COVER STORY
When Led Zeppelin first hit the music scene
they destroyed everything in their path. Zep
borrowed from the blues and created the
template for heavy metal by mixing heavy slabs
of electric guitar riffage with wailing vocals, a
thunderous low end, and a punishing backbeat.
This mighty rock revolution sprung from the
fertile mind and firm direction of one man:
legendary guitar guru Jimmy Page.
Page had the Zep template in his head early
on from having honed his chops as the go-to
session guitarist in Britain in the ’60s before
joining The Yardbirds alongside Jeff Beck.
Page ultimately recast the sonic direction of
The Yardbirds on 1967’s Little Games, which
foreshadowed the level of experimentation
he would soon undertake with Led Zeppelin.
“Everything was supposed to sound different
all the way through – from beginning to end of
all the albums,” Page says of his philosophy as
Zep’s producer and lead guitarist. “So I tried
many different styles and approaches to my
guitar playing including acoustic, 12-string, and
theremin. That was all basically my character as
a guitar player.”
In 1968, Page had put together a four-man
group as part of a commitment to honor The
Yardbirds under the moniker The New Yardbirds.
But rather than employing a faux Yardbirds
tribute band, Page created something else
by recruiting fellow session maven bassist/
keyboardist John Paul Jones, banshee blues
vocalist Robert Plant, and powerhouse drummer
John Bonham. Thus, Led Zeppelin was forged.
For Page, Zeppelin was the perfect example
of a band as a whole being greater than the
sum of its parts: “The most important thing
about Led Zeppelin is that each of us was
musical equals. There’s no doubt about that.
No matter what John Bonham had done before,
he never had the opportunity to play like he did
in Led Zeppelin; and it was exactly the same
for Robert and John Paul Jones. It’s the same
with all of us, actually. Although we were great
individual musicians, we also played so well as a
band.”
“
“THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
ABOUT LED ZEPPELIN IS THAT
EACH OF US WAS MUSICAL
EQUALS. THERE’S NO DOUBT
ABOUT THAT... ALTHOUGH
WE WERE GREAT INDIVIDUAL
MUSICIANS, WE ALSO PLAYED
SO WELL AS A BAND.”
JUNE/JULY
DIGITAL EDITION
”
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