Led Zeppelin: Classic Or Dud?

joan baez, queen of the blues

read the latter half of the Tarfumes bizinsider link upthread for the Bredon stuff, well worth that entire article (except for the part that claims JPJ played "bass recorder" on stairway intro... always thought that was Mellotron?)

In the mid-’80s, another artist stepped forward. To reach the home of the 83-year-old woman who wrote the original Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, you drive up a dirt road on the edge of California’s Sierra National Forest. In a house made from two double-wide mobile homes, Anne Bredon, silver-haired and lanky, spends her days making jewelry, which she sells at craft fairs. To get to town for supplies, she drives a white electric car plastered with bumper stickers like “My Other Car Is a Broom.” She’s not a fan of hard rock.

Bredon wrote Babe around 1960 as a student at the University of California at Berkeley. She shared the chords and words with a fellow student, Janet Smith, who took Babe with her to Oberlin College and popularized it there. In 1962, Joan Baez came through the Ohio campus, heard Babe, and added it to her repertoire, including it in a songbook (credited to Bredon) and on a live album (not credited). In 1969, Led Zeppelin’s first album included a version of the song based on the Baez recording, listed as “Trad. arr. Jimmy Page.” “Jimmy Page must have assumed it was a folk song,” Bredon says. She, in the meantime, had no idea that her song was in the pantheon of classic rock.

In 1981, Bredon’s old college friend, Smith, was strumming the tune at home when her 12-year-old son popped into the room. “Gee, Mom, I didn’t know you did Led Zeppelin songs,” he said, according to Smith. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that Smith happened to look at a copy of the debut Led Zeppelin album in a Tower Records store and realized her friend hadn’t gotten credit. She contacted Bredon with a proposal to hire a lawyer, and the two agreed to split any money they could recover. To resolve the dispute, Led Zeppelin’s publisher made an offer: Because the band had made the song famous, the authorship of the Zeppelin version should be split 50-50, with half going to Bredon and the other half to Page and Plant. Future editions of the song would be credited, “Words and music by Anne Bredon, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant.”

Xpost Nah, sounds like a recorder.

yeah I don't hear the typical mellotron tape-warble
xp

Definitely mellotron when they played it live, but yeah, recorder in the studio.

Always thought the live versions would've been better if Jones had switched from keyboards to bass midway through. Or if Zep had been a better live band.

...or if everyone remembered laughter.

"When he came across a bootleg of a 1969 Paris show that was broadcast live on radio at a Japanese record store, he scoured the planet for the original tapes." - dude it was broadcast in France in December 2007. I somehow doubt this required Numero Group-level detective work.

scoured the planet = had his assistant make a few phone calls

Booked a flight with an inconvenient layover.

I'm psyched to hear some justice was served w/r/t Jake Holmes. I didn't realize that settled. Contrary to popular thought I don't generally scour the legal wires for Zep related news.

Lets hope there is justice for Randy California.

I listened to that Spirit song, and it's just kind of a generic descending thing in the middle of the song. Uncanny, though, albeit only for those 5 seconds.

I don't think a chromatic descent is adequate to copyright.

Well, the Stones had to give K.D. Lang and Ben Mink cowriting credit on "Anybody Seen My Baby?" because the chorus had the same descending line as "Constant Craving."

The chromatic descending line is in my funny valentine too.

xpost I've heard Keys to the Highway. It's not that exciting. It's just Page and Plant, from the same night of recording that produced Hats Off to Harper, not a full band recording. The best thing from the unreleased tracks I've heard so far (was at a playback a couple of months ago) was the early version of Since I've Been Loving You, which was much rawer than the album version.

Well, the Stones had to give K.D. Lang and Ben Mink cowriting credit on "Anybody Seen My Baby?" because the chorus had the same descending line as "Constant Craving."

Well, not quite. The story goes, as far as I remember, is that maybe Jagger's daughter noticed the similarity when she heard the song, and the band gave Lang credit pre-emptively. REM did the same thing on that minor song from "Up" that alludes to Leonard Cohen. Whether Lang, or Cohen, would have won a hypothetical suit is another matter. It's pretty hard to win those suits.

Yeah, I do remember it being pre-emptive, and there not being any legal challenges, but I guess my point is that there have been situations like "Taurus"/"Stairway" that were settled where far less of a similarity existed.

Trying one of these cases on the grounds of pure musical theft (as opposed to lyrical theft) is harder. But imagine how much money, say, Van Morrison could possibly earn going after people who ripped the "Gloria" chords!

It's sad reading about where Randy California was before he died--and he was still a working musician at that point, with a major reissue campaign happening!

I was initially suspicious of the Hoskyns book by the pull quote, not just that it was by Klosterman (ugh), but that it reads "endlessly interesting." "Endlessly," really? And "interesting?" Fascinating, maybe, or entertaining, but interesting? And yet, I'm a ways through and yes, it is all oddly interesting. There's very little about the music itself, which almost takes place in the background. But there's a lot of business stuff which reveals just how huge and powerful the band was. Power all around, really. As musicians, in terms of popularity, in terms of sheer muscle, literal and figurative. That the band bullies its way to a 90/10 split with promoters is one thing, but they have a point, that with no need to push singles or albums or ticket sales, they don't need promoters to fill stadiums. Etc. There's also the matter of the band being amazing young even c. 1972 or so, when a case is made that Zep is the biggest band in the world, except no one knows it, because they don't really do interviews or marketing or publicity. But the band is still in circle-the-wagon modes, defensive and vindictive, whenever anyone crosses them or anyone in their secret society. Personality wise, too, they're all pretty different. Plant is a hippie hedonist. JPJ a pragmatist. Page the mastermind. Bonzo a total animal. They all but invented a certain rock and roll lifestyle (though as JPJ notes everyone was like that then), yet emerged remained peerless, surely because they were so cut off from everyone else. So yes, very interesting.

the last couple years of the band go down in bad vibes like the end of goodfellas

I haven't made it that far yet - what happens to Bonzo, does he go back to school? - but the stage is so totally set for the ugliest of ugly ends.

Page has to live the rest of his life like a schnook.

Devil's bargain.

Page has to live the rest of his life like a schnook.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, May 28, 2014 9:05 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha he basically has!

i'm seeing the 'oral history' and 'trampled underfoot', both by hoskins. they sound pretty similar so i'm guessing one of them is a repackage/rerelease of the other? which one should i get?

Yeah, we established it was the same upthread some.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through. Definitely fascinating. And a guilty LOL at this - "what happens to Bonzo, does he go back to school?"

what happened to john paul jones was fucked

http://www.chud.com/articles/content_images/0NICK2/casino_1818.jpg

i'm seeing the 'oral history' and 'trampled underfoot', both by hoskins. they sound pretty similar so i'm guessing one of them is a repackage/rerelease of the other? which one should i get?

― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, May 28, 2014 10:05 AM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

believe the 2nd pressing was done as oral history not trampled underfoot....i believe they are the same? i read oral history from the mpls public library

interviewing Page and Jones:
http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2014/05/06/behind-the-curtain-interviewing-led-zeppelin-in-1977/

It's definitely pretty amazing to learn that the band was apparently accorded about as much contemporary respect as Nickelback or Bon Jovi. For some reason I thought it was just RS that gave them the cold shoulder, Considering the band's strategy of buying off select journalists with access - Nick Kent, Cameron Crowe - to generate some good press, it really says a lot about the capricious nature of rock journalism. Shut the door and they've got nothing good to say. Let the press in and things get a tad sunnier. Still it's really hard to believe that anyone could hear this stuff and dismiss it as mere heavy metal (though that says as much about rock journo anti-metal prejudice). The band itself even made a concerted effort to shake things up with the third and fourth albums to rid itself of that rep. That no one really seemed to recognize this band had as much (often) in common with Fairport Convention as any other traditional (that is to say, not "traditional") rock band is surprising.

Well, there was less of a rock (and even less of a metal) 'tradition' to refer to in 1970, surely.

Still it's really hard to believe that anyone could hear this stuff and dismiss it as mere heavy metal (though that says as much about rock journo anti-metal prejudice).

I've had trouble understanding that view myself, as I've only known Zep to be part of the canon. Lester Bangs alluded to it when he wondered how the Yardbirds could turn into the relatively slothful Zep. But also, among critics at the time there was some buzz about Page's new group, and LZI being essentially a rehash of Jeff Beck's Truth was a disappointment.

In the book one of the journos they courted, one of the women, initially dismissed going on tour with them in the early '70s because she thought they were just some metal band (her words). Also, it does specify that Creem, actually, was one of the few pubs to pay attention, because Zep had a total Midwestern/working class vibe in America, so Creem praised them as underdogs/fellow travelers, in essence. In the UK, it seems the band had little critic traction. Don't know if that ever changed while the band was around.

yes, total class thing, now that I think of it--Zeppelin were definitely the lumpenprole house band in America

Yeah, I can see Creem digging them, and anyway, early Zep isn't exactly miles away from the MC5 (whom Creem revered, iirc).

MC5 was political in a way that LZ never was, though, probably didn't help the latter with the critics

Zeppelin were definitely the lumpenprole house band in America

I dunno, was this really that much more true of Led Zeppelin than of Pink Floyd or the Who?

xpost

I think there's pretty much always stuff at stake at the time for critics, when it comes to certain bands, that dissipates later. I can see how Led Zeppelin might have represented adolescent idiocy in the context of rock music and rock critics still vying to be taken seriously.

I mean they were grandiose, they were lyrically pretentious yet not great writers, they were pretty obnoxiously showy, their shows were sprawling affairs, etc. Plus if you thought yourself a champion of real authentic blues and folk music and all that they probably came off a little like blues hammer.

RS review of LZI mostly talks about how much it tries (and fails, in John Mendelsohn's view) to beat Jeff Beck at his own game. Nothing was said about the audience.

In their willingness to waste their considerable talent on unworthy material the Zeppelin has produced an album which is sadly reminiscent of Truth. Like the Beck group they are also perfectly willing to make themselves a two- (or, more accurately, one-a-half) man show. It would seem that, if they're to help fill the void created by the demise of Cream, they will have to find a producer (and editor) and some material worthy of their collective attention.

I think I actually do rate Truth a little higher than the first Zep.

Zeppelin just didn't care about the things late 60s/early 70s critics cared about - whether it was politics, authenticity, or hit singles. it's no surprise they were completely passed over, they existed in a hermetically sealed mythology of their own making.

Zeppelin were definitely the lumpenprole house band in America

This was probably Grand Funk Railroad, actually. Even at the beginning, Led Zeppelin were slightly artier than just knuckle-walking stadium rock.

critics might've liked em more back then if they were more of a straight "heavy" band. it was probably their pretensions to anything else beyond that that put them off.

Critics hated AC/DC even more. Rock critics hated them some rock music!

I ignore the destruction and jump into his early history as a studio player; his influences; and how he achieved certain sounds on the Zeppelin albums. I know at that moment I’m doing my job—capturing on tape the thoughts and insights of the world’s most influential guitarist—and I feel like a king. From the second I had been granted access to the guitarist, I recognized the importance of this interview.

And at one point during the conversation, even Jimmy even interrupted himself mid-thought to reveal, “I know the importance of what we’re doing. It needs to be talked about.” He understood.

GMAFB

haha

ultimately though it's page the producer (and JPJ the arranger) that makes zeppelin stand so high for me....the records are just packed with great SOUNDS, guitar sounds, mellotron sounds, acoustic sounds, drum sounds, string sounds....

I like the layered guitar parts on "Ten Years Gone" a lot.