The Steel Guitar Forum

I don't want to divert this thread by dissing on Zep or anything-----I am not much of a fan but then again I was certainly knocked dead by the first album the summer it came out--for me & my friends it was a revelation. And if someone were to carefully select a handful of cuts to present to me, I do believe I could be impressed with the body of work.
But all I want right now: does anyone have a copy of Since I've Been Loving You from Zep III ready & mp3'd that they could send me? I'm simply not going to be buying the CD but I'd very much like to listen to that one cut (more than the :30 sound clip I can get on CD dealer sites.)
This is probably a long shot but...

Jon,
Like you, I liked the first album. Mainly because of the element of blues in their songs. By the 2nd album I lost interest. As such I can't help you with a copy, but maybe this will tide you over until you find a copy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uNQ1KcTarA&search=Led%20Zeppelin

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Cool, Glenn. I've seen so much good stuff on Youtube but I always forget to include it in my searches.
That clip confirms for me the following:
--I don't like Plant--he is embarrassing to watch (and listen to). No surprise--this is the main reason I could never get with Zep.
--I don't like Page--he is highly skilled but comes off as a wankster to me. He certainly has, though, laid down his fair share of classic rock signature hooks.
--This song is a real good minor blues with a good, unique form. The song is mainly what I wanted to hear and IMO it is one of the better ones. It would be fun to cover it in a band capable of playing it without giving way to headbanging.

I hate to be a Zeppelin apologist but I can't help myself! I remeber the first time I heard Whole Lotta Love(which was about 15 years ago, I was all of 15) it meant alot to me at the time and I guess it always will. I don't think I would have picked up a guitar if I had not heard it. I probably wouldn't have picked up any instrument. My mom tried to force me in choir at church and made me take piano lessons before she would buy me a guitar. I took those piano lessons and did choir so I could get that guitar. She is pretty suprised that I play steel guitar and love old country music these days. She always hated Hank, I suppose that is why we don't get along these days! Any way check out this clip. It's pretty sloppy but too a young man it was super cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMk98Hn9e88
Here is another one I always liked. Coincedently, this next one is probably the first time I ever noticed a steel guitar. This is a live recording which doesn't have the steel but the studio version does (Led Zeppelin 3). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZV-vjsVfU
Once again sorry for being a Zeppelin apologist.

Steve-o<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Steven Hoffer on 22 May 2006 at 02:47 AM.]</p></FONT>

It's interesting to me how things have settled out - when I was in high school, the three big guys we baby guitarists were listening to were Duane Allman, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. We mostly didn't play Hendrix songs because they were too hard, but cover bands of the period were rife with the other two. Nowadays, it seems as though modern country music is loaded with Allman references, and that whole "nu-metal" thing was taken almost directly from Page's guitar work, though kids today apparently don't take solos - and what good is heavy metal without guitar solos? The Hendrix influence seems to have faded away, by and large, except among guitar players and fans.

As I mentioned before, the Led Zeppelin thing faded for me by the second album. Eventually, I lost interest in the first, too. 'Just couldn't handle the screechy vocals. But to Robert Plant's credit, the music he's making these days transends anything he accomplished with Led Zep. (In my humbled opinion). His voice has matured along with his music sensibilities. His current band equals the best musicianship found in Led Zep, too.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

I can't help but like John Paul Jones.
He's a heck of bassplayer,
Solid mandolinist,
and steeler too.

Plus, I am on his website
and he is backing ME up
playing my bass!

Fine player, nice gentleman,
and very interested in all music.

Taking them in the context of the time they came from, they were revolutionary; Plant regularly comes up in greatest vocalist lists to this day. He may not be everyone's cup of tea- Dylan and Young come to mind as well- but he sure sold some records. And Page as a wankster? I suppose, but he created the genre. Noone ever sounded like that before them, and plenty of bands tried to afterwards.

I don't know about that, Keith...I think they were heavily influenced by the early Jeff Beck group (if I'm not mistaken, "Truth" predated Led Zep I by about a year).

I was never a huge fan of Zep, mostly because as talented as Plant is, He has a voice that often grates on my nerves. This is especially true of their early stuff.

That being said, I'm jealous of Jimmy Page because he came up with all the fun rock guitar riffs

Ironically, my favorite album of theirs is Physical Graffiti, possibly their most long winded and bombastic. Ten Years Gone is my personal fave of that one.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Richard Sevigny on 22 May 2006 at 10:47 AM.]</p></FONT>

Agreed, they were influenced by lots of great stuff but Beck never managed to come up with the total package that Zep did. Frankly I think that comes down to the rhythm section- the groove on the first 4 albums and the eastern influence were perfect for the time.

BTW Truth is probably the best album I've ever heard- but Zep hit a nerve.

Jeff Beck and Page were in the Yardbirds together for awhile. Also Becks Bolero featured half of zeppelin (Page, John Paul Jones), Keith Moon , Nicky Hopkins. Keith Moon apparently joked about starting a super group to be called Lead Zeppelin. Becks Bolero was included on Truth which was released in 68. Zeppelin 1 was Jan 69. Again, sorry for being a dang dirty Zeppelin apologist!

someone was nice enough to send me an mp3 of the song and it really is a hip song.
Not that it's any special prose or anything but here is what I told him about my introduction to Zep:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>If I am remembering this right (big if), I was working in the kitchen at a
summer camp out near Binghamton, NY that summer---the #1 record sensation at
the camp was Tommy and midway thru the summer someone bought & passed around
Zep. We had never heard or conceived of anything like this before and it
just killed us. Brit blues, yes, but this next step....radical. and oh
yeah, some little music festival was going on not too far from us. I still
wonder how the camp later explained to the parents the fact that they took a
group of campers to this little hootenanny. We, the staff, were told that
if we went to the fest we would be fired and since I had already spent my
summer money on a new sitar I was obliged to miss the shindig.
</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And Steven H----man, even if you are kidding I hate to see anyone apologise for liking something. I ought to be taken out and shot if I were to cop an attitude on someone for their likes or dislikes. With a few exceptions, probably. Like I won't leave you in peace if you were to support, say, KennyG or John Tesh. Or Lee Greenwood. A guy's got his limits, you know?

I hear ya on that! I'm a little obssesive about stuff I like so I get teased by my freinds and more "ahem" musically elevated compadres. I guess steel guitar might be good for me! Glad you got that Mp3.

Steve-o

I couldn't handle Plant. Don't like shriekers! Besides, I was a BIG Jeff Beck fan, and still am. It seemed to me that Beck forged the template with Truth, and LZ just ripped it off. Very successful though, I grant you that.

I read a biography of Jeff Beck, "Crazy Fingers" by Annette Carson. Jimmy Page traveled with the Jeff Beck Group during their first tour of America, apparently taking notes. When "Led Zeppelin 1" came out, it actually brought Jeff Beck to tears - he couldn't believe that Page had ripped him off so blatantly. Their friendship has never really recovered.

Tough crowd !
Its funny but just last week I was in LA playing/hanging out with a couple bands and some local players out there. I don't know how the subject came up but at one point we were talking about how Led Zepplin was one of the greatest rock bands ever.

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Bob
upcoming gigs
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I side with Keith on this one. Led Zep is one of the few bands of that era I can still stand to listen to, besides Hendrix. The rhythm section was very inventive, that behind-the-beat Bonham drum style was unheard of at the time for rock drummers. I like the odd melding of styles, who else took Celtic folk ditties and turned them into a mega metal opuses (opi?). They were heavy without being plodding. And Jimmy Page had great ideas. I could never come up with The Rain Song in a million years, the tuning or the tune.

Yeah a lot of it looks cartoonish in this post Spinal Tap age, but When the Levee Breaks, Since I've Been Loving You, Black Dog, and Gallows Pole (check out the outro guitar solo) are all worth revisiting. And frankly some of the acoustic tunes would work well in a neo-bluegrass context. You may mock me...

Speaking of the acoustic tunes, I always dug the acoustic parts of "Ramble On".

It's easy to say now that they weren't big, since there are so many imitators. But I clearly remember that, then they came along, NO ONE had ever sounded like that before. I was there, real-time, in '69.

Two words. No wait, how about a mathematical formula:

Rock and Roll = John Bonham

Seriously, although I don't listen to them daily, I still have yet to hear any band on earth that could rock so hard. The way the guitar, bass, and drums all would just nail a riff collectively with such impact, it was just so heavy. Anyone heard "Thank You" from the BBC sessions? It's like lighning and thunder exploding out of a ballad. Page's slop and rawness totally worked in their favor as a band, although Bonham wasn't even remotely sloppy, nor JPJ. They really wrote some beautiful music and definitely understood dynamics like no others. I'd call Page a genius. Beautiful stuff. Personal taste I guess, but the power and energy of Zep is undeniable.

Brad

The Bonham beat, often immitated never duplicated. One of the few, if not only Hard Rock drummers who played with a shuffle. It's bewildering that so many people, including drummers, can't hear this.

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-johnson


<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by erik on 22 May 2006 at 06:20 PM.]</p></FONT>

I saw Led Zep live in August 1969 in a medium-sized hall. I think it was their 2nd US tour, and they were still playing fairly small venues. Bonham's solo was awesome. Jimmy Page had Marshalls stacked to the ceiling. A few days later I saw The Who at Tanglewood, and the following week I went to Woodstock! Talk about classic rock overload.

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<font size=-1>My Site | My SteelTab</font><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Doug Beaumier on 22 May 2006 at 11:57 PM.]</p></FONT>

Once in a while, near the end of the third or fourth set, when I'm in the zone and my turn to solo comes up on a good rock song, I get this burst of energy that makes me play in a phraseology so ecliptic and "rushed" that it just sounds raw and rough - yet somehow fits the moment....

Maybe Page is overrated - but I love it when I have my Page moments on stage.<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Tom Gorr on 24 May 2006 at 08:29 AM.]</p></FONT>

Bunky, I thought I was the only one aware of Gallows Pole outro! What a great little phrase.

I was in a Zep cover band in the early 70's. I can still nail most of the riffs and solos. I had a Rick solid body 12 string that I used, played Song remains the Same, Stairway, etc etc. Thanks for reminding me. JP

the Led Zepplin DVD is great! I especially like a TV show they did in Iceland, before they got real big. They set up with their amps in the middle of a TV studio with about 30 teenagers sitting on the floor in front of them. Totally live and, I'm sure, unexpected for such a conservative audience.

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