Led Zeppelin Biography
The following biography
is from
Wikipedia.org
“The
Free Encyclopedia.”
Led Zeppelin was a British rock band, who were
pivotal in the development of hard rock and heavy metal, and are said to be one
of the most influential bands of all time.
Led Zeppelin debuted in 1968 with a boisterous,
feral, and revolutionary approach to the British blues-rock. In the early 1970s,
they became one of the most popular bands in the world. More than two and half
decades after the band dissolved in 1980, their music continues to sell well,
gain widespread FM radio play, and continues to influence modern rock. To date,
they have sold more than 100 million albums in the United States alone, and they
are the fourth best selling music group of all time.
The band's trademark songs include "Dazed and
Confused", "Whole Lotta Love", "Rock and Roll", "Kashmir", "Black Dog",
"Immigrant Song", and "Stairway to Heaven", which is often estimated to be the
most-played song in the history of radio.
* * * *
History
The Early
Days
The band was originally formed in
1968 by guitarist Jimmy Page under the name The New Yardbirds in order to fulfil
some performance commitments booked in Scandinavia before the break up of the
original Yardbirds. The original Led Zeppelin line-up consisted of Page,
vocalist Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham, and former Yardbirds bassist Chris
Dreja, but Dreja left very early in the band's existence to become a
photographer (and would later take the photograph which appeared on the back of
the group's debut album). He was replaced by Page's long time friend John Paul
Jones. Page's first choice as singer, Terry Reid, declined the opportunity but
recommended Plant, who accepted and then brought in his old friend Bonham from
the defunct Band of Joy. Reports vary as to where the band first all met - a pub
in Walsall, Staffordshire or a rehearsal room in London being cited by some.
After some concerts as with this
line-up billed variously as the New Yardbirds or sometimes simply The Yardbirds,
the band's name was changed to Led Zeppelin, after The Who's drummer Keith Moon
quipped that the band would go over "like a lead Zeppelin". (The comment is
frequently attributed to Who bassist John Entwistle instead, or to a joke shared
between the two.) When adopting the name, the word "lead" was misspelled
deliberately to avoid confusion, fearing Americans might pronounce it "lead
Zeppelin" (as in "lead singer"), as opposed to a Zeppelin constructed of the
metal lead.
Shortly after their first tour, the
group's eponymous first album was released on January 12, 1969. Its combination
of blues and rock influences with distorted amplification made it one of the
pivotal records in the evolution of heavy metal music. Although several of
Zeppelin's earliest songs were based upon or were cover versions of blues
standards, others such as "Communication Breakdown" had a unique and
distinctively heavy sound. The immediate success of the first album kick-started
the band's career, especially in the United States, where they would frequently
tour and where their album sales totals are second only to the Beatles. The
second record, simply titled Led Zeppelin II, followed in the same style later
that year and included the bludgeoning riff of "Whole Lotta Love", which, driven
by the rhythm section of John Bonham on drums and John Paul Jones on bass,
defined their sound at the time.
Jimmy Page and Robert Plant were
blues fanatics; two of Led Zeppelin's early hits, "Whole Lotta Love" and "You
Shook Me", were very similar to earlier songs by Willie Dixon. (The band were
subsequently accused of using his lyrics without crediting Dixon, and it was not
until Chess Records brought suit 15 years later, that proper credit—and a
monetary settlement—was given.) Page was once quoted in an interview with the
hypothesis: "I've often thought that in the way the Stones tried to be the sons
of Chuck Berry, we tried to be the sons of Howlin' Wolf[1]" (a version of whose
song "Killing Floor" featured prominently in Zeppelin's early live
performances). The band also loved American rock and roll: the exuberant styles
of Fats Domino and Little Richard were inspirations, and Led Zeppelin would
perform rockabilly songs originally made famous by Elvis Presley and Eddie
Cochran. Onstage, Led Zeppelin concerts could last over three hours; expanded,
improvised live versions of their song repertoire often incorporated tight
workouts of James Brown, Stax, and Motown-influenced soul music and funk (favourites
of bassist Jones and drummer Bonham).
For the writing of the music on
their third album, Led Zeppelin III, the band retired to Bron-Yr-Aur, a remote
house in Wales. This would result in a more acoustic sound (and a song "Bron-Yr-Aur
Stomp"—misspelled as "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" on the album cover) which was strongly
influenced by Celtic and folk music, and it also revealed a different side of
guitarist Page's prodigious talent. In November of 1970, Led Zeppelin's record
label, Atlantic Records, released "Immigrant Song" as a single against the
band's wishes. It included their only b-side, "Hey Hey What Can I Do". The band
had nine other singles released all without their consent, as they saw their
albums as indivisible. Part of the band's frustration about singles came from
manager Peter Grant's aggressive pro-album stance, and the fact that Atlantic
had earlier released an edited version of "Whole Lotta Love" which cut the 5:34
song to 3:10. The group also resisted television appearances, which left any
ability to control their presentation and sound quality out of their own hands
(with often disappointing or embarrassing results). Lack of Led Zeppelin TV
exposure also enforced the band's preference that their fans hear and see them
in person.
"The Biggest Band in the World"
The band's varying musical
tendencies were fused on their untitled fourth album, which is variously
referred to as Led Zeppelin IV, Zoso, Runes, or Four Symbols. (Not only is the
album itself without a conventional title: on the original packaging, there is
no indication of the name of the band.) Released November 8, 1971, this record
included hard rock such as "Black Dog", Tolkienesque folksy mysticism on "The
Battle of Evermore", and a combination of both genres in the lengthy, almost
suite-like "Stairway to Heaven", a massive FM_radio hit (and never released as a
single in spite of its success) that has been acknowledged by many as the
all-time greatest classic rock song. The album winds up with one of their best
blues songs, a Memphis Minnie cover titled "When the Levee Breaks".
Their next studio record, 1973's
Houses of the Holy, featured further experimentation: longer songs and expanded
use of synthesisers and Mellotron parts. With songs like "The Song Remains the
Same", "No Quarter" and "D'yer Mak'er" (pronounced "Jer-maker", derived from
Jamaica, which was fitting, given the song's reggae feel. This is also a play on
words, based on the joke where a man mistakes his friend saying the word
Jamaica, for "Did You Make Her?")(First man: My wife is off to the Caribbean on
holiday. Second man: Jamaica? First man: No she went of her own accord), Led
Zeppelin was again pushing the limits defining rock music. Their 1973 tour of
the U.S. again broke records for attendance: at Tampa Stadium, Florida they
played to 56,800 fans (more than the Beatles' 1965 concert at Shea Stadium).
Three sold-out New York shows at Madison Square Garden were filmed for a concert
motion picture, but this project would be delayed for several years.
In 1974, Led Zeppelin launched
their own record label called Swan Song, named after one of only five songs that
the band never recorded for commercial release (the track was re-tooled as
"Midnight Moonlight" by Page's post-Zeppelin band The Firm on their first
album). Besides using it as a vehicle to promote their own albums, the band
expanded the label's roster, signing artists such as Bad Company, Pretty Things,
Maggie Bell, Detective, Dave Edmunds, Midnight Flyer, Sad Café and Wildlife.
1975 saw the release of Physical
Graffiti, their first double album set, on the Swan Song label. The album
included songs recorded in studio sessions from the group's previous three
albums plus new songs. Led Zeppelin again showed its impressive range with songs
like the melodic "Ten Years Gone", the acoustic "Black Country Woman", the
driving "Trampled Underfoot" and the thundering, Indian-Arabic-tinged "Kashmir".
Shortly after the release of
Physical Graffiti, the entire Led Zeppelin catalogue of six albums was
simultaneously on the top-200 album chart, a feat not accomplished since The
Beatles in 1964 when they had seven. The band embarked on another U.S. tour,
again playing to record-breaking crowds. To top off the year, they played five
sold-out nights at the UK's Earls Court (these shows were recorded, portions of
which would be released on DVD some 28 years later). At this peak of their
career, Led Zeppelin were the biggest rock band in the world.
If the band's popularity on stage
and record was impressive, so too was their reputation for excess and off-stage
wildness. Zeppelin travelled in a private jet (nicknamed "The Starship"), rented
out entire sections of hotels, and became the subjects of many of rock's most
famous stories of debauchery: trashed hotel rooms (TVs out the window,
motorcycling in the halls), sexual escapades, and heavy use of drugs and
alcohol. Several people associated with the band would later write books about
the wild escapades of the group, while band members themselves have disavowed
many of the tales.
The
Latter Days
In 1976 the band took a break from
the road and began filming "fantasy" segments for the concert film entitled "The
Song Remains The Same". During this break, Robert Plant and his wife were in a
car crash while on holiday in Greece which broke Plant's ankle; Maureen Plant
was very seriously injured, and only a flight back to London and a timely blood
transfusion saved her life. Unable to tour, the band returned to the studio and,
with Plant sitting on a stool during the sessions, they recorded their seventh
studio album Presence. The album was a platinum seller, but marked a change in
the Zeppelin sound as straightforward, guitar-based jams such as "Nobody's Fault
But Mine" had replaced the intricate arrangements of previous albums. A
highlight of the album was the epic-length "Achilles Last Stand" featuring a
driving bassline and thundering drums, melodic Page riffs and a magnificent
guitar solo. Overall the album received mixed responses from critics and fans,
with some appreciating the looser style and others dismissing it as sloppy and
lazy; some critics speculated that the band's legendary excesses may have caught
up with them at last. The year 1976 marked the beginning of Page's heroin use, a
habit which would often interfere with their live shows and studio recordings in
their later years.
Late 1976 finally saw the release
of the concert film The Song Remains the Same and its soundtrack double LP.
Though the concert footage was from 1973, this would be the only filmed document
of the group available for the next 20 years. The soundtrack album of the film
had some songs missing and some added compared to the film, and also some songs
are different cuts from the 3 nights the band performed at Madison Square
Garden. The soundtrack is not generally considered a great live album, but would
remain the only official live document of the band until the eventual release of
the BBC Sessions in 1997.
In 1977, Led Zeppelin embarked on
another massive U.S. tour, again selling out up to 5 nights in cities like
Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. (Seattle and Cleveland shows from this tour
were the sources of bootleg albums prized by fans.) Following a show at the "Day
on the Green" festival in Oakland, the news came that Robert Plant's son Karac
had died from a stomach infection. The rest of the tour was cancelled, and
malicious critics and superstitious fans whispered of a "curse" said to be
related to Page's interest in the occult; such charges were scoffed at by the
band.
The band did little recording or
live work during 1978; the sombre mood was extended with the death of their
friend, Who drummer Keith Moon. The summer of 1978 saw the group recording
again, this time at Swedish Polar Studio, owned by the pop group ABBA ; this
album would be titled In Through the Out Door and would highlight the talent of
drummer John Bonham on the epic "Carouselambra" and the tropical "Fool In The
Rain". The album also featured rockers like "In The Evening", and the balladic
tribute to Plant's son, "All My Love". John Paul Jones had a lot of influence
over the album and it consequently features many synthesisers. After a decade of
recording and touring, the band was now considered a dinosaur in some quarters,
as mainstream musical tastes had moved in favour of disco and critical focus had
turned to punk rock. Nevertheless, the band still commanded legions of loyal
fans, and the album reached #1 in the US and UK.
In the summer of 1979, after two
warm-up shows in Copenhagen, Led Zeppelin was booked as headliner at England's
Knebworth Festival in August. Close to 400,000 fans witnessed the return of Led
Zeppelin and, with the release of In Through the Out Door in August, they were
ready to tour again, planning a short European tour followed by another American
tour.
The 1980 American tour was not to
be, however. On 25 September 1980, shortly before embarking on the U.S. leg of
the tour, drummer John Bonham died of an accidental asphyxiation after an
alcohol binge. Because of Bonham's death, the remaining band members determined
they could not continue as Led Zeppelin. For many years after, there had been
ongoing rumours of a reunion and plans for various collaborative projects.
Two years after Bonham's death, the
band released Coda, a collection of out-takes from previous recording sessions.
In the years to follow, a steady stream of boxed sets and greatest-hits
collections would keep the band on the charts, as Led Zeppelin continued to
garner heavy airplay on rock radio.
Reunions
and ongoing success
After embarking on a successful
solo career in 1982, Plant teamed with Page in 1984 for the commercially
successful Honeydrippers Volume I EP, which also featured Eric Clapton and Jeff
Beck. On 13 July 1985 Led Zeppelin reunited at the Live Aid concert for a short
set featuring Page, Plant and Jones, with drummers Tony Thompson and Phil
Collins standing in for the late John Bonham. The performance included three
songs ("Rock and Roll", "Whole Lotta Love" and "Stairway to Heaven") and a
myriad of difficulties. A year later in 1986, Page, Plant and Jones gathered at
Bath, England for rehearsals with Thompson with a view to play again as a group,
but a serious car accident involving Thompson put an end to that plan. However,
Zeppelin did reunite again in 1988, with Jason Bonham (standing in for his
father, John) joining the remaining three for Atlantic Records' 40th Anniversary
concert. In addition, they played with Jason at Carmen Plant's (Robert's
daughter) 21st birthday party, and Jason's wedding. In 1990, Robert Plant and
Jimmy Page played a brief set together at the Knebworth music festival, which
included the rarity off of Coda, "Wearing and Tearing". Page and Plant, without
Jones, reunited in 1994 for an MTV Unplugged performance (dubbed Unledded) which
eventually led to a world tour with a Middle Eastern orchestra, and an album
entitled No Quarter.
1997 saw the release of the first
Led Zeppelin album in over 15 years— BBC Sessions. This two-disc set included
almost all of the band's recordings for the BBC, though fans noticed the absence
of one session from 1969 that included the unreleased "Sugar Mama". At this time
Atlantic also released a single edit of "Whole Lotta Love" making it the only
Led Zeppelin CD single. In 1998, Page and Plant continued their collaboration
after the Unledded project with Walking into Clarksdale, the pair's first
album-length collaboration on all-new material since Led Zeppelin.
The British press reported in 2002
that Plant and Jones had reconciled after a 20-year feud that had kept Led
Zeppelin apart, and rumours surfaced of a reunion tour in 2003. Drummer Dave
Grohl of Nirvana, and singer/guitarist of the Foo Fighters was named as a
potential replacement for Bonham, a claim later denied by Page.
2003 saw yet another resurgence of
the band's popularity with the release of live album and video collections
featuring material from the band's heyday (see How the West Was Won album and
Led Zeppelin DVD). At year's end, the DVD had sold more than 520,000 copies,
easily making the list of the most popular DVDs of the year.
In 2005 Led Zeppelin received a
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, which was the first (and to date only) Grammy
the band had received. They were ranked #1 in US cable channel VH1's 100
Greatest Artists of Hard Rock special.
In early 2005, a census done by
British radio determined that Stairway to Heaven was the overall most requested
song.
Samples
and Covers
Beginning in the 1980s, the iconic
nature of many Zeppelin riffs made them a popular target for sampling, initially
unauthorised but later sanctioned by the surviving band members, to mixed
reactions from fans. Hip-hop group the Beastie Boys sampled Bonham's crushing
beat from "When the Levee Breaks", and also borrowed parts of "The Ocean" for
"She's Crafty". For the movie Godzilla (1998), guitarist Jimmy Page collaborated
with P. Diddy, reworking the famous riff from "Kashmir" in the hit song "Come
With Me"—Page also has a brief vocal part in this song. Tool has covered "No
Quarter" and a riff from the song can be found in Sublime's "Smoke Two Joints".
Another band featuring Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan, A Perfect Circle,
covered When the Levee Breaks on their eMOTIVe album in 2004. The rock/comedy
duo Tenacious D strategically used pieces of "Stairway to Heaven" in the
original version of their song "Tribute".
Led Zeppelin songs have been the
subject of cover versions on occasion; American band Dread Zeppelin have made a
career out of covering and parodying Zeppelin tunes. A cover version of "Whole
Lotta Love", by Alexis Korner, was, for many years, used as the theme music for
the BBC's chart show Top of the Pops. Tina Turner covered Led Zeppelin II 's
"Whole Lotta Love" and the London Philharmonic Orchestra released an orchestral
tribute to Led Zeppelin that includes versions of "Stairway to Heaven", "When
The Levee Breaks" and "Kashmir". Rolf Harris recorded a cover version of
stairway to heaven in the 1993 which reached No.7 in the UK charts [1]. In 1995
a tribute album entitled Encomium: A Tribute to Led Zeppelin was released
featuring covers performed by modern rock acts, notably a hit version of
"Dancing Days" performed by Stone Temple Pilots.
In 1978, a band from Davis,
California called Little Roger and the Goosebumps put out a single called
"Stairway To Gilligan's Island" (by putting the words to the theme of the 1960s
US television show Gilligan's Island to an adapted and condensed "Stairway to
Heaven"). This song became popular especially through heavy play (and many
listener requests) on the Dr. Demento Radio Show. Legal action by
representatives of Led Zeppelin soon followed and the single was withdrawn from
sale.
Unlike many of their
contemporaries, the band has been very protective of its catalogue of songs and
seldom allowed them to be licensed for other uses. In recent years this position
has softened somewhat and Led Zeppelin songs can be heard in movies such as One
Day in September, Almost Famous and School of Rock; on the DVD release of the
latter, a special feature shows star Jack Black and an auditorium full of extras
videotaping a plea to Led Zeppelin for permission to use "Immigrant Song" in the
film. And in a concession for commercial use, the Led Zeppelin song "Rock and
Roll" can now be heard in Cadillac television and radio ads.
Members
Jimmy Page — guitar
Robert Plant — lead vocals,
harmonica
John Bonham — drums
John Paul Jones — bass guitar,
keyboards, mandolin
The band has often cited
influential manager Peter Grant as a "fifth member"
*
* * *
The
above biography has been copied in part or in whole
from an article on
Wikipedia.org
"The Free Encyclopedia." It has been modified under
the NGU Free Document License Section 5 in the
following manner: (1) All links within the article
have been removed, including text links such as
"[#]"; (2) The "[Edit]" text and link have been
removed [if you would like to update the article,
you may do so from the original page]; (3) the table
of Contents links and text have been removed; and
(4) all of the sections of the original article have
not been copied. All of the above text is available
under the terms of the
GNU Free Document License.
URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_zeppelin
Date Article Copied:
August 7, 2005
We
will try to replace this article with an original
biography in the near future, but we hope this will
be of help to our visitors in the mean time.
For
additions & corrections,
Click Here |