AC DC History

15 October 2008

AC/DC's mammoth power-chord roar became one of the most influential hard rock sounds of the '70s. In its own way, it was a reaction against the pompous art rock and lumbering stadium rock of the early '70s. AC/DC's rock was minimalist -- no matter how huge and bludgeoning the guitar chords were, there was a clear sense of space and restraint. Combined with Bon Scott's larynx-shredding vocals, the band spawned countless imitators over the next two decades.

AC/DC was formed in 1973 in Australia by guitarist Malcolm Young after his band, the Velvet Underground, collapsed (Young's band has no relation to the seminal American group). With his younger brother Angus as lead guitarist, the band played some gigs around Sydney. Angus was only 15 years old at the time and his sister suggested that he should wear his school uniform on stage; the look became the band's visual trademark. While still in Sydney, the original lineup (featuring singer Dave Evans) cut a single called "Can I Sit Next to You," with ex-Easybeats Harry Vanda and George Young (Malcolm and Angus' older brother) producing. The band moved to Melbourne the following year, where drummer Phil Rudd and bassist Mark Evans joined the band. The band's chauffeur, Bon Scott, became their lead vocalist when their singer, Dave Evans, refused to go on stage. Previously, Scott had been a drummer for the Australian pop bands ... AC/DC's mammoth power-chord roar became one of the most influential hard rock sounds of the '70s. In its own way, it was a reaction against the pompous art rock and lumbering stadium rock of the early '70s. AC/DC's rock was minimalist -- no matter how huge and bludgeoning the guitar chords were, there was a clear sense of space and restraint. Combined with Bon Scott's larynx-shredding vocals, the band spawned countless imitators over the next two decades. AC/DC was formed in 1973 in Australia by guitarist Malcolm Young after his band, the Velvet Underground, collapsed (Young's band has no relation to the seminal American group). With his younger brother Angus as lead guitarist, the band played some gigs around Sydney. Angus was only 15 years old at the time and his sister suggested that he should wear his school uniform on stage; the look became the band's visual trademark. While still in Sydney, the original lineup (featuring singer Dave Evans) cut a single called "Can I Sit Next to You," with ex-Easybeats Harry Vanda and George Young (Malcolm and Angus' older brother) producing. The band moved to Melbourne the following year, where drummer Phil Rudd and bassist Mark Evans joined the band. The band's chauffeur, Bon Scott, became their lead vocalist when their singer, Dave Evans, refused to go on stage. Previously, Scott had been a drummer for the Australian pop bands Fraternity and the Valentines. More importantly, he helped cement the group's image as brutes -- he had several convictions on minor criminal offenses and was rejected by the Australian Army for being "socially maladjusted." And AC/DC was socially maladjusted. Throughout their career they favored crude double entendres and violent imagery, all spiked with a mischievous sense of fun. The group released two albums -- High Voltage and TNT -- in Australia in 1974 and 1975. Material from the two records comprised the 1976 release High Voltage in the U.S. and U.K.; the group also toured both countries. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap followed at the end of the year. Evans left the band at the beginning of 1977, with Cliff Williams taking his place. In the fall of 1977, AC/DC released Let There Be Rock, which became their first album to chart in the U.S. Powerage, released in spring of 1978, expanded their audience even further, thanks in no small part to their dynamic live shows (which were captured on 1978's live If You Want Blood, You've Got It). What really broke the doors down for the band was the following year's Highway to Hell, which hit number 17 in the U.S. and number eight in the U.K., becoming the group's first million-seller. AC/DC's train was derailed when Bon Scott died on February 20, 1980. The official coroner's report stated he had "drunk himself to death." In March, the band replaced Scott with Brian Johnson. The following month, the band recorded Back in Black, which would prove to be their biggest album, selling over ten million copies in the U.S. alone. For the next few years, the band was one of the largest rock bands in the world, with For Those About to Rock We Salute You topping the charts in the U.S. In 1982, Rudd left the band; he was replaced by Simon Wright. After 1983's Flick of the Switch, the band's commercial standing began to slip; they were able to reverse their slide with 1990's The Razor's Edge, which spawned the hit "Thunderstruck." While they haven't proved to be the commercial powerhouse they were during the late '70s and early '80s, the '90s have seen them maintain their status as a top international concert draw. In the fall of 1995, their sixteenth album, Ballbreaker, was released. Produced by Rick Rubin, the album received some of the most positive reviews of AC/DC's career. Ballbreaker entered the American charts at number four and sold over a million copies in its first six months of release. In february 2000 they published Stiff Upper Lip.

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Black Sabbath History

Inductees: Terry “Geezer” Butler (bass; born July 17, 1949), Tony Iommi (guitar; born February 19, 1948), Ozzy Osbourne (vocals; born December 3, 1948), Bill Ward (drums; born May 5, 1948)
Black Sabbath is credited with creating heavy metal. The success of their first two albums - Black Sabbath and Paranoid - marked a paradigm shift in the world of rock. Not until Black Sabbath upended the music scene did the term “heavy metal” enter the popular vocabulary to describe the denser, more thunderous offshoot of rock over which they presided.

With their riff-based songs, extreme volume, and dark, demonic subject matter, Black Sabbath embodied key aspects of the heavy-metal aesthetic. Yet in their own words, Black Sabbath saw themselves as a “heavy underground” band. That term denoted both the intensity of their music and the network of fans who found them long before critics and the music industry took notice. In a sense, although they’ve sold more than 75 million albums worldwide, they still are a heavy underground band. Though they became eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, they weren’t inducted until 2006. The truth is, they remain one of the most misunderstood bands in rock history.
The Black Sabbath story began in Birmingham, England, where Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward were looking to escape a life of factory work through music. The four musicians got their start in such psychedelic outfits as the Rare Breed and Mythology (although Osbourne had been a short-haired Mod who loved soul music). Influenced by the reigning British blues bands - Led Zeppelin, Cream, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers - the four of them formed Earth Blues Company (shortened to Earth), in 1968.
Everything changed when Butler came to the band with an idea for a song inspired by a disturbing apparition. A fan of horror films and the black magic-themed novels of Dennis Wheatley, he flirted briefly with the black arts. But when he saw what he believed to be a figure from the dark side at the foot of his bed one night, he ceased his dabblings in the goth world. With lyrics by Ozzy, the group composed a song about the visitation, entitling it “Black Sabbath” (after the 1963 Boris Karloff film). It provoked a reaction in audiences unlike anything else in their repertoire, and they knew they’d stumbled onto something powerful and unique. Forced to change their name because there was already another band named Earth, they made an obvious choice: Black Sabbath.
“That’s when it all started to happen, “ Tony Iommi told writer Mick Wall. “The name sounded mysterious, it gave people something to think about, and it gave us a direction to follow.” Black Sabbath was the polar opposite of the Beatles (though they all liked the Beatles). Whereas the Fab Four sang “yeah, yeah, yeah,” Osbourne pleaded “no, no, please, no” in “Black Sabbath.”
“It’s a satanic world,” Butler told Rolling Stone in 1971. “The devil’s more in control now. People can’t come together, there’s no equality. It’s a sin to put yourself above other people, and yet that’s what people do.”
With Butler serving as principal lyricist and Iommi as the musical architect, Black Sabbath pursued such themes as war, social chaos, the supernatural, the afterlife, and the timeless conflict between good and evil. The group was a product of the late Sixties. It was a time when youthful idealism had begun to ebb amid the war in Vietnam, the influx of hard drugs, clashes with authority figures, and the bruising realities of working-class life (low wages, grim labor) that lay ahead for many of them.
“We arrived at the height of the Vietnam War and on the other side of the hippie era, so there was a mood of doom and aggression,” guitarist Iommi told writer Chris Welch in 2003. That’s not to say Black Sabbath were devil worshippers or practitioners or witchcraft, as many believed. Quite a different picture of the band is painted in such songs as “After Forever” (with the lyric, “God is the only way to love”) and Osbourne’s frequent flashing of the peace sign during Black Sabbath concerts.
Black Sabbath recorded its self-titled first album in a single session in November 1969, setting up their gear in a small studio and running through their live set. The lack of frills and contrivance worked to advantage, as the group’s riff-driven, blues-based hard rock came through loud and clear on “The Wizard,” “N.I.B.,” “Warning,” and, of course, “Black Sabbath.” The only effects added to the album were the tolling bell and thunderstorm that provide a chilling opening to the title track. Black Sabbath was released on Vertigo in the U.K. and Warner Bros. in the U.S.
Black Sabbath took a similarly quick and unadulterated approach to the recording of Paranoid, which was also cut in a few days. Generally regarded as the quintessential Black Sabbath album, Paranoid (1971) contained such classic tracks as “Iron Man,” “Paranoid” and “War Pigs.” The last of these is a potent antiwar song - and specifically “an anti-Vietnam statement,” in Butler’s words - whose hellish visions of bloody battlefields and conniving politicians have lost none of their currency over the decades. Together, Black Sabbath and Paranoid - released only seven months apart - were powerful works that pointed rock in a harder, heavier new direction. Many of the most hard-hitting and uncompromising bands who came after them - including Metallica, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest - claim to have been raised on the music of Black Sabbath.
The band’s musicality was generally overlooked, but they possessed an inventiveness and fluency that, in hindsight, makes them seem as much of a progressive-rock band as a heavy-metal one. Their lengthy songs had frequent meter changes, like the works of such peers as Jethro Tull (to which Iommi briefly belonged) and Yes (with whom Black Sabbath toured). There was ample room for improvisation, and Iommi, Butler and Ward were up to the task. In fact, Black Sabbath could swing with a jazzy temperament using bluesy forms and scales. Consider some of their influences: Drummer Ward grew up listening to Count Basie, bassist Butler had his head turned by Frank Zappa, guitarist Iommi found inspiration in gypsy-jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, and vocalist Osbourne was a rabid fan of soul music in general and Sam and Dave in particular. His voice was melodic and well-pitched, and he never resorted to the sort of histrionic screaming that became a hallmark of metal’s lesser lights.
The response to Sabbath’s first two albums was instantaneous. Black Sabbath reached #8 in Britain and exhibited staying power in America, hanging on the charts for 65 weeks. Paranoid repeated the feat, peaking at #8 and charting for 70 weeks. Both albums were certified gold within a year of release. Black Sabbath became an indefatigable road band, touring constantly and playing many of the early-Seventies rock festivals. All of the roadwork improved them as musicians and songwriters, and their next two albums - Master of Reality (1971) and Vol. 4 (1972) - exhibited enhanced range and ambition. The group even threw in some notable changes of pace - such as the ballads “Solitude” and “Changes” and the instrumentals “Orchid” and “Laguna Sunrise” - to create more of a play of light and shadows. Those albums contained their share of crunching Sabbath classics, such as “Children of the Grave” and “After Forever” (from Master of Reality) and “Snowblind” and “Supernaut” (from Vol. 4).
Amazingly, Black Sabbath had released four genre-defining albums in a two-year period while touring at a ceaseless pace. The group’s fifth album, Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1974), showed further signs of growth and experimentation, and the title track ranks among their finest moments. As a totality, it comes closest to equaling their early masterpiece, Paranoid. The group wrote and rehearsed the material for Sabbath Bloody Sabbath at a castle in Wales that they claimed was haunted, further fueling their music’s unnerving vibe at a time when the group was testing its own mental and physical limits.
The demanding pace of the road and various lifestyle excesses began catching up with Black Sabbath by the mid-Seventies. Their next three albums - Sabotage (1975), Technical Ecstasy (1976) and Never Say Die! (1977) - all had memorable moments but lacked the unalloyed brilliance of their predecessors. The cracks in Black Sabbath’s façade became permanent when Ozzy Osbourne quit for good in 1978, following the checkered Never Say Die! tour.
Osbourne went on to a highly successful solo career, which also saw him venture into reality TV (MTV’s popular The Osbournes series) and launch the annual Ozzfest tour. Helmed by guitarist Iommi, Black Sabbath persevered through a succession of lineup changes that sometimes did and sometimes didn’t include Butler and Ward. Several of Black Sabbath’s post-Osbourne albums - especially Heaven and Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981) and Headless Cross (1989) - are highly regarded by hardcore fans. But when all was said and done, the classic lineup could not be bested.
“In my opinion, there’s only ever been one Black Sabbath, and that’s Iommi, Osbourne, Butler and Ward,” Osbourne told Goldmine. “And the beauty of Sabbath is that we’re all still alive.”
The original foursome has reunited on a handful of occasions, most notably for a pair of 1997 stadium shows back home in Birmingham (released a year later as Reunion) and in 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2005, when Black Sabbath headlined Osbourne’s “Ozzfest” festival.
TIMELINE
February 19, 1948: Guitarist Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath is born in Birmingham, England.
May 5, 1948: Drummer Bill Ward of Black Sabbath is born in Birmingham, England.
December 3, 1948: Vocalist John “Ozzy” Osbourne of Black Sabbath is born in Birmingham, England.
July 17, 1949: Bassist Terence “Geezer” Butler of Black Sabbath is born in Birmingham, England.
1968: The band Earth Blues Company (shortened to Earth) begins performing around their native Birmingham, England. Within a year they will change their name to Black Sabbath.
October 1, 1969: Earth performs a newly written song, entitled “Black Sabbath,” at a Birmingham club called the Pokey Hole.
November 19, 1969: The former Earth performs its first gig as the newly christened Black Sabbath, taking their name from the song that set them on their heavy-metal course.
December 1969: Black Sabbath records their self-titled debut album at London’s Regent Sound Studio in a single day-long session.
February 13, 1970: Black Sabbath’s first single, “Evil Woman” - a cover of a song by the American band Crow - is released in England.
February 13, 1970: The debut album Black Sabbath is released in England on Friday the 13th. It will appear in the U.S. three months later, in May 1970.
September 18, 1970: Black Sabbath release the heavy-metal classic Paranoid in the U.K., where it will hit Number One a week later. It will appear in the U.S. nearly four months later, in January 1971.
October 27, 1970: Black Sabbath kick off their first U.S. tour in Glassboro, New Jersey. They will share bills with the likes of Jethro Tull, Small Faces, Badfinger and Mungo Jerry.
March 1971: Black Sabbath’s Paranoid peaks at #12 on the U.S. album chart as they tour the U.S. for the second time, where they perform alongside Grand Funk Railroad, Mountain and the J. Geils Band.
July 21, 1971: Master of Reality, the third Black Sabbath album, is their first to be released simultaneously around the world.
September 25, 1972: Black Sabbath releases Vol. 4, which contains rock’s first power ballad: “Changes.” Thirty years later, Ozzy Osbourne would join his daughter Kelly on a hit remake of the song.
January 19, 1974: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the fifth classic heavy-metal album in a row from Black Sabbath, is released in the U.S., two months after being issued in Britain.
July 28, 1975: Black Sabbath releases Sabotage, their sixth album. The Sabotage World Tour will find them joined by such opening acts as Lynyrd Skynyrd, KISS and Peter Frampton.
September 25, 1976: Black Sabbath release Technical Ecstasy, their seventh album (not counting the best-of compilation We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll). The European leg of the tour that follows pairs them with a rising young hard-rock band named AC/DC.
January 1978: Ozzy Osbourne rejoins Black Sabbath after a three-month hiatus, during which he was replaced by Dave Walker (formerly of Savoy Brown).
September 29, 1978: The eighth and final studio album by Black Sabbath, somewhat ironically titled Never Say Die!, is released.
December 11, 1978: Black Sabbath close their Never Say Die! tour in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It marks Ozzy Osbourne’s final performance with the band, as he quits to launch a solo career.
May 1980: Black Sabbath releases Heaven and Hell, its first album sans Ozzy Osbourne, who has been replaced by American vocalist Ronnie James Dio.
July 13, 1985: Ozzy Osbourne joins Black Sabbath onstage for the first time in six and a half years for a three-song set at JFK Memorial Stadium in Philadelphia as part of the Live Aid concerts.
November 14-15, 1992: Another Black Sabbath mini-reunion occurs during encores for what Ozzy Osbourne claims are his “final performances ever.”
January 31, 1995: Black Sabbath’s Paranoid receives its fourth platinum certification from the RIAA, signifying sales of four million copies. It remains their best-selling and most highly regarded album.
May 24, 1997: Three reunited members of the original Black Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler - kick off the Ozzfest tour. Subbing for the absent Bill Ward is drummer Mike Bordin.
December 4-5, 1997: All four original members of Black Sabbath reunite to perform two stadium shows in their hometown of Birmingham, England. The concerts are filmed, recorded and released as Reunion.
Summer 1999: Black Sabbath, featuring all four original members, headline Ozzfest. They will do so again in 2002, 2004 and 2005.
August 20, 2002: The eight-track double-disc Past Lives, by Black Sabbath, is released. It is the first official live album documenting Black Sabbath in the Seventies (excepting the U.K.-only Live at Last).
October 22, 2002: A double-disc compilation, entitled Symptom of the Universe: The Original Black Sabbath, 1970-1978, is released.
April 27, 2004: Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath is released. It includes the original lineup’s eight studio albums, plus a four-track DVD.
March 13, 2006: Black Sabbath is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 21st annual induction dinner. Metallica is their presenter.
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Led Zeppelin History

12 October 2008

Led Zeppelin in 1968. From left to right: John Bonham (drum), Robert Plant (vocal), Jimmy Page (guitar), John Paul Jones (bass,keyboard)
London, 1968.
As gigantic a presence as their name would suggest, Led Zeppelin transcended the hard rock/heavy metal label slapped on them by some. Indeed, they epitomized the synthesis of multiple influences that characterized the best of 70s rock, while producing music that was stamped with their own dynamic identity.


The story really began in the summer of 1968, when guitarist Jimmy Page was left as the only person interested in preserving The Yardbirds, the influential London-based R&B band that had also showcased the talents of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. He soon recruited experienced keyboards player John Paul Jones from the London sessions circuit and then went in search of a singer. His first choice, Terry Reid, had other commitments and put him on to young Midlands vocalist Robert Plant, who had played with a number of local pub outfits, including The Band Of Joy, whose drummer was John Bonham. Plant, at the time treading water with Hobbstweedle, jumped at the chance, and eventually persuaded Bonham to join up, too.
The other key figure in the group's formation was manager Peter Grant, a larger-than-life jack of all trades who was often referred to as the fifth member, such was his influence. After some Scandinavian and British dates in August/September 1968 as The New Yardbirds, the Zep monicker was adopted, apparently after a quip by Keith Moon that they were 'so heavy they should go down like a lead zeppelin', although Who bassist John Entwistle has claimed the idea was his. Soon the 'a' was dropped to avoid confusion over pronunciation.
The early Zeppelin sound was heavily blues-based but with more emphasis on chunky riffs, plus a classical touch in Jones' keyboard work and even a slight West Coast influence in some of Plant's high-pitched vocals - his shrieks sometimes sounded uncannily like Janis Joplin. The eponymous first album, reportedly recorded in just thirty hours, was one of the most stunning debuts of all time. It incorporated raunchy numbers with catchy riffs, like "Good Times Bad Times" and their live magnum opus "Dazed And Confused", the breakneck speed of "Communication Breakdown", a couple of heavy blues standards, and signs of the diversity to come in the acoustic instrumental "Black Mountain Side" and the outstanding "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You". Page had played Joan Baez' version of this traditional folk song to Plant during one of their first meetings, and here they transformed into a hypnotic shuffle, a delicious confluence of acoustic and electric elements.
With a brilliant debut tucked under their belts and critical acclaim on the British underground circuit, the dynamic Grant formulated his plan for world domination, the key to which clearly lay in conquering the US market. He'd already made an exploratory visit to New York and set up a lucrative five-year deal with Atlantic, which gave full control to him and the band, ensuring that nobody would interfere with Page's production. Now he seized the main chance and got the band on an American tour supporting Vanilla Fudge, when the Jeff Beck Group pulled out at the last minute. They debuted in Denver on December 26, 1968, and then went round blowing everybody off stage, from Country Joe And The Fish to Iron Butterfly.
Their incendiary stage show lasted up to four hours, kept fizzing by the chemistry that had developed between the four and filled out with lengthy solos, a hallmark of the epoch. Bonham's mammoth effort during "Moby Dick" allowed those not into half an hour of heavy-duty percussion to take a breather, but few went missing for Page's virtuoso guitar showpiece, violin bow and all, during "Dazed And Confused".
Zep returned to England for more small-venue dates early in 1969 but their stateside reputation ensured they were headliners when they re-crossed the Atlantic in the spring. Although the critics were more unanimous in their praise in the UK, the big audiences were on the other side of the pond, and Grant concentrated their efforts there. They toured almost incessantly for two and a half years, filling ever bigger venues, while Grant worked to cultivate an 'underground' image, releasing hardly any singles and avoiding big publicity campaigns. Led Zeppelin II was put together while the band were on the road in 1969 and recorded with the help of engineer Eddie Kramer at several different studios. It was this album that glued the 'metal' tag to Led Zep, especially in the minds of those who only heard the driving riff of "Whole Lotta Love", an edited version of which reached the US Top 5. The track was not released as a single in the UK, where no official Zeppelin ever came out, but a softer version by CCS was for years used as the signature tune to the BBC's Top Of The Pops show. 1970'sLed Zeppelin III, prepared by Page and Plant at a cottage retreat in Snowdonia, then rehearsed at a rundown mansion in Hampshire, showed more diversity than ever before. The first side was very electrified, opening with the thundering "Immigrant Song", a fine display of Plant's eerie Valhallic wail, but on the other side the tone was much more melodic and acoustic, featuring their arrangement of the traditional folk song "Gallows Pole", Plant at his mellowest on "That's The Way" and Page's finest love song, "Tangerine". The album was panned by critics who had come to expect something more rowdy.
Zeppelin's reputation as a great live act continued to grow, as 'progressive' British rock groups like Zep and Jethro Tull started to fill huge arenas in the US. They also developed the 'bad boys on the road' image by trashing hotel rooms and so on, an image that accrued a nastier edge due to Page'sfascination with the occult, particularly Aleister Crowley, whose Scottish mansion he bought in 1970. Their gigs during this period sometimes degenerated into riots, thanks to fans, stoked by the Princes-of-Darkness image and various substances.
The next release was not until late 1971, with the album known to all as Led Zeppelin IV, though no title nor any kind of name appeared on the cover - just four runic symbols. The band wanted the music to speak for itself, and that it did with "Stairway To Heaven". No 70's party was complete without the air guitars coming out to this one, and it is still the album track most frequently requested on radio. Not that it was a one-track album. The opener, "Black Dog", contained one of Page's most inventive riffs, "Misty Mountain Hop" paid joyful homage to hippie days and "The Battle Of Evermore", complete with mandolins and Sandy Denny's angelic vocal harmonies, emphasized the band's penchant for mystical folk-rock. Atlantic's fears about the lack of name proved unfounded as it became a mega-seller, but the subsequent British tour, including two dates at Wembley Empire Pool that sold out overnight, proved to be the last on home ground for nearly four years.
During the early 70's Zep eased up a little on the intensity of touring but increased its scope, graduating to world tours incompassing the growing Japanese market. "Houses Of The Holy" did not appear until spring 1973 and broke with tradition in actually having a title. Although it contained several great tracks in the majestic string-driven "The Rain Song", lovely semi-acoustic "Over The Hills And Far Away" and the Jones-dominated "No Quarter", the attempt at broadening the horizons fell flat with the ill-advised reggae piece "D'yer Maker" and the downright abysmal try at funk on "The Crunge", their worst ever moment.
The group's own Swansong label was officially launched in May 1974, a year of relative calm, with no gigs, some time in the studio, and opportunities for band members to rest, pop up for the odd guest appearance or get involved in other projects. One interesting sideline was that Zep helped finance the film Monty Python And The Holy Grail.
When the group finally took to the road again at the start of 1975, they were greeted as returning prodigals by old and new fans alike - hundreds queued all night to get tickets for the May gigs at London's Earl's Court. It's a shame these performances were not recorded on film because what emerged the following year on the rockumentary "The Song Remains The Same" was some lacklustre footage from end-of-tour gigs in 1973, plus some self-congratulatory behind-the-scenes clips and rather silly fantasy sequences.
The album that had preceded the film soundtrack in the spring of 1975 was a return to form: entitled Physical Graffiti, it was the band's only studio double album and their last great piece of work. Although the tracks are by no means all classics, between the staccato riff of "Custard Pie" and the closing bars of "Sick Again", the album contained some stunning material, like the epic version of the trad blues "In My Time Of Dying", the whimsy of "The Rover" and party fave "Trampled Underfoot", with its semi-funk beat. Indeed, much recent dance music owes more than a little to this display of Bonzo Bonham's drumming. The most enduring piece, however, was "Kashmir", the song that lit a thousand joss sticks.
From there on, although there was some worthy stuff on the last two proper albums, Presence (1976) and In Through The Out Door (1979), things went downhill. In the wake of the punk explosion Led Zeppelin were numbered among the dinosaurs that the new generation had come to blow away - though, interestingly, this negative attitude did not work in reverse, as both Page and Plant made positive noises about what the young bands were doing. To make matters worse, Plant had a serious car accident on the Greek island of Rhodes in August 1975, which laid him up for the best part of two years, and this was followed by the sudden death of his young son Karac in July 1977, just after the first US comeback tour. This drove him into retirement for a further year and rumours circulated that the group had split. In fact they made a dramatic return in 1979 with an appearance at the Knebworth Festival in England. Although critical acclaim was muted, they had proved they could still pull in the crowds. In Through The Out Door topped the US album charts for a record seven weeks, and it seemed they had come through their sticky patch.
In 1980 they toured extensively again in Europe, and more activity was lined up, when John Bonham was found dead after a binge at Page's house on September 25. The decision to call it a day was immediate, but the announcement didn't come until December. As a postscript, Coda, a collection of previously recorded material, came out in 1981 to fulfil contractual obligations, but it was only relevant to die-hard fans. Later in the decade Plantembarked on quite a successful solo career and there were a couple of reunion gigs, with Bonham's son on drums. More recently, CD compilations Remasters and the Led Zeppelin box set, digitally remixed by Page, have brought them renewed popularity. Page and Plant have also since reunited, but that is another story.


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