Led Zeppelin I - Explodes On The Music Scene

It’s only in retrospect that Led Zeppelin’s first official record has come to be known as Led Zeppelin I. In fact, the band’s debut album was self-titled Led Zeppelin. Back then, who knew “how many more times” they’d record?

Now that we all know the correct title, I hope the purists out there (you know who you are!) will forgive me if I sometimes refer to this seminal album both ways interchangeably for clarity and convenience.

Jimmy Page’s Yardbirds disbanded in July of 1968. By August, he and manager, Peter Grant, had recruited Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham to form The New Yardbirds. And in early September, this group was already touring Scandinavia!

Their quick tour allowed the band to rehearse and test the material they planned to record. Audiences in Denmark, Sweden and at a few venues home in England went wild! Led Zeppelin, as they now called themselves, went into the studio.

photo credits

Album Recorded In Record Time

Led Zeppelin I was recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes, a suburb of London, England. Jimmy Page not only played on the album, he produced and bankrolled it. Page spent as little time and, therefore, money, on it as possible.

Legend has it Led Zeppelin was recorded in 30 hours or less, during September/October 1968. Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler had signed Zeppelin to Atlantic Records for a then-unheard-of advance of $250,000. By December, the band had already crossed the pond.

Led Zeppelin played several gigs opening for Vanilla Fudge and Spirit on the west coast of the US and Canada. They weren’t even mentioned in the concert ads and posters. Imagine – audiences then had never heard of Led Zeppelin before!

The band didn’t even have an album to its credit, but that would soon change. Boston deejay, JJ Jackson, had been spinning their promo before Atlantic Records’ official North American release on January 12, 1969. Beantown was ready to rock!

The Inside Track At Olympic Studios

Many consider Led Zeppelin I to be among the greatest albums in rock’n’roll history. I had the privilege of speaking with George Chkiantz, a tape operator and studio engineer at Olympic Studios.

Although he didn’t work on the band’s albums until later, he was there at Olympic when they recorded the first one. He knew both Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones from their many studio sessions before forming Led Zeppelin.

In Sonic Boom: Volume 1, he described for me the inside of Studio #1 where most of the LP was recorded. Despite having tremendous respect for the individual musicians’ talent, he felt that Jimmy Page’s guitar sounded cruel and metallic.

He said he didn’t particularly care for it initially and that he’d never really heard that all-out guitar attack before, even though he was in the business. He couldn’t fathom what Led Zeppelin was trying to accomplish.

The album Led Zeppelin I is largely based on Jimmy Page’s superhuman guitar riffs. Mr. Chkiantz confessed to me that, based on the phenomenal success of that debut album, Page obviously knew what he was doing!

photo credits

High Production Values For Its Time

The music is one thing. But what makes Led Zeppelin I sound so fresh and exciting after four decades is largely thanks to the album’s pristine production values. The LP was state-of-the art in its day.

Just think back to the late 1960s. Everything was recorded in analogue format. There was no digital technology. No computers! No sampling. Even stereo sound was an oddity. Editing was done by physically cutting and splicing tape together.

Thanks to Jimmy Page’s extensive studio experience, he knew how to make the most of the equipment available. And at the time, Olympic Studios was a cutting-edge facility where artists like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Procol Harum recorded.

JJ Jackson pointed out to me a technique he felt Page used to generate a feeling of unstoppable forward momentum. He left just a split second between selected tracks. Certain songs run from one to the next, creating non-stop musical action.

Let’s Look At The Music Anyway!

Led Zeppelin I is a bombastic blend of blues, rock, psychedelia, pop and world music. The opening track, Good Times Bad Times, surprised one of my interviewees. Don Fitzpatrick actually promoted the now-famous “Gonzaga Gig” when Zeppelin opened for Vanilla Fudge.

Don felt that, because Zeppelin opened their earliest concerts with Train Kept A-Rollin’ from The Yardbirds’ days, it should have led off their first album. Fittingly, Good Times Bad Times also led off Zeppelin’s O2 Arena reunion gig on December 10, 2007!

For Sonic Boom, Volume 2, JJ Jackson gave me a track-by-track analysis of every song on this album. He described this original composition, Good Times Bad Times, as a pop-influenced song that said a lot in a short time.

Track Two, Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, has Led Zeppelin brilliantly covering a folk song written by Anne Bredon in the late 1950s. Joan Baez, whose work was admired by and inspirational to Page and Plant, covered it first.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

The next two songs on Led Zeppelin I are covers of blues tunes You Shook Me by Willie Dixon and J.B. Lenoir and Dazed and Confused by Jake Holmes. Zeppelin’s electrified take on them completely transformed them from the originals.

Whether or not Led Zeppelin “ripped off the blues” and its artists is hotly debated in my book, with too many different perspectives to examine here. One interviewee, a syndicated broadcaster, told me to give it up. I can’t – it’s too fascinating!

Dazed and Confused is followed by Your Time Is Gonna Come, an original piece composed by Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. Both those songs masterfully fuse elements of classical and world music, blues, rock and psychedelia.

The visual spectacle of Page dragging a violin bow across his guitar knocked the band’s audiences out. The eerie sounds coaxed out of Dazed and Confused and captured on Led Zeppelin bring it all back instantly for those who were there.

photo credits

Putting The Wrap On It

Led Zeppelin I perfectly represents the musical diversity that the group constantly explored and conquered. In his Yardbirds’ days, Jimmy Page experimented with the next piece, Black Mountain Side. Here his acoustic guitar sounds like an Indian sitar.

Page’s eastern tunings are further enhanced with tabla drums, packing a millennium of musical history into mere minutes. This piece sharply contrasts with the Page/Jones/Bonham original that follows. Communication Breakdown has been called a precursor to punk!

Track Eight is yet another slow 12-bar blues tune that Led Zeppelin electrified and changed forever. I Can’t Quit You Baby was performed by Chicago bluesman Otis Rush. Willie Dixon arranged and produced it, launching his Cobra label in 1956.

How Many More Times closes the Led Zeppelin I album, clocking in at 8:28. On the Led Zeppelin I album sleeve, Jimmy Page listed it as only 3:30 so radio stations would play it! Riffs reminiscent of Jeff Beck’s Bolero from Truth weave the song together.

But you can read my incredible interview with the late Don Fitzpatrick in its entirety by clicking here for an excerpt.