Classic Rock Special: Led Zeppelin

I can remember the first time I heard Led Zeppelin. It was 1984. I’d just been to Woolworths in Saltcoats and bought the seven-inch of Where Were You Hiding When The Storm Broke? by The Alarm and a bag of fizzy cola bottles. I walked through the drizzle to my mate Fin’s house. Fin liked music. He played the drums. He’d be well into this Alarm single (I’d only heard it on the radio once but was already positive that it was one of the all-time greatest songs, ever). At Fin’s I doled out the cola bottles and gave it a spin. He wasn’t that impressed. He passed me an album. “Stick this on,” he said, then he got behind the drum kit he had set up in his bedroom.…

The announcement of a Yardbirds gig at Newcastle’s Mayfair Ballroom in October 1968 barely caused a ripple of interest in the North East, let alone elsewhere. After a string of Top 10 hits a few years earlier, their career was on a downward slide and they were perilously close to becoming yesterday’s men. What the people of Tyneside didn’t know was that the band had actually split up a few months earlier. But rather than cancel a Scandinavian tour, guitarist Jimmy Page had taken the opportunity to relaunch the band with singer Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham, and noted session player John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards. And so the few dozen people who turned up at the Mayfair for what was supposed to be the first date of…

In 1969, Chris Welch was the star writer of Melody Maker, then the most influential and prestigious music paper in Britain. He’d been there when Hendrix first set fire to his guitar at the Speakeasy; hung out in the studio while The Who wrestled with Tommy; kept Dylan waiting in reception for an interview while he finished his lunch; driven Rod Stewart home from gigs in the days when Rod was too poor to afford his own wheels. But, Chris says, he had never – ever – heard anything like this. “One of the younger writers brought an early pre-release copy of the album in and played it on the office stereo – and it just leapt out at you! It really did feel like a great leap forward, in…

When Jimmy Page formed Led Zeppelin out of the ashes of The Yardbirds in late 1968, the guitarist could never have envisaged the success his new band would enjoy in their first year together. Zep’s debut album was released in the US in January ’69 and quickly climbed the Billboard chart off the back of their debut tour there. Its UK release (in March of the same year) gave them a belated boost in their homeland, aided by a series of club gigs and some well-received BBC radio sessions. But it was Zep’s second album that truly defined the band – and moulded the entire genre of rock music itself. ‘Led Zeppelin II’ was a twisted, swaggering beast of a record, born out of the experiences the four-piece (Page, along…

The distinctive ‘Led Zeppelin II’ artwork was designed by David Juniper, and has the four faces of the group members superimposed on an old photo of the Jasta division of German pilots, featuring the notorious Red Baron. Juniper edited the picture and added the face of English actress Glynis Johns (who played the mother in the film version of Mary Poppins) and, rumour has it, members of Zep’s road crew plus blues guitarist Blind Willie Johnson. It has been surmised that the inclusion of Johns was an in-joke reference to producer Glyn Johns, who had worked with Page on Zeppelin’s debut album. Glyn Johns often claimed he had produced the record, and it may have been a retort by Page and friends to include the Glynis Johns photo. The design…

In the USA, singles taken from albums gained valuable radio airplay that, in turn, led to all-important album sales. Consequently, Zeppelin manager Peter Grant had no problem with Atlantic Records issuing an edited version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ as a single there. Its ascent to the Top Five of the Billboard chart by January 1970 confirmed Zep as the hottest act of the new decade. Grant had no plans to allow such a release in the UK, but Atlantic Records presumed differently and went ahead and pressed an initial quantity of the 3.12 edit of the song backed with ‘Livin’ Lovin’ Maid (She’s Just A Woman)’. Allegedly, around 500 copies were distributed to press and radio stations and another 500 ended up in a warehouse in Manchester ready for release.…