Led Zeppelin: Part 2, The First Album

Led Zeppelin had recorded their first album within weeks of coming together as a band. How would this album be greeted?

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Page takes charge

In Led Zeppelin: Part 1, The Making Of, I described how the band formed and recorded their first (unfunded) album in September and October 1969. With a great record deal in place, they were ready to wow the world with their sound.

Led Zeppelin—the eponymous name of Led Zeppelin's first album—consisted of a collection of some original material and reworking of blues and folk songs from the era. The album was recorded on a shoestring, taking only 36 hours to record and the £2,000 cost stumped up by the most established artist in the group, Jimmy Page.

Page was the driving force behind the album. He was used to playing in a big rock band (The Yardbirds) alongside the world-famous Jeff Beck. He'd learnt the basics of making and arranging a record. It was that confidence that allowed him to very quickly meld the three new band members—Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones—into a tight, integrated unit.

Led Zeppelin performing at Whisky a Go Go, West Hollywood, 3 January 1969. Image source

Going to America

The Yardbirds had to cancel their December '68 to February '69 tour of North America when they disbanded in September '68. Led Zeppelin's manager, Peter Grant happened to work out of the same agency that managed The Yardbirds and managed to convince the concert promoters to take his band instead.

The fact that Zeppelin had already recorded probably sealed the deal as Grant sent advanced copies to key radio stations. Again, it was done on a shoestring with Grant, Page and Jones underwriting the tour while the two twenty-year-olds Plant and Bonham were paid a salary.

They performed at almost 40 stops on the tour, starting in Denver on 26 December 1968 and ending on 16 February 1969 in Baltimore. That's a show virtually every night without a break. And they travelled coast-to-coast, North-to-South. The started out as the opening act for groups like Vanilla Fudge, Iron Butterfly and Country Joe & the Fish. But as the tour rolled on they soon became the headline act and towards the end, the other bands just stopped pitching up.

Led Zeppelin performing at Three Image Club, Miami West, 15 February 1969. Image source

Their set mainly consisted of songs from their album. It was released in America on 12 January 1969. It was enthusiastically received and, together with the growing popularity of their concerts, 50,000 advance orders of the album were placed. Led Zeppelin reached number 10 on the Billboard chart and number 6 in the UK.

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The songs

When I first heard this album, I was blown away at its rawness (as compared to Led Zeppelin II which I was familiar with), yet a tightness I hadn't heard before. The lads played and sang their hearts out with enormous synergy.

It starts off with a commercial rocker, Good Times Bad Times. It is breathtaking on first hearing and was a good showcase for the band but was seldom performed live by them.

Babe I'm Gonna Leave You was a reworked version of a 1950's song written by Anne Bredon. Page had heard a Joan Baez cover of the song and it was one of the first that he and Plant rehearsed together.

With You Shook Me, we, at last, come to their signature blues-rock style. It was written by Willie Dixon and had been recorded by Jeff Beck, who was unhappy that Zeppelin had copied his arrangement.

Dazed and Confused is the stand-out track on the album. Each member of the band is dazzling and the “conversation” between Page's guitar and Plant's voice is brilliant. Page managed to produce the slightly psychedelic sound by using a bow on his guitar.

This song was the centrepiece of their earlier shows, often being stretching it over thirty minutes, like on this performance. Here they are doing it in 1969:

Side two starts off with Your Time Is Gonna Come, an interesting organ solo and into an acoustic guitar backed verse and chorus. The song crossfades into Black Mountain Side, an acoustic instrumental based on a traditional folk song. It must have been brave to put these two tracks on the album, but it certainly showed off their versatility, their light and dark.

Communication Breakdown became a Zeppelin staple in their concerts. This rocker often closed their concerts.

I Can't Quit You Baby is the second Willie Dixon blues number on the album. Much calmer than You Shook Me, it powerfully demonstrates the band's affinity for the blues.

How Many More Times also became a live performance favourite, particularly in the early years. Two interesting things about this number:

1. It includes a bolero section, very similar to Beck's Bolero written about in the previous post
2. On the first pressing of the album, the cover showed it had a playtime of 3.30 when in fact it is 8.27. Page thought he could get more radio time with a radio-friendly track length.

Critics

Although enthusiastically received by the fans, the critics were less impressed. Jimmy Page was particularly pissed off by Rolling Stone's John Mendelsohn review. In fact, it caused a rift between the band and the magazine, causing it much consternation though much of the '70s as Zeppelin strode over the rock music world.

Here's an extract:

In their willingness to waste their considerable talent on unworthy material the Zeppelin has produced an album which is sadly reminiscent of [the Jeff Beck Group’s] Truth. Like the Beck group they are also perfectly willing to make themselves a two- (or, more accurately, one-a-half) man show. It would seem that, if they’re to help fill the void created by the demise of Cream, they will have to find a producer (and editor) and some material worthy of their collective attention.

But the critics soon came around to this new phenomenon that had hit the world. Steve Erlewine:

Led Zeppelin I was a significant turning point in the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal

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This is the second part in a series on Led Zeppelin, and will continue in Part 3.

Previous posts in this series:
Led Zeppelin: Part 1, The Making Of

References:
Classic Rock Review: Led Zeppelin’s 1969 Albums
BBC: Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin Review
Rolling Stone: Led Zeppelin I
Wikipedia: Led Zeppelin (album)

Also posted on Weku, @tim-beck, 2019-01-29