Boy .. where should I begin? I was only able to see Becoming Led Zeppelin once 2 days ago so I have to put down my impressions into words before the details escape me.
You could properly review every book, every documentary, every bit of film by taking this quote to heart, from the dedicated special issue from Guitar World, Mar. 2004 (#66) on Led Zeppelin. The intro from Brad Tolinski, Guitar World’s editor in chief, sums is all up:
“To be fair, Led Zeppelin’s greatness is genuinely complex. Like a Japanese puzzle box whose contents are revealed only after one acquires a deep knowledge of how each piece works together, the group defies easy analysis. The truth must be found among the shifting layers of decadence and discipline, and in light and shade, and in the explosive energy of the four supremely talented band members.”
That is a great way to preface the documentary. The audience should range from the graduate students of the band all the way down to the casual viewer. Like all great documentaries, it spans that range.
WHO WAS I WHEN I FIRST HEARD THEM?
Before I delve into the details of the documentary, most of which has really been covered elsewhere, a few points: When and where did I first hear them? That was 1969 in Tripoli Libya. My ten year old brother had LZII but I bought LZI. We were young and super hip! Why did they reach our attention? Because what we heard were primarily English bands and the place we got all of our early records was Malta, a simple hour flight north of Tripoli. There was a Tower Records on Prince St. in Valetta – our early source for all albums. Good times!
So with many, many listenings of the first two albums under my belt, reviewing the documentary is now a good place to go.
WHERE DID EACH MEMBER COME FROM? (Physically and musically)
Like with me or any fans of Led Zeppelin, it is good to know where they “came from” on their journey to their first meeting at a rehearsal room in Soho in Sept. of ’68.
By this time, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page had known each other for years as studio musicians. Both started very very young as studio players, which in the documentary was a brutal environment that tolerated no 2nd tier players. It’s important to emphasize this as the doc. does, as their early recorded and live efforts demanded this.
Jimmy Page: Essentially, as the doc reveals, prior to forming Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page was fresh out of the Yardbirds, having played with them until sometime in 1968. Early versions of songs in the 1st two albums had already been “workshopped” in the Yardbirds. He was born and raised in a nurturing supportive family. He has been seen in a film (in the doc of course!) in the late 1950s playing in a skiffle band, as all proper English kids did after Lonnie Donegan exploded on the scene. He eventually snaked into a job as a studio musician in late 1962 – about 18 years old (he claims he was younger in the doc, but..??) !! – and developed a good reputation with his precision and reliability. Eventually he worked with Donovan, Shirley Bassey, The Who (details are disputed but aren’t included in the doc.). He was playing with the big boys in London and with the Yardbirds he was able to tour America – which was momentous in his career and the direction he decided to take once he formed Led Zeppelin.
John Paul Jones: John Paul Jones started early in life as an organist but had a love for bass, which his father eschewed (“It’s just a passing fad – focus on the saxophone instead”. How dead wrong he would be!). He became a very busy studio musician and arranger, and worked with Page on Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man”. As the documentary states in ’68 after the Yardbirds disbanded, his wife said to him that Page was looking for band members and that he should give Page a call, which he did. But at that moment in time, John Paul Jones was already a masterful multi-instrumentalist with love of Motown and blues players. He certainly brought probably more to the table than any English musician out there.
Robert Plant: Robert Plant recalls his early childhood as happy in a neighbuorhood in the West Midlands. He is portrayed in the doc. as being the hippiest dippiest of the four, and promoted marijuana and grew his hair and had a beard in his late teenage years. He had a solo single of “You’d Better Run” (a Rascals song covered by Pat Benatar in the early 80s by the way) in 1966 with his group Listen and even then you could hear his soulful baritone sound characteristic of LZ’s first two albums – though his upper range was amazing as well! He formed Band of Joy in 67-ish (details omitted in the doc) with John Bonham on drums. He then joined/formed a band named Hobstweedle prior to joining Led Zeppelin.
John Bonham: John Bonham was born in ’48 (same year as Plant, and was given a snare drum by his parents at the age of 5. He had a full kit by the time he was fifteen. His voice is included in the doc by a previously unreleased interview, excerpts of which fill out his thoughts and detailes of his early life. He cites Max Roach, Gene Krupa, and Buddy Rich as major infuences. Krupa makes a lot of sense as his crazy energy can be seen in Bonham’s playing. Like everyone else in the band, there are good samples and snippets of his playing from the early sixties until LZ’s formation, but once the first album was out, with it’s IMMACULATE sound, all bets were off. That album is the best version of all four members in audio format up to that time. More on that later.
HOW DID THEY ALL CONVENE FOR THEIR FIRST MUSICAL EXPERIENCE?
So how did they all get together? John Paul Jones and Page knew each other and Jones’ wife recommended he get in touch with him. Terry Reid was going to be Page’s choice as a singer but he turned him down, citing more lucrative offers (I bet he’s sorry now!) but wisely referred Page to Plant, who he watched at a live show in Birmingham. Finally Bonham, who had s secure job w/Tim Rose, turned town Robert’s invitation to try out but eventually relented following a barrage of telegrams from Page and their manager Peter Grant after Page saw Bonham play in a North London club (details not included in the doc in that detail).
When they finally all met, in Aug. 12 of 1968 in a tiny downstairs rehearsal room on Gerard Street. that fact was very fortunate. It allowed the band to all kick-start the sound and live performances which won over crowds, increasing their popularity meteorically, particularly in the United States, where Page states in the doc. that that was a major focus for them.
As portrayed in the documentary, their first musical meeting in that basement in the West End would leave an impression on all of them, with all members in the doc expressing in amazement how much they locked in and what power they had at the get-go. They immediately embarked on a mini-tour of Scandanavia in Sept. to ostensibly hone their chops for the next move. By all accounts the audience response was wild and rapturous.
THE FIRST RECORD:
Time for their first record! It began in late Sept. of ’68 with Glyn Johns co-producing with Page. As the band were well rehearsed and money tight, it was done on a tight budget and schedule. As the doc states, they’d rehearse the music in London but go to his house(boat?) up the Thames to write new music. The first albums non-covers were written by Page including music and lyrics. Page used his expertise and experience (remember, he was 24 at the time!) to get the sound he wanted, taking advantage of the best skills each musician could supply, and certainly, to repeat an oft-used phrase, the sum of the whole was much greater than the individual parts. Snippets of the first album are featured in the doc. I always loved Good Times Bad Times and recent listens really reveal Bonhams’s explosive playing, his swing, and the skill using his right foot (bass drum) to complete a great sound no doubt brought to fore by Page’s production. The doc expands on some of the innovative techniques on the first album, including the reverse reverb on “You Shook Me”. The album’s content had a mix of blues, hard rock, folk, and a touch of psychedelia, most mentioned in the doc.
CONTRACT, FIRST TOUR. LZII, follow-on live footage:
They self-funded, had to answer to nobody, and shopped the record to various labels (Peter Grant was also well connected) before finally settling on Atlantic. They were given full control of, well, everything!
Page demanded that no singles were required to be released (few ever in fact were in their career. NONE in the UK and a few in the US) and once that was all in place, they started their fall UK tour (not really covered in the doc) and their fall/winter US tour.
The doc shows how keen they were to win over US audiences and to the fans and themselves they did not disappoint. This tour started their meteoric rise that only ended with the death of Bonham in ’80.
(I believe that) the documentary shows how they began to extend their concert lengths with improvisations that enthralled the audiences and among themselves made them realize they could do almost anything. Though none of their now-legendary excesses were documented here, photos of them on tour with some very attractive women featured in the doc.
The documentary concludes with their 2nd album recording experience including the complex layers in “Whole Lotta Love” which reveals all of the parts track-by-track in the doc. Notably it discusses Plant’s songwriting in “Thank You” which really led him to the fore as their lyricist, tho in reality Plant had contributed since LZ1. The doc discusses how the 2nd album propelled them to the highest heights of fame, eclipsing other live acts except a precious few. Like the first album, in my experience, it “bats 1000” as they say over here. Not a bad song almost ever with Led Zeppelin. Notably the critical responses, though tepid at first (huh?), really began to turn positively by the second album. Also briefly mentioned is the fact that LZII was recorded all over the place (tho mixed at A&R studios in NYC). Eddie Kramer is featured discussing the recording and mixing experience on the 2nd album.
The documentary shows some rare footage of tours in the US in the early dates – side note: Peter Grant refused to allow them to be filmed claiming it would overexpose them – and a document of the band following the release of LZII is the show at the Royal Albert Hall in Jan. of ’70- a rare official view of the band in the early days. Though featured well in the documentary, this show was only released recently although I saw snippets of it in a Kiosk outside of the Portland Memorial Coliseum preceding a Page/Plant show in the nineties. The full show, well represented in the documentary, shows how rabid the fans were, even in the UK, or should I say, ESPECIALLY in the UK.
OVERVIEW OF THE DOCUMENTARY
The documentary really shows a) their focus on excellence, yet paradoxically their bemusement at the success, which to their credit was a surprise in a hyper-competitive environment and b) their discipline and drive. In this period the only albums I can really compare in their greatness are Tommy by The Who, Abbey Road, and Black Sabbath. Each were vastly different in their style and focus yet all were great albums in a small pantheon of the all time greats.
The three surviving band members were interviewed around the same time but not in the same room apparently. Apparently the doc was in the can by 2021 so these interviews are at least that old. It’s fortunate that Page cleaned up his act and is the archivist and elder spokesman for this famous band, tho Plant, Jones and audio of Bonham provide in-depth and sanguine observations about their lives before Zeppelin and during this formative period.
COUNTER CULTURE?
Let’s get back to 8 year old me. Counter Culture? Well I was certainly aware of it, mostly musically as in Tripoli there was music and baseball and having scraps with the local kids. I am shocked that everyone doesn’t know at LEAST as much as me about these bands. I don’t mean this in any way judgmentally. I just presumed it. I am routinely disappointed in that area! I started my research as early as humanly possible besides just listening to the albums in amazement. I’ve always said, let the music speak for itself. Led Zeppelin proves this in their first two albums without a shadow of a doubt. The music I knew well. It was engrained into every cell in my body and always has been. It was only in later years (besides reading rock magazines) that I could glean the finer details of this band, only solidifying my love for them, if only to appreciate their fallibilities. The internet allowed some of the very rare footage to creep out of the woodwork in the last 25 years or so, but the early footage of the band members pre-Zeppelin, little tho there was, was a pleasant surprise in the doc!
SIDE NOTE
I was fortunate enough to see them at the Seattle Kingdome in 1977 over the bellicose protestations of my dad. I went with a friend’s parents who dropped us off. 100 level seats (that I had) were ten bucks, sold out, but we bought them from “reputable” scalpers for a whole 20 bucks! . Only two songs from the 1st two albums survived into the setlist: Moby Dick and Black Mountain Side. The acoustics there were atrocious! The only other show I saw there was The Who/The Clash/The Fabulous Thunderbirds in ’82. The Kingdome show was their 4th from last ever in the US. Oh, I took an Amtrak back the next day to Portland and weed was shared among the concert goers. I remember is was a sunny mild day on that Monday morning and let’s say I was a little “dazed and confused” finding my way home on the Tri-Met bus! I still have the T-shirt which is now highly reprinted.
If you haven’t, GO SEE THIS DOCUMENTARY! I strongly recommend it.
Picture Credit
By Sony Pictures Classics – https://blabbermouth.net/news/official-led-zeppelin-documentary-becoming-led-zeppelin-to-receive-imax-theatrical-release-in-february, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78984569
