1,782 to make. It was funded by Jimmy Page, who also produced it, and the band’s manager, Peter Grant. With this record, Zeppelin didn’t invent Hard Rock, but they perfected it. They fused Blues, Folk and Rock, writing 5 of the 9 songs, with the remaining being interpretations and their own reworkings of classic Blues and Folk songs. The great Willie Dixon’s presence is felt on the songs ‘You Shook Me’ and ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby.’ Following the dissolution of the Yardbirds, Page recruited popular session player, John Paul Jones to play bass in his new incarnation of the group. Page tried to hire Terry Reid as vocalist, however he declined and recommended a young vocalist named Robert Plant, who would bring with him former bandmate, John Bonham as drummer. The four members first rehearsed the day before Plant’s 20th birthday. After a tour of Scandinavia, Page would change the name of the band from The New Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin.
Opening with the first and only single, ‘Good Times Bad Times,’ Page’s massive guitar sound coupled with Bonham’s famous fast right foot would have completely blown people out of the water. It was a completely new sound. ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,’ a reinterpretation of a song by Anne Bredon, is an early example of Zeppelin’s ability to fuse a softer acoustic sound with the heavier. It’s also one of my favourite Zeppelin songs. On ‘You Shook Me,’ Page mimicked a version recorded by Jeff Beck a year before, who stated his displeasure with them for copying his arrangement. Other important songs on the record include staple, ‘Dazed and Confused,’ ‘Communication Breakdown’ (cited by many as the first metal song) and ‘Your Time Is Gonna Come,’ which starts with an organ solo by the multi-instrumentalist of the band, Jones. ‘Led Zeppelin’ was released on the 12th January 1969 (incidentally, two days before Dave Grohl was born, who would go on to play in Them Crooked Vultures with Jones). It was a forbearer to Metal, a pioneering Hard Rock album and the career-start of one of the most influential artists of all time.
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