Released
on January 12th, 1969, the debut eponymous LP by Led Zeppelin turns 55
years old today. Rising from the ashes of The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin
would lay out some of the most important foundation stones for heavy
metal & hard rock and become one of the biggest bands in the world
throughout the following decade.
Jimmy Page, the man at the
centre of the band, spent most of his career in the '60s working as a
highly regarded session musician in the UK. In 1966 he joined The
Yardbirds, then fronted by guitar legend Jeff Beck, as a bass player,
but soon switched to guitar, doubling up on leads with Beck. Beck left
the group the following year, putting Page at the helm for their final
album, Little Games (1967). By 1968, other members of the group were
burning out from touring and also wanting to go in a more acoustic folk
oriented direction. Page's penchant for hard and heavy blues put him at
odds with that. With contractual obligations still necessitating a
number of remaining tour dates, the departing members of The Yardbirds
agreed that the group could temporarily continue on stage as the "New
Yardbirds", with Page assembling a fresh band.
Page's initial
conception was to create a super-group with Jeff Beck, plus Keith Moon
and John Entwistle from The Who, and possibly vocalist Steve Winwood or
Steve Marriott. This never materialized as all his picks for vocalist
turned him down. Instead, he found himself being referred by another
declining first pick vocalist, Terry Reid, to a relative unknown by the
name of Robert Plant, who in turn brought along drummer John Bonham.
Bassist John-Paul Jones, who was someone Page knew from session work,
auditioned for the group at his wife's behest, thus completing the
lineup. With the four members in place, they fulfilled the touring
requirements of the Yardbirds before heading to the studio to start
working on some recordings of their own.
With the Yardbirds name
no longer legally available for them to use as a recording entity, they
began to consider alternatives. At one point, Keith Moon had commented
that Page's "super-group" concept would go down like a "lead balloon",
disparaging that it would be less than successful, but the irony of the
concept appealed to Page. At the suggestion of manager Peter Grant, the
name was modified to Led Zeppelin, dropping the "a" in "lead" so people
didn't mispronounce it "Leed", and changing "balloon" to "Zeppelin", as
it evoked the ideas of both lightness with heaviness as well as
combustibility. That cheekiness would also express itself on the
album's cover, which featured the famous shot of the Hindenburg bursting
into flames. If it was going to be a colossal failure, they might as
well have a sense of humour about it.
The band began recording
their debut LP in mid September, 1968, completing recording and mixing
in a mere 9 days, with production costs covered by Page and Grant. The
material for the album was drawn from mostly original songs worked out
during their transitional touring phase fulfilling their commitments to
the Yardbirds, with some traditional blues material having been
percolating within the predecessor group while Page was in charge. With
most of the songs well worked out during their contractual obligation
tour, they were able to get them down on tape in the studio with little
fuss.
Page used a "distance makes depth" approach to
production. At the time, most music producers placed microphones
directly in front of the amplifiers and drums. For Led Zeppelin, he
developed the idea of placing additional microphones some distance from
the amplifier (as far as 20 feet) and then recording the balance between
the two. The technique would provide Zeppelin's signature sound and
flew in the face of the dry-as-bones productions that dominated
throughout the 1970s. It wouldn't be until a full decade later that
this methodology would become common among the mainstream of rock and
pop producers.
Peter Grant then set about nailing down a record
contract for the band, and thanks to his bullish determination and a
recommendation by Dusty Springfield, managed to secure a deal with
Atlantic Records, which included a whopping $143,000 advance, the
largest ever paid for an unknown band, sight unseen. The deal included
exclusive rights for the band to have complete control over their
touring and recording schedules, as well as creative control of all
aspects of their products, including mixing, production and album
graphics.
Their debut album was released while the band were on
their first tour of the US, with the album peaking on the American
Billboard charts at #10, and #6 in the UK. Throughout the year after
its release, they would tour the US and UK four times and release their
sophomore LP before the year's end. It was a blitzkrieg attack on the
rock world that set the industry on notice that something massive was
about to dominate the world of rock 'n' roll, redefining its sound for a
new era.
Initial critical reception for the album,
surprisingly, was often negative and harsh. The group emerged at a time
when "super-groups" were all the rage, while their bloated promises of
greatness mostly turned out to be over-hyped bullshit. As such, the
critical tides were against them and they suffered a few slings and
arrows before they could prove themselves. Retrospectively, the album
has shaken off any and all of the detritus of those early critiques and
reigns as one of the band's most highly regarded releases. Its raw
energy and intensity have made it representative of the band at their
fiercest, most primal peak.
