Led Zeppelin FAQ_All That's Left to Know About the Greatest Hard Rock Band of All Time

by George Case

  John Paul Jones

  Unlike Jimmy Page, the versatile “Jonesy” is not linked in the public mind with any one or two famous basses or keyboards. “I have a vast collection of instruments, but I’m not a collector,” he told Dave Lewis in 2002. “Instruments are for playing.” As much as the other performers in Led Zeppelin, Jones had many gigs to make and parts to play—how and with what were secondary to him. His most recognized axe was a 1961 Fender Jazz bass, serial number 74242, that he played in the studio and live throughout his stint in Led Zeppelin (it’s alternately said to date from 1962). He was also seen with a lovely 1951 Fender Precision bass (sometimes called a “Telecaster bass” for the resemblance of its head and hardware to the guitar’s), a 1970 Fender fretless Precision (brought out again at Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion show), and, in 1973, a five-string 1967 Fender Bass V. In the later Zeppelin years he took out two very advanced Alembic instruments, one a four- and the other an eight-string, the latter of which delivered a heavy punch to cuts such as “Achilles Last Stand.” “The one good thing about that period [recording Presence] was that I’d started using the Alembic eight-string, which I felt really added to our sound,” he recalled.

  Tapped to play other string instruments for the quartet’s acoustic interludes—“Oh, Jonesy will do it,” was the reasoning—Jones picked up Martin, Harmony, and Fender mandolins, an Ovation twelve-string guitar, an Arco upright bass, and, not to be outdone by Page with his double-neck, a spectacular triple-neck acoustic that incorporated mandolin, twelve- and six-string guitars, handcrafted by Englishman Andy Manson. That’s Jones tickling the mandolin on “Gallows Pole” and “Going to California,” and guitar onstage for “The Battle of Evermore.” As keyboardist with the group, Jones was pragmatic in his choice of implements: Hohner, Hammond, and Farfisa organs or electric pianos, a Fender Rhodes piano, a Hohner clavinet for the relentless funk of “Trampled Underfoot,” and Steinway and Yamaha grand pianos. The Mellotron M400, an early step toward what would become the synthesizer, was played onstage for

  John Paul Jones has played a range of unique instruments over the course of his career.

  Author’s Collection

  “Stairway to Heaven,” “The Rain Song,” and “Kashmir.” “I used to use a mellotron, which was the only way you could get a string or flute sound in those days,” he told Bass Player magazine in 2007. “But you’d never know when it was going to be in tune.” His most significant keyboard acquisition, in terms of its effects on Led Zeppelin’s music, was a Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer in 1978, which was prominent on such In Through the Out Door cuts as “In the Evening,” “All My Love,” and “I’m Gonna Crawl.” In concert and in studios Jones sometimes stepped on Fender or Moog bass pedals to play simplified foundations of songs he was already doing on another instrument, e.g., “Since I’ve Been Loving You,” “That’s the Way,” or “Ten Years Gone.” Some quintessential 1970s electronic music was generated by his EMS VCS3 (an acronym for Voltage Controlled Studio with 3 oscillators) unit for “No Quarter,” “Four Sticks,” and “In the Light”—this prog rock fixture is better known for its deployment by Pink Floyd, and the Who on “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” Like Page, Jones tried and rejected many amplification setups with Led Zeppelin: Vox, Rickenbacker (“In a matter of seconds I blew it up”), and Gallien-Krueger, but decided his Acoustic 360 preamps and speaker cabinets worked best and so used them for most of the group’s stage sets.

  John Bonham

  Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the drum kits John Bonham played with Led Zeppelin is their simplicity: In the years where the flashiest percussionists were burying themselves behind virtual fortresses of pedals, heads, cymbals, and hardware, Bonham stuck with a more modest set of components. The difference was that his drums, though fewer in number than Ginger Baker’s or Keith Moon’s, were all the largest dimensions available (even his Premier, Ludwig, and Promuco drumsticks were oversize). Though he did seek to add a second bass drum to his kit for some of Zeppelin’s first rehearsals and gigs, the ensuing calamity was just too much for Page and Jones to keep up with: “They freaked everyone out,” remembered roadie Clive Coulson. Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, a friend of Bonham’s from his Birmingham days, also spoke of the Zeppelin drummer complaining to him, “Them bastards won’t let me use two bass drums.” No matter. For his historic drum work he mainly relied on the basic configuration of a single bass drum, a fourteen-inch Ludwig Supraphonic snare, a rack-mounted tom-tom, one or two toms on the floor, and a hi-hat, plus two or three crash and ride cymbals.

  John Bonham used several kits during his employment with Zeppelin, starting with a Slingerland assembly in 1968 but moving to—and staying with—Ludwigs thereafter. He hit Ludwig Black Diamond Pearls in 1969, with a twenty-four-inch bass drum and a single sixteen-inch floor tom. A Ludwig Natural Maple kit was played from 1969 to 1970, now with a twenty-six-inch bass, a Ludwig Speed King bass pedal (his preferred pedal from then on), two floor toms, and a Paiste thirty-eight-inch symphonic gong. From 1970 to 1973 Bonham sat at Ludwig Sparkle Green drums, now with two Ludwig twenty-nine-inch tympani to his left, and the gong behind him.

  Led Zeppelin’s record-breaking 1973 North American tour immortalized Bonham’s Ludwig Amber Vistalite drums, clear instruments (bass and toms) tinted off-yellow with his Led Zeppelin IV symbol imprinted on the bass head; he took them out again in ’75. Now he had four cymbals besides the hi-hat, the sixteen- and eighteen-inch floor toms, two tympani, and a gong with which to blow fans away. Some drummers say the acrylic material of the Vistalites doesn’t sound as nice as the usual wood, but for eye-catching allure they’re supreme. This unforgettable kit was later auctioned off for charity for more than £100,000. In 1977, ’79, and ’80 Bonham was seen and heard with a stainless steel Ludwig collection, although the number of drums and cymbals remained constant. His live renditions of “Kashmir” and “Moby Dick” in latter-day gigs were given electronic phase effects. For Zeppelin’s quieter moments he handled a tambourine or congas, spoons, and castanets for the jug band fun of “Bron-y-Aur Stomp,” and a tambourine-like Ralph Kester Ching Ring atop his hi-hat for soloing. Timbales were played on “Bonzo’s Montreux.” Occasionally a cowbell was seen attached to his bass drum, audible on the studio version of “Moby Dick,” “Houses of the Holy,” “We’re Gonna Groove,” and the electrifying opening to “Good Times Bad Times.”

  Robert Plant

  As Led Zeppelin’s vocalist, Plant of course had no guitar, keyboard, or drum to play, but he could be as plugged-in as his mates for concerts and studio work. As with Page, Jones, and Bonham, his pick of equipment was as practical as it was considered, and although in his post-Zeppelin days he has endorsed guitar models he probably had no great preference for any particular piece of the band’s inventory. He did appear in ads for Shure microphones in the 1970s—not that he held a Shure at every single Zeppelin show—and he is known to have used the common Hohner harps and harmonicas in various keys for such bluesy Zeppelin cuts as “You Shook Me,” “Bring It On Home,” “When the Levee Breaks,” “Poor Tom,” and “Nobody’s Fault but Mine.” Plant was also photographed at congas when recording, and banged a tambourine during live performances of “Stairway to Heaven” and other songs. Learning the instrument in the early 1970s, he is believed to have borrowed the others’ guitars to strum simple backings for “Boogie with Stu,” “Night Flight,” and “Down by the Seaside.” Possibly the most important device the singer took up was an Eventide Harmonizer, a signal-altering unit (also used by Jimmy Page for some concert guitar solos, and on Bonham’s “Bonzo’s Montreux”) that enabled him to double his vocals (hence the name) when his natural projection failed him, as it began to over Led Zeppelin’s many long and loud performances. This was first employed by Plant on the 1977 US tour, then again at Knebworth in ’79. Though the Harmonizer could make for some spacey sound effects when sung through, some listeners, including bandmate Jones, felt Plant relied on it overmuch.

  Timeline<
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  1970

  January: First reports of 1968 My Lai massacre by US troops in Vietnam.

  January–March: Led Zeppelin tour Britain and Europe.

  March–April: Led Zeppelin tour the US and Canada.

  April 10: Paul McCartney announces he is leaving the Beatles.

  May: Page and Plant at Bron-yr-Aur cottage.

  May 18: Student protests at Kent State University leave four dead.

  June 6: Led Zeppelin plays the Bath Festival, England.

  June–July: Recording Led Zeppelin III at Headley Grange and Island and Olympic Studios.

  August–September: Led Zeppelin tour the US and Canada; conduct more recording work in Memphis.

  September 14: Arab militants hijack five airliners, blow up three.

  September 18: Jimi Hendrix dies, London.

  October 4: Janis Joplin dies, Los Angeles.

  October 5: Led Zeppelin III released.

  October 18: Canada invokes War Measures Act against militant Quebecois separatists.

  November 12: Charles de Gaulle dies, Paris.

  December: Preliminary work on Led Zeppelin IV.

  Movies: Five Easy Pieces; M*A*S*H; Love Story; Patton,

  Music: Van Morrison, Moondance; Neil Young, After the Gold Rush; Miles Davis, Bitches Brew; Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath, Paranoid; Derek and the Dominos, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs; Simon & Garfunkel, “Bridge Over Troubled Water”; the Kinks, “Lola”; Edwin Starr, “War”; John Lennon, “Instant Karma.”

  7

  Wonders What It’s All About

  Led Zeppelin Songs That Reference Real People, Places, or Events

  I Was Told What It Means: The Stories Behind the Songs

  Obviously, the lyrical sources for any song can come from the writer’s imagination, from his or her personal experience, or a combination thereof, and Zeppelin tunes are no exception. Some of the foursome’s best-known verses and choruses were derived from the blues, and others came out of simple experimentation with rhythms and rhymes, but a surprising number of them arose out of day-to-day feelings or circumstances that have been uncovered since. This list is of Led Zeppelin tunes that are known to have origins in the authors’ own reality.

  “How Many More Times”

  Robert Plant is borrowing from several other songs in his improvisations here, but his mention that he had a child on the way was accurate insofar as the birth of his daughter, Carmen, was imminent when the song was recorded in October 1968.

  “What Is and What Should Never Be”

  According to Richard Cole in Hammer of the Gods, the mysterious damsel Plant is singing to was an actual clandestine liaison of his in 1969.

  “Thank You”

  On one of his very first attempts to sit down and compose a song, Plant is here in faithful husband mode, writing for his wife, Maureen, in gratitude for her support of him and his rock ’n’ roll career.

  “Living Loving Maid (She’s Just a Woman)”

  Though it’s never been confirmed, the subject of this scornful rocker was probably one of the aggressive but unwanted groupies who pestered the band in America during 1969, or a composite of several.

  “Immigrant Song”

  The lyrics of Zeppelin’s Viking battering ram were inspired by the band’s visit to Reykjavík, Iceland, in June 1970, settled by seaborne Scandinavian conquerors centuries before. If not a historically coherent depiction of Norse invasions, “Immigrant Song” did rise out of “the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun where the hot springs flow.”

  “Tangerine”

  Jimmy Page’s rewrite of a 1968 Yardbirds demo is conceivably a ballad that recalls his girlfriend of the mid-1960s, singer Jackie DeShannon.

  “Bron-y-Aur Stomp”

  Named for the Welsh cottage where it was written, the song is obliquely about Plant’s canine companion Strider.

  “Hats Off to (Roy) Harper”

  Though nothing about the actual Roy Harper is heard in this blues pastiche, his inclusion in the title was a compliment from Plant and Jimmy Page, who’d recently met the folksinger and admired him for his scruffy independence.

  “Black Dog”

  Named for, if not about, a stray Labrador that wandered in and around the Headley Grange house where the blistering blues track was first recorded. “There was an old black dog around the Grange that went off to do what dogs did and came back and slept,” noted John Paul Jones.

  “The Battle of Evermore”

  The pastoral, archaic vibe of this duet with Sandy Denny was partly based on Robert Plant’s recent study of the Anglo-Scottish border wars between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, when English kings and Scot chieftains warred across the Roman marker of Hadrian’s Wall. “You can live in a fairy land if you read enough books and if you’re interested in as much history as I am,” he told an interviewer in 1972. “The Dark Ages and all that.”

  “Misty Mountain Hop”

  This song is connected to Plant’s enjoyment of marijuana and escapades with law enforcement cracking down on same.

  “Four Sticks”

  John Bonham played the song with two drumsticks in each hand.

  “Going to California”

  The “Queen without a king” who “plays guitar and cries and sings” is Joni Mitchell, much admired by Page and Plant, and a resident of the Californian hippie haven of Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles.

  “Going to California” was inspired by the gentle folk of singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.

  Courtesy of Robert Rodriguez

  “When the Levee Breaks”

  A cover of Memphis Minnie’s original, which described the catastrophic Mississippi River floods of 1927 and the subsequent migration to Chicago and other northern urban centers by the region’s African-American populace. The song became newly relevant after the 2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster that befell New Orleans, where levees were once again breached.

  “The Song Remains the Same”

  The travelogue of sites named in this Houses of the Holy opener—California, Honolulu, Calcutta—reflects the band’s globe-trotting tour schedule of the previous three years. Though Led Zeppelin as a group never performed in India, Page and Plant had visited there and enjoyed their jams with local players.

  “The Rain Song”

  Musically if not lyrically spurred by John Bonham’s conversation with George Harrison, during which the ex-Beatle chided him and his group: “The problem with you guys is you never do ballads.” “I said, ‘I’ll give him a ballad,’” Jimmy Page recollected, “and I wrote ‘The Rain Song’…. In fact, you’ll notice I even quote ‘Something’ in the song’s first two chords.”

  “The Ocean”

  Robert Plant would introduce the song in concert by telling fans, “This is about you,” meaning the undulating waves of longhairs filling the stadiums where Zeppelin gave their concerts. The three-year-old girl who has won the singer’s heart is once again his daughter, Carmen.

  “Houses of the Holy”

  Related to “The Ocean,” the piece refers to the communal feeling inside the halls and arenas of the quartet’s live appearances. Plant was deeply affected by performing to such numbers as came to see Led Zeppelin. “I love my work, which is communication on a vast level,” he once said. To another reporter he was more secular: “Some nights I just look out there and want to fuck the whole first row.”

  “Kashmir”

  Quick to qualify that no member of the group had traveled to the India-Pakistan border region, Plant has explained that the exploratory, questing lyrics for the Physical Graffiti masterpiece came from his journeys in the comparably exotic Morocco, driving down “a single-track road which cut neatly through the desert… [T]here was seemingly no end to it.”

  “Bron-yr-Aur”

  Like the earlier (misspelled) “Bron-y-Aur Stomp,” the warm acoustic guitar interlude is titled for the Welsh cottage where it was initially strummed into being.

 
“Ten Years Gone”

  Plant revealed that this epic ballad described a first love, presumably from about 1964, with whom he’d broken over his pursuit of show business success.

  “Black Country Woman”

  Another disguised admission from Plant of infidelity with his wife’s sister, who likewise hailed from the English Midlands, or Black Country.

  “Boogie with Stu”

  What it is: a boogie with friend and auxiliary Rolling Stone Ian “Stu” Stewart.

  “Sick Again”