After 40 Years, Led Zeppelin's Masterpiece Is As Thrilling
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JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM ive songs into their set at the Ulster Hall in Belfast on March LOOK TO THE WEST 5, 1971, the four members of English hard-rock band Led “Stairway to Heaven” began as a vague notion in the mind Zeppelin played a song they had never before performed of Page, who, before forming Led Zeppelin in 1968, had worked on stage. The album that would contain it, an untitled effort alongside Jones as a session musician in the studios of London. Fusually referred to as Led Zeppelin IV (see sidebar on page 29), “When John Paul Jones and I did studio work, the rule was always: would not be released for months. The crowd, which had come to you don’t speed up,” Page recalled in 2001. “That was the cardinal hear familiar Zeppelin rockers like “Whole Lotta Love” and “Immigrant sin, to speed up. And I thought, ‘Right, we’ll do something that Song,” patiently listened to the new number—one that was fully acoustic speeds up.’” He came up with the initial guitar idea during an October for its fi rst half before whipping up an electric fury in its closing 1970 writing retreat with Plant at Bron-Yr-Aur, an 18th-century minutes. They applauded politely at the end, but reserved most of cottage in the bucolic South Snowdonia region of Wales. Page their enthusiasm for more familiar fare like the song that followed it, continued to tinker with the music for nearly a year. “I’d been fooling “Dazed and Confused.” Bass player John Paul Jones recalled, “They around with the acoustic guitar and came up with several different were all bored to tears waiting to hear something they knew.” sections that fl owed together nicely,” he said. “I soon realized that Courtesy of Atlantic Records John Bonham, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones Four decades later, “Stairway to Heaven,” the number that it could be the perfect vehicle for something I’d been wanting to do Zep debuted that night in Belfast, is among the most well-known, for a while: to compose something that would start quietly, have the beloved and debated songs in the history of popular music. While drums come in the middle, and build to a huge crescendo.” never released as a single, it has been played on American radio The members of Led Zeppelin—Page, Plant, Jones and drummer more than 3 million times. It has been celebrated as a peak moment John “Bonzo” Bonham—convened with engineer Andy Johns in early for rock ’n’ roll, revered as a marvel of lyrical and musical poetry, 1971 at Headley Grange, a Victorian mansion in Headley, East After 40 years, Led Zeppelin’s masterpiece dismissed as self-indulgent nonsense, and covered both reverently Hampshire, England, suggested to them by Fleetwood Mac for its and parodically by innumerable artists. It has been venerated as an relative isolation and pleasing acoustic properties. They intended anthem of environmentalism and condemned as an ode to Satan. to write, rehearse and even record most of their fourth album there, is as thrilling, fascinating and It is regularly played at both weddings and funerals. Its delicately and brought in a mobile recording truck owned by the Rolling Stones fi ngerpicked opening notes are so irresistible to amateur guitarists to capture their new songs on tape. Among the pieces of music that instrument stores have been known to post signs reading that Page debuted for his bandmates was the basis of what would confounding as ever “NO ‘STAIRWAY.’” Its allure can be credited as a major reason become “Stairway.” He began mapping out an arrangement with that Led Zeppelin IV has sold more than 32 million copies around Jones, who cited the group’s love of classical music as an inspiration the world. Its own creators view its legacy in very different ways— for the song’s structure. “There’s a lot of drama in the classical guitarist, producer and co-writer Jimmy Page eagerly cites it among forms,” he said. “It seems natural for music to have that, as opposed his proudest accomplishments, while singer and lyricist Robert Plant to everybody starting and just banging away and fi nishing.” would just as soon never sing it again. “It was a milestone for us,” The following day they showed it to Bonham, and the group Page said in 1975, only four years after its release. “Every musician began getting a handle on the epic number. “Bit diffi cult, really, wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold because it started on acoustic,” Page said, “and as you know, it up for a long time, and I guess we did it with ‘Stairway.’” goes through electric parts. We had various run-throughs where 28 29 M1v2-Mag-Beta20.indd 28 2/22/11 10:17 PM M1v2-Mag-Beta20.indd 29 2/22/11 10:18 PM JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM JAN/FEB 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM I was playing the acoustic guitar and then listeners to impose their own meanings. program,” Plant said in 1983, when rumors jumping over and picking up the electric “It’s onomatopoeic,” he said. “I was over supposed hidden messages in rock guitar. That’s why it was a bit tricky to get thinking about the need for a more organic music were epidemic. “I was absolutely together in the early stages. But I had these relationship between our generation at the drained all day. I walked around and couldn’t sections, and I knew what order they were time, who were living faster than fast, and our actually believe it.” Plant blamed religious to go in. It was just a matter of getting environment.” Among his inspirations were fi gures on the college-lecture circuit for everybody comfortable with each gear Edmund Spenser’s 16th-century epic poem spreading the legend. “There are a lot of shift.” Still, the foursome quickly mastered “The Faerie Queene” and J.R.R. Tolkien’s people who are making money there, and if the complex changes. “There was only Lord of the Rings novels (referenced more that’s the way they need to do it, then do it one place where there was a slight rerun,” explicitly in Zeppelin songs like “Ramble without my lyrics,” he said. “I cherish them Page noted. “For some unknown reason, On” and “Misty Mountain Hop”). Page far too much.” The song, he insisted, was Bonzo couldn’t get the timing right on the cited “Stairway” as a breakthrough in about “the beginning of spring. It’s when 12-string part before the solo. Other than Plant’s progress as a wordsmith: “I knew the birds make their nests, when hope and that, it fl owed very quickly.” at that point that he’d proved it to himself, the new year begins.” Courtesy of Warner Home Video Courtesy of Warner Home Video Courtesy of Warner John Bonham on stage in New York City, 1973 Robert Plant a great take and you want to do it again.’ in the studio since Zeppelin’s 1969 self- a six-string and one a 12-string (Gibson They go back down. Bonzo grabs his sticks, titled debut album. Page had the beginning released a signature series replica of the huffi ng, puffi ng, muttering, ‘One more take and ending of the solo set in his mind, but guitar in 2007). The group kept the song and that’s it.’” Bonham seethed, awaiting improvised the rest. Cigarette dangling from in its set following its March 1971 stage what Smith calls the drummer’s “grand his mouth, he stepped into position between premiere, winding its way through Europe, entrance” halfway through the track. “And two large Orange speakers blaring the basic North America and Japan while awaiting of course when the drums come in, if you track—he chose not to wear headphones, but the Nov. 8 release of Led Zeppelin IV. “At thought the one before was good, this one to react to the music as it bounced around the time we didn’t know it was going to is just explosive,” Smith said. “And when the studio walls. “I did three takes and chose turn into something of a monster—we just Getty Imges / Rob Verhorst they play it back, Bonham looks at Jimmy one of them,” he said. “They were all different. played it as part of our new album,” Jones like, ‘You’re always right, you bastard.’” The solo sounds constructed—and it is, sort said. “We certainly felt it was one of our The band moved on yet again, setting of, but purely of the moment. For me, a solo best compositions up to that point.” up shop at Olympic Studios in London to lay is something where you just fl y, but within The song’s reputation began to grow down overdubs. For “Stairway,” Jones added the context of the song.” by word of mouth as the tour progressed. further keyboards, strings and woodwinds, Road manager Richard Cole recalled Page and Page laid down his now-classic electric THE PIPER’S CALLING YOU telling him after a May 3 show at the KB- guitar solo. He bypassed his usual Gibsons To approximate the song’s distinctive Hallen in Copenhagen, “We’ve got a real On stage in the Netherlands, June 21, 1980 for a 1958 Fender Telecaster, a gift from his mixture of acoustic and electric guitars monster on our hands. It’s one of those former Yardbirds bandmate Jeff Beck, played live, Page commissioned a custom-made songs that’s developing a life of its own.” through the Supro amplifi er he had used Gibson EDS-1275 with two necks—one But the moment Page himself remembers as WORDS HAVE TWO MEANINGS and could get into something a bit more WIND ON DOWN THE ROAD As they ran through the number, Plant profound than just subjective things.