#123 Led Zeppelin, 'Led Zeppelin II' (1969)
Previously #79
When I was 15 years old I had a guitar teacher who was never ready for our lesson on a Saturday morning. Often when I’d show up he was still sleeping. He’d sit me in his teaching room as he showered and every week he’d pop the same record on. The album started with a massive riff before segueing into a little drum interlude played exclusively on cymbals after one minute seventeen. One morning, I’m sure after a particularly heavy night, my teacher emerged just as the album started playing for the second time. The little bit with the cymbals started and he started air drumming in the geekiest way you could imagine, telling me that this was the greatest drum solo of all time. “The greatest?” I wondered. “How could it be the greatest? There are no massive drum fills, what is he talking about?” I can still see his scrunched-up face as his hands flailed about. The song, ‘A Whole Lotta Love,’ the drummer, John Bonham, and the album, this one! It took a few years for the penny to drop, for me to truly appreciate the complexity of a solo played exclusively on cymbals and to understand the genius of John Bonham. A man so brilliant and bombastic as to throw in a gong in the middle of ‘What Is and What Should Never Be, and then again in ‘The Lemon Song.’ The only drummer I know that can lead a melody on his drums. That song, by the way, in the sum of its many parts is absolutely brilliant. Each member brings their own to it to make it a unique song, quintessentially Zeppelin. John Paul Jones’s bassline is one of my favourite performances of his on record. Into ‘Thank You,’ one of Zeppelin’s most beautiful performances led by Jimmy Page’s 12-string guitar and Plant’s subdued vocals, with little stabs of his full power halfway through, but not before pulling it back. The power and beauty of his vocal on this one is down to his complete control of it. The backing vocals are also so prominent, moreso than other Zeppelin songs, I’d think. Into the 1-2-3 punch of the massive rock anthems, ‘Heartbreaker,’ ‘Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman)’ and ‘Ramble On,’ the latter featuring a completely random ramble about ‘Lord Of The Rings.’
The album was the band’s first to reach #1 in both the US and the UK and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Recording Package. It’s sold more than 12 million records. Its unique sonic quality was down to Page and engineer, Eddie Kramer (sidenote, my guitar teacher had a signed photo by him in his teaching room) “twiddling every knob known to man.” Experimentation that resulted in its iconic sound. If 15-year-old me wasn’t impressed by the drum solo on the first track, he definitely would be blown away by the solo on the second last track, ‘Moby Dick,’ which is, in my opinion, Bonham’s finest drum performance on record. The fastest right foot in history. The album ends with a cover of the Chicago Blues track ‘Bring It On Home,’ written by Willie Dixon (whose grandson once gave me a tour of the famous Chess Studios in Chicago, but that’s a story for another time). This record was a major influence on my life and still one of my all-time favourites.
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